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Pastor Mike talks about a variety of issues today, including a coloring Bible.
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. Lots of stuff here on my desk. What do we have? Why I still don�t care much for Karl Barth. Ten questions to ask a pastoral search committee. Remembrancer of daily duties, John Love.
Lots of stuff here. Why we should avoid Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Okay, I did need that. I�m going to save that for later as I�m talking out loud. Giving gifted women a chance in the church. Hmm, where do we go?
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Fenton Bible Church at Fenton Park Bible Church. I�ll be there in late October for the Reformation Conference, the Five Solas of the Reformation and the Gospel of John. And if you are a person who is whining about a critique of Rome because of the 500th year anniversary, I don�t know what to tell you.
I think Rome, Roman Catholicism, has so permeated evangelicalism that most evangelicals are more papish than they are of believing the Reformed doctrines. And if you just look at the Solas, the doctrines of grace, or whatever, they exist, they, the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.
And so what are you going to reform? Well, you have to say, well, the Catholics taught a primus scriptura, and that is Bible tradition and the magisterium, and we teach sola scriptura. And then you say, well, it�s sola gratia, the Reformers are teaching, because the Catholics were teaching it was grace, yes, but grace was a substance, it was a medicine, it wasn�t an attribute of God, and you, with your free will, cooperated.
I mean, to me, that sounds like modern-day evangelicalism. You�ve got primus scriptura because you�re so charismatic, you�ve got impressions and feelings that are equal to Scripture, you�ve also got a free will and cooperation and synergism.
That�s just Roman Catholicism. And if you look at sola fide, it is faith alone in Jesus, and then now what do you have in lots of evangelicalism, with Baxter and salvation by allegiance alone, you�ve got a gnomism, a neo-gnomism, it�s something besides that, a final justification.
It�s the first justification, and then you�ve got your own works, not as an evidence of your salvation, but as a condition, as a ground. And so we sound like, basically, Roman Catholics in modern evangelicalism, so we have to talk about these things up and against the Roman Catholic Church.
If you think that�s not nice, I don�t know what to tell you. It�s not nice to bring in man-centered, synergistic, damning heresies and doctrines either. That�s not very nice. So, anyway, that would be a little thought of mine on no-compromise radio.
All right, let�s do this one here in front of us, in front of me. Where is that piece of paper? Some Christianity Today things that I just wanted to talk about. I don�t know where we�ll go or how far we�ll go.
This is true. This is from Crossway, ESV .org, Illuminated Bible. This is the Art Journaling Edition, English Standard Version. It says, �Read, meditate, create. How can I make this up? �Creatively interact with over 500 illustrations throughout the full ESV text, inviting God to open your eyes to the beauty within Scripture.
Okay, so, Mike, here�s my question. What does that first part of the sentence have to do with the second part? �Creatively interact with 500 illustrations. Okay, you want to doodle while you�re memorizing a verse.
I�m memorizing 1 Peter 1 now, �Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope. And I�m just doodling while I do that, doodle-do.
I don�t know how that would work for me because I don�t really like to write in my Bibles except for pencils. I don�t like to write in my books except for pencils. These yellow markers, no, that would be a venial sin, pencils, pencils only, pencils, pencils, pencils, pencils.
�Creatively interact with over 500 illustrations throughout the full ESV text, inviting God to open your eyes. This is the part I don�t like, �inviting God to open your eyes to the beauty within Scripture.
Illuminated Bible. Well, all right, if you think about the Holy Spirit�s work today, oh, He convicts and He seals, He revealed, He inspired, He illumines, revealed, inspired, illumines. Well, this is an illuminated Bible.
I just assumed and figured that when I read the Bible, the Spirit of God puts the light on so I can understand spiritual truth because He needs to help me. This is a illuminated Bible, so I would never pick that.
That�s just really a bad name. That�s a bad playhouse name. And then it says, �inviting God to open your eyes to the beauty within Scripture. Why don�t they put that in every Bible? If you�re a Christian, the Spirit of God illumines your mind.
So, anyway, I just, an art journaling edition, really? Now, out of all the Bibles that are there and out there, if you�re going to get some kind of Bible besides just a standard Bible with some references, if you get a study Bible that tells you what the text says and means, helps you understand it, fine.
That study Bible kind of thing, I like. I don�t like a life application Bible, and here�s how you apply things, and here�s a, you know, teens Bible, and here�s the Navy Bible, and here�s the Coast Guard Bible, and here�s the sports Bible.
Those things, I just think, are awful. And here�s another one in the realm of awful, and the ESV Crossway does a lot of good. This one, I just think, you know, enough is enough. The Reader�s Bible, okay, we don�t have the chapters and verses, or the verses at least, okay, the Systematic Theology Bible, the Life Application Bible, the Gospel Transformation Bible, just how many can we get?
And aren�t we a little late with this, the Art Journaling Edition? I�d like to see what one of the pictures is, but I would be afraid. Now in Evangelical White Lies, I think we sold a whopping zero copies last month.
A book that I wrote a couple years ago was published last year, Evangelical White Lies. Because I�ve been sick, I haven�t been working on any books, but hopefully within the next year, there will be a couple out.
I wrote a chapter about Bible characters and preaching Bible characters at the expense of the text. Now there are exemplary types of preaching, that is, you could preach an example, 1 Corinthians 10, �Don�t do what Israel did in the desert.
You see that in Hebrews chapter 3. And if you said, �Oh, see what this person did, therefore that�s a good illustration, and this particular man, Abraham, he walked by faith, and you should also have faith in Jesus.
I understand where you�re coming from. Here I saw in Christianity Today with Harvest House, I think I used to be published by them, I never got, I think I got an advance, but never won royalty check, �Brave and bold, inspire your child.
By the way, they were good to me, I have no complaints about working with them. But I would wonder about this book, �Brave and bold, inspire your child to be like Miriam. Hey, why doesn�t God only, why does God only talk through Moses?
What about me? Leprosy. It�s called The Big Brave Sister. Hey, she was big, she was brave, she was a sister. By Rachel Spear Weaver and Anna Haggard, illustrated by Eric Elwell. Sarah Bessie said, �If you ever wondered where the women of Scripture are in the children�s book section, this book is your bright and bold and gorgeous answer.
Hey, yeah, why can�t I have some moralistic characters to follow for kids, too, or women? I�m sick of all those men, �Be like Joseph, be like David, be like Abraham, be like Nebuchadnezzar, be like Nabal.
I don�t know why, but that reminds me of my grandfather going over to his house, and even from an early age, you know, you�d go over there, Grandpa Abendroth and Grandma Abendroth, Henry and Hedwig.
True, she went by Erna. Very good to me, but they needed to get saved. I hope they did on their deathbeds. We would go to their house, and the first thing that everybody would talk about is having a highball.
And when you saw how much cheap alcohol was poured into one of those glasses, that would make you high, give you a headache the next day, too. Well, I was too little to have a highball. I don�t know if I ever drank with my grandparents, not even a beer, probably, when I was older and legal enough, but the highball thing.
So I don�t know why I thought of Nabal, highball, and I would have a little Shirley Temple. So they all got highballs, and I got, at the time, Sprite wasn�t big, it was 7-Up. And so I got 7-Up with a little Marciano cherry juice poured in just to make it a little colored, a little reddish, rote, and then a cherry or two.
That�s what I got. Didn�t make me high. Nabal. Be like Nabal. Be like Nimrod. Oh, he could be probably a good hunter. Was he the good hunter in the Old Testament? Who was the hunter? I don�t know. Be like Noah.
Be like Achan. Achan was Achan to steal something, that�s how I remember that. Be like Miriam. I�m assuming there were some good things that she did, like she was a sister, that was good. She was brave, and she was big, and bold.
Oh, man. If I did a sermon series on Be Like Miriam, and you did a sermon series, why would they be the exact opposite? Why would they not be exactly the same? If I did a sermon on justification by faith alone, Romans chapter 3, it should be exactly like yours.
I don�t mean delivered the same or the exact words, but the same main points because the text is the text. But what happens is we do these be like messages, be like Ruth, and when you need a husband to sleep at the edge of his feet like that, this moralistic character study, here�s what happens.
If you are going to do that, you need to be a skilled theologian to walk through the minefield of potential moralistic character studies. That�s what you have to be careful of. And there are some people that can do it, but most people can�t.
So brave and bold, inspire your child to be like Miriam. Maybe there�s a section there in the Pentateuch in the Illuminated Bible that you could journal as well. All right, we go from bad to worse. Here�s another ad in the little insert, not in Christianity Today, but the insert that goes along with it.
And this is, here�s the name of the book, Whisper, and it�s subtitled, How to Hear the Voice of God. Whisper. Now, I always think of Vesper services, and then you whisper at the Vesper services. This is a Multnomah book, crazy, I know, and this is written by a New York Times bestselling author, which is impressive, but I think you could buy those.
I�m not saying he did it, but there have been evangelicals who have bought those. Privileges. Order now, or access free sermon outlines, slides, video, and more at markbatterson .com. Mark Batterson. God often speaks loudest when we�re quietest.
That be like Sinai, Exodus 19? So what do we have here? It says, here�s the ad from Multnomah, not Multnomah, Multnomah, �The voice that spoke the cosmos into existence is the same voice that parted the Red Sea okay, so far so good, �and made the sun stand still in the midday sky.
See, Joshua 10, that�s my own little interpretive thing. Exodus 14, Genesis 1, I�m just giving you references. One day, one day, one day, this voice will make all things new, but it�s also speaking to you now.
Mark Batterson, bestselling author of The Circle Maker, that should tip you off. This is going to be muy mal, which helped over two million people learn to talk to God, wants to help you and the members of your church learn how to listen to God and whisper how to hear the voice of God.
You can just burn this book. This is what you don�t need. This is going to be awful. This is mysticism. This is radical Anabaptist flavor stuff, denying Sola Scriptura. Mark will introduce you to the seven love languages of God.
Really? God has love languages now. Interesting. Each of them unique and entirely divine. I used to have a Green Bay Packers bumper sticker. Vince Lombardi was the coach for a while. Later on, Bart Starr was the coach.
But I think after Vince Lombardi died, I can�t remember who was the coach, but then they got a coach who used to be the Notre Dame coach, or maybe he went to Notre Dame College, Dan Devine. And I remember Dan Devine, either for Notre Dame or Green Bay, some player fell out of bounds and broke his leg.
But I used to have a bumper sticker in my room with a John Brockington poster and a Ray Nitschke poster and a Bart Starr poster, all Green Bay Packers. I had a little sticker and it said, �The Pack is Divine.
That�s bad. D-E, divine. Some of them you might suspect, but others will surprise you. �By learning to tune in to and decipher each language, you�ll be able to hear His guidance in simple as well as life-altering choices.
Okay, what are those? If you had to give me the seven love languages God speaks, so then now you can recognize them in a whisper, what would those be? I think I�ve said this before, but it almost sounds like I�m bragging.
I�ve been to four different seminaries to learn. I have a degree from two seminaries. In one way, shape, or form, I teach at three other seminaries, and I don�t know what these seven are. At least it�s a perfect number.
I will at least grant you that. I�m thankful for that. So, �Mulnoma, what you got for me Hashtag, whisper, one, scripture, hoorah! Okay, that�s it. One love language, it�s done. It�s like Luther. In the old days, God spoke to us in a variety of ways, and now He speaks to us in Greek and Hebrew letters.
General revelation, yes, and then specific revelation is through the Word. Okay, here we go. Number two, it�s life-altering, �desires. That�s how God speaks. Well, see, here�s the problem with all this stuff.
My heart�s tainted, and I have the effects of the fall on me still, and I�m still sinful, and my desires then are awful sometimes. My desires don�t have good motives, many times. So we need a source outside of us, and that�s why we have the Bible.
It is outside of us. We are not going to taint the Bible. It is inspired by God, breathed out by God, protected by God. It reflects who God is. It is God�s Word. So my desires? I desire all kinds of things.
What if I desired a new wife? What if I desired more money? What if I desired not to go door-to-door in evangelism? What if I desired not to preach the gospel to the person sitting next to me on the plane?
What if I desired not to go confront someone in church discipline, step three? Really? This is exactly what I teach against when it comes to subjective mysticism. The third one is doors. You�re going to love me madly.
The doors? Wow, I thought they were like a rock band that was more pagan than spiritual. God speaks to you through Roadhouse Blues. God speaks to you through LA Woman. You�re supposed to marry a woman in LA.
Hey, that�s what I did. I met Kim. She was from Santa Cruz, and I wish they all would be California girls, and she was. She wasn�t an LA woman, but I met her in LA. That works out perfectly. LA Woman.
Dreams? Oh, yeah. Doors by the way. Open door sometimes means don�t be a fool and go through them. They always mean don�t make this equal to Scripture. We believe in Sola Scriptura, not Prima Scriptura.
And sometimes they mean don�t just stand there with the door closed, bash it down. So this doesn�t mean anything. Dreams? Really? I had a dream that an evangelical leader, this was just a few days ago, kind of a C-level evangelical leader, did something to disqualify himself from ministry, and he came and confessed it to me.
But it never happened. Maybe it�s going to happen. I�m going to watch for that guy in the news. Next time I see him, I�m going to go, �Hmmm, now I see. God speaks through people, promptings, and pain.
Ouch! Man, that hurt. I guess when I just touched that blazing cinder block that�s on fire in Northern California, Napa, it means don�t touch it. That�s what God says. Nerves, don�t touch it. It�s like my dad.
We had a dog growing up, and sometimes my dad would kind of lay on the floor in the living room and watch Starsky and Hutch, Starsky and Hutch, or he would watch the A-team. He was really deep. And he would have a beer and a glass, and he would say to that dog, because that dog liked beer, �If you drink that, it�s going to give you a headache.
That�s what my dad was whispering. It was a dog whisper. �Don�t drink that old Milwaukee, that Falstaff, that Pabst Blue Ribbon, that� I�m sorry, with a black, some awful black, not black label, that�s a Scotch, black hard down, black flag, we�re going to have a TV party tonight, black, I don�t know, it doesn�t matter, does it, but that will give you a headache.
My dad was talking to my dog that if you drink that, he�s going to whack you is what you�re going to get. Here�s how God actively speaks. This is going to cause so much chaos in your life, you need to run.
Scripture desires doors, dreams, people, promptings, and pain. Like what kind of prompting would that be? What kind of impression? Ask Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield about impressions. Impressions are simply impressions, and the way you hear from people is if they�re telling you some wisdom, you can go, �That�s wisdom but that�s not a whisper, that�s not the voice of God.
When God speaks, friend, it is different than desires, doors, dreams, promptings, people, and pain. You read the Bible, and that�s how God speaks today, and you can read Hebrews chapter 1. In these last days, he speaks to us through desires, doors, dreams, people, promptings, and pain.
No. No. This is awful, and I suggest to you that it plays to people�s laziness. Studying the Scripture, this document that was written in different languages quite a while ago in a different culture, at least I�m not Eastern, it�s difficult, and it takes time and effort and energy and sweat and toil and keeping your glutes tied to that seat until you�ve figured it out.
And then you have to, in my particular case, I have to get up and tell people, �Thus saith the Lord on Sunday. If I just got desires and doors and dreams and promptings and peoples and pain, what if people give me pain?
What if promptings give me pain? What if people don�t walk through those doors and I had a dream about a desire? Then what would I do? I don�t know what I would do. This is just mumbo-jumbo. This is, as I�ve said before, the Roman Catholic Church has snuck into evangelicalism by prima scriptura, Scripture�s primary, but all these other things follow.
This is radical Reformation, Anabaptist, Munzer type of craziness snuck in fanatics, enthusiasts who want to put something on par with God, and it�s not the magisterium and it�s not traditions, but it�s this.
So if you want to hear God speak out loud, you can do what Justin Peter says, and that is read the Bible out loud. God has spoken, and the Scripture�s friends are adequate, and they�re sufficient, and they�re adequate for everything you need, and they�re trustworthy, and they�re authoritative, and they�re clear, and they are profitable.
And you don�t need to have an experience or go inside. You can go outside to find the Scriptures, and you can read Psalm 19, and it�ll tell you how perfect they are. You can read Psalm 119, and it�ll tell you with an acrostic how perfect they are.
You can go to the life of Jesus and see in His life how He affirmed them, and how He did not deny them, and how He did not quote anything else, and He did not tell you to go inside because it�s the heart that is the wellspring of many, many sinful things.
And so that�s not where we hear from God. And there are times when you listen to people, prompting pains, dreams, doors, and desires, that you�re just going to have utter chaos. And so we want you to be warned from that.
God often speaks loudest when we�re the quietest. No.
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.
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