Pope-Rah

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Pastor Steve Cooley is with me today. Finally, we're both back together again. Well, welcome back.

Alone again, naturally. And I see you got rid of your old, nasty coffee mug. Do you know what?

I started listening to one of your shows, but I was so offended by your solo project, Alan Parson's solo project, that you were dogging my coffee mug and you did not even give props to Erin. Do not be surprised.

Because it was her mug that had all the stuff in it.

I didn't want to let her think that you were neglecting her coffee mug.

Well, now I have the Harvest House mug here.

Which is well-maintained, I see. Steve, I told you the story.

Poor Erin. Off air, but I'll tell the story on air now, because I thought it was so funny. My son, Luke, is at the Master's College and there's a bookstore there and you get your textbook. There are also books, Christian books there, and they have a recommended book table.

And Luke noticed there was not any of my books on that book table. You think they could have at least put him alphabetical order or something. So he took one of the books, things that go bump in the church, and put it on the recommended book table.

And one of the work study students, most likely, probably saw that and they thought that that was a hot-selling book. There's only one left. And so they put about 20 more books stacked up. Two stacks of 10 kind of thing,.

So people would buy that book. You're thinking about sending Luke to a number of bookstores? You know, he could really boost sales.

I thought it was such a good story that I sent it to Byron and to Clint, the co-authors, and Clint wrote back from South Africa and said, tell him to do it again.

I think Luke should do some book signings, too. That would be so funny.

And he could charge for it. Sure. So thank you for filling in over the summer. I appreciate it. My offer is still on the table, that if you ever want to have Tuesday guy on Saturday, you can have as many shows as you want.

Well, you know, thanks.

Thanks. Did you get any comments or pushback or feedback or responses to any of the shows you did? I did, yeah.

Like what? Well, a few people actually liked the Robin Williams and ISIS show.

Okay. I just think of ISIS not as this new terror group. I just think of the old cartoon or something back in the late 60s, early 70s.

Egyptian god or goddess.

She had two space ghost type wristband things on, and when she hit them together, they made a big flash.

It all goes back to the cartoons with you, doesn't it? Yeah, space ghost.

Pope Francis, Mary, and the Gospel of Grace

All right, so today, I know you like to talk about the Pope, and you were talking to someone about the Pope the other night. I have an article here in front of me. You know what, I can't see. It wasn't printed properly.

It's not in English. The fonts are all messed up. It looks like it's in Russian or something. And it does say here, I hope it's legit, it says,. Pope Francis, who routinely surprises believers and non-believers alike by doing things such as espousing environmentalism and denouncing capitalism, has just released his top 10 tips for achieving personal happiness.

Okay. So, I'm gonna give a disclaimer, and that is, if this is some kind of hoax, this is some kind of thing that is not, this is the onion, this is the, what are some other faker sites? Some kind of News of the world or something,.

Or world news or something. But you know what, I have to tell you, because I had a tweet from the Pope, or somebody favorited one of my tweets about a quote from the Pope, where he said, basically, if you're not adopted by Mary, you're an orphan kind of thing.

And I just said, that's just wrong, and cited scripture and stuff like, well, and then I get an email telling me that it was favorited by Pope Benedict. I'll read to retweet it or something. And I thought, how cool is that, right?

But then I look, and it's a fake, it's an official parody account, but he actually did say the original thing, which is, you know, if you're not adopted by Mary, you're an orphan. And I'm just like, that's just ridiculous.

Well, in light of Ephesians chapter one and other passages, Steve, would that be true? That would be 100 false,.

And that's what I tweeted out, it goes, false. Ephesians 1 .5 says we're adopted by the Father in Christ, you know, of course, 1 Timothy 2 .5 did, talking about there's one mediator between God and man, the man of Christ Jesus.

And then I also put Galatians 1 .8 because it's another gospel. So, you know, I mean, it's just, it's so wrong and so unbiblical, but that's just typical of the Pope.

Ephesians 1 .5, God predestined us for adoption as sons through the Virgin Mary. Wait, wait a second. Wait, excuse me. I thought I was reading the Dewey Rhames version here, but even they don't say it, for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

So actually that tweet that went out, it was retweeted by NoCo as well, made me think of this little article. And so if it's snopes, if it's dopes, if it's anything else, it doesn't really matter because I think this will be a good launching pad.

Snopes or dopes. Snopes or dopes. It is interesting that this article says, this is a holy, not a holy list, but a holy listicle, like an encyclical. And so I kind of like that. And it's so, it's written so well, if it is a snopes thing, that it talks about not the Pope, but it's in a very feminized, effeminate, psychologized, helping, Popra style.

Popra. I like that. Welcome to the Popra network. Steve, when I was growing up, they had Pope on a rope and it was actually soap. And back in those days, they didn't have those things for your shower.

You had to hang the soap around the nozzle, the head of the shower. And my mother was in Omaha, Nebraska. It was 1978. And I remember the weekend, maybe 1980. And she drove to Des Moines to see Pope John, Paul.

Really? Uh-huh. She came back with some kind of yellow t-shirt for me.

I saw the Pope. And all you got was this stupid t-shirt.

Steve, when Jesus says, don't call any man father, I mean, did your kids call you father? What's he talking about there? What's the context? Well, he's...

Don't call anybody teacher. They call you teacher? What does that mean? Yeah, different context. I mean, we're not to call somebody father in the sense, not that they're our biological father, but that they're our spiritual father, so.

I'm with you. You're smart. You should have a show.

You should have a radio show. I keep getting all these offers. Were you nervous when you were by yourself and had to talk just for 30 minutes without me? Actually, not at all. Not even a little bit. Actually, not at all.

Well, I still think we should get some Tuesday Guy t-shirts. The ones that our listeners have so far designed didn't make the cut.

What about, you know, here's a great idea. If Tuesday Guy were alive 120 years ago, what would he look like? And then Charles Spurgeon.

Well, that's funny. I also have another bone to pick with you because somebody said, I think in the Twitter universe, you, why are you called Tuesday Guy? And you have to clean up the mess of Monday Guy, Wednesday Guy, Thursday Guy, Friday Guy.

I thought that was really low. Here I am. I'm sick.

I give you my platform. Hey, I'm all for kicking a guy when he's down.

You know, I just was talking to somebody about, I appreciate Steve for lots of reasons. And in this day and age of pastoral. What happened to Snopes and Cope? I read someone this summer and they said, well, when I want to be fed, I listen to S. Lewis Johnson.

When I want to be encouraged, I listen to John MacArthur. When I want to laugh, I listen to Mike.

They didn't say Mike and Steve though. Well, because I'm not that funny. You know, when I talk, it's with a serious solemnity and, you know, I'm addressing the issues of the heart. Okay. Now see, I don't want to get sued.

So I've learned from Brandon that if you don't want to get sued, you say, in my opinion. So in my opinion, this seems pretty legit. It says published in the Argentine weekly, Viva, translation via Catholic news service.

Can I give you another tip? If you don't want to be sued, you just say with all due respect.

They're pretty nice in person. You can't be, yeah, you can't be sued or held responsible for anything. If you just started out with all due respect. The problem with this list, Steve,.

Is it could easily be a Protestant evangelical list because we're so away from the gospel, even though we've got coalitions and people together for them, we forget the gospel. So here's the first one.

According to this list. Okay. With all due respect. The further proof. In my opinion. Live and let live. Live and let live. Boom. Wait, that's not right. I think live and let, I always see live and let live with the context of hunters.

People who are anti-hunting. I don't know if he takes a shotgun out and shoots or anything like that.

Is that a good, is that a Bible verse? Live and let live? No, it's not a Bible verse. I don't even, yeah, that's just not even a. Okay. It's a lovely thought.

Yeah, live and let live. That's, I offer a lot of advice to people, but I don't ever offer that advice. I try to make mine biblical.

I wouldn't even put that on a Hallmark card. That is so shallow.

Biblical Counsel Versus Moralistic Advice

Okay. Number two, according to this list. Be giving of yourself to others. If you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of being egocentric and stagnant. Water becomes putrid. Why don't you just use the Bible?

Philippians two, you know, think more highly of others than you do of yourself. Well, if you're thinking more highly of others, guess what? You'll never be self-centered.

I mean, is that simple? See, that's, how do you, how do you get rid of an old nasty leaf that's dried out and dead? Well, I guess you could shake it off, but if a new bud grows out, it'll just drop it off.

New life put off, put on. Now I do think the Pope said this one. Now I can't confirm this based on our, our technology here at the studio, but Sunday is for family. Our technology. Did he just say that?

Sunday's for family. Sunday, it's a family day. Yeah. I have a question for you, Steve. Is the Pope's sabbatarian? Would it, would, would that mean it's a family day? Focuses on the family?

I don't know. You know, I mean, certainly I, I would tend to say that the focus should be on the Lord, particularly on the Lord's day. But you know, every day really is the Lord's day. It's just, that's not how we.

Spoken like someone who has a 501c3b. I always see those on comments and those things. Oh, you can't be trusted because you've like filled out a government form. Ooh. All right. How about this one? And I'm planning on collecting social security.

Steve, I've been wanting to tell you this for a long time. So here comes some Pope advice for you. Proceed calmly in life.

So again, if we want to be biblical about it, we might say, you know, be self-controlled a la fruit of the spirit, right?

I thought you were going to give me some contemplative prayer whacked out Psalm 46, be still and know that I'm the Lord. Or he could actually speak from the Bible.

I don't know why, you know, I mean, being that he is a titular head of a church supposed Christian organization, he might want to use the Bible, you know,.

Instead of just spouting off. Maybe it was, it was lost in the translation from Argentina. Oh, that's good. Into English. See, come on, Spanish. You know what, Steve? Here's some more wisdom from the Pope.

According to this page here, according to the VIA. Okay. Viva, sorry. Viva Las Vegas. Yes. A healthy sense of leisure, dot, dot, dot. Consumerism has brought us anxiety, causing us to lose a healthy culture of leisure.

So, so at this time it says the Pope urged families to turn off the TV when they're eating together.

I miss that. So our leisure has led us to not have a, have leisure. I don't. Somehow I don't get it. I think what he's trying to say is we're so distracted by our leisure that we forget to relax. Maybe it is, you know, that might be a language thing there.

Oh yeah, see, it could be. Steve, in all seriousness, shouldn't pastors, shouldn't Bible teachers say to themselves, you know, I'm under a mandate from God to teach the Bible and everybody else seems to give this moralistic, therapeutic, deistic, moralism, doodads, do this to have good whole living.

We should probably make sure we give people the Bible.

Preach the word. I mean, if you're solemnly charged, right? I think by Paul under the power of the Holy Spirit, you know, witnesses, the father and the son, I think you probably want to make sure you preach the word.

And again, I don't know why he just doesn't, most of this is at least tangentially, most of it is tangentially related to the Bible. So yeah, I don't see what it is.

Steve, how many churches do you think pack themselves out to the proverbial rafters by giving congregations on Sunday morning. Kind of a little pep talk, a little, you know, do better, be nice, way to go, you can make it, hang in there.

I think that's in a lot of churches.

How many churches? Well, I'd say 9 .7%. That's a survey recently completed by the...

Steve, that's why I don't want to rebound too far the other way, but you can never preach Christ too much. As Paul talked about this resolution he had to determine to preach Christ. But that's why the last couple of weeks, I've just thought to myself, I want you to be impressed with Jesus.

There's no take homes, there's no takeaways, there's no what to do in light of this besides worship and be struck.

I mean, unbelievers should believe, but I just think I have never, and I've said this before, but I'll say it again, I've never been offended when somebody preached the gospel to me. And if you're offended, you know, or you think, well, that's boring, I already know that, then you're just, you're not thinking rightly.

I mean, the most exciting thing you can ever hear, whether you've heard it for the first time or the 10 ,000th time, is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't make you just think, I can't believe I'm saved.

Why would he choose me? Why would he die for me? Those are the things we ought to be transfixed by because that is when grace is amazing.

Steve, was it not Spurgeon who said something to the effect that when I stop preaching the old, old story of Jesus and his love is when you should put me into an insane asylum because you know I will have surely lost my mind if I stop preaching Christ.

I think that's, you know, I think if you look at the great preachers, the great theologians, you know, whether it's Machen or Spurgeon or, you know, Sproul or MacArthur, when they stopped, I think they would all agree with that.

Lock me up, you know, or give me the shepherd's crook, pull me off, you know, the dais, whatever it's called in a church, right? I was going to say narthex, but that's the lounge area. What do they call it?

It's not the stage, but it's the, is it the dais?

You are now entering into the narthex zone. It's the dais, yeah.

Well, I, you know, I just, because I listen to Sproul sometimes and I just think about how he talks about the church and he uses all the right terms and I hate that. He does, he does.

The Pope, Works, and the Need for the Gospel

According to this sheet, if you'd like some input from the Pope, he is said to have quoted this. We need to be creative with young people. If they have no opportunities, they will get into drugs. Well, you know, I've been.

Midnight basketball, cure social ills downtown. It really doesn't.

It really doesn't. I just, I, more and more, I see all these calls for afterschool programs, afterschool programs. And I'm like, you know, it's a wonder because I didn't get a lot of parental supervision when I was a kid.

How did I stay out of drugs? You know, one answer clearly is the grace of God, but you know, how did I stay out of drugs? Because I never wanted to do them. That's how I stayed out of drugs. It had nothing to do.

I mean, I was gone, especially like during the summer. You know, I'd get up, you know, at the crack of dawn, about 10 o 'clock. And, you know, I mean, we were gone until the sun went down. I mean, we were just gone all day.

That's just what we did. And not in trouble in any kind, you know, any kind of real trouble.

Steve, did you know, according to this sheet, the Pope said needing to talk badly about others indicates low self-esteem, cutting others down. Yeah, and you know what?

People are going to listen to this show and they're going to say, well, you guys cut the Pope down and here's what I want to say. I think the Pope, and I said it yesterday in a different form, I think the Pope is a very intelligent guy.

I admire him for having the courage, generally speaking, to be Catholic because he has reasserted a lot of things that kind of got under the bridge with, you know, John Paul II and this kind of namby-pamby Catholicism.

Benedict is a Catholic, you know, and he's not too shy about being Catholic. I mean, he's not abrupt about it, but he basically doesn't think that Protestants, you know, that we're all just kind of in the family.

I mean, if you listen to that, even think about that tweet. If you don't have Mary as your mother, you're an orphan. Well, what does that say to Protestants, right? That doesn't say anything kind or gentle to Protestants.

It's kind of a, it's a gentle thumb in the eye, you know. But I don't have anything personal against the Pope. It's his message. It's the religion he represents because it says you get to heaven based on your own works and based on your own obedience and based on some kind of mythical treasury of merits.

Steve, maybe we could do a show called Synergism is Sin-ergism.

It's sin, baby. And so, you know, I pray for the Pope. I pray that he'll repent. I prayed for him this morning, as a matter of fact. I pray that he'll repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone, his perfect life, his substitutionary death and his resurrection for salvation and not for this circuitous, confused, unbiblical system of works that is the Roman Catholic Church.

Was that too nice?

No, but you know what? You just come across like you know everything and it's a hermeneutics of humility. You know, it's like when people say, well, John MacArthur thinks he knows everything. How would anyone come up with that except John says, this is what the Bible teaches.

And I'm firmly believing that because I've studied. You ask John, are you right on everything? The answer's gonna be no. But do I know, in fact, this text says this and means this before I get up and preach it?

Absolutely. I don't want a pastor who doesn't really know. If he says, Steve, you know, I don't really know about this. There's two ways to take this translation, subjective genitive, objective genitive, not quite really sure.

This is the implication of each. I can respect that, but getting up there saying, well, not really too sure. And you know, some of the emergent people, they do have some concerns that are valid and blah, blah, blah.

That is not preaching to me.

That is POPRA. Well, and let's just take it a step further. If you say, well, Steve and Mike think they know everything, John MacArthur thinks he knows everything, has nothing to do with us. We have an authoritative word and that's when we proclaim.

And if you don't like what the Bible says, that's fine. You know, I can't make you like what the Bible says. Just like I can't make the Pope believe what the Bible says. But the Bible is very clear that we are not justified by works.

We're justified by grace. And grace is not where it kind of picks up the slack for our works and kind of pulls us over the line. That's not grace. Grace is God working alone. God's sufficient work in our lives, transforming us, changing us, not helping us, but changing us.

Steve, churches preach, be the message instead of preach the message of glad tidings and of Christ Jesus, the representative sin bearer who was raised from the dead and who will come back. But Pope, the current Pope, he is living the message of Roman Catholicism.

If be the message is good and true and valid, I guess it could be good and true and valid in a synergistic works system. And the Pope's kind of being the message. He could. If you want to be the message, you should be Catholic.

That's Roman Catholic. That's our new slogan.

Because being the message actually defeats the message. Living the message defeats the message. Yeah, I've said it many times. If you think you can, quote, live the gospel, you're deceived.

Yeah, be the message. I said on a show last week, if I am the message, nobody's getting saved from anything because one look at me, they'll quickly find out, man, you do not measure up.

I want to see a sermon lived out. What a terrible, you know, I understand the thinking behind that, but the truth is if you're counting on me to be the infallible word of God, boy, you're going to be disappointed.

And listen, I am not perfect. I do not claim to know everything. Here's what I know. I know that I'm a wretch. I know that I was hopeless, that I was helpless, that I was hell bound of my own will, my own desires, and God changed my desires.

Now you can call that whatever you want. I call it the power of God unto salvation, and that's what the gospel is. You know, when you hear the gospel and it transforms your life, that's the message. The message isn't my transformed life.

Preaching the Word and Rejecting Relevance-Driven Ministry

Well, Steve, you know, the problem with you is you're trying to get us back to the Bible and it's a dated book. And what we're after here in the show is relevancy. See, we have sponsors to make sure they get widespread.

And I have a message for all of our sponsors. I want you to stop giving immediately. I'm sending that to every last one of you, all you people.

Now, technically, since the Wretched Radio, it says sponsors a show and they get a little plug in ahead of time, but they don't give us any money. We're doing this from our own, our own, yeah, totally.

Even though there is no goodness in our heart, but yeah.

I said to Todd, you know, we'll do this for you if you let me like host once a year or something like that.

And so then he gave it to you like 10 times a year.

Yeah, yeah. 10 times a year while I'm on vacation. How does that work? Well, my name is Mike Gabendroth. I'm here with Steve Cooley. You can write us at Steve at No Compromise Radio, or Tuesday Guide at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Yeah, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Twitter's, Facebook's, Israel. You can, you have a panoply of things.

Wait, you're going to write us via Israel? Yeah, Israel .com.

That may not be true. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow, same time, same channel.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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