Beth Moore and a Flirting God

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.

Beth Moore’s “Flirting God” Remark and Why the Metaphor Is Wrong

Welcome to No Compromise Radio. How do you say �ministry Steve, in Deutsch? Polizei. Das Minister. I don�t know. The federal government there, it�s like �bund�, B-U-N-D, is what it�s. Yeah, yeah.

Because it doesn�t come like from �of the people� or �I don�t even know. Something like that.

I don�t know the exact details, but every time I see it, then I think of, you know, �federal. I think of �headship� and �atom� and stuff like that.

I think of �Bundeswehr which is their army. Oh, okay. Nice. All right. Have you been to Germany? Nein. I�d like to, you know. You know what? I think you�d like Germany. I think I would, too. I mean, there are a lot of places I wouldn�t like, which will remain nameless.

You know me for a long time, it didn�t matter where I would travel. It was just fun to go travel. But there are many places in the Course, I�m not sovereign, so I still might end up finding myself someplace like these, but there are a few places I just think, �You know what?

I just probably will never be back there.

There are some places I�d only go if I was taken hostage and dragged there.

And some places, when you go there, they could probably take you out of there. Yes, they probably would. Uh-huh. I know.

All right. Anything happen in your life? Anything happening in my life? Well, that�s kind of broad.

Yeah. Like, you know, anything interesting or�?

Oh, there�s lots of interesting. I think there are probably some things I wouldn�t want to talk about on the radio, but yeah.

But that�s what our people are really wanting to know. They really want to know the scoop. I know. The other day, I got something online from one of our listeners, Steve, and she talked about Beth Moore stating that God flirts with people.

I saw that. And you�d be very proud of me. I said to the lady who gave me the information, �Thank you. Do you have a copy of the book Because I thought it was such an egregious comment. You know, when you think of flirting, this is not some simple thing like, you know, showing a little affection.

Flirting is, I�m going to show some kind of affection, but I�m not serious about it. Right? I�m not going to actually follow through with it. This is just kind of for fun. And last time I checked the Baker Dictionary of Theology, �affectual call it didn�t really say anything about not following through.

Yeah.

I think the context was, you know, like the drawing of God. And I just thought, �Flirting, what a terrible metaphor for that. Right? This is not� God does not flirt with us when he draws us. He�s not batting his eyes.

You know, I mean, it�s just so much nonsense. And when it sort of, if I could say this, and I will say it, it sort of sexualizes the whole thing. It�s entirely inappropriate. So Beth Moore, if you�re out there, I would just say this to you.

That is an entirely inappropriate, really, what�s the word I�m looking for? It�s a blasphemous metaphor.

So there you go. The app that I have on my phone, �definition flirt, verb used without object to court triflingly or act amorously without serious intentions, colon, semi-colon, play at love. Number two, to trifle or toy as with an idea, she flirted with the notion.

Number three, to move with a jerk or jerks dart about butterflies flirting from flower to flower. You think maybe that�s what she meant, the Holy Spirit is like the wind in John 3? Can we give her the benefit of that doubt, Steve?

No, because I think it was really sent or written with the idea of Jesus flirting.

I think that was the idea. Yes, and I�m going to read that in just a second, but maybe verb used with object. Maybe somehow we can work this into NoCo. To throw or propel with a toss or jerk, fling suddenly.

That's another definition of flirt, is that what you mean?

Yeah, because if he's going to cast people into hell, it was the whole Tim Keller thing, you quote C .S. Lewis, and hell is what you want kind of thing, and you make yourself go to hell, and the doors are locked on the inside kind of thing of hell, versus Jesus saying regularly cast in, thrown in.

Well, I mean, I think there is a sense in which people fit themselves, but it's by their actions, what they do, and would they want to be in heaven? Absolutely not. Why not? Because that's where the glory of Christ is.

They hate the glory of Christ, which is why they're in hell.

Also made me think of Romans chapter 9, vessels fitted for destruction. The Armenians especially want to make that middle instead of passive. So anyway, here's the quote that is from Believing God. I don't know if this is a study Bible or a book or whatever.

It says, the importance of developing a God memory.

You know what? I'd like to have a God-like memory.

Uh-huh, yeah. This is God-memory, kind of like God, Jesus is the God-man, God-man. This is a God-memory. So what's a God-memory? I don't know, but you know what?

That whole idea is very, because to never be able to, well, first of all, I'd like to be able to forget some things, like those things that I'm trying to forgive people for. I'd like to forget those things, but here's what I'd like.

I'd like to have a photographic memory, that would work for me, where I read scripture and it just automatically goes in my head, or I read theological books and I can just pull up the pages. I'd like to have the Al Mohler memory.

In fact, just scratch that, I'd settle for the Mohler memory.

I have many things I could say, I'm just going to get back to this point here. They've got Joshua 4, 4 -7, fill in the blanks. Each of the 12 Israelites took up a stone on his blank. This is like theological Mad Libs, by the way.

On his head. I know. Joshua told the Israelites of the future, blank. Now here's the funny part. Beth writes, you and I committed to follow suit. Whether or not you realize it, by the way, I did not speak improperly, I'm just quoting here.

Whether or not you realize it, you have been returning to your own Jordan riverbed, retrieving rocks all week in your faith journaling sessions.

This whole need to, you know, what's the word I'm looking for, smoke dope? Well, to just treat the Old Testament metaphorically and put us in there, you know, we're wandering back to the Jordan. Well, actually, no, we're not, because newsflash, the Jordan is not in Massachusetts.

Next paragraph, you have had an amazing ride with God, whether or not you realize it. You know, when I go on those rides at the, you know, Six Flags type of amusement park, Steve, those spinning ones, I don't really like too much anymore, the tilt-a-whirl type of things and spinning and G-force rides.

I'm grandpa mode now. Yeah, I need the movement medicine or whatever, but here's what I'm wondering. Would Beth Moore, I mean, I'm sorry if this sounds sexist, and it probably will, should we just call her, you know, Beth Moore, spiritual cheerleader, because, you know, whether you know it or not, you had a great time with God this week.

What does that mean? I don't know. What is she, like, camp director? You know, all this stuff about wandering back to the Jordan and picking up stones?

Maybe it's Hebrews 12, and it's the chasing, and you've had a great time getting chasen by God this week, uh-huh. Yeah, it was the best. So here it goes, dear one, page 158, Believing God, Beth Moore, Importance of Developing a God Memory.

Dear one, if you have Jesus, you have a story. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will help you articulate it as He reminds you of Jesus and His works throughout your life. Bride of Christ, you were already on the great adventure of life, even when Jesus was wooing you, drawing you, and if I may be so blasphemous, sorry, so bold, flirting with you, end quote.

That's pretty bad. I mean, what she calls bold, yeah, I wouldn't call blasphemous. I don't even understand the part, though, before where she says, you know, the Holy Spirit reminding you, how did she say that?

What was it? I don't know. How does He articulate as He reminds you of Jesus and His works throughout your life? How does He, I mean, this is not really an appropriate application of John 14, because what He did was He reminded the disciples that He was talking to that night, the Holy Spirit reminds them of the words and the life of Jesus so that they can accurately report it in the Gospels, so that when we read the Gospels, that's when we encounter Jesus, right?

This is how the Holy Spirit teaches us about Jesus through His Word.

That's how He does it. Steve, let's talk in a broader category. Can I say broader? Is that proper? I think you just did. In a wider? This kind of language, especially the ladies that are listening today, need to be reminded that, well, I guess the men need to be reminded as well, but the language used by God should be both pleasing to, and acceptable to, and normal to, and proper to men and women.

In other words, God doesn't talk a certain way to women with these romantic overtones with sexual... Innuendos. Kind of in there. Because this is why no man would ever want to worship some kind of God like this who's flirting, right?

I mean, can you imagine if we just think of it from a guy's perspective, you know, that Jesus was wooing you, drawing you, and if I may be so bold, flirting with you.

What is that? You know, when you think of Jesus, out of all the kings kinging, out of all the lords lording, this is Jesus on the Damascus Road with Paul at His feet, probably, who knows, wetting Himself.

Well, that was some kind of wooing. Yeah! Woo, woo! I mean, Jesus is the King, and He there with Paul. Three times it's mentioned in the book of Acts, I think, to encourage Christians and encourage the new church that's developing.

The greatest enemy of Jesus is subdued by Jesus without any problem.

I mean, no resistance. Paul doesn't... I mean, it's so amazing to me to talk to some free will person and say, well, what about Paul? And they say, well, he could have rejected it. You know, on the Damascus Road, he could have said, no, Jesus, I'm not going to do that.

Well, maybe, since, you know, I misspeak a lot, and you just said the Damascus Rose, maybe Jesus on the Damascus Road was giving Paul a rose to try to get him to kind of like just woo him over with some special flowers, red roses, red rovers.

Not the tulip, but a rose.

You know, in John 6, as you've preached, of course, you know this, when there is the drawing, some people would make it seem like it's a caveman and his wife and dragging. But there's this, you know, you've got water at the bottom of the well, and you're drawing it up.

There is a greater force and a lesser force, and that greater force is exhibiting pressure on or doing something to that minor force.

And God never fails to get His man. You know, all who He draws come. All. I mean, there's no, you know, some will come, some will resist.

As as many as appointed to eternal life, only the woos and the flirting ones made it.

Only those who were appropriately wooed are flirted with.

Anyway, what also bothers me, Steve, and of course we all make mistakes as theologians and say things we ought not to, but this is not like a once-in-a-while thing. This is crazy stuff. This is God directly told me, Beth said, in very similar words, to go brush this guy's hair.

I know you have told me directly to go preach the gospel to everybody, but now you're not telling me to preach the gospel, you're telling me to go comb this guy's hair. Overriding Scripture to go comb his hair.

It's, I mean, when I hear a still, small voice, I tell it to be quiet. Be still. God speaks loudly to me through His Word. I don't need, you know, special revelations outside of Scripture that, you know, like conflict, conflict with Scripture, like God or the Lord Jesus is wooing me or flirting with me or anything like that.

This is page 159. Every question in faith journaling throughout weeks seven and eight is an opportunity for you to go back to that Jordan River, draw out a stone of remembrance, and throw it at a prophet named Stephen.

No, no, wait, I think I misread that. Yeah, that's not right.

Every journal reference and entry is an opportunity for you to think, I can still go back to the store and get my money back on this book. Do not buy Beth Moore books. Don't do it. I wonder where her husband is in all this.

Do you ever ask that question? I think he writes the intros. Do you know what, Steve?

Five years ago, I did that video, and it has now been eclipsed. That video has received like 20 ,000 views. The one about damning doctrines of Joyce Meyer has got like 22 ,000 views now or something.

Why does anybody listen to either one of them?

Well, how about this? Beth Moore and Joyce Meyer are friends, and, you know, you see the pictures and colleagues and promoting each other.

How does that all work? I don't know, especially since Joyce Meyer teaches the word-faith heresy, and Beth Moore allegedly does not.

So how could you then endorse? Maybe all mystics love to throw Jordan stones together and skip them. What if I threw a Jordan stone and skipped it 24 times for Joshua 24? What would that mean?

I know, that's significant. Let's do a whole show on numerology.

What do you think about, do you think Beth Moore could ever be the president of the Southern Baptist Convention? I mean, right now you've got J .D. Greer, and of course—.

There were people talking about her last time when it was opening.

Well, now Greer is minimizing the sin of homosexuality and recategorizing things and talking about how it's, you know, blah, blah, blah, you've probably all seen the video. But I guess Beth could make it, right?

Does it say you have to be a man?

Well, the drawing produces itself. I can see it now. You know, when she is made the president of the SBC, that's when they should draw the tombstone, you know, because the same moment she's sworn in is when the SBC officially is dead.

Do you think it's dead already with J .D. Greer there? I mean, you go back to 2012 and he was soft on homosexuality then. It's on its way.

I mean, it is on its way. We, you know, we watched the drift. And you know, I think it's only together right now for very pragmatic reasons. I mean, sooner or later it's going to break, right? It has to.

You know, when I started going to Southern Seminary in 2000 and something or other, I don't know, three maybe, it was interesting. There's that PBS show, and I can't remember the name of it, but it's almost screw tape letter-like where Neil Limskom, I think, is the director, portrayed Southern Seminary's conservative takeover in a negative fashion, like this was a bad thing.

Yeah. Losing my religion and all that kind of thing. Right. The helicopter that goes over the campus in Kentucky. I'm wondering if it's going back. I mean, have we lived that long that we've seen Southern Seminary get resurrected and new life, conservative life, inerrancy, literal resurrection, et cetera, I know they still believe that now.

But then with the social stuff coming in and SBC stuff coming in, I mean, I wonder what's going to happen.

Well, Lazarus did experience death again, right? He was brought to life and then he died.

Is it proper to say that he was resurrected or he was just like rejuvenated?

Well, it's not proper to say he was resurrected, but he was brought back. You didn't say resurrection. Yeah. Yeah. So you were fine. Okay, but he was brought back to life. Yeah, he was. Then he had to die again.

Yeah. Later, he got a resurrected body, though. Yes, he did. Or no, he will. He will. Yeah, future. Yeah, where am I? But I mean, you know what? Where he is, he's not experiencing time anyway. So, you know, the next thing he'll experience is resurrection.

Steve, do you sometimes imagine, all right, loved ones in heaven and 40 years goes by and then you die and then when you're in heaven, will that loved one just go, oh, I just got here a second ago, it seems like, because there's no time.

It's not like, you know, they're up there pining away.

I said that very thing when Karen Yulo died. I said to Lisa Huber, I said, you know, here's the thing. And what we have to realize is Karen is now having her best days ever, right? Only they're not even days.

There's no experience of time. And so you're going to show up and she's going to look and see you and just go, oh, yeah, well, I just got here too, you know? And so there's going to be that whole, it's hard for us to imagine not existing in time because we're so time driven, right?

But I mean, death takes us out of that.

I think that is why, Steve, years ago I was so fascinated with the concept of eternity past. We regularly would think, and every new Christian practically thinks of eternity future and heaven and glorification and the hope of heaven.

I mean, can you imagine? And even eagerly waiting for the Savior to return, Titus 3, I think that there's a propensity to just think in one direction, that is towards the future, that there's this eternity, eternal life, eons, forever and ever.

But it's just as wonderful, is it not, to think the other way?

Well, in fact, you know, while you were talking, I just had this idea, and I think this is true, that time is entirely a construct, right? It is utterly, in every genuine sense, it's meaningless to God other than the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ entered into it.

My theological mind just said incarnation. Okay, keep going.

So eternity past and eternity future, it's all the same to God. So I mean, in other words, I don't really think, I think time is overrated, and it's just something that we, it is a creation, and it's something we're used to.

But for God, it's just like, well, you know, it's just another one of my creations.

Steve, if I could put time in a bottle.

The first thing, I mean, this is like the Jim Kirk version of Jim Croce, right? That's right. That's what he did. Remember that song? No, I don't remember Jim Kirk doing it.

Well, he has that song where he does all the old, and he's supposed to, I think he's trying to come across as serious, but it just seems like this Saturday Night Live.

If I could save time in a bottle.

I was also thinking about the I Love Lucy, when she's trying to drink the Vita Vita Vegemin, and it's like, you know, and she started getting too much to drink, and she's like, in this bittle lottle, she's trying to do the commercial.

You can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. Make sure you tell your friends, and if you haven't given us a little iTunes review, that might be a good thing to do, don't you think?

You know what? I'm going to just start spamming reviews. Best show ever. I especially love Tuesdays.

Spam away. You can also write us and say, you know what, would you address this topic? Would you talk about, you know, how many times Pastor C's been baptized, or something like that. You know, that'd be good.

Okay. Have you ever been sprinkled?

Not as far as I know. I mean, you know, and that's kind of tricky, right? I mean, I never asked my mom. I think grew up Episcopalian, but yeah, as far as I know, I was never. Do you know what? Maybe you were, though.

It's possible. My guess is, only the pagan of pagans, you know, thinks, well, you know what, I've got this little newborn, and I kind of know Christianity, i .e., I've been to Episcopal churches, and I'm not going to get the kid baptized.

I mean, it is possible. I don't know. I don't recall. I guess they're Baptists. But anyway, you could have been baptized in the Episcopal church, and then the Mormon church, do they dunk? Yeah. Okay. Triple dunk?

In the name of the Father, Son, and Brigham Young?

I mean, you would have a hard time telling the difference between a Mormon baptism and a Christian baptism. Okay. The only difference would be something like, I'm sure, I mean, I did baptize my son. I think they probably say something like, by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, which I bear.

How was that, bearing that? Was it like a... It was pretty heavy. There was some kibbode there, you know. Oh, nice.

Right. Was it like a beast of burden or anything like that? No. I wouldn't want to be that. No.

No, but, you know, I felt electric, you know, having the Melchizedek Priesthood. Yeah.

That's interesting because, you know, of course, I'm preaching through. Hebrews chapter 7 and that whole Melchizedek Priesthood, I guess it helps. If you're a Mormon and your last name's not Cohen and you're not a Levitical priest, how are you going to do that?

Yeah. Did you have to have special garments on?

To baptize? Yeah. No, I mean, I think we just had, you know, I'm sure we had some kind of white dojo robe or something.

Oh, nice. And then, of course, the question everybody wants me to ask you is, do you have to remove the Mormon underwear that you buy at the Desiree Bookstore when you're baptizing somebody else?

Well, the answer would be no, but I never had that anyway. I never went to—I never got my endowments at the temple. It's endowment—is that what it's called? Is that the underwear? No, the endowments are when you go and you make the promises and they give you your secret.

Name and all that stuff. We could just combine that with Scientology and then you'd have to make a billion-year contract to have the endowments so you can have the right culture.

Scientology is a trip. I mean, we were talking about this off the air. The one thing about Mormonism—I mean, there are a lot of things I like about Mormonism. I really like the family structure. I like the sense of community.

I like the way they take care of people. But Mormonism is ultimately about this. It is a very humanistic way of explaining the mysteries of the universe, you know, because we just reduce God to, you know, like man, and then we say, hey man, you can be like God.

And so it just makes everything very simple.

Unlike Scientology where you have, you know, SPs, suppressive persons, and Zinu, and Thedans. I just learned that John Travolta has been given the title of something like Kon-Kon or Kon-Kar or something like that, that he's able to kill people if he wants, according.

To one alleged thing. He's been given the title of Exalted Xanadu. And he gets to sing as many Olivia Newton-John songs as he wants, and nobody can say a thing. Oh, man.

But I thought that's Travolta. Now the Kon-Kar guy is doing the wrong thing. Well, my name's Mike Abendroth, this is Steve Cooley, we'll see you next time.

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.