Evangelical Fads (Part 1)

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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

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

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My name's Mike Abendroth, and today is Tuesday. That means Pastor Steve Cooley is here to increase the

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Arbitron ratings. Artificially or otherwise, I am here to improve all ratings.

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It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God. That's what came into my mind, but it is a

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Tuesday, and we are going to talk about issues in the local church. What is the ology for church?

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Ecclesiology, but I'm just wondering if we should have terrible to fall into the hands of a living God Tuesday. Well, you know what we could.

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I don't know how many weeks we can carry on. I think you were just singing a, what were you saying about the smarty just before the show came on?

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Absolutely nothing. Nothing, you know, listen to the rhythm of the falling rain. Ooh, it is raining outside today.

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Maybe not on the day we'll air this show, but right now it's pouring. It's a beautiful October day.

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What do you, everything is live. Don't we do everything live? Well, we're doing this live right now.

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Unless this is some kind of inception dream. Moving right along. Today, we're going to have the theme, whatever happened to.

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Do you ever see those on the internet? Whatever happened to, which guy did it?

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Lever to Lever? Yeah, it's usually, yeah, Mathers. Yeah, Jerry Mathers. I only know that because I worked with one of his brothers.

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You did, seriously? Well, see, if I pulled up four here, we don't have to use them all, but I pulled up four, whatever happened to, is that you don't know about.

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This is unbeknownst to you. Unbeknownst to me. Whatever happened to the rock band, Men at Work?

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They all got saved and became Presbyterian pastors. I wish that would be the case as long as it was

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PCA or OPC. Wouldn't that be the interesting thing if the rock band got saved and then they became pastors who would only sing acapella without instruments?

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That would be very interesting. They sang that hit in 1982, Business as Usual. No, no, that was their album.

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Yeah, Men at Work. Yeah, what's the song that they had there? Who Can It Be Now? Yeah, that's right.

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So that's number one. See, isn't this a fun show so far? I don't know. I mean, we're going back to the 80s.

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We are. Whatever happened to Lee Major? Lee Majors? Yeah. Oh, he's doing hearing aid commercials now.

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This top says Lee Major, but it says Majors down here. The $6 million man, the fall guy.

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He moved to Florida to get away from the Hollywood glitter. But not obviously to Hollywood, Florida.

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Very good. Thank you. Number three, whatever happened to MC Hammer? He actually became some kind of minister or something, and he went through bankruptcy.

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I know that because I am a devotee of TBN. Thank you very little. Well, he was born

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Stanley Kirk Burrell in 1962 in Oakland, California. I don't know if you know that.

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Here come the hammer. He actually started a rap duo with other church boys called Holy Choir Boys. So it's getting kind of boring.

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Yeah. I mean, if it's rap, it's dead. All right, there's a reason why I picked this next one. This is no compromise radio ministry.

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We're just having an introduction. This is why if you're listening today and you're a pastor, you should have very short introductions.

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Very short introductions. Straight to the text. We tell the people that we train, you get one minute to get to the text. Because the text always preaches and sometimes introductions don't.

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That's one. Now I saw this man rummaging through some clothes, new clothes in the aisle at a

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Costco in Los Angeles years ago. Denzel Washington? Oh, close.

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Whatever happened to the actor, Eric Estrada? Eric Estrada, one of my favorite shows ever.

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Chimps, I mean chips. He sometimes now can be seen doing reoccurring roles in the bold and the beautiful daytime soap opera.

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Really? Some Dr. Pepper commercials. You know what we used to call CHP? The California Highway Patrol.

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You know what we used to call them when I was in the sheriff's department? Meals on wheels. Triple A with a gun.

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Oh, I like it. Well, today we're going to do the same kind of thing, except not with celebrities from Hollywood, but we want to talk about passing fads.

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Fads come and go. And it's the same in evangelicalism. So can you think, listeners today, of some fads that everybody said were the next big thing in evangelicalism, but now you cannot find them.

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Steve is laughing. Yeah, it's a silent laugh. Yeah, it was very silent. Have you ever heard somebody do a silent sneeze?

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Cute. My daughter does that. So can you think of some of the things that have happened throughout the years that everybody had to buy, everybody had to get?

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You had to get mouse pads with these kind of slogans on them or these kind of ministries, and we want to go back in time, whatever happened to, and the theme will be,

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Pastor Steve, today, these things have all tanked because they are fad -driven and they are not transcendent like the word of God, like Christ Jesus, and like the gospel.

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And my premise is when you move away from the transcendent to the transient, you're in big trouble.

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Yeah, you never want to be a transient. Now, earlier today, what you couldn't hear or see, for that matter, on No Compromise Radio, Steve's microphone was unplugged.

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And right now I have my hand on his microphone, Jack. Ooh, the almighty hand of power.

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All right, whatever happened to, what do you think? Let's use your list to start. Okay.

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And I'll correct it as we go, if need be. Well, let's see. What do you want to, whatever happened to the

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Left Behind series? I mean, I know what technically happened, you know, the end of it.

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The Pope got raptured. Yeah, it was great. I mean, there was the whole airplane scene, and, you know,

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I don't know. You know what, I must confess right here and now, I never watched either of the movies.

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Didn't they make just two? And I never read any of the books. No, I didn't. So I guess you're not qualified to make any assessment, young man.

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Okay. I'll recuse myself then. Yeah, yeah. In the true

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Supreme Court tradition. I've only recused myself of 25 out of 50 cases, but that's okay.

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I can still qualify for food stamps now. It's all good. Whatever happened to these books?

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I mean, I'm sure they were better than reading some kind of romance novel, but I think they fed into an unbiblical view of the essence of end times thinking, and that is

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Jesus will bodily return. He will return quickly, eminently, and his soon return should motivate

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Christians to live a holy life. You know what's interesting? I'll never forget, I had actually some coworkers who were carrying those books around, you know, reading them, and they didn't have a clue about the gospel, and that should be somewhat instructive as to the value of those books.

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You know, I mean, they fit a niche for a time, but ultimately, they didn't have enough gospel in them to scare unbelievers away from reading them.

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Well, I guess if so many people get raptured, then why be concerned if you are one of those who are gonna get raptured when everybody does?

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It's a pan -rapture. I wouldn't, yeah, a pan -rapture. You know, I'm reading 2

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Peter 3, in light of the coming day of the Lord. What did Peter say?

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Peter said, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him upon his return in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our

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Lord as salvation. So for us, I think that thing is past because it wasn't distinctively

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Christian, and it wasn't distinctively ethical in its eschatology. Right, it wasn't telling us how we should live today, in other words, in light of the

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Lord's soon return. Would you say it would be fair, Steve, to make this comment?

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I guess it's fair to make the comment, but in response to this comment, what would you say? When everybody is into something, it makes me question how biblical it is.

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Absolutely, because what happens is the truth divides. You know, you couldn't even get everybody to follow

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Jesus. As soon as he started preaching, people were leaving. Well, why was that? It's because the truth turns people away.

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People who don't love the truth, who don't love the Lord, are turned off when they read it, when they hear it, when they see it.

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Yes, and we're not after small is always better. We're trying to, you know, minister only to the small little church and no one else in some kind of hyper -Calvinistic exclusive manner.

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But on the flip side, I think those who want to publish books ought to say to themselves, I need to work with a publisher who's going to think about the glory of God, number one, no matter what the sales would be.

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So I should cancel out that new church motto, us four and no more. Is that done? Remember our new motto, instead of every member of ministry, every minister a slave.

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Ooh. Every member a slave. That's going to pack them. That's going to pack them. Didn't go over so well. We need a new building, but...

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Yeah, that might not be so, it's not so catchy. No Compromise Radio here with Mike and Steve on Tuesday.

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Today, we're looking at whatever happened to. But by the way, did you ever see the

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Door article on this? You know, when they were celebrating the 43rd book in the series at the

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Left Behind Ranch? I just always... No, but the Wittenberg Door is quite funny. That actually got me through seminary as an upperclassman.

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Is that what you use for your crib sheet in class? I almost call myself an uppercrassman. Number two is,

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I'm going to switch this one up. We're going to use Steve's list for the most part, but I'm going to just deviate a little bit. 1976, whatever happened to the

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I Found It campaign? Well, I mean, what a disaster.

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It's so nebulous. I remember that because, you know, I was boldly and proudly a member of the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. Also known as the Mormon Church, and I found it. And then there were, I remember there were

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Jewish people writing around with, I never lost it, and you know, just all kinds of...

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I did a little research, and this was originally developed by Campus Crusade for Christ. And I looked on their

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Campus Crusade for Christ international historical fact sheet. Now, there was not a comma between those two words, international and historical, but it's still a fact sheet.

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1976, I found it. Here's what they said. An evangelistic billboard bumper sticker campaign launched along with an 800 number.

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85 % of all Americans are exposed to the campaign. And by 1978, listen to this, campaigns are established in more than 100 countries.

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As a result, quote, more than 3 .5 million people became Christians, end quote.

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Yeah. You know, I can just remember, what was the guy who, Bill Bright?

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I remember reading an article, maybe it was in Time Magazine or something like that, where he said that something like 100 million people had come to faith in Christ through his ministry.

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And I thought, how do you verify a claim like that? But you know, this whole, the whole problem with I found it is the emphasis is, of course, upside down.

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I found it. Well, that implies what? That you were looking for it. But Romans three says what?

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That there is no one who seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become worthless.

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Well, far from being, I found it, the idea that I was even looking for it is not a biblical one.

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How would you like this for a bumper sticker campaign? Adam lost it. Well, that's true.

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Well, how about Galatians chapter four says essentially the same thing that you were talking about in Romans, writing the wrong, putting the emphasis properly where God is the initiator and Paul is inspired by God, the

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Holy Spirit, as he writes it. But it almost sounds like he corrects himself. He's not correcting himself, but he makes it more, he defines it more specifically.

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But now that you have come to know God, Galatians 4 .9, you've come to know God, which is true.

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Sure. Right. Or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things?

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And so Paul says, you've come to know God, but let me say this to make sure I emphasize the

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God word side is God has come to know you. And so that's what we don't like about the I found it campaign.

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My mother had a sticker on the car, by the way. Did she? I found it. And was she saved then? She was not saved, but we listened to Jimmy Swigert and Chuck Swindoll on the radio.

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I'm not putting those two in the same camp. We just listened to those two the same. Thankfully, thankfully you're not putting him in the same camp.

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So I found it has come and it's gone. By the way, if really 3 million people have come to know the

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Lord or rather be known by the Lord because of that, I'm wondering why we don't keep doing it. Right.

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Yeah, I mean, did it just kind of lose, was it an advertising campaign that just kind of lost its oomph? You know, you just measure the results.

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And then when they trail off, you go, okay, we had to come up with something else. A new slogan. That's true. Okay, well, whatever happened to number three?

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Number three. Okay, where should we go? That's number two on your list. Number two on my list. Okay, what happened to what would

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Jesus do? I don't know, but if we took all the bracelets made out of aluminum that said

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WWJD and put them all together and melted them down, we'd probably have enough for a Dagon idol to build as tall as a

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Statue of Liberty. What would Jesus do? I mean, yeah, I mean,

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I'll tell you what happened. It got replaced by Livestrong. Oh, very insightful.

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I mean, we just traded one in for another. What would Jesus do? I just always hated the question, I guess, because what would

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Jesus do? Everything perfect all the time. That's a pretty rough standard. The issue, and I think we've said this before, the issue isn't what would

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Jesus do, it's what does God command you to do in light of the finished work of Jesus Christ?

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So I don't know how that would fit on a bracelet. Yeah, I guess it'd have to be a bigger bracelet. It'd have to be, you know, sometimes they have these, you know, bigger models, things now.

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Or what about a big nasty gold chain that could have that all spelled out? Perfect, you know, if you do the knuckle thing and you make a fist and then it's

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WWJD with tattoos, you know, we'd always say what, in light of the gospel, what would

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Jesus tell you to do through his inspired apostles in the New Testament? But that just, what is that?

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In light of, I don't know. I don't know, it doesn't have a ring though, no. I mean, you know, a sound, it doesn't sound right.

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It's gotta be catchy. It's kind of like when Baptist preachers, or any preachers for that matter, need to keep their alliteration for their sermons, and so they change the meaning of the text so their alliteration works.

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Maybe we could get somebody to write a jingle for that. That'd be. Well, the only jingle that I know right now is the voice of Rudolph, for Rudolph the

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Red -Nosed Reindeer was actually a woman, but they disguised her name and they called her Billy, and she just died a few weeks ago.

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Really? Yeah. Sad. Okay, well, that was insightful. What would Jesus do? What happened to it?

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Like I said, I think it's just been replaced by Livestrong. Other things, you know, the culture is a lot more concerned with cancer and other things than what

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Jesus would or wouldn't do. Yes, once in a while, I think it's a fair question that a Christian can ask themselves.

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How would Jesus respond to the situation? And for instance, he didn't revile 1

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Peter 2, verse 23, when somebody reviled him, and we can see that picked up for us as well, that we're not to revile.

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And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4, when we reviled, we just blessed people. When we were persecuted, you know, we prayed for them.

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And so occasionally it works, but not all the time. And it puts the focus back wrongly upon Jesus's life, like we're to imitate everything he does instead of do what he says in light of what he is.

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Here's a situation where it wouldn't be prudent to ask yourself that question. Everybody's hungry in the house and you don't have that much to eat.

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So you go, what would Jesus do? Multiply the fish and loaves, you know, really doesn't help you. Yeah, I think that would be really bad.

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What would Jesus do when, I'm trying to think of something funny. I can't quite think of it. All right, number three is done.

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Number four is coming up. And since Steve's now texting people and he's on his Facebook right now, number four, prayer of Habez.

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Excuse me? I thought I was in Southern California. Prayer of Jabez. Break on through to the other side.

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Prayer of Jabez. Where is it? 2000, that was in 2000. Was it that long ago?

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Yeah, yeah. Man. Prayer of Jabez. And of course that was the prayer that really rocked the evangelical world and brought us into a closer understanding of what

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God wants us to have. Well, according to Bruce Wilkinson, I think he'd probably say the same thing and Multnomah publishers.

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Here is the prayer of Jabez's verse. First Chronicles 4 .10.

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Now Jabez called the God of Israel saying, oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my border and that your hand might be with me and that you would keep me from harm that it may not pain me.

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And God granted him what he requested. I like the verse, don't you? Yeah.

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Well, and also, you know, when Paul quotes that in the New Testament tells believers that that's what they should be praying for.

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I mean, people just ate this up. They ate it up. It's interesting.

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My brother, Pat Abendroth had said that if you, you know, you're supposed to pray this every day, by the way, if you just take a verse like this out of the

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Old Testament and just pray it every day, Pat said this, carried to a logical end, this would have

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Christians committed to an unwavering 30 day pattern of asking God to kill all of their enemies as is prayed in Psalm 143 .12.

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That wouldn't have sold very well. Pray the

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Jabez prayer every morning, page 86. I think, didn't Jesus say, speaking of what did

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Jesus tell us to do? We're not to pray vain, repetitious prayers. Yeah. And that would seem to fall in that category.

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Well, especially, you know, my jest with regard to Paul, there's no inclination either in the gospels or anywhere in the epistles, you know, in other words, nowhere in the

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New Testament, that this is any kind of a model prayer or anything that we should pray. Where is the model prayer?

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It's the, well, what's called the Lord's prayer, but we would know it as the disciple's prayer.

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Absolutely. How about this, Steve? Here's in the preface of the book, I want to teach you how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers.

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Double dog, dare you. Yeah. And, you know, the evidence for God always answers this prayer is that biblically, he answered the prayer of Jabez.

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When Jabez prayed, God answered it. And therefore he - Paul is in the Mamertine prison, or he probably wasn't, but whatever prison that was, he's praying the prayer of Jabez, increase my borders,

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God. Give me the next sell over. Yeah. I guess if, you know, the answers to prayer are yes, no, or wait, or later, or, you know, you just have to trust me.

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Well, that's, every prayer's like that. How about this on page 63? Our petition is for supernatural help to protect us from Satan's proven ability to make us come in second.

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But is it anywhere in the text, you know, where Jabez is praying? I don't, you don't see that.

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He wanted more land. That's what he wanted. You know, and it grew into this whole mythology of, you know, if you pray this prayer,

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God's going to, you know, do this, that, and the other thing, you know, infallibly, he's going to do that.

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And that's nowhere in the text. All right, now this borders on really bad, bad theology.

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Exceedingly bad. Exceedingly. You need to go to Phil Johnson's website on Spurgeon .org where he's got good theology, excellent theology, okay theology, bad, bad theology.

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He's got like a little picture of Satan there or something. Really, really bad. Yes, and so you've got bad theology to start with, and then it's mixed in with a horrible bit of theology like this on page 91.

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You will change your legacy and bring supernatural blessings wherever you go. God will release his miraculous power in your life.

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Now, that's Joyce Meyer -like. That's Benny Hinn. That's the kind of stuff, you know, this prayer cloth will unleash

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God's power in your life. Did we have that on our liner tag, that we're unleashing God's word? I think that's a no compromise.

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It's a little bit, I think it's a little bit different than that. You know, you do this and then this is, you know, the hose is kinked between you and God.

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And so you say this special mantra, this special supercalifragilisticexpialidocious thing, and then it's unkinked and the blessings will flow.

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Yeah, and God never fails to answer it. Anytime you read something like that,

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God always answers the prayer. He always grants your request as long as, you know, you say it in Jabez's name.

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It doesn't even make sense. I don't know what happened exactly when this book ran its course or what happened exactly to Bruce Wilkinson, but I don't think it was that good financially for him.

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So by his own life and by his own ministry and what happened to him with his global outreach,

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I don't think the prayer worked. Yeah. How about this? One last thing before we get to the next part, part two next week, prayer of Jabez.

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Did you know he prayed this prayer? Quote, his life was spared from grief and pain that evil brings. So I guess he, along with Enoch and Elijah, got transported up to heaven because he was translated because he didn't have the evil of death at the end.

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Well, how about the prayer of David? You know, an exposition of Psalm 51, where you just, you know, against thee and thee only have

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I sinned, you know, that kind of thing. Pray this every day and it'll keep you humble. That's a promise. Well, here's what we want to do on No Compromise Radio.

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Today in the Whatever Happened To part one series, Steve and I have just tried to show you these fads come and go and there'll be another fad soon enough.

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There'll be some kind of prayer necklace, some kind of book, some kind of something that everybody will be into.

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And if you don't have it, then you're, you know, old hat. I've got one that we can do in a minute. Okay. Amy Grant.

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Well, Whatever Happened To Amy Grant, I guess after her divorce, she married - Vince Gill. I thought she married

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Neil Cavuto. No, it's Vince Gill. They live down there in Tennessee somewhere.

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Well, I guess if God wants you to be happy more than he wants you to be holy, that would have been a good story.

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Yeah, but I mean, she was all the rage when I first, you know, when God first saved me and, you know, he had to have

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Amy Grant and then she had a baby baby and then she was getting a divorce.

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Bad. So what we want is we want you to look for things that are transcendent. That is, that go and extend beyond time.

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And those things are the gospel. Those things are Christ Jesus himself, the word of God. You've given everything, you've been given everything you need, everything pertaining to life and godliness, 2

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Peter. So why settle for the fads? Save your money is what I want you to do. Exactly. So give it to the missions, local church.

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Do something constructive for the kingdom with it. I think that would be a good idea. And then the time that you would waste reading one of these fad books, you could read

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Thomas Watson or some great Puritan or maybe even Jesus in the gospel of Luke. Listen, if you've got

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Thomas Watson, you could probably read like one Thomas Watson book equals 20 of these other books.

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The book you should get is Thomas Watson, Repentance, 400 years old. And it's whatever happened to it's still in use.

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Boom. 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.