Rating Sermons

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 ministry. I guess, are we radio anymore?

We�re not on WV &E? I was on KZUM in Nebraska, so maybe we�ll put the two together. It�s funny, you can follow us on Twitter, at NoCoRadio, and we try to post some things there. I think you could keep up to date with a few things.

Most things are edifying. A couple things are funny. Someone posted something. It said, �Love the outdoors and the gospel. Join us for the second annual Aiming High sporting clay shoot. And no, it�s not a Gospel Coalition thing.

That�s funny. You love the gospel and shooting clay pigeons? I do. I like both of those. I mean, I used to like to go to the gun range and just, you know, shoot some targets with some handguns, but I don�t know, it�s kind of boring.

And so, if you can shoot clay pigeons, you can keep track of things and keep score and all that kind of stuff. So, what�s in the news today? Well, Ben Carson�s �Christian faith� is in the news. And of course, there was the hubbub, the imbroglio.

Oh, is that how you say it? I think so. It�s funny. I�ll say things like that on the radio show, and then we don�t play it for a month. And then I�ll get a tweet from someone or email, and they�ll tell me what I was trying to figure out.

But I don�t know what it was because it�s too long ago. Now, when you want to just basically cry at the state of Christianity, you could probably read Christianity Today, their latest May 2015 vaccination controversy cover story, or you could go to ChristianPost .com.

ChristianPost .com, now there�s a little Joyce Meyer article there, and there�s something about the president, etc. I know. But here we have six interesting facts about Ben Carson�s �Christian faith�, written by Sammy K. Martin, Christian Post writer, May 7, 2015.

And so, as you know, Ben Carson retired from neurosurgery, and he wants to be the Republican nomination. He wants to have the Republican nomination for presidency in the United States of America. And he has all kinds of things going for him in terms of he�s amiable, he�s wicked smart, he has separated conjoined twins, all kinds of medical things, and he is pro-morality, generally speaking, and he is a Seventh-day Adventist.

My kids ask questions, �What is a Unitarian Universalist And I say, �Well, just think about the words. So, Seventh-day, that is Saturday, worship on Saturday, and Adventist, Jesus is going to come back soon.

That�s just generally speaking, but we could get into all the false prophecies of Ellen G. White and the investigative judgment, essentially a salvation by works, and we could talk about all that, but I�d like to just focus here for just a minute on facts that are interesting about Ben Carson�s faith.

Ben Carson's Seventh-day Adventist Background

1. Carson is a twice-baptized Seventh-day Adventist. He was baptized at a young age, asked to be baptized by a different pastor when he was 12, stating he didn�t fully understand the importance of his infant baptism he wrote in the book called Gifted Hands.

2. Even though he belongs to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, he often attends churches of different traditions and has said that he appreciates the beliefs of other faiths. So when I read that, I just think, �He�s a politician.

That�s all that is. That�s a politician. What do I appreciate in other faiths? Now, if I was on No Compromise Radio, I would quote the old wag who said, �Diplomacy is simply the art of lying well. But since I�m not on No Compromise Radio, it�s just a discernment podcast.

I can just say whatever I want. 3. Carson believes that religious practices should be respected across the country so long as they do not limit or infringe upon the rights of others and links religious persecution in America to acts of persecution from abroad.

4. He puts faith in God even though bad things may happen without any explanation, including his own personal battle with prostate cancer. 5. Carson once tried to stab a friend when he was 14, said in between the baptisms, but when he failed, he turned to the Bible to help him deal with his anger issues and violence.

This is very fascinating. The knife blade struck the young man�s belt buckle. With such force it broke, and of course he fled in terror. But I was even more terrified because it dawned on me that at that moment I was trying to kill somebody over nothing.

I just fell on my knees in the bathroom and started praying. I just said, �Lord, there�s got to be something better. I can�t control this. And there was a Bible. I picked it up and it just opened to the book of Proverbs.

And I started reading and there were all these verses about anger and what happens to angry people. And I stayed in there for hours reading and contemplating and praying. And I came to an understanding during the time that to react, to lash out, was not really a sign of strength.

It was a sign of weakness. When I came out of the bathroom after three hours, I was a different person. I never had a problem with the temper since then, he told PBS. And finally, 6. He wants to include everyone�s beliefs in America and as president would protect non-Christians.

Well, I would say amen to that. So, you can write me at info at no compromise radio dot com. You can pull up the old messages that I�ve done, probably four or five years ago. There were four messages done on the Seventh-day Adventists.

And I made it very simple. Here�s what they say. And I gave chapter and verse, that is, the exact notation of the primary sources. And then here�s what the Bible says in contradiction, too. Not everything that they teach is in contradiction of the Bible, but many things.

And so, the way I always work through it with theological cults is source, Savior, and salvation. So, what�s their source? And for them it happens to be the Bible plus the writings of Ellen G. White. She would consider her writings inspiration, although she might not like that term.

She might want to try to avoid it. And then the Savior, who actually is Jesus? And then three, what is salvation? How are the benefits of Christ�s death appropriated, applied by faith, through faith, alone, plus something else?

And so, for those of you that like to do that, you can pull up those old messages in the No Compromise radio stash bin. Kudos to Jonathan Newton and Josh McDonald. I almost said Josh McDowell. He�s now working on our website, brand new website, slick, clean, crisp, clear, perspicuous.

That�s what we do here. All right, what else do I have here in front of me? I was listening to S .O .S. Johnston a while ago, and he was talking about an American Baptist pastor. And he suggested that sermons should be rated like movies, a code for rating sermons, in other words.

How to Rate Sermons Like Movie Ratings

So, using the modern letters for our sermon ratings. The sermon G would be one that was generally acceptable to everyone, full of inoffensive, puerile platitudes, such as �Go ye into all the world and smile.

What the world needs is peace and motherhood. This sermon, he said, is usually described as �wonderful or marvelous. So, that�s the rated G sermon. They didn�t have PG in these days, but they had M.

Remember those sermons rated M? So, you can call this PG, I guess, if you want. M is for �mature congregations. At times, this sermon even makes the gospel relevant to today�s issues, in subtle ways, of course.

It may even contain mild suggestions for change. This sermon is often described as �challenging or thought-provoking, even though no one intends to take any action or change any attitudes. So, how do you rate sermons using the movie Parental Guide?

Then there�s the sermon rated R, �definitely restricted to those who are not upset by truth. This sermon tells it like it is. It�s very threatening to the comfortable. It is most often described as �disturbing or controversial and usually indicates that the preacher has an outside source of income.

I just talked to somebody the other day, and they make enough money doing something else that they wouldn�t even need their salary from the church. How about that? Oh, the day. So, that�s rated R. So, we�ve got G, M, and R.

R, G, PG, and R. And then the final one, it�s like NC -17, the equivalent thereof, �positively limited to those who can handle explosive ideas. This sermon really socks it to them. It�s the kind of sermon that landed Jeremiah in the well.

It got Amos run out of town and set things up for the stoning of Stephen. It is always described as �shocking or in poor taste. The minister who preaches this sermon had better have his suitcase packed and his life insurance paid off.

It is true. So, Wilson did say, �You�ve got soft-hearted people. They want hard words from the pulpit. And you�ve got hard-hearted people. They want soft words from the pulpit. It�s very simple for me.

How about you? I want to preach and teach the way I want to be preached to and taught. That�s what I do. And so, it�s not maybe everyone�s cup of tea, because as my father would say, �Oh, he�s a good people.

No, my father would say to each their own. And so, what do you do? I just want to be, you know, I like an interesting sermon, but that�s not the top of my list. I like it well-crafted, but that�s not at the top of my list.

I like good enunciation and proper grammar, although that�s not the top of my list. I would like an effective range of voice via pitch and volume, although that�s not the top of my list. Mike, what is at the top of your list?

I want a proclamation of the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ and an explanation of His Word. That�s it. No apologies, no backing down, no cutting, no pasting. Well, pasting�s fine. No trimming the edges.

I just want to be told, �This is the truth. I just see that in Jesus, and to a much lesser degree, of course, all the fallible men who God called to preach from John the Baptist to Paul to Stephen to Ezekiel, and the list goes on.

And so, that�s kind of what we do here at No Compromise Radio. I get emails all the time, several emails every week that would say, �Thanks for your direct speech�. That�s �they don�t know how to write.

It�s the speech act theory. I always wanted to remember what the speech act theory was when I talked to my Presbyterian friends, the speech act. So, maybe I better have Chris Peterson on, because he was the last guy that explained it to me before I forgot what it was.

Although, I�m having R. Scott Clark on, and if anybody knows speech act, I�m sure he would know. And so, here�s what I do. I have men on who I would be very afraid if they were my enemies, and then they�re on No Compromise Radio, and then they kind of owe me one, right?

So, whether it�s James White or Tom Chantry or someone like that, then they�re going to have to be friends. I�ve had them on the radio show. Carl Truman, I mean, they�re on my side now. In general, what do you think of when you think of this slogan, �Jesus, yes.

Christianity, no. I mean, we have seen the YouTube sensation, I forgot the young man�s name, who talked in a similar manner. It could be �Christianity, yes. Churchianity, no. �Christianity, not churchianity.

There�s a lot of those slogans. Back in the old days, it was Campus Crusade, I think, that was �Jesus, yes. Christianity, no. But I get what they�re trying to say. If it�s an external religiosity evacuating the cross and the benefits of Christ Jesus procured by Him alone, okay.

Going through the motions, okay. That kind of church thing. But we should not be afraid of the word �Christianity. And we should not be afraid of �Church. You know, �I love Jesus, but I don�t love the church type of attitude.

It�s just appalling. It�s just awful. Jesus loved the church. And a layperson�s viewing of Ephesians 5, �Husbands, love your wives just as the NAS says, I believe the ESV just has �as. Christ loved the church and gave Himself for, and now we have the feminine used, �her.

Because He�s going to use that feminine to talk about how we love our wives, and it�s all stemming from the ultimate love, and that is Jesus laying down His life for the Bride of Christ, the church.

So, when you hear things like �I�m for Jesus, but against the church. I�m for Jesus, but I�m not really for Christianity. I�m for Jesus, but not Churchianity. Churchianity, fine, but for the church, we should be for the church, right?

Okay, what else here is on my desk? I have in front of me a book that you should probably get. I wrote it. No, just kidding. You can buy mine, though, another day. The Juvenalization of American Christianity, Thomas Burglar, and that is B-E-R, not B-U-R.

Burglar. And while I didn�t really like the second half of the book as much, I really liked the first part of the book, which was enough to me to think the book was worth it. Oh, I got it free. Oh, �Youth groups proved to be key laboratories of religious innovation because church leaders needed to compete for teenage loyalty against an increasingly powerful and pervasive youth culture.

What worked at the youth group was eventually accepted in the church as a whole. Consumerism and Juvenalization reinforce one another. People who know who they are, who think carefully about purchases and who exercise self-control are harder to persuade to buy products that they don�t really need.

In contrast, impulsive people who are searching for identity or a sense of identity, who are looking to salve their emotional pain, who desperately crave the approval of others and who have lots of discretionary income or are willing to spend as if they do, make ideal consumers.

In other words, encouraging people to settle into some of the worst traits of adolescence is good for business. And then he talks about how that�s done in the church. Why should anyone care about Juvenalization?

I mean, the best stuff I think is in this introduction. It�s worth the book. Early in my college teaching career, I asked a group of students, �What does a mature Christian look like They disliked the question and resisted answering it.

I don�t think we ever arrive at our spiritual growth. We�re not supposed to judge one another. No one is perfect in this life. Sadly, these evangelical college students did not believe that Christian maturity was either attainable or desirable.

The churches that had nurtured these young people well enough to get them to pursue a Christian theological education had not managed to inspire them with a biblical vision of spiritual maturity. Still, unchecked Juvenalization does rather tend to undermine Christian maturity over time.

Only by learning from the victories and defeats of the past can we hope to achieve spiritual maturity in our individual lives and in the corporate lives of our churches. And only intergenerational communities of people devoted to mature Christianity can build seawalls high enough to hold back the tide of Juvenalization that has now risen high enough to threaten us all.

Thomas Burglar. And so, I would recommend you at least think through those thoughts. What else do I have here in front of me today? This is fascinating when you think about life and death and hell and sin and what we deserve.

Spurgeon, as you know, was a Baptist preacher, a particular Baptist preacher. That is, Jesus died for a particular group of people, not in particular with a small p, but with a theological p. And he was talking about the visit of one of the princes of Spain to a galley in which the convicts were chained to their oars, and they were rowing away, working away, slaving away.

And he wanted to pay an honor, honored visit to them, and he was going to set free any of those slaves in the galley that he wanted to, by his own free choice, his own free will, his own free volition.

And he was going to go there with that intention. One of them that he talked to said he was there because false witnesses swore away his character. You know, why are you here? Well, they swore away my character.

Another one said he'd done something that was wrong, but it wasn't very much and he had never been to be condemned to a slave galley. And one after another after another had an excuse. I'm sure if you've worked in a jail, some of our listeners do work in jails.

Maybe some of our listeners are in jails. I don't think I've received any correspondence through the radio ministry to folks in jail, although maybe there's been some to the church through other means.

You ask them, why are you in? And how many people say, well, I actually did it, I got caught, and I deserve it. People make excuses for their sins, but James 1, verses 13 and 14 say we're carried away by our own lust.

Right? By our own desires. That's why we do things. I desire to do that. Right? You look on a woman with lust, it's not because you just got caught up in it. You say to yourself, I want to do that. I want to act with marital infidelity over marital fidelity.

I just want to. It's pleasing to me. And so, that's one of the things about sin we never really get to. I mean, we say, yes, I'm not perfect. I'm less than perfect. I've done some infractions. But if we were to say, well, instead of slandering someone, I wanted to destroy them.

I wanted them destroyed with anger. I wanted to murder them. It was really from the same wellspring of murder. I wanted them to be obliterated out of my life. That's really what it was. So, we don't really talk that way.

And when we don't talk that way, then I don't think we really see the glory of what our Lord did at Calvary, because He died for these intentional desires and sins. Well, back to the slave population there and the galleys and the spaniard type of ship.

Why are you here? You ask me why I'm here? I'm ashamed to say that I richly deserve it. I'm guilty. I cannot for a moment say that I'm not. And if I die at this oar, I thoroughly deserve the punishment.

In fact, I think it's a mercy that my life has spared me. The prince stopped. It's a pity that such a bad fellow as you should be placed among such a number of innocent people. I think I shall set you free.

And the illustration says, and he did. I mean, can you imagine? Don't you hear Luke chapter 5 all over that illustration? Jesus comes not to save the righteous, but to bring sinners to repentance. If you think you have righteousness, if you think you are righteous, if you think you have a smidgen of righteousness, an ounce of righteousness, a pound of righteousness, then you don't need all of Jesus's righteousness.

You don't need grace. You need something that would contribute to what you think is your standing already. Grace is for sinners, right? Justice is for those that will keep on talking, keep on defending, keep on saying self-justifying things.

And so, at No Compromise Radio, we want to make sure we continually exalt the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That He is the one that saves. He is the one that redeems. He is the one that propitiates.

He is the one that reconciles. He is the one that forgives. He is the one that's born under law and perfectly fulfilled it. He is the one whose righteousness is imputed to all those who would believe in His life and death confirmed by the resurrection.

Why are you here? You could ask yourself the question, I don't deserve to go to heaven. I deserved hell. What God says about hell and the torments of the damned, I should have gone there. I deserve that.

And yet God, who is rich in mercy, Ephesians 2, He rescued me from this wrath. He rescued me from Himself and His holy justice because God, in His wisdom, set a plan together, culminated in the cross where mercy and wisdom and justice and grace and love all meet and kiss, to use the language of some Reformers.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Contemplation, No Compromise Radio. You can write us at 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 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org 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.