Gospel Threats (Part 2)

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.'"

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Michael Lee Abendroth here at the helm, and we are positive, encouraging,

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Today, part two, threats to the gospel. I belabored the point,

I think, last time, what kind of spiritual battle we are in. Actually, I should have said, what kind of battle we are in, and that is, it's a spiritual battle.

Therefore, we have to use spiritual means, spiritual, spiritual means, and we have one weapon, and that weapon is the word of God.

The inerrant, inspired, God -breathed, authentic, authoritative, and sufficient word.

No wonder Satan is after that weapon. No wonder the attacks on the scriptures are prevalent.

So, last time, we looked at a danger from within the church before we move outside to the sphere outside of us.

The first danger was the professing church, or the evangelical church, just assumes the gospel.

Never teaches the gospel to the next generation. Assumes that everyone in the

Sunday school class is a Christian. The pastor assumes that all the people they're attending, after all, they're members, and they're founding members, and they are baptized, and they're catechized, and they're confirmed, and they're irrigated, consecrated, variegated, and so they just assume it.

So, one of the things that you can do if you're a pastor is you keep preaching the gospel, and the good news is, if you teach the

Bible consecutively, if you are after authorial intent, you will, in fact, regularly expose people to the gospel, and after all, the songs we sing, the good songs, are talking about the redemption of Christ and what

He's accomplished. That's helpful. By the way, friends, if you have all your songs sung to God about how we love

God, and how we feel about God, and God, I love you, and God, you're the best,

I don't mind praising God, saying, you are exalted. The King is exalted on high.

But I like to sing songs about what God has done for me. So, if I have to pick, I'll pick that one.

Since I don't have to pick, since we sing lots of songs on a Sunday, typically, I think on Sunday morning here, we sing three hymns total, and two hip -hop songs.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Two praise songs, two modern choruses, or modern hymns, and then

Sunday night, it's about 15 minutes of pick your favorite hymns. You get to raise your hand and pick your hymn, and most of the time, they pick good hymns.

Sometimes, Bruce Binney picks a real zinger, a real doozy. Bruce, you know you're listening.

So, we have songs that we sing that are about the gospel as well, redeemed how

I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. There are a variety of different songs like that. And so, if you're a

Sunday school teacher, keep preaching the gospel. If you are teaching about David and Goliath, I hope you figure out, and it might take some work, how do

I talk about Jesus today? The star is in Abraham. The star is Jesus.

The star isn't David. The star is Jesus. The hero isn't Daniel. The hero is

Jesus. And so, it takes a bit of work because you want to stay true to the author's intention locally, that is, in context.

But also, when you think of the grand scheme of redemption, the swath of redemption, it would be about Christ Jesus.

After all, the prophets and the law and the writings and the wisdom speak of Christ, Luke 24 and John 5.

So, the second danger I see to gospel ministry and the gospel itself, first one being assuming the gospel, the second one, still with inside the church, is making the gospel about personal approbation.

I'll steal that word from, I forgot who said it, Ritterbos, personal approbation.

In other words, we move from the objective realities, historical verities in the gospel, and we move to the subjective side.

We go from fact to feeling. We go from, here's the easy way to remember it, friends, we go from what

Jesus accomplished to how I receive those benefits.

Now, there's nothing wrong with receiving the benefits of Christ's work. Actually, that's one of the terminal things for His work,

A, the glory of God, and B, our salvation, and always in that order, of course.

But it's good to receive the benefits and talk about conversion. And it's wonderful to realize that I, although deserving hell many times over,

I'm not, if you like this show, you wouldn't have liked me before I was saved. That's for certain, unless I gave you a large gift.

The thing is, we are saved people, and it's good to talk about that. But primarily, when it comes to the gospel, the gospel isn't about feeling.

The gospel isn't about subjective things. The gospel doesn't primarily concern itself with how

I receive the benefits. The gospel is an objective fact.

It is a historical fact. And yes, it's a theological fact as well, where we have sinful people because of Adam, and then we have righteous people, declared righteous because of the last

Adam, Christ Jesus, because of Christ's life, His death, His resurrection, and how even

Christ Himself has granted us faith, has granted us repentance, has made us alive, has made us born again, monergistic regeneration.

And so when you think about books today, don't you think most books are about the subjective side, the feeling side?

Even if you were a testimony, how do you give your testimony? Well, that's the good question. If you had to get up and give your testimony, would you focus more on the objective side of the gospel, historical, theological, what

Jesus did? Jesus did this, Jesus did that, Jesus accomplished this. Is that how you'd talk?

Or would you start telling me the story about your life? Well, tell me the story of your life, as one pop singer said.

When you read 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where it talks about the gospel there and that preeminent passage that's wonderful to go to regularly, the subject of the verbs, almost all the verbs in 1

Corinthians 15, three to eight. Oh, there's a couple of relative clauses there in verse six regarding the 500 witnesses.

But this is all about Jesus. Listen, for I deliver to you as a first importance what

I also received. Okay, now here we go. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That he was buried. Notice how the writers didn't say they buried him. Jesus is active here grammatically.

That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared.

Isn't that interesting? Christ died, he was buried, he was raised, he appeared.

Did you get that? Objective truth, historical truth, theological truth, fact, what

Jesus did. There's nothing subjective there. There's nothing about feelings there. Oh, you can have good feelings about that or bad feelings for that matter.

But this is what Jesus did. I love John Murray's book that you ought to read. It's got a memorable title.

Redemption Accomplished and Applied. See, the focus on redemption is on God.

Actually, I just dropped my son off at some SAT testing thing, came over here with a piece of coffee and sat down and just pushed the button.

So that's my caveat. That's my way out.

By the way, I don't like it when preachers stand up and say, I'm sick, I don't feel good.

I was up all night and my kid was throwing up all night or something, you know, I don't like that, why? Because that's basically saying if my sermon's a bomb,

I have an excuse. So hey, just get up, pull the trigger. People say later, you look kind of pale today.

Well, then you can tell them why. So listen to what Michael Horton says in The Gospel -Driven

Life. Baker Books, you ought to read this book and if Horton would ever interview with me again,

I'd probably promote his books more. I remember when I was doing live radio and I had just started with No Compromise Radio, it was about four years ago and I had

Moeller lined up for an interview and I had Horton lined up for an interview and MacArthur dogged me and I couldn't get his interview even though I thought

I knew him. I thought he was my friend. Anyway, I, at the radio station at the time, at WVNE, 760 in beautiful downtown, it's close to Auburn but not quite

Auburn, we had to call and I think it was Dave calling and the only thing

I got when we were calling for the interview, you know, five minutes ahead of time to make sure everything was set because it was live radio,

I received this from Michael Horton's house. Hi, this is

Mike. Lisa and I aren't home right now. I had to beep, please leave a message. So what did

I do? I had some notes I think on hell and was talking about that for a while and then five minutes later he called in.

So we did get one interview with Michael Horton. He asked me if I was a Lutheran and I said,

I used to be. Just kidding. Horton says, page 70, popular

Christian books and broadcasts Jesus is the answer to everything in these books.

He fixes broken lives, marriages, relationships, helps us recover from addictions, relieves stress, teaches us how to raise positive kids in a negative world, improves our self -esteem and boosts our optimism about life.

It is an objective announcement. He probably means rather, the gospel is rather an objective announcement about what

God has done for us in his son. See, Horton gets it.

He understands that the gospel is not primarily about personal approbation.

It has nothing to do with that. That's what happens in response to the gospel when God so sees fit to move.

Christ is the subject of the gospel. And so when you give a personal testimony, someone asks you to men's breakfast or before your baptism or maybe you have testimony time during a worship service on Sunday morning.

I hope you don't. I think that's, I was gonna say that was dumb, but maybe there's some listeners here that I should be a little softer with.

I don't think you'll find that in scripture as part of corporate worship. One person getting up saying, this is my testimony.

It usually turns into testifonials and you know what happens after that.

We wanna talk about God the Savior. And so when I read testimonies and we have those before our baptisms, then

I try to make sure they are God -centered where God is the active one in salvation. After all, we are dead in our trespasses and sins when

God saves us. And so we want passive language. That's what Carson said.

Weigh how many presentations of the gospel have been eased by portraying Jesus as the one who fixes marriages, ensures the

American dream, cancels loneliness, gives us power, and generally makes us happy.

If you begin with perceived needs, you will always distort the gospel. So one of the threats to the gospel is just talking this way, thinking this way, acting this way.

Eventually, it wouldn't surprise me if you get terribly close to Finney and Finney's methodology, which this sermon illustrates.

Sinners bound to change their own hearts. Can you imagine preaching that sermon? At least he had the nerve to say what he believed.

Sadly, he believed that though. The gospel is called various things in the

New Testament. How about, look at all these modifiers. The gospel of God, Mark 1.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 9. The gospel of the Son, Romans 1.

The gospel of his kingdom, Matthew 4. The gospel of the grace of God, Acts 20.

The gospel of the glory of Christ, 2 Corinthians 4. The gospel of peace,

Ephesians 6. I almost said 15, it's 615. An eternal gospel,

Revelation 14. Notice it's not the gospel of Mike Abendroth. I try to do this and I don't always do it and it's not that big a pet peeve of mine, but I'm just trying to change.

I don't even like to say the gospel of Mark. The good news of Mark. Well, it's true, the gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Mark, the gospel of Luke, the gospel of Thomas.

Just check and see if you're listening. The gospel of John. The gospel of Jesus Christ, according to the apostle

John. That's better, but we just go shorthand and I get shorthand, I understand theological shorthand.

So you can do it if you like to, but I'm trying to say, not our, but our.

I'm trying to say et cetera, not et cetera. I'm trying to say fusillade versus fusillage.

I'm trying to say Jean. I haven't heard from Ted lately. Ted, where are you?

Give me some statistical analysis or something. Where's Ted when I need him? John up in Idaho, he won't stop stalking me, but Ted, he just vanishes.

See, we have a select group of emailers that bug me regularly and I probably bug them too.

So, but our resident linguist, Ted Chomsky, I think he's gone.

I think he's with Roger Batterson at the Christian Museum.

The Answers in Genesis Museum. What's that called again, Roger? The Answers in the

Dinosaur Museum. I don't know, I'm sorry, Roger.

But we need to have a no compromise conference here. I think we need to get on the bus or something. We'll get a no -co bus, drive around, and I'll show you my new no -co tattoo.

By the way, I haven't heard much out of James McDonald lately after the whole tattoo vertical deal, vertical tour.

Where is he? That's another show. Okay, listen to what

Horton says in his book that I was just promoting. Although such a day is not unimaginable at our present pace, it would simply be unlikely that major news organizations could survive if they reported their inner longings and hunches as the news.

Well, think about that. There are probably some bad newspapers that do that kind of thing, but reporters are thoroughly trained, brief, schooled, and educated in news, trying to be objective.

Oh, I know at the end of the day they're not totally objective, but their goal is objectiveness.

Is that a word? Objectiveness. It's probably not. You think about what the fall has done to us, and even those of us who are

Christians now, there's still a sin hangover. And if Luther talked about how we are curved in upon ourselves when it comes to the topic of depravity, we have ourselves twisted in so what we want are felt needs, our gratifications, our desires.

We think about that a lot. Even after salvation, it's something we have to struggle with. And so when you talk about the

Lord Jesus Christ, we need to make sure we're talking about what he has done through that lens versus how we have received him,

Jesus as the object of salvation. Listen to what

Ritterbos said in his book called Paul, An Outline of His Theology. Ritterbos was a famous Dutch theologian, and he was analyzing the shift of this type of language of personal approbation.

In the days of Calvin and Luther, so it was a seismic shift, and Ritterbos said this.

I've quoted it before on No Compromise Radio, but it's fascinating. While in Calvin and Luther, all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that took place with Christ's death and resurrection.

Later, under the influence of pietism, mysticism, and moralism, the emphasis shifted to the individual approbation, no, appropriation, of the salvation given in the life.

Now I'm all messed up. The emphasis shifted to the individual appropriation of the salvation given in Christ and to its mystical and moral effect in the life of the believer.

Accordingly, in the history of the interpretation of the epistles of Paul, the center of gravity shifted more and more from the forensic to the pneumatic and ethical aspects of his preaching, and there arose an entirely different conception of the structures that lay at the foundation of Paul's preaching.

So to put that through the Dutch theologian's translator into No Compromise language, quit talking about yourself.

Talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what he said? I don't know. I don't know much Dutch. Lutter, lutter.

Listen to what Sinclair Ferguson says. True faith takes its character and quality from its object and not from itself.

Faith gets a man out of himself and into Christ. Its strength, therefore, depends on the character of Christ.

Even those of us who have weak faith have the same strong Christ as others. So there's a couple of things that I could bring out from that quote, but here's what

I want to bring out. It's not your faith. It's your faith in Christ, right?

So even if you talk about your faith, you want to talk about how much faith you have. Faith has an object.

And Sinclair Ferguson, he talks about real faith takes its character and quality from the object and not from itself.

It's not faith in faith. We know that. But the way we talk sometimes betrays what we know.

Think Savior. Think I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even him crucified.

The gospel is more than this is how I got saved. I need to move on. This is what happened to me, as Horton says, when

I said yes to Jesus. Rather, it's the announcement of God's triumph at the cross.

So let's talk about the Lord Jesus Christ when we speak of salvation.

B .B. Warfield, why is the gospel necessary for Christians? Because some people are thinking, you know what?

We shouldn't assume it. Okay, I get that. We should talk about it a lot, but how much does a

Christian really need to talk about the gospel? After all, haven't we been affected by the gospel, changed by the gospel, saved by the gospel?

B .B. Warfield, there's nothing in us or done by us at any stage of our earthly development because of which we are acceptable to God.

We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.

This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be trust as long as we live.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing. Isn't that good? Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing, nor does the nature of our relation to him or to God through him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be.

It is always on his blood and righteousness alone that we rest. Well, on No Compromise Radio today, we talked about the second threat to the gospel.

And at this rate, we'll be done with the series sometime before I go on sabbatical. Speaking of sabbatical, where is

Steve? Where are these Tuesday shows? And where are the Saturday shows, the Tuesday guy and Saturday? I just got an email from Rick down in Florida, in Orlando, Cornerstone, Cornerstone Baptist, I think, for No Compromise Conference down there in October.

And he said, well, maybe someday we'll bring Tuesday guy. Two for the price of one.

Well, it's funny, I sent my retainer down there and all the things I require.

I require green M &Ms, Evian water, lots of Pete's coffee, and a 58 centimeter carbon fiber bike.

Only to borrow. I don't get that every time. I just get that to borrow for a few days in Orlando.

Anyway, you can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Don't forget we have a No Compromise 90

YouTube site. So you can go to YouTube, just type in No Compromise 90. We have our own channel.

Can you believe it? Our own channel. And then we have 90 seconds of me giving a sharp angled issue.

Where's Beth Moore's husband? And some people like Ray Johnson, they help write responses to the comments that we get that aren't too nice.

But I just read them. I don't respond because I can't get into the blog war. It's over my pay grade. So I just cause the problems and I let other people put them out.

So anyway, you can also go to nocoever .com to watch a couple of videos with Carl Truman, James White, Phil Johnson, and myself.

God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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

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

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

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