Symptoms Of False Doctrine (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.

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 we, Royal We, are back in the studio.

This is year six, so I think that's about 1 ,500 shows.

I'm going to just keep going, I don't know how much longer, who knows? You can send me your ideas.

Do we turn it into a once a week show for a couple hours? I don't really want to do more call -ins because then

I'm not able to just record the show when I need to. I try to just take a couple hours out of my work week to record the show, so I record four new shows a week because Monday is a recorded sermon.

And so we're trying to just have this thing fly on its own, and you say, well, it could be a lot better.

I know, I know it could be. But we're just doing what we can,

I'm thankful that the Lord has blessed it. Don't forget soon, the Sexual Fidelity, I think that's the title,

I don't know what to call it. You can't just call it sex, but I'm trying to write a series of books with the

No Compromise theme, Parenting No Compromise, Men's Discipleship No Compromise, I don't know,

Work, How Do You Deal With Work, just different topics, No Compromise.

And so there's a couple books that have been written for several years, and I just need to get them out.

And so there's a No Comedia, and they are going to start, they meaning me, will put out these books.

They will be published, not through a larger publishing company. The controls and rights will be all mine.

So we're going to give it a shot. Sexual Fidelity, 30 chapters, stemming from conversations

I had with my son about thinking rightly about the topic, obviously not a how -to book, but thinking rightly about this

God -ordained I don't want to say thing.

So back to the topic at hand, when you don't know what to do, get back to the Bible, stick to the

Bible. Eight Symptoms of False Doctrine, we looked at last week from J .C.

Ryle. I'd encourage everyone to get his book on Banner of Truth. I don't know if it's been republished, but 1967,

Warnings to the Churches, Warnings to the Churches, several essays put together by Banner of Truth.

What I was so impressed by, it was as if Ryle could look into the churches in 1995,

I think when I first read it, 93, and he pegged the churches. He understood what was going on in American evangelicalism back then, and he died in 1899.

I think it was 1899. Bishop Ryle. I'm not talking about the promise keepers, James Ryle or J.

Ryle, I'm talking about J. C. Ryle, the Anglican, the deceased Anglican.

He has written some excellent material, and almost everything that he writes, I enjoy.

So most of his books are compilations of articles that he, blog articles he wrote, essentially.

So last time we looked at Dangerous Three Symptoms of False Doctrine, Undeniable, I'm so tired today,

Undeniable Zeal, just because a teacher, a false teacher has zeal, it doesn't mean that they're correct,

Romans 10. There's a Great Appearance of Learning and Theological Knowledge. They've been to all the right schools, and even if they haven't, they have credentials.

I don't know if it still exists or not, but there was a, you know, we have a Bible Institute, New England Institute for Biblical Studies, and we were trying to teach some college -level classes here at the church,

Bible Church, non -accredited and all that, and I think when we were trying to get our

Bethlehem Bible Church Facebook account set up, Bethlehem Bible Church was already taken.

And so when we did some research, I don't know if this is still true, but at the time, there was a church in Africa that we didn't know anything about, and they called themselves

Bethlehem Bible Church, and they said that they had received their training from the New England Institute for Biblical Studies, probably milking people for all kinds of stuff.

So I don't know, that's either a compliment or a rip -off, I'm not sure. So I can't remember where it was,

Nigeria, Kenya, someplace like that. Check it out, see if it's still true. But we are the

Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Number two, as I said, great, learning our appearance thereof.

Number three, general tendency to get into novelties, free thinking.

So that's what we looked at last time. If you'd like to listen to it, you can go back into the Wayback Machine, check it out.

Number four, the fourth symptom of false doctrine. What we're doing on the show today is I give you

Ryle's sentence, and then I wax. I wouldn't say eloquently, but I'll just try my best to talk about it.

These are the talking points. There's a widespread desire to appear charitable and liberal -minded.

Many seem half -ashamed of saying that anybody can be in the wrong. Now, see, with our

Supreme Court decisions and the way society is going today, I pity the poor fool, as one brilliant theologian once said, who now is stuck in one of these liberal, watered -down type of, quote -unquote, churches, because what do they end up doing?

They're going to be forced to show their proverbial hands, that there's no way out for them.

They're not going to be able to stand up and say, this is what the Bible teaches about marriage and homosexuality.

They're out. They can't do that. They're outed. They're out of the closet for their liberal beliefs, because they've been trying to hide those beliefs.

They've been trying to go under the barbed wire, under the radar, because they know many of their constituents wouldn't like it, because the constituents are so -called

Bible believers, even though they fall prey to such false doctrine. So here,

Ryle, I mean, doesn't this seem like it was written today, back to what I was saying earlier in the show? Liberal -minded and ashamed to say that anybody could be in the wrong.

Well, I don't know, harkening back to Joel Osteen on Larry King, asking the direct questions where Larry King knew more about the

Christian doctrine and was willing to admit it than Osteen was willing to admit. So this liberal -mindedness, let's put it this way for no compromise style.

You should be anything but liberal -minded when it comes to false doctrine. You need to have a closed mind for Bible truth.

Open -mindedness is not a virtue when it comes to biblical fidelity. It's not good.

You don't care what goes into your mind, because the door's open. Bad stuff comes in, you don't care.

I've got to entertain it. These denominations that say we need to re -examine women's roles in ministry, we need to re -examine inerrancy, we need to re -examine justification.

I just have one word for that. Forget you. We cannot do that. That is not a virtue.

Open -mindedness in that realm is not a virtue. Similarly, if you have biblical truth in your mind that's true, verities that come from the text, you should keep your mind closed so they don't escape, so they're not replaced by ethereal, ephemeral, arterial thoughts.

Lately, I've been watching, I think it's called Save My Life, Boston, and then there's a

New York ER show similar to that on Hulu. I mean,

I like reality TV, especially the kind of reality TV that Orange County Fire Training, who makes it through the boot camp,

Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, who makes it through the boot camp behind the scenes. And of course, I sit there thinking as I'm drinking my

Pete's coffee, oh, I could do that. I'm 55, I've got a bad back.

I can't even lift a ladder. So for years working in the operating room and getting down to the

ER a couple times in Los Angeles, I'm fascinated by what goes on in the

ER. And my brother -in -law's an ER nurse, my sister's worked as an ER nurse before.

It's fascinating. People have to think through the issues properly and without getting all emotional.

You have to triage and you have to just, somebody's got to be a leader in the room and people are going to get things done and let's assess the situation and work through it.

If I had to go back in life, I'm trying not to say anything about reincarnation or anything like that, get more letters about skulls on my desk.

No, but if I had to do it over again, which is an impossibility, I know this is the way things sovereignly are supposed to be, but there's something in me that thinks working in the

ER would be fascinating. And instead of panicking, you've got to be controlled.

I don't know if I could do it or not. I'm sure training helps, but I like watching those shows.

And just imagine when it comes to the Bible and doctrine and precision and fidelity and sound teaching, hygienic doctrine, enduring sound doctrine.

They will not, 2 Timothy 4, Paul warns Timothy. Here we say, well, when it comes to ER diagnosis and let's quick stop the bleeding, whether they need to stabilize the patient or they have to defibrillate the patient.

What if we use number four of J .C. Ryle as a mantra for the trauma center, widespread desire to appear charitable and liberal minded.

Many seem half ashamed of saying that anybody could be in the wrong. I like it when there's somebody in that operating room, the

ER, who is in charge and they are insistent on their way.

They say, especially in teaching institutions where the residents need to be told, don't do it that way.

Tie that suture such and such way. I can't believe you just did X, Y, and Z. Well, my name's

Mike Cabendroth. There's no compromise radio. Don't forget you can write us. When you write us,

I always will probably write back to you. How'd you find the show? So if you just put that in early, that'd be nice. How'd you find the show?

Was it iTunes radio? Was it iTunes? Was it someone Worldview Weekend or someplace else?

Number five, J .C. Ryle, symptoms of false doctrine. There's a quantity of half truth taught by the modern false teachers.

They are incessantly using scriptural terms and phrases in an unscriptural sense. Wow. That's probably the most important one.

Just because they're talking about Jesus and his death doesn't mean they're talking about the biblical

Jesus and his biblical death. So when I talk to someone and they come from a background,

I just, with my own wisdom and insight, try to assess it because I have a desire to speak truth.

I don't like when people say, I'm going to speak truth into your life. I just have a desire to speak truth.

And so if someone says, oh, I'm a Roman Catholic, well, I know they use the words

Jesus and crucifixion and resurrection. And on one hand,

I'm thankful that a Roman Catholic would believe in a literal resurrection. At least many of them do.

I'm thankful for my background in Lutheranism that taught me the same. But my particular

Jesus of Lutheranism and the Catholic Jesus, the death that he died on the cross while they cannot get rid of the verse, it is finished, while they cannot excise

Hebrews 10 from the Bible, their Christ is a

Jesus whose death was not sufficient and adequate and final.

They need to re -sacrifice Jesus weekly, hourly, daily, however often they're going to officiate the mass.

So whether it's someone within the Christian stream,

I would say Roman Catholics are in the Christian stream. That is to say, you just look at church history.

I think bad Catholics can be born again. That's not my point. My point is there are other cults, and I wouldn't say

Roman Catholics are in a social cult or something like that with Saul, Peter, and other things, and mind control.

I don't mean that. But the mind control kind of people, the Koreshes and the Joneses of the world, they do still talk about Jesus.

Everybody's talking about Jesus, but it's the wrong Jesus. And so I would encourage you as you do your evangelism to talk specifically about the

Jesus of the Bible and his life and what he did on earth, and then his death.

And so let's say you look at Isaiah 29 and 35 and 61, and you realize that the

Messiah who would come will eradicate sickness, at least on the earth for the while.

Not on the earth, but in the cities he was at, wherever Jesus was, it was hard to find a sick person.

And that's what Isaiah 29 and 35 would talk about, and 61. And so you begin to tell them about who this

Jesus is. That's why the Gospels are so great, because you see Jesus as the fulfillment of the

Old Testament, and now we begin to define Jesus and color in the picture of Jesus in the minds of the people.

So just because someone says, I love Jesus, okay, let's just talk about that for a second. If someone were to say to you,

I love Jesus, well, they could be a born -again Christian, they could be

Judas, they could be a Mormon, they could be all kinds of people.

I love Jesus. I mean, what do you mean by Jesus? They need to define the terms.

And so a wise evangelist, a wise person who wants to evangelize is going to say, okay, let's talk about what do you mean by Jesus?

What do you mean by salvation? And then you begin to understand where they're coming from, because false teachers, as J .C.

Ryle would explain and exclaim, they love to use scriptural phrases.

They're not stupid. They're not going to say crazy outlandish things very often and expect the public to get them to buy into it.

So if you're baptismal regeneration, there's a way to talk to evangelical

Christians to tie them up in a theological pretzel before you know it, and they're going to be using theological terms.

All right, eight symptoms of false doctrine, J .C. Ryle, and we are up to number six.

There's a morbid craving in the public mind for a more sensuous, ceremonial, sensational, showy worship.

Men are impatient of inward invisible heart work. Well, this is all fleshly.

This is driven by externals. This is, I want, as Ryle called it, sensuous worship.

Feelings, the tactile experiences instead of inward repentance and inward adoration and worship.

We want the show. We want the THX. We want, I mean, think about it.

These old meeting houses here in New England, the Puritan meeting houses, you just have a rectangular -shaped building, and you have wooden pews, and you have a pulpit elevated, and that's it.

It was cold, the seats were hard, the sermons were long, and could there be worship?

No organs. It's just singing. There's nothing wrong with an organ.

That's not my point today to talk about a cappella worship. I like a cappella worship, and I like non -a cappella worship.

This is why I try to take a holiday. This is why I try to take a vacation. When people want, with morbid craving, give me more ceremonies.

And was there anything more wonderful than Old Testament ceremonial worship and the temple with the smells and the bells and the special robes and the special worship, and then you have the cross of Christ?

Then to go back to all the Old Testament worship, that's not needed.

But here's what is happening in evangelicalism. We have the seeker -sensitive movement comes along, and it's all thrills and spills and bells and whistles, and then people realize that's empty.

And so now they're going back to higher church, higher liturgy, Orthodox churches,

Catholic churches, and many Protestant churches, many Reformed churches would have a much higher liturgy than they normally would have.

And I think that's just a response to the modern churches, the modern culture, the type of people that want sensuous worship, and then we go against and we recoil against that.

Men are impatient of inward, invisible heart work. He's right, isn't he?

You read this and you think J .C. Ryle knew what he was talking about. Number seven, eight symptoms of false doctrine.

This would be seven, J .C. Ryle, from his warnings to the churches. I've got to find my old copy.

I used to know where all my books are, and then I've placed them in different places sometimes.

And then here's the interesting thing. My son, Luke, is at the Master's College and he's studying at IBEX in Israel for the semester.

He's wanting all my books now. He's like, Dad, do you have this book? Do you have that book? Some books I won't send him.

He said, Dad, can you give me that Machen book on Christianity and liberalism? Nope, that's my copy because I know if it goes into my 19 -year -old hands, he'd read it, which

I'd be happy for, but then it's going to disappear. So number seven, there's a silly readiness in every direction to believe everybody who talks cleverly, lovingly, and earnestly, and a determination to forget that Satan often masquerades himself as an angel of light.

A silly readiness to believe everybody who knows how to talk.

That's fascinating. It's a fascinating thing. You know, I'm trying to be not a political speaker.

I don't mean I don't want to be in politics, although that's true, but just talking about politics in general,

I can't really be bothered. It's interesting. But I will say this about Donald Trump. What I look for in a pastor and a preacher in terms of a proclamation, a man who heralds, and he does not survey the congregation and put his proverbial finger in the air to see the way the winds are blowing.

Just tell me the truth. Now, of course, Trump's not always telling the truth, and he's not always saying the things that I might like, but in one sense, and maybe this is a negative sense, maybe there's sin involved here, he doesn't really care what people think.

And J .C. Ryle writes these things, and I think that's not the complete picture of a

New Testament preacher. But you have to be willing to proclaim the truth, ask Jeremiah, ask

Ezekiel. And so I just like plain speaking people, just tell me the truth.

And on the flip side, when you listen to people, you have to say to yourself, whether it's no

Compromise Radio or anybody else, what do they say that's according to the Bible, and if it's true, I'll listen, and if not,

I have to be careful. Now, 2 Corinthians 11 is a fascinating verse.

That is verse 14. Well, let's pick it up in verse 12.

And what I do, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms as we do.

For such men are false prophets, deceitful workers, distinguishing themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

Their end will correspond to their deeds. And finally, number eight,

I can't turn this into a three -part show. Eight, J .C. Ryle, symptoms of false doctrine.

There is a widespread gullibility among professing Christians. Every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be believed.

And everybody who doubts him is called a persecutor and a narrow -minded man or a blogger or discernment ministry.

Oh, I added those last two. Case in point, I'll prove my point, TBN. By the way, how can

Creflo Dollar get the money? Well, every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be believed.

Amazing. So, my advice to you is J .C. Ryle's advice, is the

Bible's advice. Do not be carried away. It's like a river that just pushes you downstream and you don't want to go there.

You don't want to get there, because the end is Niagara Falls is what it is. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is

No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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

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