John Owen and Counseling

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 ministry.

Pastor Steve is here. Pastor Steve, why won't this saddleback .com pin work? I don't know, it was actually, it's autographed by Rick Warren. I'm shocked that it doesn't.

When was the last time that we've been to saddleback together? How many years ago? Was that 15? I don't know. 10? 10, 12, maybe, I don't know. So we'd go out to the Shepherd's Conference,.

And in those days, I think the Shepherd's Conference had like Saturday morning sessions. Yep, yep. And then we would take our guys and we'd say, we'd go from Grace Church's worship service to now Saddleback, and we'd go to the 4 .30 or the 6 .30 p .m. service, maybe swing by Shuler's Place or something to take a look at it.

Yeah, well, you skipped going to the archives.

Oh yeah, Archives in the Hat for Pastrami. Archives closed, I think. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that was sad. And then we'd go down to Saddleback, and you know, wonderful campus. Oh, man. Nice greeters, where to park, special little coffee places.

It was like actually cleaner, nicer than Disneyland.

Yeah, right, and probably people walking around with those little trash picker uppers with the four-foot extension out of their hands with like little alligator mouths.

That's what they do for church discipline, right? I was in June of four days of. Tons of people getting baptized. I think it was outside baptisms,.

Kind of like just going on, right? You walk past, there's a coffee place, there's another place, and there's like just people getting baptized, you know, come up, get baptized. And then the time that we went with Pastor Dave Jeffries, our friend, and he was in the front row with us.

And you know, they do the, here's a point, Rick Warren preaches, then there's another song, then he comes up for point two or whatever. It's kind of that shtick. And then the lady got up to sing this song, and she had the black leather pants on, low-cut top, cleavage, and she was singing the Celine Dion song.

And we just all had to put our heads down. And so our heads are down because we didn't want to look at the girl inappropriately dressed. And I just kept looking to the side and looking at Dave Jeffries, looking like, what are we doing here?

It's like, I don't know, an evangelical brothel or something.

You remember, and I've told this story before, but you know, Steve Varderburn was preaching.

Oh, I forgot that one time, and he had the joke. He got up and he said,.

Man, I feel like, because the music was just really great, right? I mean, it was like Professional. Yeah, the Tonight Show band kind of thing, you know. Not great lyrics, but No, no, but the music was, you know, just really crazy and well done.

He said, he said, wow, I feel like I'm in Las Vegas. And I said, like really loudly, amen, everybody was looking around at me like, that was the only time I ever said amen at Saddleback.

I think he had, he told some flatulence joke too. Oh, I don't remember that. I probably blocked it out of my head. Yeah, and then I talked to a guy who went to the 6 .30 service, and I said, wasn't that inappropriate?

And he goes, oh yeah, he did the same joke here. So it wasn't like, you know, we've all made mistakes in the pulpit. And, you know, hopefully after 25 years of preaching, if I ever said something really stupid, people would go, oh, well, sorry he said that and he apologized.

But I just thought this is just lowbrow. Yeah. My other favorite thing at Saddleback was we took the guys there one year, and it's the sermon on, like, clean up your life. Like, what's your Remove the obstacles from your life?

Something like that. You know, what about your, you know, your life? If you had to go be a missionary, could you pack up tomorrow and go? And then next week was the follow-up, and they were gonna show, via camera, these camera crews from Saddleback show up at the pastor's houses, and they wanna see what's in their garage and how bad their garages are in terms of, you know, are you ready to pick up and go and leave everything for Jesus?

And do they have cars in their garages that are dirty as well? And then the band broke out, the praise team at Saddleback broke out with car wash, working at the car wash. I just thought, this is a different religion.

This is just, everything's wrong.

The religion of getting your life right.

Remember I was gonna go confront Rick Warren? Yes, I do.

Well, and it was that Arterburn service, because Arterburn said that God is literally in heaven, wringing his hands, hoping that you'll make the right decisions. And Rick Warren happened to be there. And I mean, it was so, it was blasphemous.

I mean, the whole message was blasphemy. God was helpless, He was depending on us, and it was just, it was awful. It was not even sub-Christian, it was anti-Christian.

I'm gonna type in here, images, Seeker Sam. Remember they had the Seeker Sam image? And I'm wondering if I can find that Seeker Sam Saddleback, just for fun here.

So you saw Rick Warren, and you started to go his way, and I was like, I was glad you didn't get there. Well, you know what, I thought he was a, I didn't think that was Rick Warren,.

I thought that was an usher. But he was there. So there's Saddleback Sam, our target, the likely Mr. South Orange County. And it's got a guy with a pager and funky old cell phone, really baggy pants. You could type into your listeners, Saddleback Sam.

That's who we're after. Which leads us into the topic for the day, John Owen.

Well, he was a marketing genius.

Although he did dress up quite often, and they would say that he was a dandy, because he did, he dressed in a snazzy fashion. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong. I mean, we are two snazzy men right now.

Uh-huh, I've got some Rip Curl shirt on, and you've got. Some fish shirt. Uh-huh, well, that's apropos. Yeah. Uh-huh, you like the fishes. I do like the fishes. Okay, so a long time ago, there was a book put together, kind of a feshtrif, a compilation of articles written in honor of someone.

And it was written in honor of Donald Campbell. This article was also published by Reformation Revival. Remember John Armstrong's old deal?

Before he went full Catholic?

Yeah, is he Orthodox, capital O, or what is he? He's something.

I thought he went Roman Catholic.

It could be, I'm not sure. I remember I went to a conference where he spoke in, just outside of Mount Hermon. Had lunch with him, John Armstrong. Way back in the day. John Herbert Armstrong? No. What's that place in Pasadena?

Worldwide Church of God. Yeah, because they had that nice Colorado Boulevard. You could walk and do outside things, and they had Foster's Freeze and whatever, Starbucks, and you could walk down to the little cult thing.

It was perfect. Anyway, this article was written by John Hanna, Insights into Pastoral Counseling from John Owen. And so I've had this around for a long time, and I'm trying to read all things Owen. I'm trying to read Owen.

I think I'm up to, I've finished six volumes so far, Steve. Yeah, so John Hanna, did you know this, Steve? And I think it was 1998 or nine, he came to Bethlehem Bible Church. I did know that, yeah. And John and his wife Carolyn came here, and he taught a little bit about New England theology, historical theology regarding New England.

And for one of the sessions on Saturday, he dressed up like Jonathan Edwards. And then he was sat in a rocking chair right there on the platform at Bethlehem Bible Church, excuse me, and he talked like he was Edwards, and just discussed things, and firewood, and gonna take the inoculation, and going to Princeton and stuff like that.

It was interesting, yeah. So anyway, out of all the professors at Dallas Seminary, Hanna seemed to be the one that was the most reformed. Five-point Calvinist, he documented S. Lewis Johnson's leaving the seminary because of regeneration, had to proceed faith, and Dallas said that wasn't the case.

Atonements limited, Dallas said that wasn't the case. And I think Hanna was with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Oh, were they? Ace, or Cure, whatever they were called at the day. So he wrote this about Owen, and I sent it to you last night, because I liked it so much.

Pastoral counseling, do you do much of that, Steve? Yeah. Well, let's put it this way. Do you find, like I find, that many times I don't have an answer to their problem so that their problem no longer exists?

Right, yeah, I mean, it would be wonderful to be able to look at them and just go, I know exactly what to do. Say these three things, click your heels, and it'll be all over. Because don't you think, Steve, the people that come in for counseling,.

They're smart people. They have already thought about this problem for hours, weeks, I don't know, months. They've talked to people that have brains who aren't Christians, right? There's a lot we can learn from the wisdom of people who aren't Christians.

They've talked to other Christians, they've prayed about it, they've read their Bible, and they've been thinking about it for months, and now they come and tell us they've got a problem and then we've got to solve the problem within like 30 minutes or something?

Piece of cake. I mean, sometimes, you know, sometimes it can be fairly obvious. You know, I mean, it could be money issues, it could be, you know, things that are, you know, I just listen and go, how could you even be doing that, you know?

So, but most of the time you're right, right? That people come in and there are these things that are just kind of, they've taken place over a long period of time, there are all sorts of patterns and practices that are just wrong and thinking that's wrong, and you're just like, I don't even know how to start untangling all this in 30 minutes or an hour or whatever.

Good, and most of the time we're talking to believers, right, if there's an unbeliever, we realize that we want to help them with their problem, but they've got a bigger problem, right?

Yep, their bigger problem is they need Christ.

And I would never say your temporal, earthly problem matters not, I don't care about you, let's get straight to the gospel, but I want to talk about both. I don't care.

I don't care about your earthly problem, let's get to the gospel, that's what I meant. Yeah, but I mean, it reminds me of one counseling hermeneutic I heard once, I don't know you and I don't want to know you.

That would be a bad hermeneutic. Bad hermeneutic. And this article by John Hanna regarding Owen, he asked a couple questions up front, which was interesting. What is the person capable of doing? How can a person be directed to change?

That's really what we have to work through with counseling. And so there's lots of different ways to go about that, secular, integrationist, like, you know, Bible only stuff. And I just found it really refreshing to look at Owen to talk about moral, spiritual, theological change, doctrine of sanctification.

And if our listeners would like this article, you can get it for free. Just type in John Hanna Insights into Pastoral Counseling from John Owen. Okay. Okay, all right. So let's go to page 351. I had a few things underlined here, because can people say no to sin if they're a Christian?

It's talked about the dominion of sin. Is it broken? Is it halfway broken? What's the power of the Holy Spirit, et cetera? Yes.

I mean, yes, Christians can say no to sin. You know, is it always easy? You know, I mean, sometimes we just act like it's easy. Sin comes knocking on the door and you just go, no. You're just Nancy Reagan.

Just say no. Oh, if only we could have Nancy back. Nancy would make a good president, wouldn't she?

Well, it depends on which one you're talking about. You know, the kind of, the one who wanted to talk to spiritists.

Even the tarot reading, Nancy Reagan, is probably good. Well, what Owen is trying to do with Hanna's insight is when you're an unbeliever, there's a dominion of sin that you can't get out of. I think Owen talks about vice grip, and I wrote down in the little margin a margin ratchet, like a cable tie.

It doesn't go back the opposite way. I mean, like Romans 6 would just say.

That you're a slave of sin, right? I mean, so yes, absolutely.

Owen said the dominion of sin is present when sin exercises control over the will of a man with no opposition from another principle. And they're just slaves to sin. They're running headlong into sin.

Even good things they do are essentially sin, right? And therefore, we have to ask the question, if sin is so controlling and sin is so deep-rooted in the unbeliever, what happens when God saves? Is there now a different principle, another principle, a competing principle that can help go against this ratcheting vice grip-like effect?

Yeah, we call that principle,.

Get ready for this, wait for it. I was gonna say, well, I mean, we can call it a number of things. Sanctification, we can call it the Holy Spirit. I mean, you know, how is it that believers can respond differently than unbelievers?

Because they're regenerated, right? I mean, all these things are true. You're regenerated, you have the Word, you have the Holy Spirit, you know, you have Right, union with Christ. Yeah, you have some tools in your tool belt.

Right, so so far we've talked that we have something that an unbeliever doesn't have by nature, by indwelling spirit, by the Spirit's use of the Word, but we wanna make sure we don't think it's perfectionism.

He doesn't really talk about this in the article, but from dominated by sin as an unbeliever, but not full and free of every sin, that's glory, right? So there's still some kind of sin principle, something going on here, flesh, whatever term we wanna use.

Right, I mean, some remaining pull of sin, right? Some gravitational pull that it still has. Okay, I like that.

So he says at the top of page 352, that first paragraph, there's this forest that Owen would paint, and the forest has all kinds of trees and foliage and brush. You can imagine going through Vietnam back in the day with a machete, and it's all this undergrowth.

That's kind of like the unbeliever. Then all of a sudden, God saves you, and there's the big trees, but there are paths, there are cleared out areas, there's other things like that, and the ground isn't completely entangled anymore, and as time moves on and the Spirit of God begins to sanctify more and more and more, there's kind of more of a clearing.

I kinda like that. Right. That gives me a little hope, and it makes me like forests.

Well, and it explains the situation too, because instead of being completely overgrown and really no hope of escape, you can see through it. There are ways, and so I think it is helpful.

As an illustration. So we've got domination for the unbeliever, eradication in glory, but on earth, indwelling sin. Sinclair Ferguson, who is a John Owen scholar, said, "'The nature of sin does not change "'in regeneration or sanctification, "'but its status in us is radically attired.'".

And then the quote here from John Owen, "'Grace changeth the nature of man, "'but nothing can change the nature of sin.'". That really hit me. That was good for me to think about. We are changed, but sin isn't changed.

The nature of sin and how awful and how it hates God, it never changes.

No, which is part of what makes heaven so glorious, right? Because all that's just gone, right? So yeah, I really like that. Grace changes, I mean, I'm gonna get rid of the F. Grace changes the nature of man, but nothing can change the nature of sin.

And I mean, what can change the nature of sin? Well, eventually, sin is eradicated, except for in hell, so.

Good, well, John Hannah summarizes Owen's view at the top of page 353. The mind reflects on sin in generalities, not on sin in terms of specifics. It is the idea of wickedness, not one's own act of wickedness.

So what he's doing is he's trying to say, you know what? Be careful that you don't fall into this trap. It's like three traps that you don't wanna fall into in the forest, if I can add that together. It's like, I'm generally sinful, but not specifically sinful.

Tell us a little bit about that. If somebody came in and said, I need some help, yes, I'm generally a sinner, but that's kind of the extent. I don't do these actual sins against my wife per se. I'm just like generally sinful.

Why is it important, Steve, to talk about specific sins?

Well, because it's the only way to change, right?

And then to confess, I confess, God, I'm generally a sinner.

Yeah, I mean, forget that. I mean, in what ways, you know, I don't speak rightly to my wife. I mean, all the things that we do, in fact, if you told me that, not you, but if a counselee told me I don't speak rightly to my wife, I might say something like, well, give me an example of something you might say.

And just so I can understand the depth of it, because I mean, there are a lot of things that people say, right? I don't thank her when she makes a meal for me. Okay, well, that's kind of a sin of omission.

Or when I come in the door and she says something I don't like, I immediately say, you're a blockhead, or whatever, you know, whatever. You know, I talk to my wife worse than I do to the people I work with.

Okay, and that makes me groan, right? I've said to people, I go, I have to tell you, man, if you talk to your wife the way you talk to, or if you talk to people at work the way you talk to your wife, you'd be fired.

That's so true, so true. And, you know, that should make them go, oh, I guess I need to change the way I talk to my wife.

Steve, I'm a pretty simple guy, I think, but He's not. That's one thing I can do right away. I might not do it with the right heart. I might not be able to change actions and all these other things and attitudes, but I can say to people, thank you, yes, please.

That was wonderful. You look good. You serve so well. Thanks for taking care of the kids. It was a wonderful meal tonight. Thanks for staying on budget. I like how you keep the house. You're so good with other ladies.

I mean, my dad would always say, it doesn't take anything to say thank you and yes, please.

I mean, it just reminds me of that, I think it's a Bing Crosby song, you know, accentuate the positive, right? It's really not hard, you just kind of have to look for it, right? But a lot of people really, they don't.

They just wanna zero in on every little foible, every little issue that doesn't go exactly the way they want it to go. And you wanna talk about a recipe for a disaster, that's it.

Hannah says, the mind, summarizing Owen, can become so engaged in activities that it is often unaware of sin's danger. That is, sin literally catches us by surprise. And I think what he's trying to get there is Owen would talk a lot about, yeah, we're just busy people and therefore we're not dealing with sin.

Well, and I think it gets back to something you said earlier, right? If you're just, if you're going to the Lord and just saying, you know what, I'm a sinner, well, the sins then, I'm not saying you're not forgiven of those sins if you're a Christian, because you are, but those sins are not really dealt with in the sense that you've acknowledged them and you've really thought about them and confessed them specifically and are trying to, you know, like, for example, if I say something toward my wife that I shouldn't, then when I pray, I think, oh man, Father, please forgive me.

I shouldn't have said those kind of things, right? And then for the rest of the day or whatever, you know, during the rest of the week, I'm going to be kind of listening to myself, talk to my wife, engaging in it.

But if I just say generally, I'm a sinner, I'm not gonna change a thing.

Let's say you do sin against Janet or I sin against Kim, and they, you know, they put up with a lot, but this is kind of broken fellowship, and so they said, you know what, what you said really hurt me, and it's just, you know, I haven't been able to get over it.

I'm trying, but we need to reconcile. I'm generally a sinner. I'm generally a sinner. I'm generally a sinner. I'm generally a sinner. You are right. I know, that's just my nature. I know, that's just my nature.

Adam gave me the nature.

I got his first sin. Oh, that's gonna go over really well, yeah. Adam was my public person.

She's gonna go, of course. I don't forgive you, you jerk.

I'm probably laughing because I probably have done this kind of stuff, it's so bad. Anyway, I think probably the biggest point we can bring out here is we'll be glad for that day when indwelling sin is no longer.

What did the old pastor say? God initially saves you from the penalty of sin, and then you get saved from the power of sin and sanctification, and then you get saved ultimately from the presence of sin.

You won't even want to sin in heaven.

How about that? Well, I mean, even just to go to James 1 for a minute, you won't even, that thought won't even enter your head. So it's like, I mean, talk about having the armor of God on. It's like, you know, if it were possible for temptation to exist in heaven, it would just like bounce right off of you.

Now that's even better, no temptation even. When you were talking about the hope there of heaven and stuff, I remembered, who's the guy, Bellevue, Adrian Rogers, the preacher. He said, there's two places there's no hope.

Hell, because there's no hope getting out, and there's no hope in heaven,.

Because you won't need hope, because you'll see Jesus face to face. That's the reality of it. And I thought, that is so good.

Anyway, there's a lot to talk about here with temptation and other things. We just touched on it quickly, because we haven't even got to living a holy life called vivification, putting to death, sin, mortification.

But I just love the article, and wanted to just talk about it a little bit. You can pull it up, Insights into Pastoral Counseling from John Owen by John Hanna. Okay. Yeah. Tell me what you're gonna preach now that John's over.

Gospel of John. I'm going to the gospel of Acts. Yeah. That's good. We have Jude as the Acts of the apostates, and then you have Acts of the Holy Spirit, right?

I mean, just so many wonderful, amazing things happen there, and you're just like, it's like literally miracle after miracle after miracle. So the Holy Spirit all over the place.

I cannot go past Acts three without singing. He went walking and leaping and praising God.

You just have to sing it. I don't know the song, so I don't have to sing it. You will.

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.