Sheilaism

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

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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

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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.'"

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

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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.

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

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Mike Abendroth. Your host today? I think I'm always your host, aren't I? Well, today, before we start off,

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I wanna continue to promote our No Compromise crews. Can you imagine?

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We're so big now in our ministry that we start having to have cruises. Well, that part's not true, but I wanted to take a cruise to Greece.

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Partly cruise, mainly tour. Highlights of Greece. So we'll go over to Turkey as well.

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Ephesus, Patmos, Berea, Athens, Corinth. April 2013, you can write me if you want a brochure, and that would be anyone in the country or world can go.

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I don't know what you're gonna do if you already live in Greece. I guess you can meet up with us. But the cost is gonna be from Boston, then you just have to get to Boston to add the cost.

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2013, April, if you and your family would like to go, we'd love to have you. I think we need about 15 or 20 to make it happen.

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And we will go. Two year and a half ago, we went to Israel, and then we'll go to Greece.

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Then in two years after that, 2015, Lord willing, we'll go to Israel. And then 2017, maybe we'll do a

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Reformation trip back to Israel. So no co -cruise, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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We'd love to have you go. You could hang out and get my autograph. Just kidding.

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Just kidding. I have to tell you a funny story about autographs. You know, if somebody ever says to me, could you sign my book, please?

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I just treat them the way I would wanna be treated. I don't ask authors to sign books.

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Sometimes I get books from authors and they're signed. I'm thankful for that, but I don't ask authors to sign them.

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There's nothing wrong with it, but people sometimes ask me to sign their

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Bible. Now, I understand if you write a study

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Bible and the study Bible has your notes on it and you get asked to sign it.

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Okay. I would probably open it up and sign it on the page that talked about study notes or something.

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I probably wouldn't sign it in the part where it talks about translating L -O -R -D as Yahweh. Call me old fashioned.

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But when I candidated at Bethlehem Baptist Church at the time, I preach a sermon and there's a lady,

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I remember her, she's no longer living. She had green glasses on.

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That was something that was interesting to me. And she came up to the door.

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I'm trying to remember what I actually preached. I forgot my candidating sermon. I can't remember. I think it was

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February, 1999, 1997. I was 36 year old pastor, wannabe pastor.

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And she said, thanks for that sermon. I really appreciate it. And boy,

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I wish I remember what that sermon was. What sermon would I candidate with if I had to candidate today? I don't know.

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Anyway, I'm not getting any calls either. And I met her at the door.

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I like to go to the door and greet people on the way out. And she said, would you sign my

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Bible? I said, oh, remember, I don't know any of these people. Later that night, they're going to vote.

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Do I become the pastor or not? It was called Elder Rule, but it was really, it was a congregational rule.

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They had the final say. Whoever has the final say, that tells you what kind of rule it is or government. I said, oh,

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I can't sign your Bible. I didn't write it. And I just smiled, but that wasn't enough for this green eyed lady, this green glasses lady.

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She said, well, I want you to sign my Bible. And I said, well, it would be a conscience thing for me.

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I didn't write it. If I write a book someday, I'd be glad to sign that. But I didn't write anything in the

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Bible. So I don't really want to sign it. I'm sure you won't be offended. Well, I am offended and I will be if you don't sign it.

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And she opened it up and she showed me all the other people who had signed their Bible, her Bible. I don't know,

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Chuck Swindoll or John DeBrine. I don't know the people. There was all these Bible teachers and I was to be the next.

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And remember, this is at the door. By the way, if your pastor stands at the door after sermons and you want to walk by and greet him and say, hello, that's great.

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Just let me give you a little advice. Don't ask him all kinds of theological questions or confront him.

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If you have an emergency and you say, pastor, I have an emergency. My wife and I need to meet you as soon as you're available.

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Today we'll wait. Or is there another elder who's available? That's the best thing to do is go to one of the elders and meet with him.

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So I said to the lady at the door, I said, I'm just trying to think on my feet. And I said, well, give me your bulletin.

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So she gave me the bulletin and I signed the bulletin. You know, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

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Colossians 3 .16, Mike Abendroth. And then kind of moved her along.

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After a while, you get pretty good at that as a pastor to kind of move people along. You pat them on the back and you push them sideways at the same time.

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And you'd call him buddy. See ya, buddy. And I didn't really think anything of it.

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Oh, earlier she said, you know, I will be offended and I'm on the missions team, missions committee. Like I've got some clout.

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So I didn't sign the Bible. And when I, later that night, they voted.

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A 40 voted for, zero voted against, and two voted abstention because they didn't know enough.

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And actually those two were probably the smartest two out of the group. They attend BBC now, and they just didn't know enough about me.

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Actually, it's the guy whose voice you hear on Mondays introducing me, Charlie Crane. He was smart enough to say,

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I don't know this guy. I'm gonna vote on him to be the pastor. Anyway, Charlie and I are friends and he's part of the

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NOCO video, NOCO radio franchise. Franchise.

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I asked Carl Truman, Phil Johnson, and James White about franchise churches. And of course, Harvest would not call themselves franchising churches, but at the end of the day, it sure looks like a franchise church.

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That's another story. So I accepted the position. My wife and I flew home to get things packed up and all that.

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And then we came out here April, 1997.

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And so in April, 1997, I preached my first sermon. I think it was right after the 30 inches of snow on April 1st, 1997.

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And I preached a sermon and then that lady showed up. The lady showed up, the green glasses lady.

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And so I thought, here we go. I'm gonna get it. Maybe she was one of the two abstentions.

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She opened up her Bible and she had taken the bulletin that I signed, perfectly cut it out.

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You should see my fingers now. I'm cutting. My fingers are like scissors. She cut it out and paste it in her

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Bible with those other names. So I guess I've signed a Bible. I still haven't written a

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Bible, but I guess I've signed one. Well, that was a long story. All that to say, if somebody asks you to sign a

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Bible, I think you say no, unless you've written some study notes. If somebody says, could you please sign my book?

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I'd be glad to. I'd write a little note on there and take it from there.

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So anyway, I don't know how it got on that topic, but it doesn't really matter now, does it? What else do

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I have here on my desk today? I have something on my desk here today from a book

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I was reading, Religiosity in America. And it has something that I thought was fascinating.

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Robert Bella is quoted in the book, in his book that he co -wrote,

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Habits of the Heart. And he was talking to a young lady. And in our day and age of personal theology, personal relationship with Jesus, personal faith, that's my own spirituality.

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This is my own ethics. This is my own religion. It's like I went to a movie last night and the lady in front of me, somehow she was saying to the other person, she said,

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I'm not religious. I said loud enough almost for her to hear, but I wanted to say, you will be.

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This is when she was signing some visa deal. And so my wife said, oh no, she is. The lady had already walked away.

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She is because everyone's religious. Everybody's a worshiper. And so look at how worship has moved from objective, external, historical, concrete, revealed revelation from God, outside of us extranauts, to internal, mystical, subjective, personal, away from any kind of modern conventional religion because religion is bad.

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My own personal religion, as REM would say. And so here's what this lady says that is, she's quoted by Robert Bella.

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I believe in God. I am not a fanatic. I can't remember the last time

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I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's, now she's gonna tell us her faith.

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So she has a faith. She's at least recognizing that fact. My faith has carried me a long way.

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It's Sheila -ism. Just my own little voice. My own

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Sheila -ism is just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself.

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I guess those are the two great commandments in Sheila -ism. Love yourself, be gentle with yourself.

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You know, I guess, take care of each other. So that's either the summary or that is the third great commandment.

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My faith is Sheila -ism. So isn't this very fascinating?

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You have your own personal Jesus, as Depeche Mode would say. I like Johnny Cash's better.

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Your own personal Jesus. I actually like Nina Hagen's better. Nina Hagen is a punk rock

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German Berliner. And she recently has said she's believed in the

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Lord Jesus Christ and her newest album, which is probably two years old now. Maybe it's called

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Personal Jesus, I can't remember. It's a great album. It's in English. It's a great album.

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But anyway, I see Christianity no longer confessionally elaborated.

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There's something to be said for confessions. Obviously, we're not putting confessions over the

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Bible. Confessions are not equal to the Bible. Confessions, whether that's the

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Belgic Confession, catechisms, Westminster Catechism, longer or shorter, creeds like the 1689

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London Baptist Confession, Savoy Confession, 39

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Articles, whatever these are, they have been helpful to the church.

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And they are helpful to the church because they represent a great deal of what the

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Bible teaches systematically. And they anchor us away from this personal, situational, multiple truth type of religion.

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Well, my Bible says, oh, that's true, I understand that.

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But what does the church at large believe? I'm not trying to turn this into a pro -Roman

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Catholicism issue, but personal relationship with Jesus.

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I understand that He dwells in us through His Spirit. But if you want to look at some of the passages that talks about Jesus having

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His Spirit dwell in us, you might want to see if that us is plural, or the you is plural, or the you is singular.

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It's hard to tell unless you're reading KJV. We've lost our corporate identity.

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We've lost our church confession. We've lost what we believe, and it's turned into Sheilaism.

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Well, I don't really like the wrath parts. I like the goodness parts, so let me have a double dose of that and no wrath.

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Let me not have any of that envisaging iniquities on the sons and other generations.

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Give me the double dose of God's long -suffering and patient. I don't really want any of that election stuff.

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I just want the love part. God loves everybody equally and unconditionally.

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And when you just cut and paste the Bible, it's just Micahism. That's what it is.

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Instead of saying, God has spoken, not just in creation and in the world, but in His Word.

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And everything that He has spoken, I will submit to. I'm a creature. I'm a fallen creature.

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I'm a finite fallen creature. And my responsibility is to gladly submit to what

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God says. He is the Master. He is the Kurios. He is the Lord. He is the

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King. He is my advocate. He is my captain. He is the pioneer of my salvation. And I will submit to Him.

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He has freed me from the slave pit of sin, offering His own Son as a ransom for me.

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I am reconciled to God. I used to be an enemy. There used to be a war between God and I, and I was surely going to lose.

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And the Son assuaged the wrath of God, taking the full holy law's judgment upon Him in my place, on my behalf, in my stead.

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God raised Him from the dead to confirm that the it is finished was actually true, and it was finished.

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And God said, amen, when He raised the Son from the dead. And now I will submit to the Word. There are places,

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Father, that I don't understand. There are issues that seem complex. There are paradoxes, are antinomies, which are hard for me to understand.

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There are some compatibilisms in there that I don't know if I get. But whatever it says,

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I want to submit to it. Father, increase my submission. That is the way

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Christians are to look at the Bible. The scriptures are infallible, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient.

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They are the rule. They are the guide. They are God breathed.

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God took men and He bore them along by the Spirit as a wave would push a sailboat, guiding it directly into every word that God wanted these men to write.

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Not in an automatonic way, but in a way that's called inspiration.

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God breathed and God breathed out His Word and these men wrote down exactly what

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God wanted us to have and God has preserved His Word throughout the centuries. So when you say, well,

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I don't like election, you can't read the Bible without saying there's election.

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Now you might want to redefine it, a post -destination or dependent upon somebody's goodness, but our responsibility is just to say, well, this is what it says.

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And when they're supposed to wipe out the Canaanites, including the women and the children and the animals, well, we've got to figure out what do we do with that?

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We can't say it isn't in the Bible. It's a different God, it's the Old Testament. Even the other day, my friend emailed me and he wanted to know what

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Bible to start reading. It doesn't strike me as a Christian man, not born again, goes to a liberal church and he said,

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I have a KJV and the NIV, which one should I read? I told him I'd send him a

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Bible with some study notes. He agreed to read it. And so we just have to take it for what it says, not cutting and pasting.

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I like this, I don't like that. Lord, help me to submit to whatever the

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Word says. And once people start going in this Sheilism direction, it never stops.

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Religious relativism is inevitable. That's exactly right. That's what

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Biola says, Bella rather, it is inevitable. And so we sometimes as evangelicals can act like neo -Orthodox folks.

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Neo -Orthodox folks teach that, among other things, that the Bible is not really inspired unless it's really moving you.

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The parts that move you are inspired. The parts that you underline, that's really the good stuff.

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That's really what God is speaking through and moving through. Well, it could be the same for us.

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When we cut and paste and say, I don't wanna talk about reprobation, I don't wanna talk about wrath, I don't wanna talk about eternal judgment,

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I don't wanna talk about vice lists of sin. I wanna stay away from talking about homosexuality as sin.

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I wanna stay away from adultery as sin, fornication as sin, gluttony as sin. I wanna stay away from all that.

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I just wanna be positive. I just wanna, you know, love each other. Well, whatever the

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Bible says, you ought to believe. And the way you can buttress yourself against any of this Sheila -ism, a personal faith, forgetting any kind of church, forgetting we, forgetting apostles, forgetting down, forgetting valid tradition that's passed down.

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I don't mean the church supplanting the truth, sola ecclesia, I don't mean that.

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But just things that are valuable in tradition like the Westminster Confession or the 1689 and other creeds and confessions.

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It's good to read those. So of course, A, I want you to read your Bible and find a way to read the

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Bible through in a year or two years so you read all the Bible, full counsel of God. When Paul was at Ephesus, three years, he taught all the

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Old Testament. Nahum, wrath, Amos, social justice, right,

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Malachi, hate, there's all kinds of things. Read it all, the

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Psalms, the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing, read everything so you can get a well -balanced diet.

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And then I would suggest that you pick up the Westminster Confession of Faith or the London Baptist 1689 and read that as well.

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I think it would be very beneficial to you. It's not over the scriptures, it's not equal to the scriptures, but you'll pretty much figure out quickly that it is a true representative sampling of what the scriptures teach, the highlights of scripture.

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Now you might disagree on a minor point here or a minor point there, but when you look at some of these confessions, why do they all agree on salvation doctrine, whether you're

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Presbyterian, Baptistic, or Anglican? Because the scriptures are clear about salvation and clear about the community of the local church and the we's and the us's and corporate identity.

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There's something to be said to be in the long line of baton passing and that we receive this.

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Of course, Paul received his teaching from the Lord directly, Galatians chapter one, but he passed it down, technically passing it to the next generation, discharging his duty.

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And so we take the word of God and we pass it to the next generation. So we guard against Shelahism.

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So we guard against my own little voice. See the problem with our own little voice, little

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Disneyland theology and trust your heart is our heart is wicked. Our heart is deceitful.

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Our heart is desperately sick and we can't know it. And so while sometimes we say, do you know what?

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I think I should do this. I think I should do that. It should be informed by scripture, by wisdom first, then we say afterwards,

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I think this is the right thing to do. I'm not saying you can never say, oh, you know what? I really think, you know,

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I just, my hunch, my impression, my feel for this.

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Of course you can say those kinds of things, but impressions are impressions and hunches are hunches and feelings are feelings.

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And they are subordinate to the word of God that is unchanging, that isn't full of feelings and hunches and whims and everything else.

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You have to just be very, very careful. And so putting feelings and hunches and gut feels and intuition down as a caboose is the way to go.

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Our culture just jams it up to the front. Intuition can be fallible. Now, sometimes it's informed intuition and you can make a good decision.

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But when you make intuition, your faith, now we've got a problem.

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Faith is outside of us in the object of Christ Jesus and in His word. It is outside of us, extra nos.

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It is unchanging. That is to say, the object of our faith, the faith that was once delivered, not our subjective faith where we believe, that's important to believe, but what we believe in, the object of our faith, the faith, definite article, that we're to contend for this faith.

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It's outside of us. And if we are alive or dead, it's the same. Jesus is the same.

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The Bible is the same. If we were never born, it's the same. It's not what it means to me. It's the same.

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We must believe in that, the faith of Christ Jesus shown in His word.

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But when we make our little voice, the object of our faith, we're doomed into Shelahism.

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I don't want to love myself. I do, and I hate it when I do. I don't want to be gentle with myself.

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I am, and I hate it when I am. I don't want to just say that my goal is to take care of each other.

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That's moralism. That's Mormonism. That's not Christianity, take care of one another.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbors yourself. Of course, we take care of one another.

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We take care of the church. But that's not how we define our religion. Our religion is defined in a person,

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Christ Jesus. And He has said, this is my word, so you can understand who

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I am, what I've accomplished, along with the Spirit and my Father. And so today on No Compromise Radio, I've talked a lot about Shelahism.

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I believe in God, I'm not a fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way.

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It's Shelahism, just my own little voice, my own Shelahism. It's just to try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself.

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You know, I guess, take care of each other. Well, if you're listening today and you have an ism, and you're John -ism, or you're

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Cindy -ism, or Mike -ism, then I suggest you repent and replace it with, what does the

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Bible teach about Christ Jesus? What does the Bible teach about God Himself? What does the

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Bible teach about all kinds of doctrines, and you'll accept them as outside of you, yet gladly you have received them revealed by God Himself?

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That's much better. That's called Christianity, not Shelahism. No Compromise Radio, with Pastor Mike Abendroth, is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.