Top Ten Books Christianity and Liberalism (Part 1)

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.

Reading Good Books as a Christian

Welcome back to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I am trying to be biblical. I am trying to provoke you to study the Bible and to say, hey, what'd that guy just say? How could he say it like that?

What is going on with him? Who is he? How dare he? The gall that that man has. I wanna push you. Now, as you get to know me, I think you'll probably think I'm nicer than at the very beginning, but this is what it is.

No Compromise Radio ministry, calling spades spade, calling clubs clubs, calling hats hats, and calling diamonds a girl's best friend. Hey, it sounds like Steve's here. Just started to make up funny jokes.

Listen, if you'd like to order my new book, The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, I think it's up to a number eight on Amazon now. Eight million. You can get it with the author's price with just some shipping thrown in.

I think it's 10 bucks total. And so I'm looking right here. My stack is down to about 20. I have about 20 more that you could order through No Compromise website. Info at nocompromiseradio .com. And you can study what it means, what it means to know God as a near Eastern monarch who reigns supremely.

How does that affect worship? How does that affect prayer? How does that affect lordship salvation? And so far, the reviews are good. I got a little jab from Gary Gilley, but hey, he's IFCA guy. What's IFCA stand for anyway?

Independent Fundamentals Churches Association? Or it could be. I fight Christians anywhere, but I'm not exactly sure. Boom, boom, boom. No, I appreciate Gary and his ministry. And that's fine. No bad press is still press, right?

Did Keith Richards say that? I'm not sure. Well, today we are still talking about books on No Compromise Radio Ministry. Truman, who was not from the Truman Show, Jim Carrey, but Harry Truman, not Harry Emerson, Fosdick Truman, but Harry Truman, the president.

He said something to the effect that leaders must be readers. And so you have to read. And if you're in gospel ministry and you're a Christian, you are in gospel ministry if you're a Christian and vice versa, it would behoove you to read good books.

I'm always reading. I fall asleep usually with a book and I'm trying to just squeeze everything I can into reading. My problem is I'm tempted by television. I'm tempted. We have a TV, but it's more of a monitor.

I don't get TV stations unless I turn the rabbit ear deal on. Here's a funny story. It was a couple of years ago. We got, someone gave us a larger TV. I think we had about a 12 inch wide TV and then we got something maybe 37 inch.

Does that sound right? 27, I bet it is. And we were watching some basketball game and my son said, I didn't know all these guys had tattoos because see on the 12 inch screen, you cannot tell, but on the bigger screen, you can see everything.

My problem is I'm tempted by watching something on the monitor and then not reading as much as I ought to. When I first got saved, I never even was tempted. I just wanted to read because I'd had enough of that septic system called the device, a TV device.

So anyway, I'm trying to encourage you to read. And here's the scoop. I'm trying to give you 10 books that when I first read them early on in my Christian faith, they rocked my world. They were books that would inevitably make me do a radio show on them.

Who would have thought back in 1989 when I first got saved that I would be doing Christian radio 21, 22, 23 years later. How long we'll go on this radio show? I don't know. That's a good question. You don't start sending me, you know, $9 million with, no, that was a 900 foot Jesus.

How much did Oral Roberts need? 4 million? You don't send me $4 million within the next six months. I think we might have to go off the air. We have a policy around here. We don't ask for money and we have a pragmatic effect that follows from that.

We don't get any. The Lord has been very good to us and we have paid all our bills now for three years and I'm very encouraged about that. I also have something that's going to be very exciting and no compromise, some big deal that I'm gonna have to announce pretty soon.

Something big, I can't tell you right now. I have to confirm the dates and all that stuff but it's gonna be a big deal. It's a big deal in my mind at least. It could potentially be a big deal and so you might wanna pray for that big deal as you send your $4 million in.

Wesley used to say leaders, Christian leaders, gospel ministers need to read four hours a day or get out of the ministry. We are people of the book. We're book people and so when you tell me I'm a visual learner, well, I guess you can get the Bible on DVD.

Actually on Bible .is app, Bible .is, you can click on your iPad and watch some of the Jesus films. So when you're reading, like this morning, my Gracie and I, Grace is my 10-year-old daughter, we were listening to Mark 5 and the Demon Legion and you can then scroll down a little bit and I guess you hit the TV icon and then you can watch what happens.

We didn't do that this morning, but we've done it before. Actually, the Demon one's fairly interesting. I wasn't talking about the magician. So today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, I want to tell you that this book changed my world.

Therefore, in light of that, because of that, I want you to go buy it and here's the great news about this book. You can get this book online for free. Gratis. This is for free. Christianity and Liberalism by J, or Jonathan was his name, Gresham, G-R-E-S-H-A-M, Machen, M-A-C-H-E-N, J. Gresham Machen.

Now, Machen's been dead for quite some time. He was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary when it actually was a biblical seminary. And then when it started to go south a little bit, then he moved to, I think he founded, I don't know if that's the true statement or not, Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia.

And so J. Gresham Machen, if you want to read the book on the virgin birth, then you read J. Gresham Machen, a man who was single, a man who was rich, a man who was a theological lion. When I read Machen, he writes succinctly.

He writes, you know what it is? Here's what it is. He writes with a no compromise style. He would have been a perfect guest. Can you imagine on my radio show? I know Rick Phillips is great. Oh, speaking of interviews, for the life of me, I cannot get John MacArthur on this radio show.

Not that I was a member at Grace Church at all. Not that I was a deacon at Grace Church at all. Not that I went to the Master's Seminary at all. Not that John wrote the foreword to my first book at all.

But I cannot get him to talk on no compromise radio. You know what? Maybe John MacArthur is afraid. I think Machen would have came and sat here next to me on no compromise radio. I could have even done it over the phone.

We could have done it on the phone. I think the phone was invented back in, earlier than the thirties. So Machen wrote this book, Christianity and Liberalism in 1923. And I think they had the phone then.

A matter of fact, I know they did because I just read a great biography about President Garfield and how he was assassinated. And simultaneously you had Alexander Graham Bell had figured out how to do the telephone.

And then he was also working on these probes to see how he could get the lead ball out of the back slash pancreatic area of President Garfield. So if that was in the 1800s, I know they had the phone then.

So he would have done a phone interview where Machen would have done it. John MacArthur is not. So if you know John, you might want to call him and tell him he's missing out. He could probably sell as many books as I have on no compromise radio.

This book has been republished and reprinted in a variety of ways. Mine is Erdman's book. The back of it says, 1981 will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of famed scholar, J. Gresham Machen. About him, Moody Monthly has said, Machen's long life plea for holding forth the word of God and the Christ of the Bible must be the watchword for every pastor and layman who wants to climb the heights of spiritual power and pass on to succeeding generations a Christian faith that will stand.

That's what Moody said on the back of this book. Machen is the late professor of the New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, the author of the Christian faith of the modern world. What is faith and the origin of Paul's religion.

Those are great books as well. But this is the one that I read early on. Now here's the great thing about this book, Christianity and Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen. When you read this, you will once and for all see the weaselly nature of liberalism.

I don't mean liberalism when it comes to liberal politics. I guess you have to read Mark Stein to figure that out. But if you want liberalism when it comes to Christianity, that is modernism, that is anti-supernaturalism, then this is the book to read.

Just take time to read it. We were reading this in the men's discipleship group Sunday mornings at Bethlehem Bible Church. Don't you wish you were here? Don't you wish you were at Bethlehem Bible Church and Sunday mornings from nine to 10 to sit around the table with a group of men drinking Pete's coffee?

I actually got an email the other day that someone said, I'm getting Pete's coffee. John actually said that. John D. from Idaho said he was going to try Pete's coffee because I'm always promoting it. Well, today I've just got some kind of Keurig nastiness, but it's hot and it's freezing cold outside.

Machen will help you understand what is liberalism and how it is around today, just with chicer clothes, just with Rob Bell livery, just with the dress of modern evangelicalism. And you can see right through it.

You don't need to read Love Wins. You don't need to understand a vintage faith. You don't need to understand a variety of these issues. You just see this and you go, this is liberalism. Whether they have cool glasses or dorky glasses, whether they have contacts or prescription lenses, you need to read this book and then you'll be able to cut through all the issues.

It's biblical, it's provocative, it's in that order. It's a great book. Speaking of glasses, when I was in Los Angeles, it was 1985-ish to 1990. It was cool to wear glasses, even though you didn't need prescriptions.

So they would just be regular glass. And I remember walking into, I think it must've been a Sam Goody or a Tower Records. Remember what records were? Anyway, there was Rob Bell with his girlfriend, Melissa Gilbert, and he had the fakers on.

He had the regular glasses on that didn't have any glass. All right, No Compromise Radio. This book, Christianian Liberalism, it says on the back cover, written in response to the liberalism which arose in the early 1900s, is a classic defense of Orthodox Christianity to expose the fallacies of liberalism and strengthen the Orthodox position.

Dr. Machen establishes the importance of scriptural doctrine and contrasts the teachings of liberalism and orthodoxy on God and man, the Bible, Christ, salvation, and the church. Those are the chapters, by the way.

These issues remain in conflict today, testifying to the continuing relevance of this important work. So today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, I'm trying to encourage you to get this book and you go to Kindle, Amazon Kindle, you can get it for free.

Christianian Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen. So when it comes to the intro, I like it that it's the first sentence of the book. What's the purpose? The purpose of this book is not to decide the religious issue of the present day, but merely to present the issue as sharply and clearly as possible in order that the reader may be aided in deciding it for himself.

And so he is the preacher. He is the one wanting you to come to these conclusions. And you can either look at the universe in a natural way, a modern way, saying there's no supernatural element, or you can believe in the supernatural.

He says, for instance, on page, what page is this? Page four, it is no wonder that the appeal is being criticized today for the writers of the books in question were no doubt men of their age, whose outlook upon the material world judged by modern standards must have been of the crudest and most elementary kind.

Inevitably, the question arises whether the opinions of such men can ever be normative for men of the present day. In other words, whether first century religion ever can stand in company with 20th century science.

However, the questions may be answered. It presents a serious problem to the modern church. So what do we do now in our age, 2011, when it comes to the first century? I mean, haven't we gone past that?

Haven't we seen the trajectory that the New Testament gave? Haven't we arrived at that? Haven't we gone past that? What about science? The Bible could never stand up to modern scrutiny. And he says, well, let's take a look at the record.

Let's see what is gonna happen when we examine the Bible. He said, we are interested in showing that despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology, modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity, but belongs in a totally different class of religion.

So he would say there's two religions, works righteousness, you try to get to heaven by your own works, and divine accomplishment, Jesus had to do all the work in your place. But in showing that the liberal attempt at rescuing Christianity is false, we are not showing that there is no way of rescuing Christianity at all.

Our principal concern just now is to show that the liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science has really, really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity. And that is a good word from Machen when it comes to the debate of evolution and the Bible.

I think people wanna get down and dirty when it comes to intelligent design and everything else just gets thrown out. The intellectual battle of the present day, there can be no peace without victory.

One side or the other must win. Now that's a no compromise statement. There cannot be any truce. You can't sit down at the table with one person being a supernaturalist and the other person not, and then coming to some conclusion where you can meet halfway.

Machen would call that unchristian. Machen would call that sub-Christian. And no matter how many Presbyterian USA, liberal Methodists, liberal Episcopalians, use Christian verbiage, talk about atonement, sin, heaven, that doesn't make them Christian.

And so Machen's goal is to expose them for what they are, teach the Bible to correct them and to fill your mind with the right biblical thoughts, and then let a ride, help you make the conclusion yourself.

His first real chapter, although it's chapter two, chapter one is the introduction, chapter two, it's about doctrine. And he says that it is not for seminaries alone, that is doctrine, is not for universities alone.

Few desires on the part of religious teachers have been more harmfully exaggerated than the desire to avoid giving offense. Well, get rid of doctrine, that sharp doctrine, that poke your eye doctrine, that non-contour doctrine, the doctrines of predestination, hell, reprobation, Christ alone is the way to salvation, literal resurrection, soon return.

Get rid of those doctrines, and you know, it's a lot easier to hang out with the liberals of the day. I have a friend and he was asked by liberals, what is the essence of Christianity? And my friend said, substitutionary atonement.

And then they retorted back in a university setting, you're a Calvinist, well, at least they knew their theology, but that has nothing to do with Calvinism per se, that is the Bible. Substitutionary atonement, he said, if all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they're equally false, or at least equally uncertain.

We are indulging, therefore, in a mere juggling with words. To say that all creeds are equally true and that they are based upon experience is merely to fall back upon that agnosticism, which 50 years ago was regarded as the deadliest enemy of the church.

Universal brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God, either the liberals are right, the supernaturalists are right, they're both wrong, but they both can't be right. This is cutting through this gray haze, this purple haze of post-modernism.

He said, the Christian doctrine, the Christian life is founded upon a message, quote, based upon doctrine. Machen said, Paul certainly was not indifferent to doctrine, on the contrary, doctrine was at the very basis of his life.

Doctrine matters. Does doctrine divide? Of course, truth from error. Doctrine gladly divides. Well, we don't want to be divisive. Well, then you better put your Bible down. If your number one goal is to get along with people, A, this is the wrong show for you, and B, Christianity is the wrong religion for you, C, don't read the Bible unless you're going to read Song of Solomon.

I don't know why I picked that book. Listen to what Machen says. What was it that gave rise to the stupendous polemic of the epistle to the Galatians? To the modern church, the difference would have seemed to be a mere theological subtlety.

About many things, the Judaizers were in perfect agreement with Paul. The Judaizers believe that Jesus was the Messiah. There's not a shadow of evidence that they objected to Paul's lofty view of the person of Christ.

Without the slightest doubt, they believed that Jesus had really risen from the dead. They believed, moreover, that faith in Christ was necessary to salvation. But the trouble was, they believed that something else was also necessary.

They believed that what Christ had done needed to be pieced out by the believer's own effort to keep the law. From modern point of view, the difference would have seemed very slight. That is a good word from Machen.

See why you need to read that book? Sarcasm comes through the words of Paul, of course, and now Machen. Surely, Paul ought to have made common cause with teachers who were so nearly in agreement with him.

Surely, he ought to have applied to them the great principle of Christian unity. But Machen said, thankfully, Paul did nothing of the kind. And only because he and others did nothing of the kind does the Christian church exist today.

Why do we have Christianity? Because God used men like Paul to keep the church pure. If Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin.

For no matter how small the gap must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge that gap. The guilty soul enters again into the hopeless reckoning with God to determine whether we have really done our part.

And thus we groan again under the old bondage of the law. Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief. Christ will do everything or nothing.

And the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on his mercy and trust him for all. Even if you think you've got to provide a little bit of your salvation, then you're back to asking the question, did I do enough?

Was it with the right motives? Will God accept it? So for you today, if you're listening on No Compromise Radio, how are you going to get to heaven? You either have to perfectly obey the law, you have to do something to make God love you.

Some righteous acts of obedience, perfectly obeying the law is what you need to do. Or you can say, I can't do that. And then God has said in history 2000 years ago, I have provided the way and I have provided the salvation, the only way of salvation.

And this God-man, my son, lived a life that you were supposed to live but couldn't, died a death that you were supposed to die but didn't, and God raised him from the dead. And you are to think, yes, that's true.

Yes, the ways I used to think about religion are wrong. My hiding behind my baptism when I was an infant is wrong. My desire to think good thoughts and be a religious person, they don't add up for anything, more condemnation.

I will take your word for it, God, that Jesus is what he said he is. And if I think I can get to heaven by being sprinkled as a baby, that's adding to the work of Christ. Jesus paid it all. He did all the work.

We are not to try to bridge the gap. We are not to try to somehow make ourselves more savable. Either we do everything perfectly or we can do nothing. Either Jesus did everything perfectly or who needs him?

So today, by faith, through repentance, you need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. Forget book reviews. Machen's pointing to the eternal issue. Consider your soul. Prepare to meet your God.

My name's Mike Abendroth. We are No Compromise Radio Ministry, and you can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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 six. 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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