Smoking Out Calvinist Past

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

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Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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

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I don't know why I couldn't talk just a minute ago my first take. So this is take two. Originally, we did

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No Compromise Radio two and a half years ago live. I had a little atomic clock here in the halls of Bethlehem Bible Church.

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And it just was more difficult to do it live, let's just put it that way. So now I just, I don't like the way a show goes,

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I just tape over it, that's what I do. So I'd like to give you a heads up regarding an opportunity that I think you'll find both refreshing, encouraging, uplifting.

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We do that sometimes on No Compromise Radio, don't we? An evening of Christmas joy. Friday, December 16th, 7 p .m.

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Here at Bethlehem Bible Church, we have our annual Christmas concert. And at the end of the day, it is an outreach concert.

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And that is to say, if you have unbelieving friends, whether they're kids or parents, and you'd like to bring them to have some wonderful,

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I almost sound like Lawrence Wilk, wonderful, wunderbar Christmas music.

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And I'll give a gospel presentation. You can come to Bethlehem Bible Church, that's in West Boylston, just north of Worcester.

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And you can email us if you'd like to get a couple tickets. We have free tickets. And that's

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Friday, December 16th, 7 p .m. Well, it's about an hour and five minutes of music, and it's about 10 or 15 minutes of preaching.

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And we would love to have you come. We have more and more people come every year, so you want to get tickets so you can get in. An evening of Christmas joy, outreach concert,

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Friday, December 16th, 7 p .m. You can email me at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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Info at nocompromiseradio .com. And then say, I'd like to have two tickets.

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I'd like to have 10 tickets. I'd like to have, I think I'll probably cap it at 10. Capping it at 10.

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All right, here's what I want to talk about today on No Compromise Radio Ministry. I'd like to talk about Tom Askell's blog,

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Founders Ministry blog. Now, Tom Askell is on the Founders Ministry's executive team.

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He's executive director. And here's what he said in his How to Smoke Out a

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Calvinist Pastor in Your Church blog. Now, Tom Askell is a

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Southern Baptist. Excuse me. And there are many Southern Baptists who are not

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Calvinistic. Although if you look at the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention, you'll see

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Calvinistic original people, originators, founders, founders.

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And so it's not like it's that big a deal. It's not as if Southern Baptist started off as Arminian and then the

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Calvinist invaded. It was more Calvinistically oriented than Arminian.

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And now the Calvinists are coming back. And some people don't like that, of course. And they make bad statements about Calvinist and hyperbolic statements about Calvinist.

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And this just is a very interesting thing. Here's what Askell said. Yesterday, I was sent the following three documents that have been circulating in Western Tennessee among some

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Southern Baptist churches. It seems that they were distributed at seminars being held for churches to teach, quote, how to find out if you, find out if any of your staff are

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Calvinist and how to get rid of them. Wow. I think somebody circulated that memo at Bethlehem Bible Church about 1999.

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Since receiving them, I have communicated with others who have verified that they are being made available to Southern Baptist churches in Tennessee, not by any official denominational worker, but by zealous people who view the doctrines of grace as heresy.

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I'm trying to contact one or more of those persons in hopes of better understanding what has provoked this mission.

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So I have that list here, reformed red flags. I have a copy of that and I find it most fascinating.

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I wish I could kind of talk like William F. Buckley. Most fascinating. But I can't, so I won't.

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Sitting here in no compromise radio studio. Why is this? I think this is like a microphone that's on.

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I don't think it should be on. This guest one should be off. So I'm just gonna move that over. Pastor Steve's microphone's getting in my business here.

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I don't like that. Reformed red flags. These are hilarious at times.

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These are sad at times because people do not understand the history of what a

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Calvinist is. And so if you don't know that historically, then you just make it up and you do an ad hominem and you create something that doesn't really exist.

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And we'll talk about this as we go. Reformed red flags. This section deals with behavior, more behavior than believing.

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All right, let's find out. Things to look for. If you'd like to know if your pastor is Calvinistic and how to fire him, here's how you start.

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By the way, shouldn't you figure that out before you hire him? Wouldn't that be good? Before you have him sell his house, move across the country, get a new job, start pouring his life out in the ministry of others.

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And then you find out he's a Calvinist. I think it's a little a day late in a dollar short as my father used to say.

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I think you better do that ahead of time. If you're on the pulpit committee of a church, you better do your homework.

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I would say one of the number one things that pulpit committees do wrongly is they don't investigate the candidate enough.

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And I think one of the things that the candidate does wrongly at the top of the list is he doesn't investigate the church enough.

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I remember in 1997, when I was investigating this church, Bethlehem Bible Church, I didn't do a good job at all trying to figure out the doctrine, the machinations, who's on first, any of that stuff.

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I did a poor job. And so when you do something poorly, then you want to make sure other people do a better job.

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So Reformed Red Flags on No Compromise Radio. Number one, maybe we should do this a how to sniff out

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Calvinistic radio hosts and how to fire them. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye.

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Number one, lack of passion in the public invitations for the lost to repent and receive

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Jesus as Lord and Savior or no gospel invitation is extended. So the first thing you can find out if somebody's

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Calvinist is they don't give an altar call or if they do, they don't give one with much passion.

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When I first got here to Bethlehem Baptist Church at the time, it was a Baptist general conference church, general atonement, as it were.

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And I got here and I just began to preach, preach sermon after sermon after sermon.

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And people began to ask me, aren't you evangelistic? You don't believe in evangelism?

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You don't do altar calls? And I had to go through the whole deal that altar calls weren't in the

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Bible. People got saved back in those days. Altar calls weren't given by John Wesley in Arminian.

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People got saved back in those days. Altar calls were not endorsed by Lewis Barry Chafer who is no crazy

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Calvinist, that's for sure. The guy who started Dallas Seminary. Hudson Taylor didn't do altar calls and people got saved.

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Adoniram Judson didn't do altar calls and people got saved. The hideous, miscreant

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John Calvin didn't do altar calls and people got saved. Martin Luther didn't do altar calls and people got saved.

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Jesus didn't do altar calls and people got saved. Paul didn't do altar calls and people got saved.

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What is an altar call? Well, Finney is the one that started altar calls, started the modern movement, calling people up to the front.

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First of all, there's no such thing as an altar in a church unless you're a papist because the altar's done and over.

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The sacrifice has been slain once and for all. And so I would just keep telling people, and I was nicer probably than I am now on No Compromise Radio, but I still wanted to tell them the truth that there's no reason to do one.

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If you show me a reason to do an altar call, I'll do them. So give me a biblical warrant. By the way, there is no biblical warrant for an altar call.

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And secondly, I think that if you say to yourself, how are people saved?

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That'll answer the question. People aren't saved through altar calls. Now, in spite of altar calls, they're probably saved.

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And during the altar call, people can give, the pastor can bear witness to the gospel and proclaim the gospel, and people get saved through the gospel.

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The gospel is the power of salvation to all who believe, Romans 1, verse 16. Paul says in 1

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Corinthians 15, so we preach and so they believe. That's exactly the way it works.

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People who call upon the name of the Lord, they don't have to wait to the end of the service. 20 stanzas into I surrender all.

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Every head bow, every eye closed, no one looking around, a little mood organ music to the side.

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These are inventions of men. The gospel attended by the spirit of God, the quickening power of the spirit of God, effectually calling people through the proclaimed word, saves people.

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And so it is wrong to think that Calvinists don't want people saved.

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I think church history will show clearly quite the opposite. And so if you don't want people saved and you don't think you need to preach the gospel, that's not

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Calvinism. That's an error called hyper -Calvinism. And so when you go to a church, watch what they don't do.

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Listen for what they don't say. In other words, when I go to a church and they don't do an altar call,

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I say to myself, well, they must believe that the proclaimed word is enough to save.

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They must believe that they don't have to come up with some man -centered deal initiated by the heretic

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Finney to have people saved. You preach the gospel and God saves the preaching of the gospel.

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See the book of Acts, see Romans, see Galatians. So here it says, our lack of passion for public invitations.

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I don't know what that passion looks like. In some, it probably looks more different than it does in others.

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But I will say that, although I don't give public invitations like come up front or go to the prayer room, you can believe right where you are.

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I do call people to believe regularly. Matter of fact, this last Sunday, I told people that if you don't believe, that you must believe.

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Today is the day. Turn from your sins. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Take God at his word for what the scriptures say about your sin, about what

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Jesus did in his life, on the cross, raised from the dead. Here is the good news.

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Death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Christ died for sins, et cetera. And you must believe.

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But that's just woven into, is that the word, woven? That's just weaved through. It's woven through.

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That is just placed in the middle of the sermon, the beginning of the sermon, the end of the sermon.

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You can stand up and preach the gospel at the beginning of the service. You can preach it any time you want, as far as I'm concerned.

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But just because somebody doesn't do invitations, it doesn't mean you should fire them. So now,

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I love it that we have people at Bethlehem Bible Church that they've never seen an invitation. And when they do, they think it's funky.

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And so they're like, what's that? And so here you have a new generation of people who think God's word is powerful enough.

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It's like a hammer that can shatter the rock of a man or a woman or a boy and girl's heart.

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Number two, Tom Askell found this document that's being sent around to Baptist churches,

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Southern Baptist churches in Tennessee. Lack of salvation sermons are evangelistic, parentheses, revival preaching.

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Lack of sermons are evangelistic preaching. Salvation sermons. Well, I would say whoever came up with this list is theologically ignorant.

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That's a sad news. Trying to get people fired when they don't even know. They don't even understand issues.

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That's very, very sad. Salvation sermons. Well, there's nothing wrong with preaching a message about God's saving work.

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You can see it traced all through the scriptures. I'm not after that. I'm not against that. I'm not after an evangelistic sermon.

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Matter of fact, when we have that concert, that Christmas concert, I'm going to preach an evangelistic message. For Christmas and Easter, I usually preach evangelistic messages.

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So I don't condemn that or that kind of thinking. But 99 times out of 100, or maybe 50 times out of 52,

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I'm preaching to Christians primarily because the church gathers to worship the

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Lord through the preached word. And then we scatter to go evangelize. You, if you're a congregant, if you're a lay person, are the ones to do the majority of the evangelism.

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You don't bring people to the church to get them saved. You preach the gospel to them. So when people say a lack of salvation sermons, sadly, you go to some

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Southern Baptist churches and every sermon's the same thing. Every sermon is a call to salvation.

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Every single one. No wonder the churches are pygmy -esque in their spiritual growth.

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Stunted because the gospel is great, but there's more to preaching than the gospel.

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The gospel is of first importance. First Corinthians chapter 15, verses one and two.

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But there's more to be preached. There are other chapters of Corinthians that you need to preach. There's 28 other chapters written to the

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Corinthians, matter of fact. So anyway, this revival preaching, no revival preaching.

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He doesn't do revival preaching, he must be a Calvinist. God revives people's hearts, the psalmist said,

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Psalm 119. But how do I do a revival? Put up a tent? Have some special meetings?

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This is crazy. So, so far, I think that A, I'm a

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Calvinist. According to this guy, I should be fired. All right, number three. Tom Askell dug up this reformed red flags deal.

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Here's a good one. You're gonna wanna pay attention to this one here. I think this is gonna get a lot of pastors fired across the

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English -speaking world. Use of the ESV study

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Bible. That's a reformed red flag. Thank you. Actually, as I read the

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ESV Bible and then the study Bible, I wish it was more reformed than what it is. There's a few places where I think, you know what?

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That translation is not that reformed, but every translation's got its own problems, and so we're after the original

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Greek anyway. Use of the ESV study Bible. That'll make you yawn, won't it?

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Why is it? These days I get on the radio and I start yawning. Yawning is, I don't know if that's a very good thing regarding Christian radio, but it's probably better than people -to -people that is on an hour after I'm off or a half hour after I'm off who don't understand justification, my faith alone, and confession.

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So I guess you'll have to take the yawning. That's still number three, ESV study

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Bible. Hey, I'm just speechless. I know that's hard to believe, but I'm pretty much speechless when it comes to the use of the

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ESV study Bible. That guy's a Calvinist, gotta fire him. Number four, lack of participation with other churches in evangelistic campaigns in their city, country, or region.

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Well, I don't wanna think to myself, along with the church, we're the only people who are doing it right,

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Lee. That's not right. But I also don't get together with other churches to put on revival campaigns with watered -down, nasty,

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Armenian, semi -Pelagian messages. I'm not gonna do that either. So you're gonna hold a little tent meeting, and if I don't wanna participate because I think,

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A, tent meetings, most of the time, not too good. Once in a while, maybe you'll get a good one.

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Let's do revival. And then secondly, the message preached at those is pretty bad.

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You know what I should do? I should do Armenian red flags. That would be excellent. That would be excellent.

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So, so far, four for four, I should be fired, I guess. You're fired. It's like Danny Akin going to fire people at Southern Seminary.

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You're fired. Adding other belief statements or confessions to what their church believes, such as the

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First London Baptist Confession, 1689, by the way, that wasn't the first one.

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That would be 1644, I believe, or 1646, depending on how you wanna look at it.

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Oh, it does here say, Second London Baptist Confession, 1644. Why is the second in 1644?

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And why is the first in 1689? New Hampshire Confession and Abstract Principles.

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Oh, so other belief statements to what the church believes. So what do you use for a church statement of faith?

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I guess you can make up your own. A lot of churches do, which is fine. If you actually have some theologians on your team, that would be helpful.

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But when you say, oh, I have a London Baptist Confession that I believe in, or New Hampshire Confession, Abstract Principles.

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Abstract Principles, it's monergistic, but it's not that Calvinistic in my mind, but that's for Southern Baptist to decide.

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Moving the Bible to become under, moving the church to become under elder rule. That's what it says, moving the church to become under elder rule.

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So I didn't write that poorly. It just, I read it poorly because it was written poorly. Moving the church to become under elder rule.

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It should say, moving the church to elder rule. So you can smoke out a

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Calvinist if they're taking the church to elder rule. Hmm, interesting. I don't really have much comment on that.

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I could probably go on again if I tried. I think I can make myself. Now that is a talent.

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Focused on creating the true church. Reformed Red Flags, focused on creating the true church.

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Well, I don't know authorial intent here by Hocus Pocus Man, who wrote this, but I can say this.

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The whole idea with Southern Baptist people being on the roll, and somehow that you can be unregenerate church member is not a biblical concept.

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Regenerate church roles are what we need. And I think Al Mohler is correct when he talks about three sinequanons of Southern Baptist life.

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One is regenerate church membership. I think he's exactly right there. And so creating the true church, well,

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I don't know how I create the true church. Jesus bought the church with his life.

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He adds to the church. I'm not creating anything. Creation's a word that I try to use for God alone like the scriptures do.

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But who knows what these people are talking about? All right, next. One, two, three, four, five, who knows the number.

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Strict church discipline is sought to grow the church down to the true church.

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Strict. Well, like strict church discipline, like maybe

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Matthew 18, the Lord of the church told us, bring, go yourself, bring one or two, tell it to the church, and then treat them like a tax gatherer.

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Which part of that would make it more strict than the others? I think that's pretty strict. And then it says grow the church down to the true church.

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Well, one of the things that church discipline will do besides making people fearful of sin, besides honoring the

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Lord and obeying him in light of your salvation, is that church discipline will filter out and will weed out,

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I'll use that word, weed out unbelievers. That's just what happens.

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I don't want people who say I'm a Christian and I'm a church member, and then they act like they're not a

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Christian. I don't want them under the impression that they are a Christian. I want to disavow themselves of that.

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And scripture gives us many ways that we can go ahead and do that. Here it says most Southern Baptist congregations can use a dose of church discipline.

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Most could, most can use. They should say most could use. However, what is a true motive?

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Is it to help the straying Christian or to legalistically bring about the true church? Well, you can lord it over people with church discipline.

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You could discipline them all the time for this, that, or the other. I agree that you wouldn't want to do that.

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And you want to help strain Christians or people who call themselves Christians. But here's another case.

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This guy just doesn't really know what he's doing. Not doesn't really know, he just doesn't know.

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And I'm tempted to make a comment about Tennessee or Mississippi, but I think we probably have some smart listeners from Tennessee or Mississippi.

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Member of the Founders Movement and attends their annual meeting. Uh -oh, Calvinistic, fire them.

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Founders Movement, here you go. Look for the men they quote in their sermons.

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Do they mainly quote Calvinists such as Piper, Sproul, James White, Jonathan Edwards, and others?

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I can't believe I'm not on the list. Where's Mike Ebendroth on that list? That's interesting.

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Piper is a Baptist general conference. R .C. Sproul is an independent Presbyterian. James White is a

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Reformed Baptist and Jonathan Edwards was a Congregationalist. Well, I usually quote

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Calvinists because I like what they say because I think it's more biblical. But occasionally I'll quote a

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Methodist, John Wesley, maybe Charles Wesley, I'll quote one of their hymns.

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I might even quote a Roman Catholic, but I probably won't tell you who it is. There's a big fad these days of quoting

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G .K. Chesterton. And I just usually quote him, but I don't say who it is because I don't want to have people think of the wrong thing.

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But this is crazy. This is crazy to find out if there's a Calvinist in your church as a pastor, and this is how you can find out.

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And then you fire him. How about this? Why don't you just go ask your pastor? Pastor, what is

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Calvinism? And are you one? That would be the best. Boy, that's funny how that works.

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That's funny that you should just go to your pastor directly and ask a question versus doing all this other hokey pokey stuff to try to wander around the issue.

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Why don't you go to your pastor and say, friend, appreciate your ministry. Are you a Calvinist? What is

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Calvinism? I think that'd be the best route, don't you? No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.