Strange Fire (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 ministry. This is

Mike Abendroth. Glad to have Steve Cooley here as well, taping some new shows. It's been quite some time, Steve.

It feels like years. Now, when I was in Czech Republic and Poland, you were here preaching through John.

What's been going on with John? I know there were some videos now on Facebook and stuff. The Cooley factor.

The Cooley factor. Well, you know, just in John 5, and talking about Jesus healing the man who had been an invalid for 38 years, and then just the response of the

Pharisees, the Jewish leaders, and so that's what I was doing the last couple weeks, and just how they, you know, instead of,

I mean, just think about it. If you knew somebody had been basically wheelchair -bound, even though they didn't have wheelchairs back then, unable to do anything for themselves, and then they got healed, would your concern be, hey, why is this guy working on the

Sabbath? Or would your concern be, this is awesome. Praise the Lord, brother. We're so happy for you.

And then, you know, would you want to know who the guy was who did this? Yes, but so that you could grill him, you know, so that you could do, you know.

So their response is pretty interesting. And then the Lord is so, he's rather direct in how he speaks to them, too.

So it's, you know, it's fun for me. I always like it, and hopefully some people have been edified and challenged by it.

Steve, I was talking about you. In Poland, there were a few men. They, in this particular church, they take turns preaching, so kind of brethren -y.

That wasn't the host church there in Poland, but these other churches, brethren -y. So they'll have three guys, and they rotate.

And so their question was, all right, we're convinced that we should do expository preaching, verse by verse, through a book, but what if there are three of us?

Do we take turns, and, you know, you do the first five verses, I do the next five, you do the next five, and then kind of.

But the problem with that is, then you don't get to know those verses for yourself, because you don't study them as in -depthly.

Yeah, I think that would be a big mistake. I mean, what I would tell them, and I'm sure you probably did, is for them to each pick a book.

And the reason for that is because as you go through a book, like as I'm going through John, I don't want to say

I read, you know, I have the mind of John, but you can follow the flow of argument and what he's doing, and the twists and turns in the story, and, you know, it really helps me to understand how the next section should preach, you know, how much

I need to kind of chew off in order to have a preachable passage, and all those kind of factor into it, you know, as you're going.

Yeah, Steve, what if we divvy up John ahead of time? I wouldn't like that. And then you're halfway through a passage, you're studying it, and then you think, wait a second.

Right. I gotta take a bigger clump, or I need to minimize this. Yeah, or I need to make two or three sermons out of it, you know, then we have a real issue.

Hey, Mike, sorry, you're gonna be out of the pulpit for the next three weeks while I do this. What? Well, I was thinking about John 14, 28, of course,

Jehovah's Witnesses love to use this verse. Maybe the Mormons do too. You can tell me. You have heard that I said to you,

Jesus said, I go away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the

Father, for the Father is greater than I. And so, it doesn't take you very long to think through the issues to say, wait a second,

I've been preaching through John, and this whole book is to show that you're supposed to believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he's

God incarnate, and didn't the same John write in John 1, 1, that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was

God? Or maybe he forgot, it was 14 chapters ago, he forgot that Jesus is

God. But, and you know what the answer to that is? The answer is just preaching through, if you know the book, because like Jesus says,

I'm not doing anything when they're challenging him on working on the Sabbath. He goes, I'm just doing what

I see the Father doing, you know, and their response to that is, they decide to kill him, because he's making himself out to be

God. So, they understood the message, you know, so for Jehovah Witnesses or some other cult member to take that John 14, 28 out of context, we have to understand the whole flow of argumentation.

It's not like you can take that one verse and go, aha, see? You know, the son is a created being.

Well, no, he's not. Just follow the whole book and you'll get to, you'll understand that from John 1, you know, where he uses different verbs to talk about Jesus and John the

Baptist, all the way through, and it's clear that Jesus is fully

God, and it's also clear that the Jews understood that from the beginning. What he was saying was,

I am God, they understood that and that's why they wanted to kill him. Steve, if the text said in John 14, 28, for I go to God for God is greater than I, then

I'd have a serious, then I'd have to side with Jehovah's Witnesses. God is greater than I am, I'm not

God, but when he's talking about the Father, here we have incarnational subordination.

That's right. He was submitting himself to the Father's will over and over again. He makes it clear over and over again, you know, why is he here?

He's here to do the Father's will. He does nothing but what the Father wants him to do, and even when, now

I'm gonna forget the exact thing that I was gonna say, but there's a point where he could have said something differently, but as many commentators said, it would have created space between the

Father and the Son. It would have been the Son acting independently, not in, you know, kind of jointly with the

Father, and he didn't do that. The only time we see separation in the

Gospels between the Father and the Son is on the cross, where, you know, that's the price he pays.

Why does he say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because there's that pain of separation that he's never, you know, experienced in that way before.

So the Gospel of John is remarkably consistent in terms of he is not less than the

Father, but he is, he has functionally subordinated himself to the

Father, and he does the Father's will. And by the way, if feminists could understand that, that might help them, because they always say, submission is inferiority.

Right, and it's just acknowledgement that we have different roles, and, you know, am

I less than Mike? Well, maybe, but we just have, we have different roles at the church.

You know, you can't have two senior pastors. You can't have a company that has two CEOs. You can't have a family that has, contra the modern wisdom, two dads or two moms.

Well, Steve, I'm glad you're ready, in a moment's notice, to take over the helm here, because with hazelnuts overseas and other things, you are about gonna be the senior pastor.

Well, and I'm, you know, not really, that's not how I wanna go. This is, you know, death by hazelnut is not how

I'd like to see it. I always wonder why you so encourage me to take all these dangerous trips. Steve will call, and they'll say there's some jungle evangelism down the

Nile, and it's the time where they've got the incurable malaria. And Mike, I think the

Lord is calling you. God told me you should go. Well, and I haven't even told you about the Bible conference in Nepal. Now, it's kinda unique, because you have to parachute in, and you can't eat anything or drink anything for three days, because everything around you is going to be poisonous.

But great group of guys, and I think you should go minister to them. Steve, you know how

I just write TSC, because in my world, that's the Shepherd's Conference, but this particular conference, it's using the same lingo.

I don't know if it's trademarked or not. TSC, the Sherpa's Conference. I like that.

So, Steve, I'm trying to get you to do some Tuesday guy shows on Saturday, and I think there's, you know, people out there waiting, so give us an update on when you think you might be able to do that.

They're longing for the day. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I mean, it just seems like there's just always something else

I have to do. Like, you go off to Polsky, and... So, I mean,

I almost said, well, maybe next week, and then next week, I'm like, okay, I got Sunday morning, Sunday night, yeah.

So, I don't know, you know, we'll see. All right, well, you came back from the

Strange Fire Conference. You had a band. Your band was a white band, right? Yes, I did.

So, you have access to the big shots. The inner circle. Yes, did you talk to Phil Johnson? I did talk to Phil Johnson.

Okay, tell us what Phil said to you, if you're able. Yeah, there's some things I can't really reveal, but, you know, it was good to see

Phil, and he told me he was super excited because he was gonna have a new grandchild who's here now.

I saw Darlene as well, and a lot of folks. I'm trying to think maybe what the most, I mean, the funniest thing to me is when somebody,

Sunday morning, I was going downstairs after using the restroom, and somebody kind of took a quick glance at me and then opened the door.

I was almost down, halfway down the stairs, and they said, no compromise. Best compromise, ooh.

You know, so it's just funny, you know. You get recognized someplace, or. I told you it was a good idea to wear that Tuesday guy

T -shirt. Well, you know, I wasn't really sure about it, well, then I had the no compromise hat on, you know, it kind of looks like the

Pope's hat. Well, yeah, that Dagon hat. Yeah, it's pretty sweet, though. Yeah, and then tell the listeners about our friend

Kofi, who is a good moral supporter and Facebook helper of no compromise.

Does he live in London or something? Yes, he does. He's a student over there, and so he saw me all of a sudden.

He's just standing in front of me, like smiling, like I should know who he is, and I look at him, and I go,

I do know who he is, because I recognize him from his Facebook pic. And I go, now, you know,

I don't want to mispronounce your name, so tell me, and he says, Kofi, and I go, okay, I just didn't want to say Kofi, and then you say, no, it's

Kofi, or Ka -fi, or, you know, something else. So, yeah, ran into Kofi over there, and so that was fun.

It was good to meet him, and I really appreciate his ministry. I've been reading his stuff here lately on the web about the

Strange Fire Conference, a couple good, really good posts about it. Okay, good. Now, let's talk a little bit about the Driscoll deal, and specifically,

Driscoll's open letter to MacArthur. I don't know, this just seems to be the time for both cessationists and continuationists to write open letters.

Maybe Frank Turk started the whole thing, I don't know, years ago. But anyway, I haven't heard much because I've been overseas, and been in the

ER there in the Czech Republic, but do you think it was a genuine letter? I'll tell you what

I think first, Steve, then you can respond. I think that it was well -crafted. I think that whether intentionally or unintentionally,

Driscoll set it up in such a way that when John says no, Driscoll will look good and John will look bad.

I think John's schedule, last time I checked, he books about 12 days out, and then he's got, his whole life is open for things like this after, you know, but only 12 days out, so he hasn't planned like next year or the year after.

Well, I'd like to tell you exactly what I think of it. I think it was political. And you say, well, what does that mean?

It means Mark Driscoll got caught in an untruth. He said that his books were confiscated.

They were not. I've not only watched the video, I've talked to some people who were, I've talked to people who were there talking to Mark Driscoll.

His books were not confiscated. In fact, his books, they offered to put his books back in his car, and he kept trying to give them as a gift, and they finally accepted them as a gift.

And he tweeted then, subsequent to that, that his books were confiscated. So, you know, there was a little bit of a hubbub on the net about Mark Driscoll not telling the truth.

Some people said he was lying. I think he did. And then how do you get out of that?

How do you sort of wriggle out? Well, there's two things you could do. One is to say, you know what, I repent. I was wrong.

Would the people that I misrepresented the truth to please forgive me? You could do that.

That would be pretty straightforward. Or you could write an open letter to MacArthur and basically backhandedly compliment him for not cheating on his wife and for not teaching error for 45 years, and then challenge him to a duel.

I'm sorry, a debate. But didn't he try to say that what happened before the filming, you know, there were some overzealous security guards who were kind of confiscating them?

I don't know what he tried to say. You watch the video and there's nothing overzealous.

I mean, I talked to one of the pastors who was also providing security.

And he said that, and I have no reason to doubt this man as he was a former Navy SEAL.

He understands what danger is. He understands what confrontation is. And he said, Mark Driscoll leaned right into his face and said, what are you gonna do if I don't take my books and leave?

And - I bet you Mark didn't know he was a Navy SEAL. I'm quite confident he didn't.

So this man just said, you know, well, I guess we'll have to see, you know? And then he went and got the head of security and that's when the video was rolling.

All right, when I was in India, probably, oh, 10 years ago, there was a conference and it was more of a general conference.

I've been there for pastors conferences. This was general. And MacArthur was up preaching about the exclusivity of Christ and Sola Scriptura and he was up preaching via video.

Right. And so the camera was toward the audience and so MacArthur could see us and then we could see

MacArthur on the screen and a guy got up and he went up on stage and knocked down the video screen and started stomping on it because he didn't like MacArthur's message.

Come to find out that was the same guy who was trying to sell Benny Hinn books downstairs in the parking lot, you know, underhandedly.

And God told him to knock down that. So my question is, and maybe I'm wrong because this is only anecdotal evidence.

I'm not omniscient, but why do I only know of the cases where the continuationists show up at cessationist conferences to sell books that aren't authorized?

Did God tell him to do that? Somebody actually asked during a conversation, I think it was on Facebook that I was participating in, you know, well, kind of like playing the devil's advocate.

Well, what if John MacArthur showed up, you know, at the Acting Like Men Conference with McDonald and Driscoll and I'm going,

MacArthur has A, too much class for that, B, too much maturity for that, and C, is confident enough in his own presentation of the scripture that he would never stoop to something like that.

So I'm just like, the whole thing was just bizarre. I think Driscoll and McDonald went to the

Strange Fire Conference as some kind of silly, well,

I mean, I call it for what it is, like a college prank sort of thing, slash pub grab.

I mean, just exactly the sort of thing that you would expect a pastor to do, not. Well, like Keith Richards says, all publicity is publicity, even bad publicity.

Yeah, well, when you're in a rock band, maybe that applies. To me, it's just very untoward and the sort of thing that you ought not to be doing.

I think James McDonald, if he would have been the James McDonald of 20 years ago, he probably would have said to Driscoll, we probably shouldn't do it.

Probably reel ourselves back in, you know, let's not do that. So my guess is

MacArthur's not gonna show up, probably by the time this airs, it's already not happened. Yeah, I actually don't think a first -year student at the

Master's Seminary would show up for that thing. And, you know, here's the thing, if Driscoll really wants to debate, then why not do somebody, or, you know, debate, challenge somebody to do a debate who does these things all the time.

You know, go throw yourself up against James White. You know what, I would like to see James White do that. James, where are you?

Well, I'm sure James White will hear about this, but, you know, to me, and by the way,

James White would never do anything like, you know, write an open letter to Mark Driscoll challenging him, but, well,

I mean, because think about it, if Driscoll's serious about a debate with MacArthur, what does he do? He sends John a note, personally, privately, and says, hey, what would you think, you know, we're two heavyweights, you know, kind of, well, he wouldn't say that, but, you know, just kind of say, you know, maybe it would be good for the church if we just kind of made plain the scriptural differences.

What do you say we debate? You don't go public because, again, what's that all about? I think it was just to change the subject, to get it off of Mark Driscoll not telling the truth, and to make it now about, well,

Mark Driscoll's, you know, willing to stand up for what he believes. Is John MacArthur willing to stand up for what he believes?

And if not, well, maybe MacArthur's not that confident. Without reading motives, but just reading the open letter,

I thought it was muy mal. Yeah, well, like I said, I mean, to me, it was political. This is the kind of thing that you expect of, if he's caught, you know, cheating on his wife, what does he do?

He changes the subject by, you know, introducing a new tax cut or saying, well, if you think me cheating on my wife is bad, just what do you see this video of what my opponent was doing?

You know, I mean, that's the kind of thing that you do. It's, we've got to change the subject. So let's just, you know, a little brainstorming.

What do we do? What about an open letter from MacArthur challenging him in a debate? Hey, good idea. So anything else from the

Strange Fire Conference that really affected you, a response from that? I know the bloggers pretty much are saying that, that, you know, they were, they didn't really like it so much.

I think the majority of people say no. I think a lot of the people, and you know, there were some non -cessationists at the conference.

I think the people were, well, I mean, first of all, of course, as always, Grace Community Church was over the top just in terms of service.

I mean, if you ever, even if you don't even like John MacArthur, you go to one of those conferences and you have to be blown away by the way the people at that church serve.

They're all volunteers. And what they do is just remarkable. And, you know, the food and everything,

I mean, it was just like, it was pretty incredible. Yes, but service without the spirit, now, come on.

Yeah, I mean, what does, what does serving the brothers have to do with the Holy Spirit? I mean, anybody would serve, right?

Take time, take vacation time to just serve on their own. Sure, they would not. But, you know,

I think the other thing is just kind of the camaraderie of an event like that.

I will say this though, you know, it was interesting to me because, and I'm not blaming the women, but you've got now 3 ,500 men and women in the sanctuary singing the songs.

It wasn't nearly as loud as it would be at a Shepherds Conference. And I think part of that, you know, sure, it's the fact that half of the people there are now women, but the other part is,

I just think a lot of the people who were there didn't know the hymns. Didn't, and you know, are not really confident about singing them, so.

Plus, I think you'll agree with me, Steve, when you have 3 ,500 pastors or those who'd like to be pastors, those who are leaders, elders, deacons, missionaries.

Those who know pastors. Yeah, yeah, if you know a pastor or two. These pastors and these church leaders have suffered as they have followed the suffering servant, and ministry's difficult, and ministry will grind you up, and ministry will flatten you.

And so people who have been, if I was going to use psychology language, broken and wounded.

Bruised. But seriously, when you suffer, you sing the glories of God because he's still the worthy king.

And so I think pastors sing with extra gusto because of gospel ministry, and they're getting together, saying, you know, but he's still worth it.

So much better than getting together and singing I'm Not Down by The Clash, so. Yeah, well,

I listened to Sandinista the other day, and there's some good songs on there. Yeah, there are. Yeah, good politics. Not.

What are we doing with all these bands now? Now are the days that these guys are all dying off.

You can tell we're getting older. Well, you know, but I mean, some of the guys who die off, like Lou Reed, I'm like,

I really wasn't that moved by it. I mean. Early Velvet Underground, some of that stuff was interesting, but I wasn't really moved.

No. No. But I mean, you know, like The Clash, that's a whole different thing, so. What do we do?

We just, we think, you know what? We're getting closer and closer and closer. I say to myself,

Steve, if it wasn't for the grace of God, I would still be worshiping sports teams. I'd still be worshiping rock bands.

You're not lying. Here I was, you know, I mean, in Okinawa, subscribed to Rolling Stone, and I used to go out and buy every payday a couple hundred dollars worth of records, and you know,

I mean, that's all I had to, I was living in the barracks, I could do whatever I wanted, right? And so I didn't drink,

I just bought records all the time. And then I get back to the States, and I was reading Rolling Stone for years.

I had three kids, and I was still reading Rolling Stone, and then I got an issue in the mail. It was Billy Idol, and there was so much profanity in it.

Now, I was not saved, but there's so much profanity in it, and I'm going, why am I reading this bilge?

You know, I go, please cancel my subscription. I'm done with this. I have not picked up a Rolling Stone magazine for I don't know how many years.

Weeks, oh, sorry. I don't even know if it comes out once a month or when it comes out. I, you know, from time to time

I'll see articles, you know, they'll talk about the 500 greatest albums or the 100 greatest guitar players or whatever.

And so I'll just look at their list, but, you know, online, but that's it. And, you know, no money to them or anything else, and I just can't be,

I can't be bothered. I mean, it used to be so important to me to find out, you know, what the latest bands are, and now all this stuff just bores me to tears.

Steve, wrapping up on Strange Fire, what would you hope that the Charismatics would do in response to Strange Fire?

Well, I - Ad hominem? Well, which seems to be the mode that they're in right now.

You know, just attacking MacArthur and attacking the whole idea of this conference, you know, was it to divide?

And no, you know, I think it's pretty clear that MacArthur, A, loves

Charismatics, B, loves the Bible, C, loves the Lord, and not in that order. And I think what the

Charismatics ought to do is, you know what, have your own conference. But why don't you do this?

Why don't you call out the people that are outside the biblical camp? It's one thing to say that we think the

Charismatic gifts are in full operation. It's another thing to sort of hitch your wagon to Charismatic charlatans who are out there and defrauding people of their money, preaching a gospel that cannot and will not save.

In fact, it's no gospel at all. And why do you want to protect them? Call them out. Mike Ebendroth here with Steve Cooley.

You can write us at info at nocompromisedradio .com. We're glad that you listen. You can go to nocone90 for some videos as well.

And make sure you write Steve and tell him he needs to do a noco 90. Yeah, make sure you do that because Steve doesn't have any ideas.

So that'd be good. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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