Mike LeMay Interview

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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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
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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.
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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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
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.
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My name is Mike Abendroth, and as you know, we have a little slogan, and that slogan is always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.
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And on Wednesdays in particular, we like to have guests on, authors, theologians, radio, disc jockeys, all kinds of different things.
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And so I like Wednesdays because we get to interact with some of the leaders in Christianity as God raises up men for His work.
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And so today I have a friend on, and I owe this friend a lot, and it's, I kind of think, a one -way relationship because I'm always on his radio show and he's never on mine.
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So, you know, you're saved by grace alone, but now I'm justified before Mike LeMay by works.
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So Mike LeMay, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Thank you, Mike, for those kind words.
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It's I who are in your debt because I know that our audience on Stand Up for the Truth is blessed every month we have you on.
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So thank you for sharing some of your time. Now, Mike, some of our listeners might not live in the Wisconsin area or the
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Michigan area. How many stations are you on with your show Stand Up for the Truth and Q90FM, 90 .1
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on the radio? How many stations are you on? Well, we're only on one terrestrial station, that's 90 .1
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FM out of Green Bay, but our podcasts, our monthly podcasts are downloaded about 45 ,000 times a month.
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So we've got listeners from around the world and every state, but primarily they go via podcast or listen over the web.
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All right. Well, once a month, I'm a guest on your show and you're usually talking about current events or biblical issues or the
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New England Patriots. So what should we talk about today? Well, we'll have to wait to get into that.
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That's right. Well, I remember when I first was on your show the first time several years ago and I said
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I grew up as a Green Bay Packer fan, Bart Starr and Ray Nitschke and then to the
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John Brockington era. And some listener called and said, you know, if I'm ever in town, I could have free tickets.
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So I don't know, maybe you'll get some free Patriots tickets out of this. Hey, we're going to work on that, brother.
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Mike, tell our listeners a little bit about the radio show and what you do there, kind of what your theme is, and that will help them understand you a little bit.
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Well, seven years ago, Mike, we were a typical Christian radio station. We played music and had a little teaching here and there at a local
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Christian event that brought a man in by the name of Jim Wallace, who your listeners may be aware of from Sojourner's Magazine, a man who preaches a false gospel and preaches the false social justice gospel.
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And we confronted the people that put on the Christian Music Fest. We've been supporters for years, and we quietly and privately told them we could not support
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Jim Wallace coming and teaching our young children a false gospel. They rejected our thought.
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And so we just quietly posted on our website one day that we're not going to be at this event this year, and lo and behold,
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Glenn Beck, of all people, picked up on our statement on our website, broadcast it on his national radio show, and we were getting interest all over the country, and thanks for our stance.
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So we started Stand Up for the Truth, because our big concern was that Christians were starting to let secular culture infect them and the
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Church, instead of the Church positively affecting secular culture. And we've seen that grow and grow.
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So the main emphasis of our show is to look at events going on in the nation and the world and within the
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Church, and always hold them up against the lens of Scripture to help us discern what is true from clever deception.
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Mike, one of the things I've noticed over the years, and you've probably observed it as well, it's almost like we can't stand against anything these days for fear of being labeled unloving.
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We have to be for everything. We can't be against anything. I know with your show, you and your co -host
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Dave, I know you talk about positive things, and let's talk about this particular doctrine, or this thing about the
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Lord, or let's discuss something in a more, I'm trying to think of another word besides positive.
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But I know you do both of those. But why, in your opinion, do you think it's so hard to just say no to false doctrine and false teaching and false ministries, when the
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Scriptures everywhere you look, I think 22 books in the New Testament have to say no to false teachers? Well, Mike, it's the reason
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I wrote my book, The Death of Christian Thought. Over the past 50 to 60 years, the atmosphere and discussion and format of discussion in our nation has changed radically.
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Up until 1964, in our public education system, children were taught classical education, which means we're going to teach you how to think.
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In 1964, when the federal government took over federal education, it removed that and started indoctrinating children into what to think instead of how to think.
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And over the last 50 years, 90 to 95 percent of people in America use what
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I call an animal thought process in my book. They don't take the time to consider other perspectives.
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And going back to what you said earlier, how we're always accused of saying what we're against instead of what we're for,
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I think to a small point, it's a justifiable criticism. So what I teach people in my book, and we just did a show, we just got off the air doing a show on the shack.
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And we can yell and scream, don't see the shack, but can we tell people, can we show them how the message of the shack contradicts
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God's Word? And too many Christians out there, and you and I have talked about it, biblical illiteracy is just rampant right now.
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People don't read the Word, even professing Christians. So I wrote my book to get people back into the Word of God, to help them understand how to correctly interpret the
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Word of God in context, so we can have fruitful discussion and point out deception that so many people, including many in the church, are falling for these days.
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Talking to Michael Amay today, his new book, The Death of Christian Thought, subtitled The Deception of Humanism and How to Protect Yourself.
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Mike, I'm almost at a disadvantage here, because normally when I hear your voice, I'm just waiting for your questions, but now it's my turn to ask you the questions.
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Shoot on the other foot, maybe. That's right. Talk to us a little bit about the mind in contrast to emotions.
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In other words, we are people that when you talk to others, they'll say,
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I feel this or I feel that. I think sometimes they are feeling things, but I think they mean I think, but they say
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I feel. In your book, page 10, what is the solution? And you immediately start talking about mind and thinking.
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How important is it for Christians to think biblically and to use their minds, not over and against emotions, but at least before we engage our emotions?
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Mike, when I started really looking at the scripture four years ago and preparing for this book, I was pleasantly surprised how many times
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God uses the word mind and heart in the Bible. And how much of the Bible talked about our thought process as a man thinks in his heart, so does he do.
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And I started researching what's been going on in medical science. And it's fascinating when you find out what medical science is now affirming that the
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Bible told us 2000 years ago about the brain. And one of the things that medical science has now admitted is the only way to reverse brain damage is truth.
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Truth literally repairs the brain and helps us to think better. You and I and your listeners know there's only one source of truth, and that's
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God and his word. So when you read and understand the Bible in its complete context with understanding, you literally start to repair your brain.
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And what I talk about in the book is how we've really become a slave to what
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I call our unconscious brain, wrong teachings we've received, wrong life commandments we've received in life, and how we act out of what
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I call the animal thought process or unconscious brain far more than we should. Paul tells us to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.
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He also tells us we have the mind of Christ. And I spend a lot of time in my book talking about what
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Paul was talking about there. We have the ability by the power of God's word and spirit to take our thoughts captive, and we can start to see things more as God sees them.
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When I see my wife or my co -workers more as God sees them, I'm able to love them more.
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I'm able to challenge them respectfully more when they're wrong, according to God's word. So the whole thing
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I teach in the book is slowing your thought process down instead of our animal instincts to drive our thought process.
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Allow God's word to be the impetus, to be the thing that really drives our thought process.
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Focus on what he says, not what we've learned in our life, and watch God do amazing things in your life.
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You can listen to Mike and get to his website, StandUpForTheTruth .com, and tell our listeners how they can pick up your book,
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The Death of Christian Thought. It's available at my own website, michaeldelamey .com,
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or amazon .com. It is out in written form, Kindle, or in audio form, if your listeners prefer that.
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Now, I didn't listen to your show. I'm sorry that you were just recorded an hour ago. But tell me about The Shack, just for a second.
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I mean, when you first said The Shack, I thought, I thought he was a pretty good basketball player, actually. I don't know why we were critiquing him. And he does good foot commercials.
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Take your book, Mike, The Death of Christian Thought, and lay that over, if you will, transpose it over The Shack, and I think that'd be kind of interesting radio.
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Why do we go for a book like The Shack? I think it's because it's The Death of Christian Thought. Exactly.
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And here's what we talked about on the show, that there's two camps, according to The Shack. You've got a bunch of Christians saying, oh, it's a great, great movie that made me feel good about God's forgiveness.
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And the other camp says, don't watch it. It's heresy. Our guest this morning pointed out that, yes, actually, the author,
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William Young, did get a couple of theological points correct in the show. But there's a whole bunch that he got wrong.
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For example, he talks about God's forgiveness and how God does not punish sin. Now, there's a caveat to that.
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He doesn't punish sin if you confess of your sin, repent, and place your complete faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
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So the people that go to The Shack are in an animal thought process, oh, I want to hear all about God's forgiveness.
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And I talk in the book about biblical conjunctives. When God gives us a freedom, in this case, the forgiveness of sins, he gives us a restriction to that freedom.
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And the restriction is that we confess, repent, and put our full faith and trust in Jesus Christ. So I told people, if you go to The Shack, don't just listen to what is taught, but listen to what is not taught.
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And what's lacking in The Shack is the righteous, just nature of God. They portray him as all -loving, forgiving, but not as a righteous judge.
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So when we use a godly thought process and we're able to see the big picture that God has given us in his word, we can easily spot deception, counter it with truth.
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And I'm encouraging our listeners, if someone comes up to you and says, I saw The Shack, sit down and talk with them, ask them the right questions, and use
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The Shack, as bad as it is, to point people to the true gospel that The Shack does not point them to.
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See, that's why you're so kind and nice, and you have such a large listenership, because I'm just, you know, the harsh guy who just says,
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I can't believe you ain't saw that. I read the book eight years ago, a friend insisted, and it was the hardest book
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I ever read. And then I just sat down with him, and I said, here's a couple things Young got right, but look at everything he's missing.
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And Mike, you have been so wonderful about pointing this out to our audience, that the gospel being presented in many churches today has been sanded down.
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There's no call of sin, confession, and repentance. And on the other side, there's no call to holy living.
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So we've reduced the gospel to invite Jesus into your heart, and you'll be happy, and you won't go to hell. And so many, as you pointed out, are falling for that false gospel, which is no gospel at all, as Paul said to the
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Ephesian church. Well, I read a lot of Christian books, and many times it's just a formula for, oh, practical living, or these are the steps to make things easy in your life, or do this formula, and everything will work out fine.
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And one of the things I liked about your book, to amplify what you said just moments ago, at the very beginning,
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I mean, within the first 30 pages, you have a section called, Who is God? And sometimes when people ask me about my books,
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I can't remember exactly what I wrote. So I won't quiz you on what's on page 22. But you start off not with,
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God is all love, God is all gracious, God is full of mercy, and I'm very thankful He is loving, gracious, and merciful.
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But you start off with, God is always righteous, and you list Isaiah 24, and 2
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Timothy, and some Psalms, and then God is just. Tell our listeners why you started off with righteousness and justice versus love and patience.
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When we look at the scriptures and God describes Himself, those are the words He consistently uses, and I put all the scriptures in the book.
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Where emergent people and progressive Christians are getting it wrong, Mike, is they believe that God's love will trump
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His righteous and just nature. And the proof that that cannot happen is the cross. God's wrath had to be poured out on sinful man for our sin and disobedience.
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And Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, took the wrath of God, that cup of the wrath of God upon Himself. What I see happening in progressive
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Christian circles, people like Rob Bell, when he says love wins, God's righteous and just nature wins.
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And He showed His love for us by pouring His wrath out on His Son in our place.
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When we ignore the fact that God's nature is to always be righteous and to always be just, we get a perverted version of God.
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And back to the Shaq movie, a young man told me yesterday, well, this movie brought me closer to God. And I said, which
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God? Is it the God who's righteous, just, and holy? Or the God who overlooks our sin, doesn't care about our sin, and automatically forgives us?
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So the nature and character of God, when you know God, and when you know who you were before His saving grace, and who you are as a result of His saving grace, everything changes in our lives.
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I was thinking about Isaiah chapter 6 and Isaiah the prophet. The prophet Isaiah, who arguably could have been the most holy man on the earth.
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He certainly wasn't a terrorist or an abortion doctor or something like that. And he sees the glory of God.
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And he knows he's undone because he sees how holy God is. And I'm thankful for that type of emphasis you have in your book.
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Mike LeMay, on today, you start off your book with the definition from Oxford Dictionaries about humanism. And you give us this quote, an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters.
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And I was thinking, Mike, about Machen. It was 1923, Presbyterian. He writes
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Christianity and Liberalism and basically says there are two religions in the world. Christianity, which has a transcendent supernatural
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God, and then Liberalism, who has a God that's anything but supernatural. He's just natural.
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Is that a paradigm that you're using in the book too as you start off with your definition of humanism? That's very well stated.
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We all worship something. We either worship the one true God of the Bible or we worship ourselves.
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And think in the Garden of Eden. The sin was pride and humanism. Even Adam were convinced they could be as righteous as God or they could be better than God.
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Look at the Tower of Babel. We're going to build this tower to the heaven. So we either worship the one true
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God of the Bible or we worship ourselves. And, of course, worship of self is humanism. And, Mike, when you look at how far our nation and even many of our professing churches have went over to the humanist worship model, it's startling.
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It's very, very startling. And every time I choose to feed my flesh instead of follow
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God's Spirit and Word, I'm acting out of humanist, greedy things. So it's so important we understand we all worship something.
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And the bottom line is we either worship the God of the Bible or we worship ourselves. And that worship of self is humanism.
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Now, Mike, you were talking a couple times about something about an animal brain. And, of course, I was thinking about, I don't know,
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Creature of the Black Lagoon or something like that, an animal brain. He's some type of evolutionist or something like that.
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It sounds odd, but let me read for our listeners Psalm 32 .9, and then you can kind of wax eloquently.
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Do not, excuse me, be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.
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Psalm 32 .9. You said animals have basic knowledge, but they lack understanding or wisdom.
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They know the what, but not the why or how. Is that what you mean by animal brain kind of talk, or do
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I need to rebuke you somehow? No, you said it perfectly. Anyone who's ever trained a dog knows this. If you punish him for peeing in the house and reward him for going outside the house, he's using his unconscious brain.
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It's programmed that going outside is good and going inside is bad. God gave human beings a conscious brain so we could understand and extrapolate.
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Man looked at birds flying one day and said, maybe I can do that. So we used understanding to develop airplanes and jet planes and now space shuttles.
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God also, there's a seventh stimulus that can affect every human being, and that's
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God's Word and Spirit, and that's wisdom. So man's wisdom is foolishness to God.
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Man's wisdom is human understanding. God's wisdom is eternally true and always righteous.
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So we either operate out of our unconscious brain just doing things we've always done, tying our shoes, lying, whatever it might be, or we allow
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God's Word and Spirit to be the stimulus for our beliefs, our thoughts, and our actions, and that's what
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I call using a godly thought process. Mike, it seems to me that we just put our headphones in.
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We get in the car and turn on sports radio. I would never do that, of course. But we're always busy.
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We don't really have time to think anymore. And, you know, I think of Romans 12 and the renewing of your mind.
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The other day I was preaching through Hebrews 3, and the writer says, consider Jesus.
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He doesn't mean consider him one of many gods, but it's the word to think down on, to think about a lot.
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And it's used also when Jesus is talking about, think about the lilies of the field and think about these birds of the air.
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If you just look at a bird or a lily, it's just to use your thought about the animal thought, you just look at it and you just go, oh.
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But when you stop and think and then you realize, to use Jesus' words, God takes care of those things.
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They don't have human souls. They aren't valuable like a human made in the image likeness of God. But stopping to think for a minute, you realize, wow, they don't have a store.
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They can't go to Costco. God still provides for them. How much more will he provide for us?
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And so stopping just to think a little bit is so important. What would be some advice you'd have for our listeners that would just give them more opportunities to simply think about God and his word?
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Boy, the first thing is identify those things in your life you're spending a lot of time on that are not edifying to God and focused on God.
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Be it television, be it social media. In your case and mine, maybe we listen to a little too much sports talk.
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And really stop and meditate on God's word. And Mike, that word meditate is one that's fascinating.
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We're told twice in the Old Testament to meditate on God's word. And the word meditate means to think deeply and speak out loud.
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Now, you and I have talked about this medication rave that's going out through the country. But they're meditating with the wrong why and how.
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We're told to meditate and think deeply on God's word. The world tells us to meditate by emptying our mind.
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And we know that when we empty our mind, bad things happen. So, again, it's understanding that God gave us specific words with specific definitions.
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And when we change those definitions and feed our flesh, we're humanists. So, slow down, read the word of God.
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I'm less concerned with how many pages a person reads than the quality of the time they spend.
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Have a good concordance. Have a good strong concordance where you can look up the words. Look at the specific definitions
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God uses for sin, repentance, and grace. And stop falling into this trap of believing everything you hear on television or on radio.
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Because when you have a wrong definition for words that contradicts God's definition, you are fertile grounds for the enemy of our souls.
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In the book you talk about, 2 Corinthians 10 .5, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey
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Christ. Years ago, Mike, I was listening to someone, I think it was probably MacArthur, and everyone was touting the open mind.
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I have an open mind. And John said, that's bad. That means anything goes in and then anything, you know, anything bad comes in, you don't care.
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Anything good goes out, you don't care. You need to have a closed mind. That is to say, if it's biblical,
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I'll accept it. If it's not biblical, I'll reject it. Is that good advice? I think it's great advice,
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Mike. And one question that I love to ask people, no matter what we're talking about, politics, religion, the economy, you name it.
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If you don't know the answer to something, where is the source you go to for truth? And people will tell you one of two things.
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They'll either say God's word. And if they say that, you've got them in a position where you can really help them. Or people will say, well, what
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I feel. And then I ask them this. I said, have you ever had a wrong feeling? Have you ever felt something was right and later it was proven to be wrong?
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And they'll all say, well, of course. Well, then how can you trust your feelings moving forward? So we take everything.
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We should be closed minded about this. What God says is truth. What I think is only true if it lines up completely in a non -contradictory way with what
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God has spoken. We were talking on your show, Stand Up for the Truth, about the
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Reformation a couple months ago. And the Luther quote just popped into my mind, a little ditty from Luther, exactly echoing what you just said.
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And Luther said, feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. My only warrant is the word of God.
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Nothing else is worth believing. And boy, we sure can trick ourselves. And the heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all else.
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I think this is why we have to go to other people and ask for counsel because we can trick ourselves. Oh, we absolutely can.
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And you know, Mike, the thing about feelings, what I talk about in my book is it's not just enough to deny your feelings.
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Your feelings are what they are. You need to understand why you feel the way you feel. What life commandment or false teaching is causing you to feel the way you feel.
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Up until three years ago, I had a terrible time trusting God with my personal finances.
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And I just wrestled with God for a year over this. And what I realized was with my mouth,
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I was saying I trust God. But in my unconscious brain, I didn't. So I've learned that, you know what,
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I'm either going to learn to trust God or not trust God. So I'd rather than just stop that feeling and say, no,
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I'm going to trust God and all things. I really asked the Holy Spirit and God's word to reveal to me.
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Why is it, Lord? Why do I have these feelings of angst? So I teach people in the book how to use
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God's word to process and understand your thoughts instead of just stuffing them. Because the thing about stuffing feelings, they're eventually going to come out sideways.
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And they're probably going to hurt people that you shouldn't hurt with them. Mike, the 24 minutes went by so fast.
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I appreciate you and your ministry. People can listen to you. Stand up for the truth,
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Twitter, Facebook, and then the website for the old shows. Or you can get on podcast and follow
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Mike that way. His book, The Death of Christian Thought. Mike LeMay, I appreciate you and your ministry.
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Thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. Thank you, Mike. And I know we've got a great guest, I believe, next week by the name of Mike Abendroth.
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Thank you. Thanks a lot. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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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.
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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.
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