The 2019 Most Downloaded Episode of NoCo: Tom Buck Discusses Living Out

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is a rare thing for me to do a show on a Friday afternoon and then post it on a

Friday night. But today, our guest and the topic that our guest is going to talk about is important and timely and relevant.

That kind of reminds me of the old management by objectives back in corporate

America, SMART. Is it specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely?

So this is relevant and timely, and we have a special guest today, Pastor Tom Buck. Welcome to No Compromise Radio.

Well, it's a privilege to be here, and it's not unusual for people that interview me to want to do it on a Friday dump, so I totally understand.

Now see, that was not what I was planning to do, but I have another reason for having the

Friday issue. Tom, before we get into the topic for today, the same -sex -attracted, living out

Sam Albury issues that you've been writing about at aomin .org, I'd like to know a little bit about you and your ministry, your pastoring, and how long have you been the senior pastor there at First Baptist?

It's been 13 years since March this month, so I'm thankful to have been here for that length of time.

I was senior pastor of a church in Florida, Riverside Baptist Fellowship, there for 12 years prior to coming here, so thankful for the work of the

Lord's ministry that God has placed me in, and thankful for this church. How about your background?

Does any good thing come out of Dallas and Moody? Well, if you ask them these days, they would say, well, not much from my era.

But yes, I went to the Bible Institute in Dallas Seminary back in the day, 1980s and early 90s, so thankful for my training that I received at those schools during those days.

I don't know much what has transpired there since, but I received a wonderful theological education and love for the

Word of God from both of those institutions. Tom, did you have S. Lewis Johnson for professor? No, he was not there by the time

I got there, but of course I had some wonderful men. Dr. John Hanna, who is just fantastic at historical theology.

Dr. Toussaint, who's going to be with the Lord, and some others. But S. Lewis Johnson's influence was still there upon the campus when

I was there. I received the benefits of that, the residual effects of that. I remember

Stanley Toussaint telling me once about being in the car, riding along with S. Lewis Johnson, and they were talking about ministry, and I would have liked to have been in the car ride for that.

Oh, amen. I had a dear friend that just went home to glory, and you probably knew him at your days at Dallas, Chaplain Bill Bryant.

Did you know Bill? Oh, I knew him well. He's one of the finest men

I've ever known. My daughter has had multiple open -heart surgeries in her life, and this was after I was a student there, long after I was a student there.

And every single time she had a surgery, you know, he showed up, Chaplain Bill Bryant.

He was right there. I loved Bill. One time he was really sick a couple years ago, so I called him and I said,

Chaplain Bill, I know you normally go visit people and minister to them when they're sick, but you're sick now, and I can't get there because I'm up in Massachusetts.

But I just thought I'd call, and I want to just encourage you and pray for you and read the scriptures to you.

And so we talked for a little bit, and we're talking about reading scriptures, and so then he goes, Okay, it's time to pray.

Go. So let's talk a little bit more specifically about pastor's roles.

I know you're preaching through the Bible verse by verse on Sunday morning every single week, and that's your main job and passion, showing

Christ to the people in all the scriptures. What about, though, the side of ministry that maybe isn't as fun, but it's a duty?

We're to teach sound doctrine and we're to refute those that contradict. How do you kind of balance that, or what makes you tick when it comes to, yes, you have to teach the right thing, but you also have to warn others about things that contradict scripture?

Well, you know, to be honest, one of the things that's hard right now is that there's so much that's going on that is unsound teaching that I'm really trying to figure out how to strike a balance in this.

I have, for years and years, didn't even pay attention to a lot of the stuff that was going on nationally because it wasn't, you didn't have the internet, you didn't have social media to see these things that were going on.

So when I came here, for example, there were, to the church I'm at now, there were some staff members who were into Rob Bell and were teaching some of those things in small group settings.

I didn't even know who Rob Bell was. Is that not stunning? I mean, that was in 2006.

Now, that may be to my shame, but I had no idea who he was at all. So I began researching that and seeing who he was when he taught.

He had not yet completely made his apostasy clear, but farewell

Rob Bell had not happened yet. But I had to clean that teaching up at the local church, and I did deal with that here and address that.

So the first place that you begin with false teaching is in your own church.

Sadly, it shouldn't be there at all, but you do have to deal with it as it arises. I've never found that difficult.

I've practiced church discipline in churches both in how people live and in false teaching if it arose, and there was that repentance.

The problem now is that how do we address issues that are public within the convention for me, the

Southern Baptist Convention, and how to strike a balance? I mean, it's almost every day. It's pirate ships and cannons one day, and issues of homosexuality being distorted on another day.

I mean, where do you begin and where do you end? What do you speak out on? So that's the balance I'm trying to strike. Talking to Tom Buck today on No Compromise Radio.

Tom, when I'm preaching the Bible and dealing with people here in Massachusetts at this small little town and a small little church, back in the day when

I got here, you know, the Internet probably existed, but the only thing the people here had access to was maybe—we are close to Christian discount books up in Peabody, Mass, or as you might say,

Peabody, and they could get those books, maybe radio stations. But now with the

Internet, while people can listen to Sinclair Ferguson sermons with a click and be edified and encouraged, they also can receive information from other ministries, and some that have had great track records.

But it's easy for the people now that we pastor to have access to things. And so I think that lends itself to the

Christian clergy, that is, the pastors and elders, to make sure we're addressing some of these issues maybe more than we used to have to.

Does that make sense? I absolutely agree, and that's what I mean by the balance, that my folks are going home and they're probably inundated with voices other than their elders far more than they are by us, whether it be somebody they click on on the

Internet. What's worse, though, is this, and that is when there are men who have been elevated as being trustworthy voices that begin doing these things, it's even far worse and more needed for us to be careful of those corrections, because my people trust certain voices that even in the past I've told them to trust, and now they're saying crazy things.

So it's multifaceted what we're dealing with right now. Tom, before we get into specifics, let's talk a little bit about just the general drift.

Of course, in the day of Spurgeon, it was the downgrade controversy, and, of course, people start off well, and then for whatever reason, they're tired, they've got a big staff, they can't keep up with everything, they become more liberal, somebody in their life changes a theological position so they want to continue to love them, so they change or soften on it.

I guess there's lots of reasons why it happens, but it seems to me these days, with large evangelical ministries, they seem to be cutting corners theologically and philosophically faster than they used to.

Do you have a reason for this, by your own observation and in your opinion?

Of why there's such a rapid shift taking place? Yes, just in general with these larger organizations.

Yeah, I think that... I would say there are probably many, many reasons why it's taking place.

Let me try some charitable reasons, I think, that are not good excuses or good reasons, but to try to think of it emotionally.

I think some people are dealing with issues in their own personal lives.

Maybe there's someone in their family, if we're dealing with the topic with homosexuality, and they're beginning to see that the position that they held ten years ago, that they could hold very clearly and boldly and declare publicly, now all of a sudden it's become more complicated because they have a family member that is in that lifestyle and is moving towards that simple direction.

They're beginning to soft -pedal once and paint in pale pastels once they want something they once painted in bold colors.

I do think that there are a lot of people who do have a heart of saying, hey, we want to be a better voice.

We've done poorly in the past on how we've talked about some of these things in the church, and so if we're going to be better in evangelism, if we don't want to lose our prophetic voice publicly, we've got to be very clear and do a better job about what we say about these things.

So I think there are a lot of people who genuinely care about saying things better and more clearly, but in doing so they're capitulating to the culture, they're adopting the culture's language, and they're actually muddying the gospel in at least the same unhelpful, or at least as unhelpful if not more unhelpful than what's been done in the past.

And so I do believe we need to be clear. I think we have to be careful about what we say and be biblical. But there's a lot of damage being done right now in the shifts that are taking place.

Well, Tom, thank you for that overview. And I wanted to lead in with that because, of course, our

Twitter faces, as it were, I think both yours and mine, Via NoCoRadio's Twitter, may be a little more snarky, may be more direct, may be calling more people out, but that doesn't really represent the entire ministry that the

Lord has either given you or me. But that's just an aspect of it, and I think with Twitter, by nature, it's kind of more direct and, hey, what about this and what about that?

And so thank you for that overview. Let's now funnel down a little bit more and talk about your four -part articles, your four -part series on living out that was published by James White at aomin .org

if our listeners want to read all four of those, and I suggest that they do. aomin .org, scroll down to the blog, and you can read all four of those,

Living Out, Part 1, 2, 3, 4. Why did you decide to write that? Because I'm sure you realized that you were going to receive some flack when you did.

Well, I began to notice problems last spring. It began with I didn't even know anything about living out.

I didn't know anything about any of these issues. I was familiar with Sam Mulberry. I read his book probably about four or five years ago,

He's God Anti -Gay. What I was thankful for in that book was that he did make it clear that someone who struggled with this particular sin should not adopt it as their identity and should renounce the sin and seek to live in a godly way that is submissive to the commands of Scripture.

And he was very clear to say that both the outward expression of the sin and the inward desire of the sin was sinful.

That's what his book said, and I was thankful for that. I do think that the church, in my own personal experience as I wrote the first article, was to hear a lot of hatred, hateful language in the way that the issue of homosexuality was addressed.

But last year, Revoice came on the scene. Nate Collins, who's one of the founders of that.

And I was concerned because Nate Collins had connection with the Southern Bapst Convention.

He had previously, very recently, taught at Southern Bapst Theological Seminary prior to him coming out with the

Revoice conference. I went to his ministry website where Preston Sprinkle and he together have a website regarding these things where they teach the very things that they taught at Revoice, and Revoice has been renounced by every major evangelical voice that you could trust has renounced them.

But yet you have Matt Chandler and Karen Pryor with the ERLC who both endorsed

Nate Collins' website and Preston Sprinkle's website. Both of those are

SBC people who are at my convention, so I was concerned about that. Nate Collins came out of SBC, and so I and Karen Pryor endorsed the

Revoice conference completely. So that's what began my concerns. I then discovered

Living Out because people pointed me there and said, well, that's Sam Alsbury's ministry, and their ministry is more in line with where we think.

Well, when I began reading Living Out, it was horrible, the stuff I was seeing.

The audit that they were giving to make sure that your church is LGBTQ inclusive, that we need to make sure churches are not hurting them as a minority, a sexual minority.

I mean, the language that is employed for the victimology and all of these things.

Rather than using biblical terminology, they were using worldly language to talk about all of this.

So I began privately going to people within the SBC, throwing the red flag up, saying, what is going on here?

Over and over for the last nine months, I have received from pastors who were hosting

Living Out conferences, I went to them privately. I went to people that were publicly embracing

Living Out, I went to them privately. All of these within the SBC. I went to people that were connected with ERLC and expressed my concerns,

I went privately. Roadblock after roadblock, no one was listening.

I said, enough is enough. This is too dangerous. I had people in my church who were also exposed to Living Out in the sense of the endorsement that the

ERLC was giving. They're going to trust what Russell Moore endorsed, and therefore

I had to say something. And I only had to say something to my church. I felt I needed to make the entire SBC aware.

Talking to Tom Buck today on No Compromise Radio. Tom, the one thing I noticed as well, when

Banner of Truth also writes an article about it, January 11, 2019,

LGBTQ plus audit, it's not like you're the only one out there and you've just got some ax to grind.

When Banner's writing about it, it needs to be dealt with as well. Tell me a little bit more about the general consensus that many evangelicals have.

How could you write this when you're causing upset, you haven't gone to them personally,

Matthew 18 is quoted so that you have to go do this, that, and the other, and the thing is, you have done a lot of that stuff, but still, isn't that just a false canard to say, you better go talk to them and don't take this public, when

Living Out has made it public, and Nine Marks has made it public, Ravi Zacharias has made it public,

Southern Seminary and a lot of other places, it seems like they're all endorsing, in one form or another, the ministry of Sam Albury, which means they're endorsing

Living Out, right? Absolutely. The clearest connection in the

SBC was Russell Moore's endorsement, which we can talk about, he's removed, overnight it was removed, because I looked last night, it was there, and it's gone today, which

I'm thankful for. But Russell Moore specifically said that these resources, this was on the

Living Out website, he said these resources, he categorized them as being biblical and sound.

So there's a straightforward, clear connection of an endorsement. Others were endorsing, within the

Southern Baptist Convention, by actually having them hosting the Living Out conferences in their churches, and helping facilitate that.

So, this has been all public, this is not something that I took a clip from something that someone said, out of a sermon, and then built upon that, and made assertions and assumptions.

I was dealing with something that was completely a public teaching, and I think that when people begin to say that if someone says something, has a public document that they have written, carefully written,

I think that's even more important sometimes than things that can be said in a 30 -minute speech, and they make a misstep, which can happen.

But when you write something and your public website is filled with this kind of stuff,

I don't think that there's anything in Scripture that necessitates that I go to them privately and try to make clarifications.

Now here's what I did do. I've already said that I went to people. And I went to people who were personal friends of Sam Mulberry, and they continued to write back to me and give me an apologetic, defending

Sam Mulberry. They told me, well, we've talked to Sam, and here's what he said. We talked to Sam, and here's what he said. We talked to Sam, and he said, you're misunderstanding.

So I feel like I already had a good, legitimate reason to go public. I don't have a friendship with Sam.

These individuals do have a friendship with Sam. They were defending Sam, saying that this is what he's saying.

Therefore, I think that me going public is perfectly fine. If Sam's not listening to them, why would he listen to me?

Tom, before we go to specifics on the Living Out website and your article that has pretty much debunked it and exposed it, what about the personal attacks?

So first you're going to post these things, Part 1, 2, 3, 4, which I think was wise to stretch that out some and let people think about it.

But what about the personal attacks? I'm wondering why they want to attack you, short of, you know what, we've got to destroy the messenger, and then also explain to our audience a little bit with a

G3 tie -in so you can make yourself clear regarding that issue and what you said on the platform.

Well, I think that people want to kill the messenger because for a variety of reasons.

But I think that for some people it's just, hey, this is unkind. We shouldn't say things that are unkind.

The fruit of the Spirit doesn't include the way that they want to express kindness if you just don't ever call anything out.

It's ridiculous how they look at those. Niceness, I think, is probably the word.

They want to equate kindness with being nice. And what's not nice is if you specifically call someone out on their false teaching.

So I think there are those people that are responding that they may not even necessarily want to discredit, but they are just concerned it wasn't nice enough.

But I do believe there are people that want to discredit what I say because they don't want to deal with the substance of it.

Some people probably feel that there's an agenda behind it to just go after Russell Moore.

So nobody that knows me or follows me very closely, everybody that follows me closely, knows that I do not have an affection for Dr.

Moore regarding the direction that he has taken things in the EROC.

And there are several issues that I have. I'll stick to two of them.

One is the issue that I've already addressed with how there's a soft peddling of the issues of homosexuality.

The other is the hijacking of the pro -life movement that is taking place. And so when

I was at G3 in a pre -conference panel,

I made a statement publicly, and I was speaking at the time. I didn't have notes in front of me, but I was speaking passionately, and I was calling out

Russell Moore by name, and the fact that he, I believe, is a political operative in the way that he promotes a variety of issues to shift the way that the convention thinks about things politically in our convention.

I mean, everybody knows that. I mean, that's not a bombshell. I mean, he spent months hammering

President Trump and months doing everything that he could to keep

Trump from being elected, whom I didn't vote for, by the way. But when it comes to the pro -life issue, he has been shifting that and hijacking that movement,

I believe. Let me give you a couple of things. One is a little over a year ago, he said that they released a video.

It was up on TGC. I think it's still on TGC's Twitter account from January of 2018 that equated prison reform as a pro -life issue.

And so now pro -life issue is prison reform. There have been those within the

ERLC who have believed that issues of animal rights or animal welfare, whatever you want to call it, is a pro -life issue.

That's what I was saying at G3. So what I said there is this. I said that they, the

ERLC, has equated issues of animal rights with that of abortion.

And then I made a statement that I've had ERLC fellows, and I use that term broadly, when

I have had more than one person who's spoken to me that has a connection with the ERLC in some capacity.

I thought they were all called fellows. They have a leadership advisory board, leadership council. They have all kinds of things that work with them, who expressed to me concern that there were those in the

ERLC who believed that animal rights issue was a pro -life issue.

Now, I think that's ridiculous. I said it was heretical. That probably was an overstatement of the word in that situation.

And I was also unable to substantiate who those people were that came to me because they're fearful of losing their position.

The 11th Commandment in the SPC is real. And I have more people that come to me every day that are concerned about issues in various institutions of the

SPC that are fearful of losing their jobs, if their name be known. And so they're using that clip, and they're saying, tell us who these people were.

You're claiming the ERLC believes that animal rights is the same thing as abortion, and you lied on the

ERLC, or you lied about having sources. I think some of those people are sincere and want clarity.

I think Karen Pryor is one of those that she wants me to clarify what I was saying. But others are jumping on the bandwagon to say, well, if he can't be trusted on that, he can't be trusted on the live and out stuff either.

Talking to Tom Buck today on No Compromise Radio. You can follow Tom on Twitter.

It's at Tom Buck, right? That's correct. All right. Tom, one of the things I've noticed in evangelicalism especially is this mantra that people use.

We want to be known for what we're for and not what we're against. I'm preaching through the book of Hebrews on Sunday mornings here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

And one of the things I've noticed is the writer, the author to the book of Hebrews, and by the way, just to let you know,

Tom, the author is not Mary. Some people say the author is Mary, but that's not quite right. Actually, there is someone that believes that.

And he is for the supremacy of Christ Jesus. He is for Christ Jesus' great high priestly ministry.

And that means he's against the most beloved, the apple of the eye for those

Jews. And that is the priestly system and the temple and everything that goes along with it.

He is against that. And they, who are the recipients of that letter, can quickly discern what he's for and what he's against.

And so to me, with propositional truth, whether it's Paul or Peter or our Lord Jesus, when you're for righteousness, you're against sin.

When you're for truth, you're against error. And I just find this whole mantra, the tone police, and you shouldn't try to police everyone, and you should tone it down.

And I just think it does not hold any water at all. When we, and I think you as well, are in particular concerned about the purity of the

Lord's church. We don't care what happens to Mike Abendroth or Tom Buck or anything like that. It doesn't matter.

But the Lord's church, she is worthy to stand up for and take the heat for. So anyway,

I just want to commend you for taking the shots. Was it not Spurgeon that said if they knew our real sins and problems, the critique and criticism would be a lot worse?

Well, absolutely. Let me address what you just said about that, this for and against.

It is easy to get caught up in that. It sounds so good, doesn't it? But yet, let's just take an easy example.

If we're for our children, then we're against anything that could threaten our children, hurt our children, harm our children.

So let's just bring this down to a very simple thing that we can use to illustrate this in everyday life.

There are people today, and they're very concerned, and rightly so, about everything about their children. They want to make sure that everything that they buy their children couldn't harm them.

They want to make sure that everything they eat and put in their mouth couldn't harm them. They want to make sure that we have organic this, organic that, because we want to protect the health of our children.

Recalls, we want to make sure that there's no toy they have that could be dangerous. And there are parents who will read the ingredients of every box of Cheez -Its and will get online to make sure that every toy, that there hasn't been a recall, that can't hurt or harm their children because they care for them.

They want to be against what can harm them. But they don't care about what's written at Living Out, and what could not only harm their children if they go there if they're same -sex attracted, but could harm every other person that they don't even know.

So it's absolutely absurd. If we're going to check the ingredients on a Cheez -It box to make sure that it's not going to harm our child physically, we ought to be caring enough about what's on Living Out, of whether it could damn one of our children's soul to hell, because they become confirmed in their orientation and begin to live that way.

Amen. Well put. Let's now move, Tom, to the series of articles, Living Out articles, that are posted on aomin .org.

So you're going to get me in trouble, you get James in trouble. What are you doing? Anyway, we're going to address those issues.

So let's start at a high level. In summary, kind of like the distilled form, what's the main issue that you have with the

Living Out site? The main issue I have with their site is the fact that they give counsel and they direct people in how to respond to the sin struggles in their life that does not teach to mortify those desires, that tries to jump through hoops, whether it be philosophical hoops or it be whatever it may be, to tell them that there's other ways that they can deal with these things rather than radically seeking to mortify that desire in their lives.

Tom, as I read 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9 and following, it says, Of course, the

Corinthians were know -it -alls and they thought they knew everything, and so Paul really presses them. And then he says,

And the reason why he says that is because it's easy to be deceived. And then he goes on to say,

There's actually two Greek words there that the ESV combines into one, I think, sadly.

And then, of course, those glorious words that Paul writes that are true for every kind of sinner, whether it's an unrighteous sin or self -righteous sins and everything in between,

And then he gives that language of just the benefits of the

Lord Jesus in his work and what he does, the Lord Jesus, to sinners. He washes them.

He says, And then he goes on to talk about sexual sin, and he says in verse 18,

He talks about why it's so bad. Both you and I rejoice that Sam and the living out people,

I don't know if I can speak for the living out people, but Sam certainly addresses that homosexuality is sinful and can be forgiven, and the

Lord Jesus can cleanse that. We're not arguing about that, are we? No, absolutely not.

I hope not. No, not at all. So what's the real argument? When you talk about mortifying, where do they want to place the person who says,

I'm a Christian, I'm not going to practice homosexuality, but I'm not going to then get married to someone of the opposite sex, maybe like a

Rosario Butterfield. We're just going to kind of be content to live in this realm of we won't be homosexuals in our sexual practice, but we can still live with some kind of lifestyle that's associated with homosexuality?

Is that what they're saying? No, I don't think that's what they're saying specifically. I mean, if we just deal with what they're saying, let's just take a same -sex attracted person, they're saying that there are more ways, potential ways to deal with this, responding to these issues, than just the clear -cut flee from sexual immorality.

So let's give an example. The first article I dealt with was, what do you do if you have a same -sex attracted couple who is sexually active and practicing the homosexual lifestyle, and they get saved?

Do they have to quit living together? And I think you and I would say unequivocally, yes, they should stop living together.

This is no -brainer. This is something you do not need an article on. You can tweet. You can accomplish that in a tweet.

You may have to have some nuance to help the person walk through that, obviously, and explain to that individual.

But as far as giving an answer to that, it does not require a lengthy article. But what they do is they begin to introduce emotionally charged issues, like what if they have a child together?

And obviously they even skip over the fact that they couldn't have a child through the natural means.

They've adopted a child and introduced that child into a godless situation, teaching that child that homosexuality is a good and profitable way to live and an okay way to live.

So they never address that. They just introduce it for an emotionally charged issue. And then they say, well, if they're together, maybe they could continue to live together and they could experience intimacy that is non -sexual, because we're all meant to experience intimacy.

You don't want to break this quote -unquote family up. There's other ways to address this.

That's the problem, rather than simply saying this relationship was a sham to begin with.

It was absolutely an abomination before God, and every single sign of that relationship needs to be eradicated.

Now, that doesn't mean that it doesn't need very careful pastoral care.

I think we're going to be facing situations like this in the coming years, and it's going to take love and it's going to take encouragement.

It's going to take support to get there. But how we get to that point and how we apply that truth is one thing.

But telling them, no, just stay in the situation you're in, continue to enjoy physical intimacy that's not sexual intimacy, is beyond absurd and it's completely unbiblical.

I think every one of our listeners, Tom, would say, if there was a man and a woman living together, they're not married, they're fornicating, they both come to faith, our counsel would not be the revoice type of living out counsel that would stay together and still do this, that, and the other.

I think of an illustration that's a true one. There was a brother and sister in Russia and they slept together and there was a baby involved and then they decided they would just move away and act like a married couple and raise the child and still be together.

They got saved and went to the pastor and the pastor gave the right advice. Listen, you can both see the child, obviously the child needs a mom and a dad, but you don't live together, you don't act this way, you have to renounce this because this is improper and wrong and sinful and you need to run from this.

And why would we give that couple that advice to fornicators, that advice, but we now don't give that advice to people who have been homosexually involved?

It just does not make any sense to me pastorally. Well, I'll tell you why they would give the advice,

I think. I think that they're giving the advice because they know that there is not an option that we would have for that other couple.

That other couple can move out, not live together, and then get married and live together. So they're creating a level of sympathy, which may be something we at least need to have a tender heart towards, that these two men or two women don't ever have the ability to get married.

And so this means that they have to break the family, quote unquote, family up, that can never be reunited or never be made right by coming back together.

So they're playing on that sympathy, I think, and that's why these categories are being created that have never been there before, because they're saying, what do we do with that?

Well, what we do with that is we obey Scripture, and we believe that the power of the gospel has not only the ability to change their hearts, but also the ability to comfort them.

The God of all comfort can comfort them even in that affliction that they're going to feel from doing what's right in carrying out full repentance.

So I think that's why a lot of people are saying that. Don't you feel sad, Mike, with this situation that this couple can never be able to live together, the other couple you can tell to get married?

So I think that's what's driving some of this. What are your thoughts on that? I think that's exactly right. By the way, this is my show, so I ask you the questions.

Just kidding. Well, people say that when it comes to Tom Buck, it's his way or the highway.

Well, when I took my biblical counseling classes at seminary, and I'm sure when you had your classes, one of the things that they drove into our minds was make sure you tell people that you're dealing with that there's hope.

If you do things the Lord's way, you sit down with a Christian man or woman or a couple, and they're struggling, and you say, you know what, there's hope if you do things in light of who you are in Christ and for His glory.

Guilt, grace, gratitude, and there's hope for you. Maybe that hope is only eternal hope, but there's hope for you.

I think if we tell people what Living Out is telling them, there's really no hope for a temporally fulfilled life, and I'll prove it by saying with the church audit, the

Living Out audit, number 10, quote, no one would be pressured into expecting or seeking any healing or change that God has not promised any of us until the renewal of all things.

True, false, not sure. I know people don't like it, and some people can say experientially, well,

I could never have an attraction sexually towards the opposite sex because I'm born a homosexual, and I'm going to stay that way, and even though I'm forgiven,

I'm not going to act out on it. I could never be attracted. I look at somebody like Rosaria Butterfield.

I'm sure she initially didn't say when she got saved, I'm attracted to men, but correct me if I'm wrong.

I think she's a pastor's wife and has several children, and I think, and I know people are going to blister me for this, but I think

God can give new appetites for lots of different things. For instance, I used to hate the

Bible. I now love the Bible. I used to love people for what they could give to me, and now I can love them in a sacrificial way.

What I used to love I hate, and what I hate I now love by the power of the grace of God. I think living out is saying, you're just going to be this way the rest of your life, and you can't act out on it, which further exacerbates the problem because these people don't have the gift of singleness, and so they have sexual desires, and they have no way to exercise those sexual desires.

I think that's going to be a disaster. Am I right? Am I thinking rightly, Tom? I think you're thinking exactly right, and this is a lot to talk about because there's so much that is there, but even with what you said about gift of singleness,

I'm hearing them talk about someone who is same -sex attracted, becomes a

Christian, who continues to have the same -sex attraction to desire, that they're saying, well, I have the gift of singleness. I must have to have the gift of singleness since I can't act on this.

So they're even now defining gift of singleness to include someone who has a desire that can't be mortified, and that's an issue as well.

But, yeah, you're absolutely right. When I've dealt, and I've dealt with multiple people that I never called it same -sex attracted because that's a new terminology, but I would talk about those who struggle with the desires of homosexuality, and I've dealt with multiple people in my ministry that way, and I have encouraged them to seek, to ask

God to mortify that desire, that they don't have that desire at all, and would transform their unnatural desire for one that is natural.

Now, I also tell them, I'm not promising that that'll happen overnight. I'm not promising that,

I'm not even promising that'll ever happen, but you're going to continue, you need to continue to battle against the outward expressions of that sin, and you also need to continue to pray and battle against the inward desire, and that Colossians chapter 3, verse 5,

Paul says, put to death what is earthly in you. Now, there's five words that he gives there.

All of them are modifying, or moving further closer to the heart, from the first one, which is the outward expression of sexual immorality.

Then he moves towards the heart to eventually say this is all idolatry, but in the middle of that is evil desire.

So Paul's saying, put to death the evil desire. Well, how is a desire to be attracted to someone of the same sex, which is unnatural, which did not exist before the fall, how is that not an evil desire?

If it is an evil desire, then it has to be mortified. We should have, be gracious to our brothers and sisters as they battle against that and seek to put to death what is earthly in them.

But to tell them that they shouldn't do that is wrong and unbiblical. I am being told secondhand by friends of Sam Mulberry that he does not agree, or that he does agree with what

I've just said right now, that they do need to seek to put to death that desire.

I'm going to pray that if that's true, I'm praying that he'll come out and say that. And if he doesn't come out and say that, then we have bigger issues.

Tom, let's have a couple quotes. I'll read a couple quotes that you brought up in your articles on aomin .org

that if a person's listening and they're thinking, you know what, maybe Mike and Tom, they just have an ax to grind and there's just discernment ministry and blogging.

I don't know who could listen to these quotes that are on the Living Out website and somehow say, you know what, they need to stay up there and this is right and this is good and this is healthy and this is

Christ honoring. One of the men who coordinate that website

Living Out, we've got Ed Shaw, Sean Doherty and Sam Albury in reverse order.

Here is Doherty in an article, quote, holding back from sexual intimacy doesn't spell an end to physical intimacy, not for a moment.

There are wonderful ways to be physically close to other people without being sexually close to them. We hug and kiss our friends and relatives in non -sexual ways.

We hold hands with children. Some people love to play fight, especially guys, question mark.

My sons love to do this with me personally. I'd rather prefer to cuddle them but I have to play fight with them because it is a way they give and receive physical affection.

None of these things necessarily have anything to do with sex but they have much to do with physical affection and intimacy.

As St. Paul puts it, greet one another with a holy kiss. I'm not even going to read the rest there.

When we say, you know, two men who have been saved and struggled with homosexuality can continue to have physical intimacy and he equates it to a holy kiss, that rubs me the wrong way.

It does me too. And of course, again, they're not talking about physical sexual intimacy because they're saying that should cease.

And so we're thankful, and let's clarify for everybody, we're thankful that they say that no person who is same -sex attracted should practice outward expressions of that desire sexually.

So we're thankful for that. But what they're doing is they're saying, but you could, even for people that have already been sexually active with one another, you could continue to live together without doing the sexual part, and you could have other expressions of physical intimacy.

And then he uses wonderful, beautiful things that we experience in church life and family life to then say, well, they could be doing all of those things without crossing the line of doing the other things.

However, earlier in that article, I think it's that same article, he says that as they work to do this, there will be trial and error periods, which means that you're going to sometimes slip and do some of the sexual stuff while you're trying to figure out all the other stuff you could do that's not sexual.

But he says it's worth it to be able to keep this family together. That's repulsive.

And he's taking something that's beautiful and pure and wonderful, like a church love for one another with a holy kiss, and family intimacy between a father and their children, and trying to transport that into this relationship that has been perverted and godless, and figuring out a way to be a halfway house to get them to be able to still live together and experience that kind of intimacy.

I find that gross. Well, that's exactly right, and what happens is we forget about the heart, and our

Lord Jesus said in Matthew 5, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart, and then he gives some very radical advice to make sure that sin is dealt with.

Tom, I'm sure you do the same thing that I do. I have to be very, very careful, because I know how wicked

I still am, and the sin that still dwells in me. I am very careful how

I deal with people of the opposite sex. I don't, when I walk into the church building, I don't hug the secretary.

I don't, when I do hug people on Sunday morning in the sanctuary, whether that's a grandma or someone else of the opposite sex,

I'm very careful on how I hug, right? It's an upper body hug. I'm careful who

I go in the car with. I do not counsel ladies alone. I will always bring my wife in there.

I have to set guards up, because I know my own heart. I know people that were more godly than I am have fallen into that, and I also have to be careful about the other person, thinking about them.

While I might want something, I think, oh, I can't have them fall, and what I was thinking about is with these people here who want all the physical intimacy.

I have to be very careful. I don't say to other women, you look pretty today, even though I might think it, because I just don't need to do that.

I say that to grandmas. Oh, you look nice today. I say it to a lady who's getting married and I'm officiating in front of her groom.

I say, you look beautiful today. But those words and those actions are reserved to my daughters only.

You look pretty. I love you. I'm proud of you, and physical things to my wife and my wife alone.

Do you think I'm going too far when I talk this way or think this way? No. I do the same thing that you're saying, maybe not exactly to every single detail, but I fear myself more than I do anything else.

I fear my own heart, and I don't think we... What strikes me about the advice they give is they don't have a healthy concern or a healthy fear of sin itself.

They don't have a healthy fear of sin itself. They don't have a healthy fear of the depravity that still lurks in the hearts of all of us.

And I don't understand that. So let me give you an illustration. I think this will resonate with people. I didn't put it in the article, but I couldn't do a 12 -week series.

Well, I could have done a 12 -week series. If you go to Living Out, you could have. But here's the illustration

I would use that will speak to this. Let's not say a couple living together, but let's use their same principles in another situation.

Let's say we have a man in the church who, God forbid, commits adultery with another woman in the church.

And let's say they repent fully. They come before the church. They confess. And then we start to say, but you know, we don't want your brotherly, sisterly affection in Christ to be hampered by this.

So you need... You're going to probably have a trial and error period. We understand that might happen.

But you've got to find a way to be able to hug each other when you see each other, give each other a holy kiss when you see each other.

You need to still have the same levels of good intimacy that we would want to have with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Even though you've slept together in the past, committed adultery together in the past, you need to have a trial and error period to figure out how you can now continue to express some level of intimacy.

You would drive me out of the church saying you're nuts and you're not worthy of being a pastor or giving that kind of counsel.

But there's exactly no difference in what I just said and what Living Out gives to that couple. Tom, don't you think that, at least it seems to me in my opinion, that the church is wanting to make sure they don't just ostracize the homosexual community?

I don't know if they don't want to get picketed. I don't know if they want to come across as nice and kind and loving sinners of all stripes.

But it seems like, you know, it's like with this particular topic, we lose our sanity as church leaders because we don't want to maybe offend unregenerate homosexuals or we want to just be extra careful and we walk around with kit gloves.

But as we do that, then we throw out our biblical principles that we would use for two fornicators or any other kind of sinner.

Does that seem right? Yes, I think there's a variety of reasons that people are doing it.

Some think it's a better form of evangelism. Some are reacting to years of mistreatment that's taken place in how homosexuals have been talked about by Christians.

Some, I think, are reacting because, as I said earlier, they have a family member, maybe even a child, that's come out and struggling with these particular issues and they're wanting to keep the church from, quote unquote, driving away.

You know, I think that a lot of that's going on. And I think it's wrong because we need to speak the truth, speak the truth in love.

Paul said we make everyone mature in Christ, Colossians 128, by proclaiming

Christ, warning and teaching them. So we cannot draw back from warning people.

We can't just say we're going to teach but we're not going to warn. We shouldn't just warn and not teach.

We've got to be doing both of those things. But if we fail to do both of those things, they will not become mature in Christ, as Paul says.

Tom, we probably should wrap up pretty soon. And so let me read you the quote that you put in your article that to me is the worst quote of all.

And this is the one that I think Sam needs to take down immediately. And why he has not, I don't know.

Someone told me he's going to address your articles this weekend. I don't know what he could do besides taking things like this down.

One of the Living Out directors, his last name's Shaw, said this, Part of this,

I think, is a growing realization that my response to male beauty is, at one level, very natural.

In desiring a beautiful man and wanting to become one with him, I am responding to real beauty as all human beings tend to whenever, wherever, they discover it in any overwhelming form.

End quote. And you've got that quoted on your article. Now, when I look at a girl and I say to myself, do you know what?

She's pretty. And I don't do a second look and I don't look at inappropriate places and just move on.

Just, it's time to move on. I don't say to myself, oh, she's an ugly old hag. I think, oh, yeah, she's pretty.

That's a pretty girl. But I've tried to train myself and my son and other men that I disciple here at the church that, you know what?

It's the second look and it's the lingering look and it's the look that would say, do you know what? She's so pretty.

I want to become one with her. That's sin, according to the

Lord Jesus. I have to guard against that and that's when it goes wrong.

It doesn't go wrong, or even if I said, that guy's handsome and I've said to men before, you know, you're one handsome man.

But not with any... You've said that to me many times. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry. No. But this whole thing, he uses natural and desire.

This is the stuff that needs to be repented of, not put on a website.

And therefore, whether it's White Horse Inn, Ravi Zacharias, Nine Marks, Southern Baptist, and there's a bunch of other people who are promoting this.

One look at that, it makes my jaw drop. I look at someone of the opposite sex and I'd like to become one with them.

And if that's not my wife, it is in every single case a gross, flagrant violation of purity and how the

Lord has ordained the marriage bed is not to be defiled, Hebrews chapter 13. But now with a guy,

I can do that? If I'm homosexual? Did I read that rightly? Well, I don't see how you read it any other way.

I mean, I keep being told it's a misinterpretation. But I'll tell you this much, if I were to give that excuse to my wife, it wouldn't just be my jaw that drops.

I'm sorry to laugh. So, the bottom line is is that these answers they're being given are circumventing

Scripture. And they're going to, why do we need to pull from C .S. Lewis who's talking about beauty that God created for all to observe that's objective?

It's the beauty of a sunset, the beauty of, I mean, he's talking about when you see something that God has created for everybody to see that is beautiful, you want to be a part of that.

You feel yourself drawn into that. Okay, C .S. Lewis wasn't talking about sexual things there in regards to that.

He's trying to take that philosophical issue to approach how he's battling sin.

That's not what he needs. He doesn't need the words of C .S. Lewis in that situation. He needs the words of Christ that said, if you want to cut off your hand, pluck out your eye.

That's the issue. And that's what I keep pulling people back to. The living outside is light on Scripture when it comes to these type of things.

Sometimes totally absent in these articles of Scripture. And they go with all these types of argumentation.

So this is extremely dangerous that you would use that kind of language that I see that I want to be united with this man, which we know what that means.

I mean, where's the yuck factor in all this? Tom, if...

I mean, it's all over the places where it is. But I just thought I'd ask this question before you kind of make some summary statements.

If I knew my son was attending a church where there was a pastor that said, you know what?

I used to be homosexual in my practice. I'm no longer doing that. I'm still attracted to the same sex, and I'm not going to get married, but now

I'm an elder or, you know, a leader. Would I want my son doing one -on -one discipleship there?

And I don't think it's a... I don't think it's an unfair question to ask. I love to disciple men.

We have a group of 10 men here at the church. Every Sunday morning, we meet, and we're teaching them how to study the

Bible and how to preach the Bible and do evangelism. And sometimes I'll meet with men privately.

Do I want someone who says, you know what? I have... I don't have the gift of singleness, at least according to the

Bible, and I'm going to meet with someone else? I mean, they don't want me to ask that question, and they're going to say

I'm really, you know, unkind for asking it, but I would tell my son, I don't think you should be meeting privately at the guy's house with somebody when this is a...

when this is going on in his mind, when he has no way to act out his desires, that is, he's just going to burn with passion, and I don't think you should be around him.

Am I crazy? I certainly think that is a question that we're going to have to answer.

So let me answer it on two different levels. One is my concern about an elder who is...

and I voiced this to Sam. We had a good conversation about it. I voiced this to him, and I don't understand how someone who is an elder who is required to disciple younger men or men, period, that's the job responsibility.

If he struggles with this particular desire, I don't think that there's wisdom in that for just at the very bottom level of the discussion.

Now, Sam Albury came back and said that his answer to that is that we all need accountability, that he has accountability, and that he chooses to relate to that person who he's counseling as a biological male and doesn't allow his sexual attraction to determine how he relates to that person.

Now, here's what I think he means by that. I think what he means is I'm a biological male. God has ordained that biological males only be related physically or sexually with biological women.

Therefore, I choose when I meet with another male to relate to him as a biological male, and even if I have a level of attraction,

I choose to not allow that attraction to control how I relate to him because I'm a biological male. I cannot do that.

Yeah, but do you know what? Do you know what I would do, Tom? I would not counsel privately a woman who had been a lesbian or who is a lesbian and struggles with that and say to myself,

I don't have to be attracted to her even though she's pretty because she's a lesbian and she doesn't have any attraction to me, a man.

She's only attracted to women, so therefore it's okay for me to counsel her and disciple her privately. Oh, I agree with that, and that's my question that I have been asking all along.

I asked this question six or nine months ago, and I've not been able to get a legitimate answer.

Now, I'm thankful for what Sam Mulberry, at least he answered it, and I have appreciated that about Sam. Sam will answer the questions, many of them, when you ask.

I may not agree with his answers, but he interacts with you on it. Let me say one other thing about that in this category, though, and I do think this is a fair question that we're going to have to figure out how to answer.

I had a person ask me, but what about, okay, if I'm a same -sex attracted male, does that mean, and I'm not an elder, but does that mean

I can't ever disciple anyone? I can't ever disciple another male person because I'm same -sex attracted?

Does that mean, and I haven't been able to, that traction has not been altered or changed?

Should I never disciple another man? Well, when I, my initial reaction is if you believe the methodology and philosophical ideas that underpin living out, the answer is no, you should never disciple.

But if you have a different approach to sanctification, and isn't that really what this big picture is about? I have a book called

Five Views of Sanctification, and are we Keswick in our sanctification? Are Wesleyan, you know, holiness, reformed?

What does the Bible really say about sanctification? And so to me, Tom, years ago, the big sanctification debate came out, and how does it relate to justification?

And two separate categories, but one follows the other, Tulian, et cetera, et cetera. To me, this is just one more attack slash an area we need to address when it comes to the doctrine of biblical sanctification.

If we got that right, I think we could then answer those type of questions that come up in pastoral ministry because we'd have the right framework.

I think that's spot on, and I appreciate you saying that because I think a lot of people think that there's, you know, only two positions.

We either go with, you know, something that's on the living outside, or the rest of us are on a, hey, you're just a homosexual and you're going to hell because you have these desires, even if you are not acting out upon them.

I think that what we're trying to say here is that someone, even a

Christian, after they've professed Christ, renounced the lifestyle of homosexuality, admitted and confessed that the desire that they have for the same sex is rooted in itself in an evil desire that needs to be mortified, that even if they continue to battle with that, and even if they continue to seek to mortify that desire, we're not saying that those individuals are headed to hell.

There are some who say that, and we certainly as pastors need to lovingly come alongside of those who are seeking to be transformed and sanctified fully from every temptation and every sin that they have.

But we are going to have to be very, very clear, very precise, and we've got to be dealing with what the very nature of this same sex attraction is.

It's a disordered desire that in and of itself is rooted in the fall and is evil and needs to be mortified by God's grace.

And until we can say that, we can't even begin to have these other conversations about how that works out and how that's applied in a day -to -day basis.

Great analysis, Tom. And I think they're also afraid, the people on the other side of this argument, are afraid of, if they do say that, what's next?

And what's next is in the paradigm of the New Testament is you put off and you put on.

And I think they're afraid that if you have to put off slash mortify, what do you put on?

And I think they're trying to put on things that do not include, I might have to marry somebody that I might not be attracted to.

But that's maybe for another show. I almost called you Sam. Tom, anything you'd like to say as we wrap things up?

Something you wanted to, you were hoping I ask you, but I didn't ask you. Summary statement, anything else as we close?

I think that the biggest thing I would say is pastors that are out there listening to this, we have got to be working at developing our understanding on these things theologically and quickly.

Because we are going to need to be helping our church members think through this, people who are coming out of a world that has a philosophy that endorses this lifestyle, endorses our indulgence in this, and we've got to be prepared to give answers that are loving, that are pastoral, that are biblically sound first and foremost, and are willing to come alongside of those who find themselves struggling with sin and help them walk through this in a way that gives full obedience and allegiance to our

Lord Jesus Christ. What we cannot afford to do are two things. We cannot afford to capitulate to the culture and just give in to this language and give in to this the way that they are portraying homosexuality.

On the other side, we cannot give in to simply just ignoring this and sticking our heads in the sand over this.

We have got to be prepared and armed to deal with this in the most godly, pastoral, loving, and biblically sound way possible.

Wise words from Tom Buck if you'd like to hear his preaching. You can go to FBC Lyndale. That's F -B -C -L -I -N -D -A -L -E dot com.

Or if you'd like to read the four articles, you can go to AOMin dot, is it dot org?

Yeah, I think it's dot org. And if you want to follow Tom, that's the nice side of Tom is the

Lyndale side. And then you've got the writing side of Tom on AOMin. And then you've got the kind of, the

Twitter Tom, right? At Tom Buck. See Tom, you should do what

I do. And that is, you know, if you hear Mike Abendroth, hopefully you think he's preaching Christ from Hebrews.

He's a pastor. So then I just hide behind the no compromise moniker for my screeds online.

See, that's how I do that. Tom, thanks for being a guest today on No Compromise Radio. I want you to know, in the 2 ,500 shows that I've done, this is the longest show that I've ever done.

One hour and seven minutes, but it's an important topic. And you're articulate regarding that. I thank you for your courage and your desire to hold the line when it comes to biblical fidelity.

And I hope our listeners today, even if they disagree with us, they can hear the tone of this as two pastors who want the best for those who struggle with all kinds of sins and who desire the purity of the

Lord Jesus' Church. Thanks again, Tom Buck. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.