Tuesday Guy on Saturday - Premiere

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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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, Saturday edition. It's our first, our inaugural broadcast on Saturday.

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I guess it's really more a podcast than a broadcast, but I've spared no expense, scoured the entire planet to find a special guest, and you're not gonna believe it.

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I happen to have Pastor Mike Abendroth in the studio. I tracked him down. I am so glad to be here,

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Steve. But aren't you supposed to be sitting in this seat, and I'm supposed to be in that seat on Saturday's show with Tuesday Guy?

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I would like that, because your seat is actually a lot nicer than mine. The seat that Steve has, and that are in the conference room here behind us, what do you think, they're 19 vintage, maybe

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Harry Truman sat in these? Yeah, maybe. Actually, I think it was part of the set from one of those

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Middle Earth movies, because I think this was actually designed for Hobbits, Middle Earth. Is the

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Hobbit, is that a biblical show that's coming up soon? Can we learn some biblical truths? It absolutely was. If you know your

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Bible, it's in 2nd Tolkien, and I'm really disappointed that you didn't know that.

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Well, I have to tell you, Steve, when I first said Nietzsche and the shenanigans, you said, no, that's

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Nietzsche. Yeah. So you corrected me on that one. So I actually heard J .R. Tolkien pronounce his word, and I think he said

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Tolkien. Tolkien? Yes. Oh, really? Well, I'll adapt to that, no problem. I mean, that's...

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Steve, tell me a little bit about the Saturday show. What's the premise? What's going on? What are you going to do in the future?

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How's it going to work? How much money does it cost? Billions. And our main goal is to give the entire family something that they can get cornflakes out, pour milk over, and dump a lot of strawberry jam on top.

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Well, in light of the Obamacare policies, we are going to have to downsize a little bit, and so Steve is going to have only part -time duties on Tuesdays.

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So to rearrange his work schedule so he's not full -time employee, so he does not have to receive the benefits, he's now doing

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Saturdays as well. Yeah, yeah, we all have to just kind of cinch our belts in a little bit. It's rough.

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Okay, none of that was true. But, all right, today, our inaugural podcast, we're going to be talking about something secret.

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Anyway, here's the format. Did you say secret? Secret. Oh, okay, I like secrets. I'm going to be asking

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Mike some questions, and this is kind of cool because you're my guest and you have to obey my rules.

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I am, my lip is so zipped, I am trying to just, I'm sitting on my hands, as it were, and I await the questions.

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Kreskin. Here's your first one. This is a quote, and I want to get your response to it. We believe that the first century church was a vibrant community which operated under an authority structure handcrafted by God, led by on -fire saints of God, whereby believers were held to a high standard of life, where believers humbled themselves to God and to each other, where Jesus Christ alone was exalted, where people truly loved and honored each other.

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We are committed to create such a community. Keswick Theology for 500?

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Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. What is Keswick Theology? He's into Final Jeopardy.

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Well, explain Keswick Theology a little bit. Maybe not everybody's in the inner sanctum.

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Well, I like, initially, Keswick Theology because it's one of those European deals, Steve.

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It looks like Keswick, but if you were German, it would look like Keswick. Keswick.

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But then you take out the W and it's Keswick because it's a New England thing, maybe. Lemonster or Leicester or Worcester.

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So I think it's a suburb just south of Worcester by Grafton. Yeah, but what does it mean?

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Well, there's all kinds of different sanctification theories out there, and there's the biblical one, and then there are all the others.

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And this is one of all the others. It's a higher life, Lewis Barry Chafer type of sanctification.

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Lots of focus on do. How many things did you say there on do, do, do, do? I was trying to take a breath for Jeff Waddington's sake to find where's the gospel in all that.

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Yeah, led by on -fire Christians where believers were held to a high standard of life.

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And it basically, doesn't it sound like the early church was filled with perfect people? Well, maybe they should do a church plant next to Grafton in this particular case.

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I think they need a church there. Steve, I'm still on Germany time. Tell me a little bit more about Keswick theology.

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So I'm basically punting now. Well, the idea is you need to be isolated, almost isolated from the world, but the idea is that you have to have a second experience.

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There's being saved, and then there's the kind of Keswick uber boost of the Holy Spirit where you develop to a higher plane of spirituality.

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See, now you're talking German. That's right up my alley now. I was thinking super. Everybody's like super, wunderbar.

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Awesome. Oh, no, they don't say that. How many lists, Steve, you got that list there. It's a long sentence, but thinking indicatively and imperatively, there's just a lot of stuff to do there, isn't there?

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I'm feeling burdened already. Can we do that at the church? Humble yourself, exalt Christ. I think those are good things, but where people truly loved and honored each other, and we are committed to create such a community.

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I mean, it just sounds like - Eternal state. Yeah, it really does, heaven. You know, we need to establish, we're committed to establishing heaven on earth.

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That sounds kind of like the Republican Party, doesn't it? See, you know what

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I'm trying to do, listeners? Steve is such a good foil on Monday to Friday shows, that is to say,

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I guess, on Tuesday shows for Steve, and he's so witty and clever. I'm attempting to put my

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Steve hat on here Saturdays. Don't even go there. It just won't work. And I'm trying to think of a pop culture reference

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I could give with something about music or some song that you like. Don't you like that one song or that country song where the guy had to shave his head because his daughter had cancer or something, and he got to dance with her?

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Yeah, Mary Beth, Scared to Death. What's the name of the song? Okay, anyway, it doesn't matter. All right, so moving on.

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Nice pop culture reference that nobody knows, but anyway, moving on. I have another question here for you.

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How would you respond to this, this quote here? We hold to the fact that unless those that know the truth, actually live the truth, expound the truth, preach the truth, publish the truth, and teach the truth, that according to God's economy, there will be a famine of truth in our generation.

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I'm still trying to just, I'm getting crushed with all the law here and what I'm supposed to do, and I was thinking about Paul saying,

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I've determined to know nothing among you except live at this higher standard or God's going to flee some

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Sardis church or something. Steve, those things that this person's talking about, I hope you'll announce who it is someday, but I would generally agree with that, right?

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So give me the first one again since I don't have the paper. Let's see. We hold to the fact that unless those who know the truth actually live the truth.

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Okay, I want to know the truth. I want to live the truth. Expound the truth. I'd want to expound the truth. Preach the truth.

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Same as expound. Publish the truth and teach the truth, which is the same as preach and expound.

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That according to God's economy, there will be a famine of truth in our generation. I guess what he's trying to say is according to the word of God, that if you fail to, you know, adequately carry out your responsibilities to do these things with the word of God, that the word will be taken away from the people, that there will be a famine in the land.

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Well, I don't really like the economy kind of language because it's almost like 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14.

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If America doesn't do what Israel was supposed to do, then the same curses or blessings for Israel apply to the

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American church or America or something like that. So I think he's trying to say, we want to teach the

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Bible, if in fact this is a he is a she or she is a he, but be careful because God could take away that truth.

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Well, I'll let the cat out of the bag. The person who's responsible for these, this is the ministry of the

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Ellerslie Training Institute and it's Eric and Leslie Ludie. I think Eric does most of the theological work here.

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Leslie just kind of works with the young ladies, but I've listened to a number of their messages, watched a number of their broadcast

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Eric's sermons, read extensively. Those things are called? Yes, read extensively through their website.

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And so I've just pulled out a number of quotes from their website and really became concerned on a number of levels.

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I mean, I asked for a suggested reading list for the students. You go there for a year. Now, Ellerslie Leadership Institute, I think actually

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I think is what it's called, but the idea is to train the next generation of leaders. And so I asked for their books and I read through the list of books.

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I should bring that in. We should talk about that another time. Just because it's so eclectic.

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There's no systematic theology. There are really not many theological books and the range of theologians goes from pretty much solid to,

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I don't know, just really kind of sketchy spiritualists. You know, it's bizarre.

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But here, excuse me, let me ask you another question. Okay, before I do that, I just want to interject just a minute since I'm a guest.

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And since I'm a guest, I think I should be able to say something. I will grant you that. I know many things about Steve Cooley, but I know, not at the top of the list, but it's up there.

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This whole Ellerslie environment bugs you. Yeah, and we're going to get to some of the reasons why, because when you set out, when you say that, you know, your goal is to help to train the next generation of pastors, ministers, missionaries, you know, the people that are really going to impact the world for Christ, then

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I expect that you want to equip young people to do that. And nothing in their website, nothing in any of his sermons that I've seen, nothing would convince me that they're equipped to do that.

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And, you know, just as a, for instance, no theological training. Eric has no theological training, which isn't, you know, the end of things.

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I mean, certainly if Spurgeon had a training institute today, I would want to go there, but you would expect a flotilla of theological truths.

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An armada. Yeah, an armada. I mean, you would expect a lot of these things, and they're just not here. What you get is a lot of platitudes, a lot of sayings that really are vacuous.

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Let me just ask you, you know, because I know you, and I know that you want to train the next generation of men to preach and teach the word of God.

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So let me ask you, would you attempt to do that without teaching them hermeneutics?

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Well, Steve, just the other day, I happened to be in Czech Republic. I was teaching men how to preach, how to do these kinds of gospel ministry things.

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And there's a triad when it comes to theological preparation for preachers. Here's the triad. It's not a monad.

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It's not a monad. It's not a duad. It is a triad, hermeneutics, exegesis, and exposition.

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And you can't exposit if you haven't done hermeneutics and exegesis, and you can't do the others without the others. That's what you have to have.

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You can't teach the Bible nor train other people if you don't teach them the science and art of Bible interpretation.

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So can you imagine having a leadership institute like this where they don't have a single course on hermeneutics, not a single book on hermeneutics?

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And if you listen to Eric's sermons - It shows. It shows. So can you imagine that?

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And the answer is no. The answer is no. So these things you're reading to me, they're coming right from the website. Is that what you're trying to tell me?

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Yeah, I mean, I've done all this research into them, and there is no discernible, there's certainly no emphasis on hermeneutics, and there is no discernible system of hermeneutics.

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And they don't teach on things like end times, ecclesiology, that is how a church should be set up.

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There are a variety of topics that they just don't teach about. Why? Because you would actually have to employ hermeneutics to develop teachings on these things, and so they just don't have them.

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How about this? No teaching on soteriology. How one is saved. I'm just thinking, is that,

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I think down the street they do that at the Hobbit Bible Church. It's just strange,

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I think. How about this? Would you make, or would you have a detailed statement of faith without a single reference to any particular verse of the

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Bible? Well, I particularly would not do that, but I think it almost goes par for the course there.

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I think, well, I was gonna tell you what I think about Eric Loody, but you can just feel from him that the focus isn't on eschatology or soteriology.

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It's all sanctification. The bad news is when your sanctification view is skewed and it's so man -centered, you're just causing a lot of problems.

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Perfectionism does not prevail. Just try to go live out that kind of sanctification, and now you'll see why you get thrown into the prayer closet for four more hours there, not thrown in literally, but by command, by suggestion, by emphasis, and how are you gonna live that out?

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Well, and really, you know, to put Keswick theology in another sense, what the idea behind this place is, in Colorado somewhere, is really it's a literal mountaintop experience.

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You get so excited and so you feel like you're transformed into a higher level of living, and I really do.

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I think it is kind of a mountaintop experience. That's the whole idea, and it's faulty. Here's another quote.

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Let me get you to respond to this. You know, let's even see if this is how the Bible would describe prayer.

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The greatest need in the world today is praying saints, people who know how to lay hold of heaven, who refuse to let go until their heart -wrenching cry for souls is answered, who understand what it means to devote large portions of time to the energizing work of wrestling prayer.

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Mm, kind of sounds like a book title somebody might have written. Ha, ha, ha, wrestling prayer.

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Well, I guess you could go to Genesis and listen to some wrestling prayer.

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I think overall, Paul says, what, in 1 Thessalonians 5, he says, pray without ceasing.

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If people want to pray for a long time, that's fine, but here's the thing with sanctification that is not based out of a good soteriological,

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Reformed Calvinistic doctrines of grace sense, a monergistic view, then the emphasis is too much on people and sanctification.

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Do I think we work out our salvation with fear and trembling? Philippians 2 of 12, yes, I do. But also, it's not only what we do, and so I'd like to know the role of God.

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Eric, what's the role of God in sanctification? And this, you've got to do more, and you've got to try harder.

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Steve, I think you could do this for a weekend. I think you could go on a retreat. It could be a week getaway, but just week in and week out.

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How do you just maintain, how do you maintain this level of fortitude and stick -to -itiveness?

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I think I would be too weak to do it. Well, again, listen to this part of it. He says, who refuse to let go until their heart -wrenching cry for souls is answered.

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What does that mean? That if God says no, I mean, imagine if Isaiah was of this mindset, that he's just going to pray and pray and pray and pray, and that's all he's going to do until God gives him what he wants.

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Well, that's not what he was called to do. And it just defies, and it goes against the very sovereignty of God.

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Basically, it says you can change what God is going to do by virtue of your fervor in prayer.

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Steve, if there was a good definition and description and elucidation of systematic theology with soteriology, it'd probably be easier, because then he could point to it and say, listen,

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I don't think you can change God's mind. I don't think you can have God's single decree or purpose varied.

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I believe that this is just the response to the widow who was encouraged to keep praying and keep on knocking that Jesus talked about.

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But when you jettison soteriology, when you jettison ecclesiology, when you jettison statements of faith that are particular, you're going to run into problems, and that's exactly what's happened there.

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How about this quote here? And you tell me what you think about this person's grasp of original languages and the whole process of transmitting the

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New Testament, the Old Testament. Listen, we believe the inerrancy of Scripture can be maintained, can be maintained, through the process of translation.

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However, we believe it essential in the process of language translation that individual words in the original language be translated for individual words in the new language.

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Well, I've heard some of his word studies. First of all, I don't even know what he's saying, so it's hard to comment.

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Well, it sounds like if there's a word in the Greek, it has to be translated into a single word in the

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English. And if there's a word in the Hebrew, it has to be translated into a single word in the English. And I'm just like, does that always work?

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Are there Greek words that instantly translate into single? Well, the answer there is no.

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And when I think about how he's worked this, Steve, when I listen to his messages, I guess you call them messages.

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They seem to me just giving exhortations and a bunch of imperatival preaching. That strikes me no differently than a fundamentalist

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King James Only person who's just throwing out the commands. I'm so beat down by the end, how could I ever live up to such a thing?

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I guess if I buy one of the books, that might help me if I would learn. But he does these really weird word studies and uses all these

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Hebrew words. And I don't think he's never, I don't think he knows who

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Bauer is. No, or Arndt, or Gingrich, or Donca.

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I've met Bauer and he's not walking through the door anytime soon. It's just a bizarre,

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I mean, if you take a single translation class, you would never say, oh, there has to be a word for word.

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I mean, imagine that in the German, right? Where the Germans, they build all these compound words. And then you go, well, if you're going to translate from German to English, it's got to be a one for one.

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And you go, that's not possible. Steve, I'm trying to think of a singular word in Greek that has to be translated with a lot of other words.

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I know it is finished as tatellistai. Is that one single Greek word? Yeah, it is.

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So then what do you do with that? It's finished. You just say them really fast. You just, instead of separating the words, when you're doing your translation, they all have to be crunched together.

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Well, I hope he doesn't mean that, but I would appreciate if he did fewer word studies and more systematic verse -by -verse teaching.

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And that's how their statement of faith. And so you just go, well, if that's your statement of faith, then that's just kind of strange,

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I think. Well, I think you lead with things in the statements of faith, don't you? You could have a little peccadillo thought about this, that, and the other.

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But if you say, this is what we believe, this is a core teaching. This is something that you want to put your arms around and say, if you're here, this is what we do.

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How about this for, now, I think this is just a tremendous understatement. We believe, which is good, because we've had a lot of overstatements.

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How about an understatement? Okay, I like that. We believe the entirety of Scripture is useful for the formation of doctrine.

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Well, I would commend them for that. The problem is, I think the way they take that is they go to the

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Old Testament. Show me someone without theological training, a lot of it. And again, like you said,

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Lloyd -Jones or Spurgeon, there's their exceptions. But even those men had theological training. It wasn't formal, but they still had training.

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Show me people without theological anchors, and I'll show you people that when they go to the

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Old Testament, they do a little Beth Meyers on it. Not Beth Meyers, sorry.

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That's Beth Moore and Joyce Meyers together. Oh, sorry. They do a little

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Beth. Might be Joyce Meyers' sister or something. Beth Moore. Her less known sister. Moses had a tentative meeting.

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I want a tentative meeting. Let's forget the stuff about Miriam was complaining. She wanted a tentative meeting, too, and oh, that white stuff all over her skin, that was just,

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I think that was acne. Wasn't, yeah, it wasn't any kind of curse or anything like that. Beware of people without good hermeneutical soteriological systems going to the

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Old Testament and just rambling on. Now, I want you to explain. I want to interrupt you just for a second.

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By the way, we can actually go longer than 24 minutes and 30 seconds on Saturdays, if you prefer so.

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You can finish when you want to finish. When I'm done. Okay, that's nice. I like that.

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Wow, it's like you get bonus coverage. It is, yes, and actually, if you give, and you're part of our special Saturday guy,

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Tuesday man function room, you get like an extra, what do you give them if they would actually give and be a special gold club member?

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Saturday, I don't know, Saturday surprise. That's what they get. I think

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Michael Horton does that at the White Horse Inn, right? You give a little money and you get to be a special club member, a table member, a

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Reformation member, and then you get like 30 more minutes of Michael Horton. Next time you're in town for Thanksgiving, we'll have you over for dinner.

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So, hey, how about this? I'd probably pay $30 a month just so I wouldn't have to hear a lot of weird

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Lutheran stuff from Uncle. That'd be great, yeah. How about this? I want you to explain this statement.

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You know, there are some things I just can't figure out, and this is one. Quote, we believe that Jesus Christ is the quintessential player in universal history, both at the level of nations and at the individual, or at the level of the individual human soul.

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He's a player. What does that mean? You know,

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Steve, I'm not kidding you. This is no different than Rick Warren saying on a

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Christmas service that God, in a golf context, God wants to give you a do -over.

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Now, what is that? I say a lot of stupid stuff. I say a lot of pop culture references, but I try not to denigrate the

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Lord Jesus God the Father, or the Holy Spirit, by calling him a player.

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Oh, I know, Steve. That was in the original Hebrew. Oh, okay, and it's a one -for -one. Yes, yes, instead of Yahweh, it's

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Yehovah, and instead of Yahweh -Rapha, it's Yahweh -player.

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It's a player. I forgot. Okay, well, thank you for that clarification.

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I forgot. That's a one -to -one correspondence, and so Jehovah -player actually is one word in the original, so that's translated

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God the player. It's terrible. Okay. I do my best to be Tuesday guy today.

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Well, here, let me give you another one, and I think you might respond a little bit differently to this one.

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We believe that the act of yielding to Christ as Lord necessitates a removal of all other systems of religious thought that contradict and undermine the revealed purposes of the rightful king overall.

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For your information, listening audience, we are technically now over to 24 minutes and 30 seconds. This is all bonus feed.

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It's overtime. That reminds me of the - It makes me want to sing, though, ♪ Onward, Christian soldiers ♪

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See, Steve, that reminds me of those people that swing their heads around, the whirling dervishes kind of people, round and around and around, and as long as you've got

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Jesus as Lord right, you get it right. Kind of 1 Corinthians chapter 12, was that a demonic thing that they could say, demon -possessed,

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Jesus as Lord? What did Paul actually mean? To me, this is, maybe

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I'm wrong on that, on this particular point, but no creed but the Scriptures. No creed but Jesus.

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And so their creed is Jesus is Lord. If you get Jesus as Lord down, everything else works. Now, I would agree.

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Abraham Kuyper says the whole world, Christ looks at it and says of everything in it, macro, micro, mine,

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I'm Lord over that, but I don't think that's really what they're after there. Well, I think they're actually saying, they take it kind of a step further because it sounds like, in order for you to take

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Christ as Lord, it necessitates a removal of all other systems of religious thought that contradict.

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Now, I was taking it on a more kind of global scale.

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I mean, it sounds like they want to wipe out all other religions. And if that's not their thought process, then they probably ought to tighten that up a little bit because you read it and you go, okay, how would you like to be running for president and saying that you believe this because it sounds like a removal of all other systems of religious thought.

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That's not coexist, baby. That's exterminate.

26:59

Steve, there's a reason why the Bible teaches that churches should be run by a plurality of elders, qualified elders.

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My question for you is, are there qualified elders there or is there just one guy?

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He's the man. And I think it should. He's the playa. Yehovah playa.

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This is a very heavy responsibility to shepherd the souls of people.

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And so you better know what you're doing. Everyone has mistakes in their theological system.

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Everyone has made mistakes. But the overarching principle that reeks through all these statements that people have the nerve to put on a website is that, here's what it's promoting.

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I haven't studied enough. I'm not educated enough. I haven't been to Trinity Seminary.

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Forget Masters or Southern or any other place like that. You need to sit down. There's a reason why we learn systematic theology, historical theology, hermeneutics, exegesis.

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Why, because we're Gnostics? Because lay people can't understand the Bible without it? No, but if you're teaching the

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Bible, you're held to a higher standard. And if you're going to teach this is the way to God, this is what we stand for, this just strikes me as something our youth group would put together without oversight.

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Okay, how about this? Are there any theological errors in this statement? The cross is life purchased, salvation gained, our old man crucified, the host of hell defeated, and access open to the long -shrouded mystery of godliness.

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Well, I went to, Steve, out of all the places to go to yesterday on my return back from the

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European tour, NoCo Europe 2012. The t -shirts were really nice.

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Cost me a lot of money to have Keith Richards open for us. Were they flying off the shelf? They were flying off the shelf.

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I took Kim to the Museum of Russian Icons in New York.

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And Clinton, because we had free tickets to go. I actually met the curator there. And anyway, they have all kinds of Russian icons.

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And so here's the deal. You don't really have a Bible in Russia, and so you paint a picture of a

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Bible scene, and then you interpret it through maybe a little bit of peyote or something.

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And then you paint it, and then that's your Bible, and it becomes this living thing. It's an image without, it's an image with words, the invisible image without words.

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They have all these weird things. See, this is no different than the Russian Icon Museum. This is, what does that mean?

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I guess if I was in a preaching cadence and I could say, this is demon -defined, hell -denying,

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Christ -exalting, some kind of staccato rhythm kind of thing. I don't know, but I don't write that.

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I think we should talk about substitutionary atonement, penal substitution. I think we should talk about Romans 4, verse 25, that God vindicated

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Christ's work by raising him from the dead. I think we should talk about those kind of things on a statement of this is what our church stands for, but it's not a church.

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And so this is just more, I'm writing these things and they just sound good. I guess that's what he's thinking.

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I don't know his motives. Yeah, he was definitely in the flow. How about this? Can you see a conflict between these two ideas?

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Here's number one, number one idea. Man is imprisoned in his sin, unable to escape the control of sin, the earthly effects of sin, and the eternal penalty of sin.

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Okay, that's one idea. We would agree with that, I think. I'd probably say man is dead in trespasses and sins or something, but okay,

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I get an idea. Now, here's the second one. The guilty rebels of earth, you and me, if we would only accept this divine intervention with faith, have the privilege of legal justification before the bar of heaven.

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So we have to accept, but we're trapped in the effects of...

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Yeah, well, I was just thinking about the bar of heaven. The bar, before the bar.

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He's talking about judgment bar. That's one English word, by the way. See, everyone knows we're dead in trespasses and sins, but then we have to get this

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Arminian kind of language. I think if you ask Eric Loody, are you a Calvinist or Arminian, he would say something similar to this.

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Correct me if I'm wrong. I will. It's your show. Those monikers, that kind of nomenclature isn't proper to use.

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We're just scriptural, and if we find ourselves somewhere in between, we do.

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We're not Arminian, we're not Calvinistic, we're Biblicists. It's absolutely, he would say something like, my theological makeup, and I forget all the names, but he says, take

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Spurgeon, Ravenhill, MacArthur, blah, blah, blah, throw them in a blender, and that's what

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I am. It's utterly meaningless, but my creed is Scripture. That's just what

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I do. Steve, we believe that the Bible clearly teaches redemption was accomplished at Calvary, and it is not dependent upon man's acceptance, man's repentance, man's faith.

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It is appropriated through those non -meritorious instruments of means, i .e.

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faith. If you want to say repentance and faith, if you're thinking about a coin, but specifically Scripture using faith, redemption was accomplished.

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It happened, and so this kind of language, I just again think it speaks of probably maybe the way

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I would talk 20 years ago before I should be up there leading some charge across the mountains of sanctification.

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Colorado, get it? Yeah, how about this one? Yeah, I did, actually. How about this one? This is right along the same lines here.

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Another quote, such justification and forgiveness, when accepted through faith, creates a way into the very presence and eternal life of God.

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And so my question is then, should we understand justification to be conditional? Is justification conditioned?

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Well, if it was conditioned on anything that man would do, then we would have a meritorious system of works.

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We would have God not being able to work because he's waiting for man to respond. We run into a whole host of problems that depravity, the good doctrine of depravity would solve.

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I just think again, Steve, here's my take. If I had to summarize it, this young man wanted to be pure in his life with his body, and he met a young girl and they had a nice romance.

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They wrote a book about it, and then he should have stopped all that book writing and he should have gone to seminary and just learned a little bit instead of having this fame propel him into being a pastor who's not really a pastor and an elder who's not really an elder in a church that's not really in a church, in a setting that's not really real life.

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And so I think now it seems like it's almost too late maybe mentally for him to go back and just relearn these things and just start over.

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He, if I could give him any advice, would be to read Carl Truman's book on the creeds so he could understand the importance of a systematized theology, not for the sake of the system, but because we are supposed to teach the full counsel of God.

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Well, and I just want to say to anyone who, you know, they're really big in homeschooling circles.

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In fact, that's where they get their entree. They come in because they talk a lot about purity, sexual purity, and -

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They've been here to Worcester to talk at the public school thing. And what kind of parents, what kind of Christian parent would not want their young people to be focused on sexual purity, especially in the world we live in?

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And so they get their kind of entree there and you buy a couple of their books. And the next thing you know, your child is going to a year of Bible training in Colorado at Ellerslie and they're learning all this junk.

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And let me just give you one more. Okay, and then we'll wrap up the special edition today. How's that sound? Yeah, I want to give you one more because this is just, this is sort of the summary sort of deal.

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You're familiar with Acts 17, Mars Hill, Paul's sermon up there. Now, would you say that this is an accurate summary or paraphrase of that?

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God desires to live inside us, to speak through us, love through us, feel through us, hear through us, live, move, and have his being in and through us.

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Well, it sounds like when Paul was on top of the Areopagus that he was secretly a

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Hindu. Now, the bad news is, this is really the bad news,

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Steve. That doesn't, it's not real bad news, but it seems like it. But the bad news for the argument here, I'm just preaching through Acts 17 at the moment.

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And so I happen to know a few things about it. I'm sure I have plenty to learn. Every time I go back to the text, when

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Paul said to them, men of Athens, you know, I perceive you're very religious kind of talk. Oh, I finally learned what that word religious meant.

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You know, you fear demons. So I can still learn. But I think maybe some of the quotes there that Eric Lutie is referring to that Epimenides said about Zeus in a poem, or maybe it was

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Eratos who said it in a poem in the later one. I think he's got the spiritual union sounding like Hinduism, pantheism.

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

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