David Platt’s Radical and the Glawspel (Part 2)

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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

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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.

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Today is, in real time,

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Steve, October 1st, 2020. Okay. That's amazing.

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It's already October. Yeah. Actually, it feels like it's January of 2027 right now.

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It's the longest decade of our life in 2020. Yes, it is. But isn't it interesting if you just think about, well, you know, everybody's saying what kind of year this is and all these things that have happened.

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You know, in light of James 4, if the Lord wills, we'll do this or that or the other. People have all kinds of plans, and they're going to go to school and university.

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They're going to go to work. They're going to go to the grocery store. They're going to travel. They're going to have tourist things.

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They're going to go on vacations. And we all have to put it at the feet of the Lord and say, you know what, if you will.

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It's a good illustration of that. It reminds me of a very, there was a very dark period in my life, you know, when

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I was on the sheriff's department, unsaved. And I had basically planned everything around overtime, you know, because the one thing the department was never short of was overtime.

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And guess what? Even as time went forward, and I'm about to give the punchline here, we never ran out of overtime.

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But what happened was our union, because the county cried poverty, agreed for like one year not to pay us overtime.

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We got saved overtime. And it had never happened. And, you know, and so it's like now, you know, with COVID, things that never happened and we think we presume can never happen.

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And, you know, you find out you should be thinking, if the Lord wills, you know, that kind of thing, because it could never happen where I don't get paid or it could never happen where this, well, yeah, it probably can.

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Or it could never happen that I might go to jail for hate speech because of the new administration. Nope, never, never.

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Just for like preaching the gospel, it could never happen. Well, you know what? Maybe a lot of people,

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I never thought about this until now, Steve, maybe a lot of the social gospel people, which isn't a gospel at all.

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It's not good news. It's just more law, more to do. Maybe they're kind of setting themselves up so they can just keep preaching that because the social gospel isn't going to be illegal.

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Yeah, they'll be exempt. You know, it's like we examined your preaching for anything offensive.

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You were found innocent. Just because it perfectly aligns with what the world is selling. I mean, we found no offense of the cross.

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None of that nasty preaching. You know, yours is very nice. Steve, was it

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Luke Giglio, whatever his name is, or someone else when

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President Obama's second inauguration needed a person to personally lead the prayer?

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And I think Rick Warren did it four years earlier and then they needed someone else. And someone dug up that 20 years ago he said something about homosexuality is a sin that's forgivable.

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And then they canned him. Yeah, so he had to squeeze out. So do you have to go back 20 years to find that out?

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Well, you know, in our society today, anything you've said from the time of birth forward can be used against you.

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And by the way, don't people learn and grow and mature? No, not acceptable. You know, and that's why, you know, every

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American like, you know, George Washington, it's fine for us to judge him by 2020 standards as if he went to, you know,

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Harvard and just graduated with, you know, a complete degree in wokeness.

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Speaking of which, I think that, and correct me if you think I'm wrong, I think that the woke evangelical church in America today, if you trace its lineage in the little family tree, goes back to Tim Keller primarily.

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Well, I can't really argue that other than to say, you know, maybe Tim probably also has some forebears, you know, but I, but I, I think with, with him and I, you know, what

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I think of Tim Keller, but I, his teaching, I don't know him personally, but I just think the, for you to go, for anyone to go into New York City as a

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Presbyterian and get any kind of following, that tells me something.

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Now, it could be an amazing work of God, or it could be that people really like listening to you quote super intellectual stuff and, you know, you don't really get too heavy and you're not always forcing this kind of Jesus stuff on us.

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Wasn't it said by someone that the most Presbyterian thing about Redeemer Press is its name?

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I think that was you. So today on No Compromise Radio, I'm with Pastor Steve Cooley, and we're talking a little bit more about the blurring of the lines of law, do, gospel, good news, done, especially in light of my sermon this coming

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Sunday in James 5, where the rich people, James is going after.

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And so we know people in pulpits across the land that use James 5 to make believers feel bad about having extra resources.

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Would that be fair to say? Yeah, and I think we've addressed this somewhat before. I mean, being rich, if it weren't for rich Christians, a lot of ministries would be really hurting.

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A lot of missionaries would be really hurting. You know, I mean, I know of translations of the

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Bible and whatnot that have been funded by one or two people. So, you know, is it bad to be wealthy?

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No. Is it bad to hoard your riches for absolutely no purpose whatsoever?

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I mean, if I had a billion dollars and all I was really concerned with was making my second billion, well, now there's a problem.

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You would agree with me, Steve, in light of that. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

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They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

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First Timothy six. How are they going to do good and be generous if they gave it all away?

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Which they could give it away if they want, but that's what they do. And then they just trust the Lord that he'll be able to.

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We don't care if rich people want to give all their money away. We just care that pastors are trying to guilt rich people to give it all away.

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Or how about even people in the suburbs to act radical for Jesus? Well, you know, Jesus did say to the young rich man, act radical, take what you have and sell it and give it to the poor.

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I know they use that. I know they use it. I mean, and isn't that what Jesus said, though?

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Isn't that what he told the rich young man? He was like, young man, get away from that money.

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You know what that makes me think about? Yes, I do. Of course,

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Christians should share and be generous and all that stuff. But to live a radical life, which, you know, you know, it's radical,

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Steve, is when you blur law gospel, because here's what happens if law is due and gospel is done.

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How do we receive the benefits of this good news of the Lord Jesus? And if you blur law gospel, here's how you receive those benefits.

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It's not by faith alone, sola fide. It's by surrender. It's by following.

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It's by submission. It's by all these other things that are sanctification words.

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Yeah. And it winds up, you know, I hear echoes of all kinds of things. The higher life.

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Mm -hmm. That's exactly right. Keswick stuff. Yep. Keswick sanctification. All these kind of things, you know, you need to live up on a mountaintop and isolate yourself because that's where you get all the really spirit, just like Moses did.

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Steve, this is like a super Christian. Yeah. When, you know, as Heidelberg Catechism says, you know, even the strongest men, even the most mature men and women, they struggle.

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They're far from being really, you know, like Christ. How about this here?

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Platt in his book called Radical. We will determine not to waste our lives on anything but uncompromising, unconditional abandonment to a gracious, loving

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Savior who invites us to take radical risk and promises us radical reward. Steve, how is your unconditional abandonment today?

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Do you really think you're unconditionally abandoned to God today? Abandoned to God.

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Sounds like a Steve Camp. I tossed all these CDs, by the way.

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So did I. Just couldn't listen to them anymore. Yeah. I mean,

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I mean, and there are echoes here of Jonathan Edwards, you know, in our resolutions, you know, are resolutions bad?

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No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if, you know, my goal, my purpose in life is to measure my godliness in terms of fulfilling laws that I make up.

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First of all, it's self -defeating, unless I make the laws really easy. I mean, you know, if Steve's making the laws, dude, we're all going to...

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They're obtainable. Yeah. You know, it's like no, absolutely no graham crackers after 8 p .m.,

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you know what I mean? It'd be stuff like that. So when you confuse law gospel and when you start talking about categories outside of sola fide for your, you know, the instrument of saving faith, then guess what happens?

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You get these laws that are above and beyond the regular Bible laws, and that's called neonomism or legalism.

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And you've got people that run around and they never know if they're saved or not. And you maybe got to get rebaptized.

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I mean, Fonville says it's a taxing legalism. Well, I mean, just even imagine being a rich person and you're like,

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OK, how much of my money do I have to give away so that I'm not sinning? Right. I have a million dollars.

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At what point can I stop giving it away? What's the answer?

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And, you know, I don't know. Does he ever give an answer? I mean, I didn't read the book, but I'm just kind of wondering, you know, well, having five hundred dollars in your bank account, that's

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OK. But if you get to two thousand, dude, you know, you're in trouble. Steve, I have a question that Platt asks and I'd like to ask you.

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OK, ask away, fire away. I'm not afraid. I need you to desperately consider whether you have ever truly, authentically trusted in Christ for your salvation.

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It's a hard question to answer because we have trusted in Christ for our salvation. But have you truly trusted?

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That's adding extra stuff. Knowledge, assent, trust, truly trust, authentically trust, magnificently trust, trustingly trust, perfectly trust.

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Trust beyond a doubt. I thought that the object of our faith was the perfect one and that we could even receive the benefits of the

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Lord Jesus through a less than perfect faith, because when do we ever have a perfect faith?

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Well, that's true. But Mike, as you well know, you can get to ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent perfection.

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And that's that's really what the law requires. I don't know why, but I'm thinking of some kind of broken down, nasty old

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PVC pipe. But it's, you know, people are like pouring Evian into it and some of that Evian comes through.

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The source is yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy. Do you drink Evian? You're drinking Polar Springs. Why? It's spring water?

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Because that's what the store carries. So that's what we get. How about like protein drinks? You've been drinking those lately or anything?

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Yeah, sure. I have protein drinks. OK, last last dumb question before we get back on the topic. It says

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Poland Spring, born in Maine. I thought it's from Poland.

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Well, Maine is actually a province in Poland. Many people don't know that. Oh, that's OK. Now I get it.

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Is that why all the people from Quebec drive down to Maine? At least they used to. Because it's part of Poland. Hey, I've been to Poland.

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I can't speak one word of Polish. Well, sometimes you do, but it's usually when you're asleep.

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What if they pulled up everything I said regarding Polak jokes in 1972?

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Would that disqualify me from ministry? Well, you wouldn't be able to go to Poland for ministry. I know. They go, oh, we can't trust anything this guy says, because in 1974, when he was in junior high, he told, you know, this list of jokes.

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Steve, I know this isn't a political show, but what if you can't tell jokes anymore? I'm not saying Polak jokes were good jokes, but there's something to be,

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I mean, to be said for even Polish people joking about certain things in their own cultures that they do in a funny way.

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I mean, can you even watch the big fat Greek wedding now without saying, you know, oh, this whole Windex thing, you know, or whatever?

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Everything, everything is offensive. You know, we're not allowed to laugh at it, even at ourselves these days.

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You know what it just dawned on me, Steve, when you said that everything's offensive these days, except we don't think we as unbelievers would be offensive to God.

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Absolutely not. Talking today about Platt's radical book, and even though it was written a long, long time ago, and we don't want you to do what it says because it's got bad theology and practically it ends up poorly.

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But because of James 5 and this denunciation of rich people, we've noticed that pastors have taken that and then made people feel bad for having things.

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And so we want to talk a little bit about that today. We want you to be good stewards and we want you to be generous, but we don't want you to fall prey for pastors that make you feel bad about having some clothes in the closet or winter clothes upstairs or whatever they have.

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I mean, you were saying earlier how this ties into today's kind of woke -ism, you know, it's kind of a preface, an introduction to woke -ism.

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And when you think about it, you know, what are some of the things they say now? You know, well, you might be a racist.

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How do you know that you're not? You might, you know, even if you're 99 .9 % not a racist, there's still that 0 .1

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% that you have to expunge, you have to get rid of. And it's the same thing. It's this purity test that A, nobody can pass and B, is not the gospel.

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Jesus Christ is the gospel. And, you know, I even mentioned before we went on the air, this idea of necessary implications of the text.

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If somebody can show me where money is evil instead of the desire for money being the root of all evil, or if somebody can show me that my sin is significant enough that even with faith in Christ, I can't get to heaven, well, then

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I'm going to listen, right? If I have the wrong, because that would mean I have the wrong gospel. The gospel has been taught to be wrong.

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The gospel has been presented wrong out of the Bible. And obviously, I would say the Bible must be in error, in error.

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Jared Rafferty Error of caldees. Well, I mean, this whole, this purity thing just kind of drives me crazy, because it's not, it's adding to the gospel.

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I mean, just full stop. Steve, what do we do? And I think Fonville quotes Graham Goldsworthy, the theologian, along these lines.

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What do we do with people who say they're Christians, and they could articulate the gospel, pastors, yet when you listen to them, their entire messages,

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I mean, their entire set of messages, week after week after week, are pretty much devoid of the gospel.

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I got a call yesterday from someone, a NoCo listener, said, you know, our pastor preached from a

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Psalm, and he mentioned Jesus one time, and that wasn't even about his redemptive work. And so, we say we believe the gospel, and then all of a sudden, all of our preaching is law.

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Doesn't that betray really what we think about the gospel? Yeah.

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I mean, I, you know, could you say, you could argue as the pastor, and you know, maybe I would have argued this at some point.

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Well, yeah, I believe in the gospel, and we teach the gospel, but I have to give you lots of law so that you'll feel bad enough to believe the gospel, or so that you'll really understand what

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Jesus did for you, right? And can that be the point of some messages?

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I used to think that the best sermons I heard were the sermons that, where I would just say, you know what, there's no need to open the door because I'll just go underneath it, right?

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I mean, I just got beat down so bad that I don't need it. Now I'm like, well, okay, I think it's all right for me to reflect on my life while I'm listening to the message and think, yep,

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I am a horrible sinner. Yep, I've done a lot of horrible things. But I hope by the end of it, especially if I'm preaching it, and I hope any sermon

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I'm listening to, I hope I go, I am a terrible sinner, but I have a glorious Savior who paid for all of my sins.

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Don't we preach in light of Jesus is not in the tomb anymore? Yes. Uh, here's that quote from Graham Goldsworthy.

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The alternative is to preach law and to leave the impression that the essence of Christianity is what we do rather than what

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God has done. But you know what, Steve, if that's the case, then every week we tell people about Jesus, come on.

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A, it's going to be boring and B, they're going to be crazy antinomians. Well, first of all, if it's going to be boring, then you know where the most boring place is?

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Heaven. Well, yeah, and we know that's not going to be boring. So, yeah, and as far as antinomians, well, you know what, from a worldly perspective,

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I totally get that. You know, if you say, well, you have nothing to fear because Jesus paid for all your sins, then the logical extension is, well, then you can just do whatever you want.

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And so, I would say, well, that's wrong because Christians act out of gratitude, right? They want to please the one who bought them, right?

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Not out of, you know, this dreadful obligation, but this incredible obligation.

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I think I might write that down, incredible obligation, because in light of what's been done for me, how do

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I want to live? And it's differently, right? And, but I would, you know, even as you mentioned that Goldsworthy quote, the difference between do and done, doesn't that really separate every religion in the world, right?

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Every other religion says, you have to do things. You, you, you, you, you, you have to make yourself right.

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And so, and the gospel is, Jesus did it all. And God justifies you, that is to say, declares you right and positionally makes you right because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

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In other words, in heaven, it's not like I'm going to not be right. I am right.

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I am right. Why? Because I'm in Christ Jesus. And I just think that, so, so what this is doing then, it's really making

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Christianity like every other religion, if I could put it that way. Practically speaking. Yes. Yeah. Well, if it's, you know, unconditional surrender and willing to sell all and all these other things,

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I'm thinking, you know what, I don't have any problem with, like you said, law sermons. And if you need to tear people down to build them back up again, that's fine, right?

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I'm preaching this Sunday about the Lord's return and getting persecuted in James 5, and it says, do not grumble against one another, right?

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So, when there's a lot of pressure in life, we grumble against each other, right?

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Our spouses, our friends, people we work with. And the word there for grumble is, and the

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Lord said, don't do that. You know what? I'm studying that this week. I stand convicted. I do that with my wife.

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I do that with my kids. I do that with you. I do it with all kinds of people. I was going to talk to you about that. Petey - Thanks. I mean,

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I could cry now just thinking about it. I don't want to do that. But you know what? Jesus never did that, right?

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He doesn't have Peter and he's like, in a sinful, grumbling way. No, because he's sovereign.

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He's providentially ruling all these things. But Jesus is my stead and my, he's the one that merited salvation for me.

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And so, I don't want to do that anymore. Petey - Can you imagine, you know, taking a step further, Jesus had

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Judas with him. Petey - Yeah, I know. And did he ever say, Judas, man, that guy, you know?

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Petey - And in fact, I would argue, I mean, this is in the blank spaces of scripture.

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So, you know, burn it if you don't like it. But I think there was genuine heartbreak for Jesus, the man,

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Christ Jesus, as Judas betrays him. Because he was his friend. He loved him.

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He cared about him. And to know, you know, I don't think he took any joy whatsoever in Judas's fate.

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None. Petey - No, it's, and you read the Psalms too, and I'm sure that was reflective of the Lord's heart about you have somebody that was close to you, and then they stab you in the back.

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And they betray you and the heartbreak of betrayal. That's humanity. He was truly human.

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And so, therefore, he experienced all those things and felt all those things. Steve, I guess what we're really after is while people watch

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Joe Osteen and say, you know what? That's just all law. Petey -

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But they don't do that. They think it's great because he's so affirming, right? They do. They listen and they just think.

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Petey - Well, I mean, the no compromise listeners. Petey - Yeah. Petey - But I also want you listeners, while it's easy to spot

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Joe Osteen's error, this is, you know, he doesn't understand law gospel. I don't want you to fall prey to it in your own churches when your pastor basically tells you the essence of Christianity is the two great laws, right?

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That's like you see these signs or you ask somebody, what's your church all about? That's a good question. Could you please summarize what your church is about?

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And I would say nine out of 10, they're going to say, love God, love your neighbor. Petey - Which is the summary of the law, folks, the two great commandments.

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Petey - How many will say every week, our responsibility, both corporately and then privately in evangelism and our own

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Bible study is Him we proclaim, present tense? Petey -

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I know, I know. But think about it. How many church signs, you know, here's what we do.

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What are we all about? This would be a good white horse in, you know, Shane Rosenblatt thing, you know, interviewing people.

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What's your church all about? Can you summarize your church? Petey - We just love people. We love the

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Lord. And by the way, while I'm at it, when people are trying to say on their website, what our church is all about, we love people.

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Well, that's fine later. But I also hate it with, well, people ask, what do you want to wear?

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What can you wear? We just, you know, come as you are, casual. You want to wear a suit? Fine. You want to wear shorts? Fine. Would you just stop saying that?

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It so bugs me. Petey - What to expect when you come to our church. Petey - I want to give them what to expect when you're expecting.

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Cushy chairs. 508 -835 -3400.