Evangelical Fads (Part 3)

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.

Today is Tuesday, and we have Pastor Steve Cooley here, and we like to talk about things in the local church that are biblical, that are provocative, and that are in that order.

Always. Always. Is it always Mike Abendroth, always Steve Cooley, always in that order? Well, it could be

Steve Abendroth or Mike Cooley. Yeah. Before we get into our topic, this came through on Fox News today.

Ooh, hot off the press. Westborough Baptist Church to defend military funeral protests before high court.

And these are the people who call themselves Christians, who like to protest, and God hates homosexuals, and this kind of Fred Phelps, sinful, shameful, un -Christian behavior.

Thank God for dead soldiers. You're going to hell. I don't know if it's against the law,

Steve, for them to be out there doing that, but in this particular case, I wish they would be arrested. Yeah, I wish they would too.

As I am an ardent constitutionalist, and I think maybe constitutionally there might be a crawl space for them, but biblically there is no place for them to hide, and I don't think they're in as good a shape as they think they're in.

Well, they've got this weird, well, everything about them is weird, from the gospel to authoritarianism and leadership, elder rule, all these kind of things.

They're all messed up regarding all those things, but anybody that supports some kind of sin, like the government, if they support homosexuality, then we want those people dead.

It just drives me crazy, and partly, Steve, it's my pride, because then other people think all

Christians are like that. Right, yeah, I don't want to be associated with them. Nope, don't like them at all.

I mean, there's only one problem with the Westboro Baptist Church. They're not really Baptists, and they're not a church, and they probably aren't located in Westboro, and if they are,

I wish they'd stay there. That is just sad. So anyway, that's just off the press.

Today, we're looking at part three, three and the final part for the Church of the Three -Parter, that we want to discuss whatever happened to, remember, whatever happened to, who would be an old movie star that came and went?

The Flying Nun. Sally Fields. You know, one time, I went to Los Angeles, and I was used to just getting some kind of $5 buzz cut in Nebraska or whatever, and I went to Los Angeles, and I was talked into going to some parlor, some beauty salon, some kind of place down in West Hollywood to go get my haircut, when

I had hair, and so I went down, and they said, okay, we're gonna give you the shampoo first,

Michael, and so I got my shampoo, and I lifted up my head, and totally true story,

I looked to my right, and sitting six inches from me in the other shampoo stall, or whatever you call it, was

Sally Fields. Really? There she was. Did she offer you any cookies? She asked me out for a date. No.

No, I just said hello, and - Mrs. Fields, I really like your cookies. Anyway, I just thought, there, okay,

Sally Fields. That's why you should go to the salons. Norma Rae. Yikes. I haven't had that many meetings with the rich and famous, just a few.

Seven of nine, I saw her, I flew on a plane with her once. Oh, that's right, at the Logan Airport?

Yeah, Keith Jackson, the sportscaster. Oh, you did, okay. Yeah, and Tom Hanks. Wow. Yeah, I was hanging out in Malibu with Tom Hanks.

I knew I had arrived in Los Angeles when Kim and I were walking downtown a convention center, and a couple walked by, they had white shirts on and jeans holding hands, and they walked one, you know, they were two feet away from us, and I don't like to make big to -dos about just celebrities, who cares, but then afterwards to say, wow.

And it was Warren Beatty holding hands with Madonna. So I knew I was in L .A., welcome to L .A.

Yeah, that's special. What's the, oh, the funny one was George Stephanopoulos, and we were on Lake Avenue in Pasadena, and Colorado Boulevard, rather, and I said to the people

I was with, that's George Stephanopoulos. It was Jack McCrae and Kim and I, and that's

George Stephanopoulos, and everybody said, no, it's not, no, it's not, because he's pretty short, he had tennis shoes on and shorts and stuff, like he was jogging down the street.

And so I said, George, yelled real loud, he turned around, and then I ducked.

With great boldness. Yes, whatever happened to evangelical fads, they have run their course, and they're no longer to be seen unless it's in some kind of cut rate catalog.

Would you say they've run the race? They've run the race, and they finished their course. And they didn't do well.

They didn't. So what we want is we want to examine today, just looking back in the last 20 years, certain fads that have come into the evangelical church, the evangelical church has opened their throat, like the proverbial veal, getting force -fed.

What's that special kind of veal that they try to? I don't know, I don't eat. There's a way, there's a French word for the veal, the liver.

There's a way that seems right to a man. A liver of some kind of goose. What's a goose? Pate. Yeah, close.

I think that's it. But anyway, they're things that you just don't need to be concerned with.

And so when a fad comes down the pike soon, then you say to yourself, I think those two crazy people on No Compromise Radio, WVNE, I think they said, watch out for the fads, another one's coming.

Well, and you know why? Marketers are smart. Yeah, and the guy who comes up with it, they tweak it a little bit and market it, they're out for a buck.

Let's just tell it like it is. Yeah, all right, let's tell it like it is. Marketers are smart and consumers are stupid.

Preach it. I mean, that's the foundation of America right there.

Capitalism. Who said it? Was it Churchill or somebody that said, capitalism is horrible or whatever?

It's the worst system unless you compare it to everything else. But I think that was democracy. But it's neither.

Capitalism, democracy. What's the difference? I don't know. Yeah, when you get right down to it. Well, I got a letter one time,

Steve, and it was about the mental health show that I did and they said, you know, we actually like your show when you talk about the

Bible, but stick to what you're good at. Okay, here we go. Whatever happened to What's Up On Our List?

We've talked about WWJD, we've talked about Prayer of Jabez Left Behind. What's up next? Morning Days of Purpose, Openness Theology, TNIV, The Passion.

You wanna do this one? Yeah, I wanna do that one. That's such a funny one. All right, what's next is, are you ready, audience? Now, this one, it's -

No compromise, radio audience. I don't think it's made a lot of money, but it was definitely... Armor of God pajamas for the kids by wearing these

PJs. And quote, with their belief in Jesus and his protection, your little ones can feel safe and secure as they sleep, during the night as they sleep.

As they dress in the morning, they should replace these pajamas with the spiritual armor of God to protect them in their daily activities.

Put off, put on. That is so Pauline. Pauline kale to you, though.

Sorry, that's so appalling. It is amazing to go, even to CBD, or get their catalogs, or go to any

Christian bookstore, for that matter, Christian Catholic bookstore, and see the floor layout.

And so look at how many square feet for books, Bibles, books about the Bible, and then trinkets.

Toshkis. Yeah, you can make a lot of money through trinkets. And shlock. You know, I mean, too bad we can't show you the picture, because I didn't print it out.

But even if we, I did, I couldn't show it to you. The picture of just these kids in these, you know, like little armor pajama things.

It's pretty funky looking. So, you know, and that keeps them safe all night long. Oh, that's great. You know what they call pajamas in India, don't you?

Pajamas? Pajamas. Pajamas. Oh, okay. It's like, don't wear your pajamas out at night.

All right, what else? That was just for fun. That was just, you know, there's a little humor to be had. And, you know.

And that was very little humor. That was, yeah, that was humor. Okay, so moving on. We have Willow Creek and Bill Hybels.

Willow Creek and Bill Hybels. Now, do you think they were fads? I think they probably were. I think they were driving forces.

Especially they were a fad when now they've said, oops, we were wrong in the model we rolled out and you guys all bought into.

Yeah, there's that great book by Pritchard who used to be at Willow Creek. And then the first half of the book would say, this is what's done well there.

And I would give kudos to Bill Hybels as a leader and as a visionary and a marketer.

I'm sure he's good at those things. But when it comes to how do you grow a church biblically, I don't mean numbers and size and square foot and all that.

He has said and has basically admitted, hasn't he, that they didn't do it the right way and they're kind of reframing.

What do they call that in downsizing, retooling? Reinventing. Yeah, retooling. Retooling. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so these churches, who used to go there? I think Edwin's sister used to go there.

Did she? I think so. I think she was a pastor or something. A little shout out to Edwin. My number one text message buddy.

Which goes to show how little I text message. This one goes out to Peter and Maynard. This is for Pete and Maynard, right?

The whole issue there, and they're the ones that started it, it was a little more evangelical than Robert Shuler and it was seeker -sensitive.

The customer's always right. How can we be in an upscale neighborhood, get the upscale people to come, survey the people, have them come in, tell them nice things about other nice things, and then on a

Wednesday night, you slip them the Bible Mickey. And if you come to church this

Sunday, free oil change. I think they had that. Yeah, they did. And so the seeker in a service is always the

Lord God. No one seeks after God. And so the seeker, according to John chapter four, is Jesus, the

Father, the Son, the one triune God. And we want to please Him. That's the whole issue, is faithfulness in ministry.

And so there were probably thousands of churches signed up in the Pillow Creek, excuse me, the Willow Creek network, and you would have to do what they do.

And the problem, I asked MacArthur this in the car, Steve, about Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. He said, those guys are great leaders.

And whether they're Episcopalians or Evangelicals, their churches would be huge because they're excellent leaders.

But that's not the point, because if the leaders aren't faithful stewards of the gospel, then what does it matter?

Well, and I was just reading a little bit about this earlier, and they were saying one of the mistakes they were making, or admitting making, was separating people by ages.

And what they discovered was that the church that they sort of designed for the 20 -somethings, as they got older, of course, the 20 -somethings were no longer satisfied with it.

And when they were done, they figured out that these people had not grown at all. They hadn't learned anything about the truths of the

Christian faith. And like you said, it's probably because they weren't showing up for the Wednesday night Bible study.

And you can only see so many skits and dramas and everything else until you realize, well, wait a minute, I could stay home and watch

Masterpiece Theater, be more entertained, and not have to inconvenience myself by coming to church.

What if you watched Dan Aykroyd at Bad Playhouse? Exceedingly bad Playhouse.

That was bad drama. Quite bad. Well, MacArthur also said to me in private, coming back from Logan Airport.

This is private? This is a private conversation that I'm divulging. That's why you listen to No Compromise Radio, because when people tell me things off the record,

I quote them live. Nothing is safe here on No Compromise Radio.

No, but John was saying, you know, these churches like Saddleback and like Willow Creek, if their marketing niche is 30 -year -old rich people, then in 30 years from now, their church attenders are going to be the 60 -year -old people.

And so how do you, as a pastor, appeal to the same kind of people that the cross of Christ was meant for?

Jews, Gentiles, slave -free, male, female. We preach the gospel so all kinds of people come.

Actually, Steve, don't you like it here at Bethlehem Bible Church that we are more diversified culturally than West Boylston is as a city?

Yeah, I mean, we haven't lost the more seasoned saints. You know, we're getting more younger people.

We're getting people who's, you know, they're bilingual, they're all different colors.

I mean, we're really starting to look more like, I imagine, church will look like in heaven, you know, than it typically does on earth.

I'm glad you said that. I thought you were gonna say we're looking more like the Rainbow Coalition. No, I wouldn't go there.

Isn't it amazing how people can take the coolest and greatest and most wonderful symbols in all of the galaxy, like a rainbow, and then they contort them and twist them and pervert them into things that are not right.

Do you think it's an accident? Because I don't. Yeah, I don't think so either. That's one of the reasons why I believe there's spiritual warfare and Satan is a real entity.

Right, because those ideas don't originate with man. They go much deeper than that. That is so true.

What else is no -compromise radio do we want to say was a fad, it was around, and in 100 years, in 200 years, you know,

Spurgeon wasn't faddish because he preached the gospel. It was a transcendent message, and people are reading him 150 years later.

Though dead he liveth. Luther, Calvin, William Carey, these kind of people, people have enjoyed throughout the centuries.

Because they had something to say. Absolutely, that was weighty. Right. Eternal truths, and so how much more, if Spurgeon is weighty, how much more are the gospels and the epistles?

And so we just want to warn you, don't caught up into it's a cheap way to buy holiness, and everybody else is doing it.

Here's one that I just love because it's near and dear to my heart. When I first got saved, you know, I joined one of these little groups.

I never went to a rally. Are you starting to give me a Holy Ghost back rub right now? No. Hands off. Promise keepers, promise keepers.

I mean, I remember, how many promises was it? The seven promises? Seven promises, yes. And so a group of us -

Like the Ten Commandments weren't enough. It was Tony and a good brother who has died, and John and me, there were four of us, and we would get together, we would read this book, and we got together the first time.

We'd read the first chapter, and we got together, and we're looking at each other, you know, like, what did you get out of it? We're all looking at each other like,

I'm not going to say anything, you know, you go first. And then finally, I think it was Tony, Tony Miano, my good friend, and he said, he goes,

I have to tell you guys the truth, I thought it was pretty insipid and lame. And I was like, amen?

And it just went from there. We go, okay, well, let's keep getting together, but let's read something else. And Promise Keepers was just, you know, maybe,

I would say maybe a good idea in that we want men to be men, we want men to be leaders, but the whole execution, you know, we've got the spirit, yes, we do, we've got the spirit, how about you?

And all that, it was just - That's my line, man. It was too goofy. Did you ever go to one? No, I never went to one.

I think I was invited to go for one, and that was the one in Los Angeles where Jack Hayford was talking about why men should be circumcised, but I can't talk about that on the air.

Not for very long, anyway. I know, so I never went to one. I read the book, and, you know, it always goes back to,

I think it was on Cure at the time, Michael Horton and those guys. You know, we're adding more laws for the

Christian here, seven more promises that we're sure to break as promise breakers, and we only have 2

Corinthians 1, verse 20, there's one who keeps all the promises, and in him, yea and amen, are these promises kept,

Christ Jesus. And if you get the gospel wrong, I'm not saying every person at the

Promise Keepers organization was not Christian, but if you get the gospel wrong, you're going to get sanctification wrong, and sanctification for the

Christian had nothing to do with these seven promises. Remember that one was tied in with race, that basically the race card was played, and it just rubbed me the wrong way.

I moved to New England, became the pastor here in 1997, everybody was into it, and here I am telling people,

I wouldn't go, and you shouldn't go. It was a very tense time. But, you know, you said it in love, and they received it graciously.

And now I say, looking back on those years, I told you so. Just kidding. In all humility,

I can only just say, I told you so. There's something better. So see, as Christians, sanctification does not stop that.

You know, you're lazy, stop being lazy. Stop being lazy and work. That's Ephesians 4. Don't steal, work, don't lie, tell the truth.

And so if there are issues in Christian men, masculinity, the masculine mandate,

Rick Phillips, he would understand a lot better than Wild at Heart or Promise Keepers, the real issues of manhood, because he understands the gospel and how the gospel applies to the male problem.

And speaking of Rick Phillips. Speaking of Rick Phillips, I don't know when the show's going to air, and so we really enjoyed

Rick Phillips' ministry here at Bethlehem Bible Church. You can get his MP3 downloads at www .bbcchurch

.org. Thank you, Rick Phillips. It was a life -changing message. If it hasn't aired yet, it was, what, November 5th and 6th?

And if it has aired or if we've done it already, it was November 5th and 6th, look it up on the website. I've promoted the show about six times on the other side of November 5th, and so now we just really loved his ministry.

I think we'll have to have him back. I think out of the shows that we've done,

I think I've done almost 300, and so if one -fifth of those would be Steve's, it has to be like 50 or something.

That's the first Cooley snort we've had so far. It won't be the last probably, too.

I don't think it will be. Evangelical fads, we would think that Promise Keepers is a fad, and by the way, they were laying people off, and then it morphed into the man up, no, not the man up conference.

What did it morph into? Man down. But there's some kind of thing that I saw even in Hartford recently about one man, one world is not enough for all of us.

I don't know what it was called, but it just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. I think now they actually just have a fantasy baseball league, but I digress.

Well, was it Bill McCartney? Paul's brother ran it, and then he handed it off to, or was that something else?

Well, I know that. Another Roman Catholic on the board. I think there was a Timmons or Simmons or somebody like that,

Michael Timmons, I believe his name. He was on the board, and I don't know, maybe the same guy who took over for the prison ministry in Chuck Colson.

Yeah, and again, I think one of the issues with that is when you try to be cross -denominational, when you just try to say all those doctrines don't really matter, and we're gonna tear down the walls of denominationalism, so you wind up with Catholics and with all manner of Protestants and a few

Mormons. Hey, what's the big deal? And you just wind up with a potpourri of mess is what you wind up with.

Well, you get more psychology than you get actual Bible. David Well says, simply put, the psychologizing of faith is destroying the

Christian mind. It is destroying Christian habits of thought because it is destroying the capacity to think about life in a

Christian fashion. David Well is no place for truth. And one of the common themes to all these fads,

Steve, is they play to low spiritual IQs.

Steve Yeah, LCD. David Totally. Well, we just have a few minutes left, and so let's talk about Experiencing God, maybe the last fad that we'll talk about today, the book by Mr.

Henry Blackaby. That's right, Southern Baptist, so I guess we can't say anything bad about it. Steve Okay, show's over.

David Experiencing God was also very big, and if I can just tell you a little inside scoop,

I remember talking to John MacArthur privately in September 1997 in New York, having lunch with John MacArthur, and I said to John.

Steve What did he have, by the way? David What did John have? I think he had bagels and lox.

Steve I'll have bagels and lox. David I do remember walking to a grocery store.

He said, I'm gonna get some special kind of low -fat blueberry cookie things, and he did buy me some, and they weren't too bad.

Steve Okay. David Yeah, and so I said to John, there's this fad going through Bethlehem Baptist Church at the time, and the fad is

Experiencing God, and I find it quite unbiblical. I mean, it's got a lot of biblical things in it, but laced throughout the whole thing, like cinnamon in a strudel.

Does that sound right? Steve Cinnamon in a strudel would be actually quite tasty. I would like that. David Yeah, but it's just everywhere.

It's like lemon in lemon bread. The problem is there's all kinds of bad things in there, and especially mysticism and wrong view of decision -making,

God's will, everything else. What am I going to do? And you know what John Fullerton MacArthur said?

Is that his middle name? Steve I don't think so. David I think it is, something like that. Steve Is it John Fullerton? David Yeah, I think so. Steve Is that because that's where he was born?

David I don't know. John F. MacArthur, Jr. He said to me - Steve I thought it was Fitzgerald. David I don't think it was.

Steve Okay. John He said to me, don't worry about it. It'll die a quick death, and it'll run its course in no time, and everybody will forget about it.

It's a fad. He was right. They tried to re -resurrect the deal. Is that re -resurrect? Is that a double? Is that like Anabaptist, double re -resurrect?

They tried to make it come out again. I think the sun redid it. But it's a fad.

It's dead and gone. Steve And you know what? I can just personally say, having never read it, that I was really spared because I sat under good teaching.

You know, it was Bill Shannon, John MacArthur, some guy named Abendroth out there in LA, and I just dodged the whole situation.

John How about this from Blackaby's book? Does God really speak to his people in our day? Will he reveal to you where he is working when he wants to use you?

Yes, God has not changed. He still speaks to his people. If you have trouble hearing God speak, you are in trouble at the very heart of your

Christian experience. This is just, it's, here's a word, it's insipid.

Because what that basically says is the word of God is not sufficient. You should be waiting on a word from him.

He's gonna give you a word that's only for you or maybe just for a few people. But it's not important enough to actually be inscripturated.

But he's still speaking in that same inspired, infallible way, and that is just false.

This is a divisive issue. It's a have and have not issue. Like the charismatics tongue issue years ago,

I've got it, you don't, we're separated. God listens to me, he, God says something to me, he doesn't say something to you.

You've got problems. Show me a church divided and I'll show you mysticism running amok.

I recently read, I'm on the TBN newsletter, and he recently said. You're on the what?

TBN, Trinity Broadcasting Network, I get their newsletter. Let me just write that down. Yeah, please. So he sent out this thing,

Paul did, and he just talked about a prophecy from 30 years ago that they were gonna have this, that, and the other thing, and he actually called it the word of God.

Well, at least he's consistent. And he was quoting from it, and I'm going, wow, we need to, the book of Second Revelation or wherever, that needs to be

Third Timothy or, it's just, it's sick. Everything you need to know about experiencing

God's found in the New Testament epistles, pick them up and read them and you will experience God through the scriptures and through natural revelation in a way that will blow your mind and you'll receive this infinite

God who sent his only begotten son to die in the place of a finite fallen creature raised from the dead, and you better believe in that God, and if you do, you'll experience

God. Preach it. 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 10 .15 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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE its staff or management.