Unadulterated Minds

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 ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I�m kind of tired today, but I�m going to act upbeat, right? I�m going to do the opposite of what my feelings and my body want to do.

You know how you hear from people, and they�re like, �Well, I just can�t control my temper and it�s, let�s say, a husband and wife, and they�re arguing, and things are getting a little heated, and the phone rings, and you immediately say, �Hello, Mike Abendroth but I can�t control my feelings.

If you want to write me, you can. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. I think we have about 29 people signed up for Israel, and we had a meeting this last Sunday. The meeting basically was, �Be ready for anything.

Who knows what goes on in Israel I don�t know if they�ll say we have to have vaccination passports by next February or not. We have until October-ish of this year, 2021, in order to cancel in case we need to.

Pat Abendroth, I think, has got 25, 30 folks as well, so we�re either going to have to get more seats, two buses, or some may not make it, so who knows? What is going on in No Compromise Radio world? Well, it�s harder for me these days, since I�m not a Twitter fiend anymore.

I will look at Twitter, and I do post weekly, maybe a video, a NoCo video, or the sermons from Bethlehem Bible Church on Sunday morning. I post those. I peruse a little bit, but it�s usually a lot of bad news, and if Twitter�s bad news, Facebook is worse.

Twitter�s bad news about other people, right? You have people that have disqualified themselves in ministry, and then now are back speaking again. Art is the man I�m talking about. Then you have Facebook.

It�s about bad people, ourselves, right, showing ourselves. It�s been good to have Pastor Steve back in the studio, and I don�t think I have any other announcements except that if you like to order Sexual Fidelity and you want to order 10 or more, I can get them to you for about $5 a piece, shipping included, so just let me know, mikeatnocompromiseradio .com.

Scoffers, Mockers, and Influencers in the Last Days

I want to talk a little bit today about skeptics, scoffers, mockers, and what�s another word? Jeers, flouters. Flouters. I don�t know why that strikes me in such a funny fashion. What is a scoffer? What�s a jeer?

What�s a mocker? People that they deride something, someone, somewhere, because they have utter contempt for that someone, some place, somewhere. The thing about scoffers and mockers, they�re kind of like evangelists, right?

They�re prosthetizers. They aren�t content to just think poorly about whatever they�re thinking poorly about, but it�s like it�s a sport and they can�t stop to rest while they�re sprinting and running until everybody else they know also scoffs.

I guess this could be a good social media thing, couldn�t it? We could turn this into anti-social media. By the way, I don�t know how often I talk about social media, so I better be careful, but you better be careful.

That stuff is for life. Scoffers, they don�t have good news like an evangelist does, even by definition, evangelist, right? The evangelist, good news. But they do, scoffers do recruit. Proverbs 29, 8, scoffers set a city aflame.

Paul was preaching, and before he quoted Habakkuk 1, he said, �Look, you scoffers. And then he said, �Be astounded and perish, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you scoffers.

You also, no-compromise radio listeners, know that Psalm 1 starts off this way, �How blessed is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

That�s exactly right. I mean, scoffers are basically like influencers. If you don�t know what an influencer is, capital I, influencer, it�s somebody these days, via social media, that has power. They have power to affect what other people buy, read, think, or do.

The top 10 influencers in the country on Instagram, by the way, in order, Ariana Grande, Dwayne �The Rock� Johnson, Selena Gomez, Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Nymar Jr., I don�t know him, I know the rest, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.

Influencers. Now, maybe some of them scoff, probably most of them do. Justin Bieber has professed Christ. Kim Kardashian�s husband has, our ex-husband. We have to say to ourselves, well, how do we listen to, how do we filter through what scoffers say, what influencers say?

Do they affect us? How do we navigate the world, the end times world that we live in, with all these people saying the opposite? So that�s what I want to talk about today on No Compromise Radio, and it�s basically from 2 Peter chapter 3, because I�m preaching through 2 Peter chapter 3, and I�d like to hear myself talk about it as a theological warm-up.

This is like a warm-up lap. You�re going to sprint the 440, but you just run around the track once first. That�s what this is. I encourage you, before we talk any more about scoffers in 2 Peter chapter 3, you ought to get yourself some commentaries.

Just think of the word �commentary� with the root word in �commentary which would be �ment. It would be �comment. And you would have theologians, hopefully Orthodox theologians, making comments about the Bible so you can understand it better.

And so a Calvin commentary is comments about the Bible written by John Calvin. And by the way, that one�s free online and worth getting, even if you have to pay for it, because he has good comments. I try to always read Calvin.

I�ve been reading Lloyd-Jones. I feel like I want to yawn on 2 Peter. And I have Martin Luther on 2 Peter. You heard of that guy? Not King Jr., but just Martin Luther. And so it�s good. It�s not good to just look at commentaries first or right away.

Who wants to not experience the joy of discovery on your own when you can study your Bible on your own? I�m studying the Greek and English as I start off my preparation. People ask me, �Well, how do you prepare for sermons

And I begin to read the passage in the morning in the original language and then in English. You can use a couple different English translations if you don�t have a Greek Bible. That will help you. As Lewis Johnson would regularly say, if you have 4 English translations, you can learn a lot even though you don�t know Greek.

You can�t learn everything, but you can learn a lot because you�ll see different words translated different ways and that makes you dig more. You want to discover why this is translated a certain way and these other ones don�t translate it that way.

And so that�s helpful. And when you read 2 Peter, you�re going to realize that God is just. God remembers Christians. He�s going to judge all unrighteousness. And He will He, meaning the Son will return.

He�s going to rescue believers and He knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation. And that will be the ultimate delivery, will it not? But He also knows how to judge. And even though you think He�s asleep at the judgment wheel, He is going to judge us.

And God, the Son, Jesus, has apostles. And Peter is one of those apostles. And by the insight and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter reveals what Jesus, the apostle sender, wants us to know. I could put it this way.

As Peter has been shepherded by Jesus, now Jesus shepherds us through Peter. Does that make sense? Very pastoral letter. You like to think it�s about false teachers, but really, it�s about who Jesus is and does He keep His promises, and will He, in fact, return.

And we need to make sure that we don�t just I�m going to just I�m yawning. What is going on here? This is bad. 2 Peter chapter 1 talks a little bit about the power and coming of the Lord Jesus. And remember the little preview of the second coming with the transfiguration that he talks about in verses 16 and following.

And then he talks about all these false teachers in chapter 2. One commentator, actually, that I read this week, commentary, comments, he said that �I like to think of the book of 2 Peter as a bologna sandwich.

Chapters 1 and 3 are the bread, the positive pastoral exhortations. And the middle chapter, chapter 2, is the bologna of the false teachers. I thought that was pretty good. And you know what that made me do?

No, it did not make me go out and buy some bologna. It made me think, what�s in bologna? Because what�s in a false teacher is a bunch of hot air, a bunch of liquid nothing, liquid goo, which is basically what bologna is.

You�ve got undesirable sections of an animal. You don�t want to throw them away because who wants to waste animals? But more importantly for these companies, I think, it would be fair to say that they want to make money.

So they�ve got undesirable parts of an animal, like let�s say you have a pig, you�ve got muscle fibers and connective tissues, you�ve got, well, you know, things like heart and liver, raw skeletal muscle, and a variety of byproducts.

Not the product, but the byproducts. And so what you do is if you�re going to make American bologna, unlike the bologna from the original Italian ancestor, mortadella, which is different, that�s just back and cheek of the pig.

But here, for America, you�ve got all this raw skeletal muscle, all the undesirable stuff, and they cook it down into like fine particles and it�s reduced to a batter. It�s just a bunch of goo. And they put that goo in a tube and then they take that liquid goo that�s just fine particles, commuted they call it, and they add some stuff and then they funnel it into a casing.

I guess you could add pimentos too and bake it. When was the last time you had some bologna? I�d like to have some bologna from Bologna, Italy, but I don�t think I want to have any American bologna. I remember when I was a kid.

The Foss�s had the first microwave in the neighborhood in a little cheap suburb in Omaha, Nebraska. And Tim, one of the kids, Tim Foss, he put a piece of bologna in the microwave because we didn�t know what it would do.

Just turn it on, just start watching all these little crew cut kids putting their faces by the microwave. No wonder I wear glasses now, watching this thing form into like a bowl. You could just put like ketchup in the bowl and you didn�t need a bowl.

He didn�t think about putting it on a plate or anything else, Tim Foss. Well the undesirables in bologna are the undesirables in the second chapter who scoff and who mock and say Jesus isn�t going to come back.

We need, as Christians, the message that Jesus is going to return. It doesn�t really seem like it. If it wasn�t for the Bible and faith and trust in the Lord�s words that he said I�m going to come back, I don�t know if it would even register.

I mean, when�s the last time you thought, well, Jesus is going to come back? There�s going to be a final judgment and return of the Lord Jesus. Most Christians that I know, they can accept the eternal nature of the Son.

They can accept the incarnation. They love it that they�re forgiven based on the Lord�s substitutionary work. They love the thrill of victory that is the resurrection of Jesus and even the ascension. But when it comes to the judgment, I mean, I could put it this way.

Just look around wherever you are now and everything that you see is going to be destroyed. I�m not talking about things only, I�m talking about people. The fire is coming and it�s going to wipe this earth out.

Everything that you own, all your cars, your house or houses, your friends, your family members, if they�re alive when the Lord returns, it�s going to be for unbelievers and for the world, ferocious, and for Christians, safe, secure, because the Lord Jesus is not coming back for their vengeance or to pour out his vengeance on them.

It will be for the ungodly. The world is not getting better. Postmillennialism isn�t true. It�s very popular these days, but the world is pretty bad, so how do we live? And I think 2 Peter 3 assists us.

It helps us. It helps us realize that, in fact, this is true. The Lord Jesus is going to come back, and even what he says about mockers, we see proven in our history. We are driven then to an ethical eschatology, to live a holy life, and if you go to the end of chapter 3, you�ll see he expects us to live in a godly way, as fruit, as evidence, as the Spirit of God works in our lives and renews us, and we receive his powerful work based on the work of Christ, not only for pardon, but for power.

We understand holy living is important, so here�s the point of these first seven verses of 2 Peter that I think he�s driving at. He wants you to have what we call a sincere mind, a pure mind. The day of the Lord is coming.

We are to get ready. That�s true. We are to look eagerly. That�s true. We are not to trust our hearts, but what the Scriptures say. That�s true. But it says in 2 Peter 3, verse 1, this is now the second letter that I�m writing to you, beloved, and both of them, I�m stirring you up, I�m stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, and he wants to remind you, dear Christian, and remind me, that we have to think clearly.

Instead of having an adulterated mind tainted with the undesirable baloney parts, we are to think sincerely. Our mind, our understanding needs to be unmixed. It needs to be pure. It needs to be sincere.

We need to think rightly. How do you navigate end times craziness? How do you navigate anything in the Christian life? No to the flesh. No to our own heart. No to pundits. No to politicians. No to godly, ungodly scoffers.

Sincere mind. Pure minds. The Bible mind. It is for your own protection. It is for the glory of the Lord Jesus. It is pastoral. I want you to be protected. How much more does the Lord God want you to be protected, and especially this doctrine that Jesus isn't going to come back, is fueled by people who want to live an ungodly way, by their own sinful desires.

So don't fall into it. And Peter is even saying, Beloved. He's affectionate with these words, and it's translated by some dear friends, but it really means Beloved. He says in chapter 3, verse 1, 8, 4, and 17, Beloved.

He loves his readers, and he has received that love from the Lord Jesus, and he now, as a tender shepherd, wants to come alongside and shepherd the people so that they're thinking, so they don't buy into pessimistic thinking, lethargic thinking, thinking that, you know, you can never have anybody critiqued, right, or to teach sound doctrine, exhort in sound doctrine, and refute those who contradict, Paul told Titus.

Peter's doing the same thing. This letter isn't written to false teachers. It's written to Christians about false teachers, they, they, they, they, they, in chapter 2, and now it's going to be chapter 3, Beloved, verse 1, verse 8, verse 14, verse 17.

And instead of this scathing rebuke, it's going to be, I want to remind you, I want you to understand, it's similar to chapter 1, verse 13, and chapter 1, verse 20. I want to remind you, I want you to understand.

This is just what he does in chapter 1 and in chapter 3. Memory is important for all of us as Christians. What's that old slogan? We tend to remember what we're supposed to forget, and forget what we're supposed to remember.

That's our peril in life. That's our negative lot in life, because we're affected by the fall. Peter says, this is the second letter I'm writing to you. What's the first letter? I will not waste your time with all the pontification about how many letters did Peter write, how many were lost, how many were found, is this Peter, is this fake Peter, is this pseudepigraph Peter, is this baloney Peter?

This is the second letter, and you'll see in both letters that he's trying to stir them up by way of reminder. Not perfectly matching, but not imperfectly mismatched. In other words, both are doing the same thing.

Look at chapter 1, verse 13 and 14, sometime in 1 Peter chapter 1, and you'll see some of the heart of Peter is the same. It's the second letter he's writing, and I'm not wasting my time by saying, well, this is 2 Peter, and who wrote 2 Peter?

It's nonsense to me. What is not nonsense is you need to have a sincere mind, wholesome thinking, pure minds. The English word for sincere, sincera, without wax. You go buy some pottery someplace, and if it was broken pottery, they'd put a bunch of wax and fill in the holes, but you could hold it up to the light and see if anything, you know, light would come through, and you would call that sun-judged.

That's what the literal word is for sincere, sun-judged, and the sun would judge if this was properly made or if it was broken. And therefore, Peter, with, Luke is trying to call me, but I'm going to have to wait.

Peter is trying to say, dear friends, I want you to have a sincere mind, thinking rightly about the return of Christ. Remember Jesus went to heaven, and those angels said, this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.

And I want to remind you, he's kind, he's not rebuking, he's not slapping around, as it were, metaphorically. I want you just to think rightly. We are a group of people, as Christians even, that struggle with thinking.

There's a book called The Christian Mind, How a Christian Should Think, and Harry Blamiers wrote that book, and his thesis in chapter one is, in the book called The Christian Mind, chapter one thesis, there's no longer a Christian mind.

I mean, I'm not talking about Middle Eastern meditation, I'm talking about biblical meditation in a good way. It's gone. High thinking, critical thinking, abstract thinking about God, contemplation of God.

I mean, even if I were to tell you, do you study the Trinity, and you're trying to understand essence, and will, and begottenness, unbegotten father, the begotten son, the preceding spirit, ontological, economic, eminent, ad extra, all these things, why would we even want to talk this way?

And so, one of my responses would be, is it good to contemplate who God is? Jesus said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and your strength. Sinclair Ferguson said of critical thinking, how we think is one of the great determining factors in how we live.

And therefore, we want to think the right way. Jesus is coming, so we want to live a godly life. Jesus has done all this for us, we want to live a godly life. The scoffers are saying the exact opposite.

Their heterodoxy is leading to heteropraxy. Karl Moberg wrote, and when I think that God, his son not sparing, sent him to die, I scarce can take it in, that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, he bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art. We want to worship God with a sincere mind, and it will change the way we live. When I survey the wondrous cross, love so amazing, love so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

That's Isaac Watts. Thinking rightly is the antidote to all false doctrine. Well, my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. If you want to get in touch with me, I'm going to be teaching a couple times over the summer, preaching seminars, once in Sacramento, once in Phoenix, email me.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church, firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.