How Does God Speak? (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

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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.

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My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm sitting in the studio here at Bethlehem Bible Church, which is basically my study, my pastoral study.

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I have in front of me one microphone, two microphones, all kinds of books, articles, papers.

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I have holy water. I do. I don't use it because it's holy, but it's just this gimmick thing that I got from Israel.

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If you want to go to Israel with us, you better get on the website, nocompromiseradio .com and check it out. I have a soundboard here.

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I have the call box where people can call in, although I don't usually take your calls.

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I use those for interviews. I like the drop button, though. I've used that on several occasions. And I have a power strip and a

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Bible. That's about it. That is No Compromise Radio. We are bare bones.

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We are against begging for money. We are the world.

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There's a guy named who played basketball for the Philadelphia 76ers. For those of you who are old enough to remember, his name was

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Lloyd Free, F -R -E -E, and he changed his name. I don't know if it was legally or just on the basketball court.

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His first name was World, and then his middle name he changed to Be, World Be Free, and they just called him

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World. I actually liked it because he did score quite a bit against the Celtics, but that is another story.

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Well, today I'd like to talk a little bit about a recurring subject, that is to say a subject that comes back regularly.

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I get requests to talk about this all the time, and I think it is one of the perils of evangelicalism today, and that is how does

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God talk to us? It comes up over and over and over. Does he speak to us in still, small voices?

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Does he speak to us in visions? There's a church down the street, and you can see

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God speaks to you there through some kind of dreams.

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Maybe he speaks to you through your picante salsa at night when you eat it. I've had some dreams lately that were actually horrible, and if those were words from God, I better run.

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But how do we know something's from God in this world that we live in, the evangelical world at least?

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God led me, God spoke to me, God's leading me to do X, Y, and Z.

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What do we do? How do we parse this? What's the best way to think about it?

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I go back to Oral Roberts' vision of the 900 -foot

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Jesus, and this 900 -foot Jesus told Oral Roberts, allegedly, to build a 60 -story hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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There were three hospitals in the South, not one on the North side, but Jesus told him to build another one in South Tulsa.

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The city planners, as you remember, or maybe you don't remember, wanted him to reconsider. Not Jesus, not the 900 -foot

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Jesus, but Oral, please reconsider. He would have nothing of it because Jesus told him,

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I mean, what's worse than a five -foot Jesus telling you to do something than a 900 -foot Jesus? It sounds like a

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Depeche Mode song, my own personal Jesus. But not that I'm influenced by pop culture, right,

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Peter? In Maynard, early 80s, they tried to finish the hospital.

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It was a complete failure. Only two stories were occupied. By 1987, there was all kinds of debt.

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Jesus came back to talk to Oral Roberts, and he needed $8 million,

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Oral did, within two months, or Jesus said God would kill him. Aye, yi, yi, yi, yi,

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I feel like singing aye, yi, yi, I'm the Frito Bandito. The dog track owner in Florida bailed him out, bailed the 900 -foot

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Jesus out, maybe, or Oral out, and then two years later, of course, the hospital closed.

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My question is this, did God really talk to Oral Roberts? Was that really

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God? If he would have disobeyed that vision, that thought, that insight, that word, would he have been sinning?

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See, that's the issue. When you say God told me to do something, if you don't do it, it's sin. And so people want to have some kind of confirmation that in fact

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God is telling me to do something, I better quickly do it. And it's used in all kinds of things. It was used with singers, named

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Christian singers named Sandy, and God told me it was okay to leave my husband kind of thing.

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And so did God really talk to Benny Hinn? Do you remember years ago with the coming decade prophecy,

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Benny Hinn said that God told him Castro would die in the 1990s? I did another show on how many lies does it take to make someone a false prophet, how many lack of, how many unfulfilled prophecies does it take to make you a false prophet?

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Homosexual community, according to God through Benny Hinn, was going to be destroyed by fire before 1995.

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I don't know if he's watched CNN lately. Before 2000, God told Benny Hinn there'd be a major earthquake on the

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East Coast, and he predicted Jesus would come in person and appear at his healing crusades.

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Did Jesus really say that to Benny Hinn? In the TV documentary,

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TV news documentary Dateline in 2006, August, Carlton Pearson was on with Keith Morrison.

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And here's the dialogue. Carlton Pearson, and I said, God, I don't know how you're going to call yourself a loving

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God and allow those people to suffer so much, and then just suck them into hell. And I believe it was the

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Spirit of God in me saying, is that what you think we're doing? Keith Morrison, you heard this voice?

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Pearson. Yes, sir. And I said, that's what I've been taught. He talked back, he says at the voice in his head,

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Pearson, God, I can't, I can't save the whole world. And that's when

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I heard the voice say, precisely, that's what we did. And if you'd tell them that they're redeemed, you would create those kinds of, you wouldn't create those kinds of problems.

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Just tell everybody you're redeemed. Can't you see they're already in hell? God telling

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Carlton Pearson, allegedly, that this suffering on earth is already hell.

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Immediately, Carlton Pearson said, started thinking about my grandparents. Well, maybe they're not in hell.

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Maybe if they're already saved, if the cross and Christ and all that stuff really happened, all that stuff, and is really spiritual, which

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I believe it is, then if he came to save the world, then the world is saved, unless he's a failure. Now that would not fly logically, biblically.

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Morrison, who is not a dumb guy, Morrison, you mean Hitler's in heaven?

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Ah, here we go. We don't want to have the pagans. Maybe Morrison isn't a pagan. But we want to have the news people throwing some kind of wrench in the monkey.

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Pearson, I'm not calling Pearson a monkey, by the way. You think Hitler's more powerful than the blood of Jesus?

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Why don't you stop hitting your wife? He's the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not ours only, but the sins of the whole world.

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Is that what God really said to Carlton Pearson? Did he really say that?

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I think not. I think not. Who could forget James Ryle?

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Not J .C. Ryle, the great Anglican from another generation, but remember James Ryle, he said in a dream that God showed him amplifiers and God told him, quote, the guitars and amplifiers belong to the

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Beatles. I called those four lads from Liverpool to myself.

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There was a call from God on their lives. And then Ryle said,

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God said this, the four lads from Liverpool went AWOL, see God uses acronyms sometimes, and did not serve in any army.

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They served their own purposes and gave the gift to the other side. Avendroth's insertion, the dark side.

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Ryle goes on, I lifted the anointing, he's speaking for God again, allegedly, I lifted the anointing for 20 years.

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I've held it in my hand and I'm about to release it again. I will release an anointing in music that will take the world by storm like the

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Beatles when they first came. New anointed music that will capture men's hearts. Then the

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Lord said the same kind of reaction that the Beatles extracted will come, only this time the girls will not scream

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Ringo, John, George, or Paul, they'll scream Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, end quote.

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I don't know what Lord said that to James Ryle, but it wasn't the Lord Jesus Christ of the

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Bible. That's not what happened. This is just some kind of mental machinations in somebody's mind.

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And first of all, it didn't happen, second of all, we didn't need it to happen, third of all, I don't understand this whole issue,

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Ringo would never be said first, it would always be probably

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John and Paul first, but that's another point. Isn't that ludicrous? I mean, if you let the cat out of the bag, that God speaks today in still small voices, that God speaks today in other means besides through Jesus, we are in,

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Jesus' word is apostolic messengers, we are in big trouble because it's your word then against mine.

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Jesus told me this, oh no he didn't, Jesus told me this. Who are you to tell me?

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What authority do you have? What does that do to a local church? I'll tell you what that does to a local church, it splits it, it fractures it, it takes away all unity because it is exactly what 1

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Corinthians chapter 1 and 2 talks about. That is, when you have other people vying for authority, speaking authoritatively, then you'll get some to follow person

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A, some to follow person B, some to follow person C, and you won't all be lined up underneath the apostolic message from Jesus that we all follow all together.

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Is this true or is this false? God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways,

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God years ago spoke in many different ways, but in these last days has spoken to us in his

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Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world.

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Well, that has to be true because that's Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 and 2. God has used all kinds of different means to speak.

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He used a donkey, actually. He used pagans. He could use anything he wanted. But in these last days he speaks to us through Jesus and his apostolic messengers.

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He speaks to us in the Bible. When someone comes along and says to you, God spoke to me, then you should say nicely, what chapter and verse is that?

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Or if you want to not be not so nice, you better write that down on the back of your Bible because when God speaks, we need to record it.

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God does not speak outside of his word today. I'd go so far to say there's no need for him to speak outside the word today.

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And I'd go so far to say most of the people that say God spoke to me and God told me,

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God whispered to me, are the ones that know the Bible the least. And if God's going to speak through people,

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I think he usually uses people, at least when I see the New Testament, who know him and know his word well, who are well acquainted with the word.

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Why don't we call it just what we should call it? Most of the time, of course, there are some who are immature.

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There are some who are just brand new Christians and they don't know, and there are some that just use the phrase wrongly.

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It's okay to say God led me because you look back in the past and see God's sovereign decree work itself out in history, and you say,

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I see how God led me all the way. I see how God brought me to meet my wife and all these things.

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But it's not proper to say that of the future. It's proper to trust in the Lord with all your heart, to lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways to acknowledge him and he'll make your paths straight.

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That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to just walk by faith. We're supposed to consult the Bible, ask

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God for wisdom, ask other people for wisdom, and then make some decisions and move forward, trusting in the

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Lord, not presupposing that God will just fix everything if we mess up and if we sin and if we make the wrong decision, but trusting

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God's sovereign hand and purpose, that if in fact we do, and when we will sin, and when we will make the wrong decisions for the future, whether it's a spouse or whether it's a job, that God will take good sin, evil ignorance, stupidity, and turn it together for our good, and it will not stop our glorification, according to Romans chapter 8.

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And so we just play fast and loose with our words in evangelicalism today.

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Most Christians today, most people listening today probably have some kind of subjective mystical view of God and his revelation, how he speaks.

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And while most of you who are listening today would not like seances, would not enjoy tarot card readings, would never go to a medium or visit a divination session, you would fall into some of the exact same things under the cloak of Christian guidance,

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Christian mysticism. And we say things like this, I have a real peace about this decision,

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I feel the Lord is leading in this area, God spoke to my heart about, a

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God told me, a God led me, God gave me an impression, isn't that a big one,

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God spoke to me, God really opened the door for me, so now I know it's his will for me to do this or that,

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I'm praying about something and I can just feel it's a God thing that I should do it. Either the

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Bible is final, exhaustive, authoritative, certain, sure, and reliable, or it's not.

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So if the Bible is all those things, why go for something that's tainted by the fall?

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That is to say, you. You're tainted by the fall. Your thinking's tainted by the fall, even if you're a

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Christian, your will is tainted by the fall, even if you're a Christian, your mind is tainted by the fall, even if you're a

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Christian, your understanding is tainted by the fall, even if you're a Christian. So why would you go away from something that's not tainted by the fall,

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God's sure, infallible, trustworthy word, and go for something that is, at best, human?

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Why would you go and say, well, I'm going to trust my heart? Friends, it's quoted very often, but I need to quote it again,

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Jeremiah 17, the heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all else. Only God can know it, no human can know it.

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So we're not to trust our heart. That's why we have the government we do, checks and balances. That's why we have a plurality of elders in a local church, because we can't trust our own hearts.

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Jonathan Edwards said, why would you leave the guidance of the polar star to follow a jack -o' -lantern?

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And I think I know the answer. I think the answer is too often we evangelicals don't want to take the time to study, don't want to do the hard work of study.

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We don't want to get our Bibles out in this day and age of kind of fast food. And if you go to the grocery store,

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God forbid, three people are in front of you. And we go apoplectic when they don't open up another register. Somebody in front of you in the eight items or less aisle brings nine items.

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We live in that kind of society. It's fast. Everything has to be faster. And we think faster is better.

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Well, there's nothing like taking the Bible, sitting down with the Bible, and reading it, stopping, thinking, pondering.

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And I know what you might be saying. You might be saying to me, well, I don't really like to read. And so my response to that is, well, that's too bad because God really likes to write.

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I think I stole that from Brian Sayers. God really likes to write. And since He likes to write, you ought to like to read.

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He's done writing, of course, but we ought to be never done reading. We are people who are prone to forget things that we ought to remember.

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So we better reread. And we are prone to remember things we ought to forget. That's my problem many of the times.

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You don't need to make decisions in your life about life, death, jobs, wives.

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Not that you should have two wives, but if you're going to like a wife. You don't need to make decisions on feelings, impressions, mysticism, when you have the

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Word of God. And once you start going down this road of mystical, subjective decision -making, it's never going to stop.

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You want more and more and more. I think John MacArthur is right when he said,

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Once a congregation or a person sees Scripture as less than the final complete and fallible authority for life and faith, it is thrown open the door to absolute chaos.

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Absolute chaos, end quote. It's true. So my name is

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Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry here on WVNE 760 in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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Central Mass. I don't want you to fall prey to wanting to listen to God through any other vehicle except His Word.

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You know, people have this thing in front of their churches, these United Unitarians for Unity churches, never place a period where God is placed a comma and then they have up there,

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God is still speaking. That's not true. That's not true. People don't like what

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God has already said, therefore they want something new. People don't want to take the time to study some of the difficult doctrines.

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A child can understand much of the Bible, but there are some very difficult things, even Peter said that in 2

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Peter 3 about Paul's writings, and they don't want to take the time. You know, be diligent to show yourselves approved, a worker who need not be ashamed, accurately, rightly dividing the truth, 2

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Timothy 2 verse 15. It takes work. It takes toil. It takes sweat.

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The Greek word is kapiao, where you have to dig. You have to get your books out. You have to say, well, there's history to bridge.

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There's culture to bridge. There's language to bridge. There's Eastern Western thinking to bridge.

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There's language to bridge. We need to study. We need to roll up our sleeves. But the payoff is so great.

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Why would you abandon the North Star for a jack -o' -lantern? No, you wouldn't want to do that.

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Now, it doesn't mean everyone has ever told you in their life that they follow their gizzard and they hear God speak.

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I'm not saying that they're a heretic. I'm not saying that they haven't taught you something. But at best, it's loose language that needs to be evacuated from the

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Christian jargon. And at worst, it can be people trying to manipulate you. Well, God told me this.

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Well, God told me that. Can you imagine what that does to a congregation? How about a congregational meeting?

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We like congregational meetings here in New England, where for one time of the year, you get to stand up and slander and gossip and say bad things about people.

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And you have King's X because we're trying to come to a consensus. That is the worst, by the way. If you are in those kind of congregational meetings and someone stands up and begins to slander or say something ungodly,

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I hope you have enough temerity. I hope you have leaders who actually lead and say, you need to sit down and repent.

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We are not going to do that here or any other place. That's what needs to happen in some of these churches. They think it's a town hall free for all.

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This is crazy. But back on point, how do you defend yourself against false teaching if you don't have the

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Word of God? That's exactly what happened in 2 Peter 1, 2, and 3. Peter is writing them to encourage them, to strengthen them so that they have certainty.

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How do you have certainty today in a postmodern world? How do you know for sure anything is true?

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Well, in today's air -filled world, you need authority, and that authority is found in the

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B -I -B -L -E. That's exactly right. I love Psalm 1, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in impressions from God.

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His delight is in the still, small voice of God. His delight is the whisperings of God.

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No, his delight, his delight is used here. His delight is in the law of the

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Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. Show me a person who delights in the

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Word of God and meditates upon it day and night, and I'll show you someone who is sturdy, firm, reliable, and prosperous.

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Verse 3, he, in Psalm 1, verse 3, he, this person who delights in the law, who delights in the

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Word, who meditates upon it day and night, he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers.

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Spiritual prosperity. Oh, maybe God will give physical prosperity too. Most of us here in America, people here in Worcester, we're prosperous physically.

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We're rich compared to people in the Bible days who were very poor. We would be considered rich if you had what you have now.

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You can even listen to this radio. You'd be considered rich. So why abandon the polar star for a jack -o' -lantern?

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Even if I said to you, some of you Charismatics, good, better, best. Let's go for the best.

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The best is the sure Word of God. I haven't even gotten to my passage today. That is all an introduction.

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That's all an introduction to 2 Peter 1, 16 -21, where over -experience, over -subjective impressions, we have a more sure

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Word. Peter's going to go on to say, that's your homework for today, 2 Peter 1, that he could see, along with James and John, the transfigured

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Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and say that there's something more sure than what he saw, something more sure than what he heard.

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This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. He heard God. He saw God be transfigured, and he said,

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I've got something more sure, and that is the Word of God, the prophetic Word. Don't desire for something more.

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Study what you already have. And when people come along to you and say, well, God told me this, and God told me that, and God told me this.

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Be kind. If you know the truth, then it's by God's grace that you know it.

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Be kind and just examine that a little bit. Probe it a little bit. Challenge them a little bit.

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I like to say when someone says to me, well, God told me such and such, and I usually say, well, God told me the exact opposite. Well, how can they prove it?

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They can't. So we need to figure out something that will break the tie, and that is the Word of God. So why would we ever go to something else anyway?

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I just don't get it. It is prevalent in print today. It is prevalent with major teachers.

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I'm going to be super good today on my best behavior. I'm not going to mention one person by name, one false teacher by name, one

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Christian evangelical who does all this kind of mysticism. She's just crazy with this kind of stuff.

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I'm not going to mention any of those people because God told me not to do that. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

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Read your Bible. Read Psalm 1 and say, Lord, give me the heart that desires your Word, that delights in your

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Word, to learn about Christ Jesus, the resurrected Savior. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.