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The social justice gospel isn’t. It isn’t gospel. It is all law and it produces either self righteous people or sour, crabby people. Is there any joy to be found?
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.
Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, my name is Mike Abendroth, and my lungs are getting better. It just takes them a little while to warm up when I start to talk again. So the first few minutes of the show, maybe I�ll be breathing underwater, and after that, we will be fine.
It is December 8th, 2021 today, and back in the studio, I recorded a few shows, maybe a couple weeks ago, haven�t been in the studio since. Thank you for praying, my health is much better. I saw the pulmonologist today, and he said there�s been dramatic improvement, I guess that I�m alive from acute respiratory failure.
I saw the CAT scan of my lungs in the hospital, and then today, much better. Preached the last two Sundays, he said in six months to a year, I should be at least at 90 back to my old ornery self. Anyway, thanks for praying, thanks for being patient with me while I�ve had a lot of reruns.
I didn�t make it on Heidelcast the other day for the intro, I think on my comments about Doug Wilson and then funerals, taking your kids to funerals, so that was the last two weeks on the Heidelcast, one of the podcasts I listen to every week with R. Scott Clark, my friend, and I listen to, let�s see, speaking of podcasts, I listen to the Pactam with Pat Abendroth and Mike Grimes, isn�t there a woman singer named Grimes?
Was that Elon Musk�s girlfriend, Grimes? And I wonder if they�re related in any way, shape, or form. So anyway, we�re back at it, good to have you, you can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.
Had to cancel Israel, I don�t know what�s going to happen with my Germany trip next year or New Zealand. Every place that I�m scheduled to go, it�s like they�re the worst COVID police passport mandate vaccine around.
Oh, I did have Christianbookshere .com, the Christian booksellers, distributors in Peabody, Mass. And I did see that there is a new study Bible, that�s all we need is a new study Bible. It is called NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible.
Now, I don�t know what NIV that is, although I�m pretty certain it�s not the 1984, it�s the hybrid of the TNIV and 1984 plus some other stuff. I think it�s the 2011 maybe NIV, excuse me. And it is edited by, any guesses, it�s Grace and Truth.
Let me read to you the description of it first. �Following the themes of grace and truth woven throughout Scripture under the expert guidance of and then it�s got his name, �and noted evangelical scholars and pastors.
Nine-point comfort print type, words of Christ in red, accessible bottom-of-the-page study notes, center column cross-references, comprehensive concordance, color maps. I thought it said coloring pages, like you get a few pages you can color, you know the coloring page craze here.
�Edited by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. I know some of you listen to Al Mohler. I think he talks a better game than he plays. He can be against CRT in his interviews. And on the dividing line, no, that�s James White�s dividing line.
What does Al Mohler show? I don�t know, I don�t listen. But then you still have professors that are promoting social justice stuff. So anyway, this is a hard no for me, the Grace and Truth Study Bible.
I am frankly surprised that it�s NIV Zondervan, because Mohler�s a Southern Baptist and they use the Christian Standard Bible, the Holman Standard, whatever it used to be called. So anyway, and on this front page elsewhere we have the David Jeremiah book, Where Do We Go From Here?
You have a Life Application Bible. You have Jesus Listens by Sarah Young. How can it be a Jesus Listening? Experience a year of conversation. I found this on the web. Oh, I just asked Siri something and they found something.
It pulled up a Desiring God article. Experience a year of conversation with God based on the promises of Scripture. In this inspiring daily devotional, best-selling author, Sarah Young offers 365 prayers with biblical references perfect for new believers unsure how to begin, people facing difficult times or experienced intercessors who long for renewed insights.
Features a ribbon marker, $11 .99. Purpose Driven Life, that�s back at it, that�s a $5 deal. And Max Lucado and Spurgeon�s Five Volumes. That�s what�s on the cover. And then on the back they have a variety of things like Odyssey Adventures, When Striving Cease, and Daily Dayspring Hope and Encouragement Bibles.
A lot of money to be made in Bibles. So anyway, not really much on there I can recommend at the moment. I guess you can get Spurgeon�s sermons, but really, how often do you read somebody else�s sermons?
I mean, everybody�s got Spurgeon�s sermons. Many people do. I have volumes and volumes. I don�t think I ever read one in those volumes. I�ve read them online to maybe help give me insight for a Bible sermon or something.
So anyway, my name�s Mike Ebendroth. Enough of that. See, I talked long enough and now my voice is a little bit stronger. I want to talk a little bit today about joy and about legalism. Do they go together?
Well, obviously, no. Why would I bring those two things up together? Well, probably most of us know some legalists. Maybe some of you, some of me, all of me have been legalistic before and been legalists.
What�s the common denominator in legalism? And you say, �Law. Or as we say in New England, �Lar. And that would be true. What would you expect the fruit of such a legalistic life to be? And this is where it ties into joy.
Would you expect it to be a life filled with joy and love and happiness, a fruit of the Spirit? Or what does the law do, especially extra laws and man-made laws, let alone the law of God? What kind of fruit would you expect that would come out of a ministry or a movement that was law-based, law-only based?
And of course, we understand that law says, �Do and gospel says, �Done. We understand that law says, �Do this and live. And the gospel says, �Jesus has done this so that you may live. And if you start putting people under the law and giving them only law, I�m not against the law at all, but I am against law-only ministries.
What happens? And so, here�s not the punchline, but here�s what I�d like to say. People under the law. Christians, under the first use of the law, God is still their judge that is wielded by the hands of preachers that make them think that if they don�t obey that they�re going to lose their position before God.
There was a sermon preached not that long ago at a university, and it was on, �Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And if that sermon is preached this way, it would be the right way.
�Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God. Well, this is the law of God. This is the standard of God. It�s not telling you to do something, but it�s saying if you don�t, if you�re not this way, certainly you�re not going to see God.
Are you pure? Are your ways pure? Well, the answer is no, because this is showing me my need for a Savior. Therefore, leading up to Matthew 5, 48, �Be perfect as God is perfect. I�m not perfect. I�m not pure in heart.
I�m not going to see God. God help me, rescue me, deliver me, be gracious to me, provide for me a lamb, a sacrifice, a substitute, a representative. There isn�t Savior. That�s a good way to do it. And now that I realize I am pure positionally, I am in Christ, there�s union with Christ, God sees me in Christ, I have the righteousness of the pure one Jesus Christ, now I can, out of gratitude, freely attempt, and probably many times fail, and every time have less than perfect motives, be pure in my life with what I see, with what I do, with every area of my life.
That would be a good way to preach it, because then we�d be preaching about the Lord Jesus. The bad way to preach it would just be to crush people, instead of the third use of the law, since God knows you�re not pure and has provided a pure sacrifice, therefore live purely, that�s third use there at the end, then it�s just, well, how pure are you?
Be more pure. And that�s always my question, if the pure in heart see God, how pure must I be? That�s the question that every one of you that sits underneath a heavy lordship kind of preaching, a heavy law preaching, a confusion of the first use of the law to condemn unbelievers, so they flee to the Savior, and the third use of the law, a norming, a directive guide, you�re like, well, how pure must I be?
Anyway, when you�re underneath law preaching that doesn�t understand first use and third use, when you�re underneath law preaching that stops at just the law, even if it was third use, but just stop there, then there�s going to be problems.
And here�s what I know about those people, I don�t have any evidence, I haven�t had any white papers, I don�t have any clinical data, but just my own anecdotal observations of myself and others. People become moody.
People become crabby. People become dour and sour, depressed, they become prideful, they become arrogant. You know, if you don�t think you can keep the law, well, you�re going to be sour and dour and moody and crabby, because you realize you never can keep it, and then if you think you can somehow, and you trick yourself, then you become prideful, that�s what happens.
Because, without Jesus, what do we do with the law? I mean, it�s just going to condemn, it�s just going to always teach us about our failures. The law is immovable, as it represents God�s character, His holiness, and if you�re an unbeliever, He�s going to expect, God is going to expect out of you perfect, entire, exact, perpetual obedience.
The law is going to accuse you, it�s not going to save you, and if you�re honest with yourself, you are going to say, �You know what? Why bother Or, you�re going to say, �Yeah, I actually do this.
These days, I�ve been thinking a lot about social justice, and critical race theory, and white privilege, and racism, and all the stuff that�s going around the world now that people are talking about, both in the church and outside the church.
Did you know, dear Christian, that from what I can tell, social justice is all law? Here�s what I want you to do, if you don�t have time to read Christianity and Liberalism by Machen, written back in the 1920s, 1923 to be exact, if you don�t have time to read Machen, then just think to yourself, with any cult, with any ology, with any ism, with any religion, say to yourself, �Law Gospel
Or, say to yourself, �Gospel Or, say to yourself, �Law I mean, basically, you�ve got some things that are just law, there�s nothing else besides law. You�ve got some things that are kind of just law gospel, and then back to law, or you�ve got Biblical Christianity, law gospel when it comes to salvation, and then when it comes to sanctification, duplex gratia, Christ for double benefit, Christ saves, Christ sanctifies.
So it�s law gospel, and then law gospel, right? Law to direct, and that second one, and to be reminded about who God is for the motivation to live. Most people, I think, maybe even you, listener, are underneath law gospel, and then law, sanctification by law.
That�s basically what we teach in evangelicalism, sadly. Well, social justice is the very first thing I talked about a moment ago, and that is law. Everything about social justice is law. And if you put two and two together, basically what I�m saying is, social justice advocates and promoters, they�re not very happy people.
If Twitter is representative of their personality and of what they do, they�re not happy. They�re not, I don�t know, they�d be hard to be married to. Very, very interesting to see what law does, and especially their laws, because their laws aren�t even scriptural laws.
I mean, it�d be one thing if you took a law in the Bible and used it against Christians as a stick from a judge versus from the hand of Christ, God now being a father because of the work of Christ. That�d be bad, and most people do that.
Most people in pulpits today do it, or many. But how about if you just have this law that�s extra law? I found a bunch of laws from social justice people that should tell you, you know what? This is not right.
There�s nothing, it�s not social justice gospel, a social gospel, because there�s no good news. I mean, what�s the good news in all these? What�s the common denominator in all these? The answer to the first question is there�s no good news.
Common denominator, they�re all law. Reject neoclassical economics, denounce racial inequality, call for social action, reform systems, expose systemic ideologies, abolish hierarchies, champion progressive political causes, destroy capitalism, promote interfaith activism, build a social change movement, repair the societal breach, fight, challenge, liberate, force hiring quotas, listen actively, speak from your own experience instead of generalizing, share your own story and experience, be conscious of body language, speak your truth, experience discomfort, recognize how your own social positionality informs your perspectives.
The common denominator in all this social justice, social gospel jargon is law. And even if you think back to the theme in the book called �In His Steps�, he also wrote another novel called �The Reformer� in 1897 and 1902, congregational pastor Charles Sheldon is talking about this social gospel movement.
That�s where Rauschenbusch actually came up with some of his ideas. He said he was influenced and inspired by Sheldon�s novels. And the motto that comes from Sheldon in his novels, specifically in his steps, 1897, is a slogan, is a motto that you�re all familiar with, that you might probably even have around your wrist one day or another.
What would Jesus do? Law or gospel? That�s my new way to laugh so I don�t cough. Law or gospel? Well, what would Jesus do? I guess you could do WWJD, there have been shows on this. What would Jesus have done?
What did Jesus do? What did Jesus do and now what does he tell us to do in light of that based on gratitude? Could somebody come up with a large enough little wristband? I used to wear a wristband called, oh, see, my COVID mind fog is messing me up.
It's something you wear around your wrist so if you fall on your bike and have an accident, they can identify you and know where to send your kidneys. What's that thing? Oh, I can't remember what it's around your wrist, but anyway, what's around your wrist could be WWJD or some other thing.
Social justice is law. I mean, if I went to Elise Amix, 2012, and she talked about social justice, social gospel, and it's three fallacies. These were the three fallacies that she came up with. One, man is not so bad and God is not so mad.
It's pretty good. Two, cultural restoration is the gospel. Three, social salvation is superior to individual salvation. Those are the three theological fallacies. And I would add, social justice, it's all law.
It's all law. And therefore, if it's all law, then what? I mean, I think you know where I'm going here. People are just crabby, dour, sour. Who wants to be around those folks? Because without Jesus, without the gospel, without the good news, without done instead of do, I think people are joyless.
Yes, they're either self-righteous or they're depressed, but they're joyless. Joyless people. Never satisfied. Because can you alleviate all the poor? Can you alleviate all the societal, structural, systemic issues?
And so they're never satisfied. It's just N plus whatever. N plus. N plus one. Just more. Do more. How much should I do? Well, more. You know, it's like that guy preaching, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Dear pastor, how pure must I be? Well, more than you are. Just keep going. Kind of like, you know, you have 144 ,000 that make it to heaven only according to Jehovah's Witnesses and therefore they come to your house and tell you to be in competition with them to be one of the 144 ,000.
Sometimes I've said to them, you know, there have been a lot of JWs come to my door and most of them seem to be more earnest than you are. And so if you want to get into that 144 ,000, I think you better step it up a notch, bub.
I've never said bub on No Compromise Radio before. People need the Lord was one of those old songs and slogans. People need to understand that the reason why the social justice movement is empty, it's because it's all law.
And I, you, we can now offer people in this movement some real joy, Christ incarnate. That's what we're going to do. I can learn about CRT and social justice from unbelievers. They're out there slamming it all the time.
But what about believers? I can learn from them as well and they're slamming it all the time. But what must believers offer that's different than those who are unbelievers? And the answer is the Lord Jesus.
Done. Gospel. I actually have good news. While social justice gospel is, it's never done. Remember Jesus on the cross, of course, has said, it is what? It is finished. You can have joy. You can have real deep seated joy, not even happiness, but to the world, an elusive thing called joy, Jesus, the joy giver, Jesus, the one who is our mediator.
You're right with God. If you're a Christian, you're right with God. You're right before God. You're being sanctified by God and one day you'll be glorified by God. If you're a lay person, you say, well, you know what?
I need to keep my eyes on the Lord Jesus, Hebrews chapter 12. I need to walk by faith, second Corinthians. I need to not walk by sight. I need to make sure that in the midst of all this critique and chaos of systemic racism talk and white privilege talk and dismantling social hierarchy talk and tearing down monument talk that I still understand and keep in my mind, in the front of my mind, the Lord Jesus.
I want you, even though we live in this land of the famine for the word of God, that you can still have joy, that you're beholding the Lord Jesus, conformed to his image, edified in your knowledge of who Jesus is, strengthened in your faith.
And so therefore, this is all an introduction to my John 2 message. And now it's 23 minutes in, so I can't get to John 2 to talk about Jesus, the joy giver. But I can quote to you second Corinthians 3 .18, and we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. In sum today, I'm going to say that I'm getting much better and in six months to a year, I should be back to at least 90 of health. So thanks for praying.
The Lord could come back, I could die of something else, but that's just what we're thinking about in terms of my lungs. I'm very, very thankful for that. Secondly, social gospel isn't a gospel because it's all law.
Where is the good news? Where is forgiveness found? Where's restoration found? It's just never to be found. You're never truly forgiven. You never truly understand. You never truly... See, you're denying it, and that proves the point that you're still a racist.
It's that kind of talk, that kind of asinine talk. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Thanks for being patient with me as we played a bunch of reruns. Spencer has pulled those up.
That's the good news about having lots of shows under your belt. The bad news is some of those theological positions that I held earlier, I don't hold anymore. Anyway, you can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com.
No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.
Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.