The Purge (Part 3)

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.

Nebraska, Radio Prep, and the Show’s Style

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and this is about show number 1800, or something like that. Wow. I was not very motivated this week to do NoCoRadio, and then I heard we were getting so many downloads that the website was crashing.

See, I wanted to attribute it to some satanic attack. There were just too many people wanting to download things, so that made me motivated, and it is Saturday. I did some discipleship this morning. I rode a bicycle, went to the gym with my wife, ran some errands, and thought I�d come in here and do a few shows.

So see, it motivates. It motivates me when I know people are listening. Fascinating to me. I just sit here and talk, and this is going to sound kind of bad, but I don�t really repair anything, that�s true, but I don�t really prepare anything.

I mean, I collect things throughout the week, �Oh, that would be interesting on radio. I try to do radio as if I�m listening to radio. What would I like to talk about? I don�t really have enough time for a I can�t carry on the two-hour dividing line kind of thing.

James does that. He does it well. I can�t do that, but I can do 24 minutes. I think I can keep your attention for about 24 minutes. We�ll laugh a little bit, act dopey a little bit, try to fix this chair a little bit, and we�ll talk about the Bible.

So we say always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. I believe as Philip Brooks said, �Preaching is true through personality. So I�m trying to give you Bible truth, think biblically, and through my quirky Nebraska personality.

Does anything good come out of Nebraska? Isn�t that a Bible verse? Who�s from Nebraska? My brother, Pat Avendroth, is from Nebraska. Johnny Carson is from Nebraska. I think maybe he was born in Fremont.

I think that�s true. Who else? R. Scott Clark is from Nebraska. You have to go to Heidelblog and listen to Heidelblog and get his tweets and stuff like that. You can do NoCo�s tweets at NoCoRadio. Who else is from Nebraska?

Warren Buffett. He�s from Nebraska. I don�t know if he�s from, but he�s lived there for years. Malcolm X was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Did you know that? I�ve listened to about three hours of Malcolm X the last few weeks.

I like speakers who are good speakers, and I didn�t really know that much about Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad and why there was a split and what happened, KKK stuff, the shooting, why he called himself Malcolm X.

A lot of that stuff I didn�t know, and I just think it�s interesting to listen to powerful speakers, plus with all the Black Lives Matter stuff and the debates within evangelicalism between people or the race issue, racial divides, what if you�re a black Muslim like Malcolm X and get saved.

I just was curious, so I was listening to Malcolm X. He�s from Omaha. I don�t know. Who else is from Nebraska? Is anything good come out of Nebraska? Well, God�s providential hand is wise, and so I guess I�m glad to be from Nebraska.

Of course, when I was there to visit, it was fun. Just was there recently. Omaha Bible Church, if you�re in the area, one church to go to, Omaha Bible Church. If I lived in Omaha, that�s what church I�d go to, Omaha Bible Church.

I�d actually go to that theology for breakfast thing. I�ve been doing Men�s Discipleship here at the church on Wednesday nights, and I do Saturday morning by invitation only. See, it�s the general call.

Anybody can come to Wednesday night, Saturday morning, you have to get the invite. All right. Let�s talk a little bit about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as I fix this microphone. I was very happy when Phil Johnson was in here, and he said that�s a good microphone.

Speaking of which, Master�s Seminary, Grace Church, Shepherd�s Conference, that�s in a few short weeks, and I�m thankful for that. My son, Luke, is going to be an assistant to the main coordinator there, so that�s fun.

I hope I get a good seat. Number two, I like to talk to pastors there. It�s refreshing. I get encouraged, and they get encouraged, kind of a symbiotic relationship. It�s warm there, and then we go on a little surf trip, my son and I, so that�ll be fun, although the surf lately has been huge, Hawaii, 50, 60 feet, LA, 15 feet, you know, it�s just been so big, so I�ll just go on a bike ride, drink some coffee.

When Luke went surfing in South Africa when we were there, there were some sharks out there I knew. There�s a lot of sharks in South Africa. It was so windy that day, they had the flag up that said, �There�s no spotters, no shark spotters so I sat and had some Dopio Espresso Pitta, that�s what I had.

The Exclusivity of Jesus Christ

Exclusivity-inclusivity. When you hear theologians talk about that, what do they mean? Why is it an issue? Ligonier and Lifeway got together, and they did some research. 45 of Americans think that there are many ways to get to heaven, so they would believe in something that�s, you know, the inclusivity.

Jesus is one of many saviors. When Jesus said, �I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to me, comes to the Father, but through me that is an affirmation by Jesus of the exclusivity of He, the Messiah.

You personally, conscientiously, explicitly, and singularly, to quote Jason Allen, �confess Jesus Christ as Lord to possess eternal life. And when I was studying Ephesians 1, �in Him, in Him, in Him, in Him we have redemption I�d say exclusivity.

But it�s also found other places. Of course, I just quoted �I am the way, the truth, the life John 14. But how about Hebrews? How about Hebrews 1? I�ve been parked there. He Himself, it�s in Arist middle, makes or making purification.

Nobody else makes purification. In other words, by Himself, He makes purification. No one else can make purification. His self-sacrifice as a sin offering, as a trespass offering, makes purification.

There�s sins that He purifies, and only He can purify. If other people could purify sins and take them away so that we could get to heaven, okay, fine. We�d have to be inclusivists. But we are exclusivists, exclusivists, because He Himself makes purification for sin.

Middle voice. The subject either acts upon himself or in his own interest, makes it essentially reflexive. Rob Bell�s book, Love Wins, he talks about a hopeful universalism. So if Jesus says, and then also the writer of Hebrews says, Paul says, I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

How can there be a hopeful universalism? Because only Jesus, He Himself, makes purification for sins. Brian McLaren, Generous Orthodoxy was his book. I don�t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion.

Now maybe by some weird extrapolation, interpretation, that Jesus made purification for everybody�s sins, and so everybody�s going to heaven in this universalism type of thing. But typically what�s going on is, there�s different ways to heaven, because what are the implications of people who don�t believe in Jesus?

Where are they going? See where that little rabbit trail leads us? Gene Robinson, in 2009, January 18, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire steps on the podium in Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D .C., and opens the inauguration and festivities for Barack Obama.

And here�s his invocation as he prayed, �O God of our many understandings, we pray that You will� I don�t even need to read the rest �inclusivism. Lillian Montego prayed this way at a different location, �God, Allah, Yahweh, the Creator, the One, the Energies, goes by as many names� I guess it�s not a prayer, but a statement �goes by many names in this country as ever.

I do believe that God is in everyone, though by what name He resides there seems to me to be up to the person in question. Self-identification as male or women, self-identifying God�s. Isn�t that special?

Hannah O. Gerald Anderson, in 1993, said, �No issue in missiology is more important, more difficult, more controversial, or more divisive for the days ahead than the theology of religions. This is the theological issue for missions in the 1990s and into the 21st century.

That is, is it through Jesus alone And I wish this was my own statement, but it�s someone else�s. All religions lead you to God, but they don�t lead you to His heaven, they lead you to His judgment.

They lead you to God�s judgment, that�s right. They�re going to take you there. It�s called Matthew 7, the broad road that leads to what? Destruction. And many will enter therein by, said King James. You ever say that to yourself?

My scripture memory is King James, then I got, well, I grew up in Revised Standard Version land, then there�s some King James stuff, then New King James, Calvary Chapel, then I went to Grace Church, New American Standard Version, and now the ESV, and it is a hodge podge.

The diphthong there didn�t quite make it. Hodge podge. All religions lead you to God, that�s true, but to His judgment. What religion alone has a sin-bearing sacrifice who is fully human to identify Himself with us and be our representative, and fully God to assuage God�s wrath and have an infinite amount of righteousness to bestow on all those who would believe?

By His own sacrifice, Jesus purifies sins, and then He sits down. Mission accomplished. He died on the cross, He was raised from the dead, and then He sits down. Only Jesus catharizomize, He cleanses, catharsis is the word where we get from Webster to purify or to purge, to release, renewal, process of making clean, freeing from filth, contamination, stain.

So, think now, just not of your jeans when you were a kid in Nebraska, toughskins. What were those things that they would iron on your knees, your jeans, the knees of your jeans? Something like that. You either buy toughskins or you had some patches.

They patched clothes back in those days, and now if you have a zipper that's broken, you just toss it. We didn't toss things back in those days. Maybe other people did, but we didn't. Shepherd the church of God, Acts 20, by which He purchased with His own blood.

He makes purification, and that's exactly what we need here if we're working through this issue of exclusive versus inclusive. Friends, blood of bulls and goats does not take away sins, right? Hebrews 10, verse 4.

That sacrificial system isn't adequate. It's not eternally adequate. Jesus can, and it says in 1 John 1, verse 7, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Would you like to be cleansed?

Here's the thing. I just said that. You're either over Scripture or under it. That can't be. I've got my new way. If you read Scripture and said, you know what, I don't care really what it says, but let's just kind of look at it as a document.

You would believe in the exclusivity of Jesus Christ for many reasons. He's the only one that raised Himself from the dead, and then the list goes on. But what happens is theologians, calling themselves Christians many times, realize that what?

Hey, ideas have consequences. What about grandma? What about my friends? Because if these religions don't tell you about the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ, the One Suffering Servant in Isaiah 42, 49, and 50, 52, 53, then you've got the wrong literature.

Here's what one writer said, what I'm saying here is not in any way meant to deride or dismiss the great depths of human reflection. He's talking about other religions, how they're wrong. Literature, wisdom, culture, ethics, music, art, and aspiration is found within religious traditions and texts all over the world.

But we are not talking about the human richness of religious traditions. Rather, we are talking about whether they can be means of salvation in the sense that the Bible speaks of salvation. And my argument is that they cannot because other religions do not tell this story about Jesus, the story of our covenant, and His saving covenant God, and His saving action in history.

They cannot, therefore, connect people to that story and to the Savior, who is the great subject of the story. They have no gospel to tell to the other nations. They have no good news, for they do not know the story which alone constitutes the good news.

End quote. Christopher Wright. Salvation is through Jesus alone. If you'd like to be right with God, declared righteous, a forensic declaration, an alien righteousness imputed to your account, have your sins put to Jesus' account, if you'd like to have everlasting life, if you'd like to go to heaven, it is through Jesus alone.

If you could get there another way, why kill Jesus? That's Galatians 2. How awful is that? Listen to the language of exclusivity in several passages. John 3. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.

Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. Light has come into the world, and people love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

I mean, what kind of world are we living in now? I'll tell you what kind of world, and you know this, tolerance, I mean, values, human flourishing, relativism, and every one of those says the scandal of the cross, the exclusivity of the cross, Jesus is the only way, they have one word for that, forget you.

That's their one word, forget you. By the way, that's Nebraska. If you don't listen to the show very often, A, shame on you, where have you been my whole life? B, hello, that's what my grandma, how she answered the phone, hello, grandma, and she'd say hello.

We'd say, grandma, don't say hello, say hello. She said, I say hello. Okay, we're going to call you right back and try it, ring, ring, ring, 553 -3836, hello. So now if something weird happens theologically, we just, instead of saying hello, we say hello.

Also, we have one word in response to certain things, and it's the word forget you. So there's a young guy in our neighborhood, and that's how he would respond. We'd say, hey, do you want to go do this, you want to go do that, jump off the roof, you know, throw firecrackers, forget you.

So you got to know this no-go speak, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. You've got to know. What else do I have here? Buddha, Muhammad, Gandhi, it's through Jesus alone, not these others.

I don't often quote Page Patterson, but I will today. The most hated doctrine in all the world today is the exclusivity of Christ in salvation. President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

Alistair McGrath is an English theologian, and has written, he's a great writer, has written several things that are commendable, scholastic, quote, we are assured that those who respond in faith to the explicit preaching of the gospel will be saved.

So far, so good. We cannot draw the conclusion from this, however, that only those who thus respond will be saved. God's revelation is not limited to the explicit preaching of the good news, but extends beyond it.

We must be prepared to be surprised at those whom we will meet in the kingdom of God. Of course, we'll be surprised, but we're not going to be surprised because the Bible will be contradicted. He's not talking about children here, and those special needs people, he's not talking about that.

That's a different argument. He's talking about people that know, can exercise faith, who could repent, who could embrace the truths of the gospel, who could understand abstractly. Jesus doesn't just die in history, but he dies theologically, and then it's personal.

He dies for sinners like people, like me, like them. It says everywhere. I mean, why do people go about doing this and reinterpret Jesus' words? And even in Acts 4 and Peter, there's salvation in what?

No one else, for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Well, I'll tell you what happens. What happens is you start thinking about people and thinking about people who are good in society, friendly, related to you, and they don't believe in Jesus.

They're not born again. So what are we going to do with them? And if you have some notion about how bad hell is, you don't want them to go there. Professor Thang Garage of the World Council of Churches has an article, and once you realize the article's name, you'll go how bogey it is.

Jesus the Christ, the only way to God and human flourishing. He was okay until he added those final three words, and human flourishing. I've got to flourish. The exclusive claim of Christ is always made in concrete historical settings.

It is not an idea held up in the sky somewhere, but it is maintained in the concrete realities of history. Therefore we must admit right away that the exclusivity of this claim simply cannot be maintained because there are in fact right in front of our eyes a multiplicity of competing claims for other ways to God and human flourishing.

Our contemporary historical experience does not allow us to contradict that. To do so would be simply to write off Tikvah and Tanand, Mahinda, the Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist representatives in this consultation.

From our discussion, our historical evidence, experience of people, of other faiths, and of interfaith dialogue tells us that it is becoming more and more difficult to affirm the exclusivity of Christ in a multi-religious setting.

There are in fact many ways to God and many paths to human flourishing. In addition, we are increasingly aware that our visions of God and human flourishing are our visions and they are products of our history and our imaginative and creative construction.

Once we recognize that they are products of such a kind of human historical creativity, they are instantly relativized and later removed from the venue of absolutes. To quote David Byrne of the Talking Heads, you're talking a lot but you're not saying anything.

He said later, one needs in fact to address a more, much more fundamental question regarding the nature, place, and authority of the Bible in Christian reflection and action. You got to get rid of the Bible, bro, Teddy Roosevelt.

How awful, Acts 20 .20, is my rejoinder to him. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus and nobody else.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, Romans 10, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

1 Timothy 2 .5, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ, Jesus. And finally, 1 John 5, and this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life and this life is in His Son.

Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. You can either take it or leave it to your own peril, surely, certainly, but the text says what it says. People like this have problems who want to try to talk about human flourishing as well.

What does the text say? The text says it's through Jesus alone, and we either submit to that or we buck the system to our own peril. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. If you've got a letter of encouragement or anything like that or the opposite, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

You can get the book Sexual Fidelity, NoCompromiseRadio .com or the Kindle version at Amazon .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 bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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