What Happened To Sin?

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, what's new with you? Well, I've just become a devotee of Warren Buffett's stock picks. Not the saints. No, there's nothing new with me. You know, just looking forward to grandchild number five here in a couple months.

That is super exciting, and I think of books much the same way that I do children. Of course, I like children more, but, you know, you don't have that many children in your life. You don't have that many grandkids in your life, and not that many book deals come your way, and so then we have a new book out.

It's kind of like, this is exciting. There's a lot of fun seeing it printed, and I know you're working on a book. Tell me about your book, and when you think, what's up with that?

Well, I think the Lord will probably return sometime before the book is published. I don't know. It's something, you know, I've sat, I've written some essays, and I go, I don't like them because they don't sound like me.

So I don't know. We'll see. I mean, I'm just kind of like, I'm trying to find my voice, you know what I mean?

Steve, sometimes when you read a book, you're reading Ashamed of the Gospel by MacArthur, and you say to yourself, I can hear his voice.

And that's what I'm looking for, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

I'm trying to write that S. Lewis Johnson Romans commentary, so people could listen and say, I hear a Southern accent. I hear Mike's voice.

It's S. Lewis Johnson, but it sounds like Mike.

Yeah, no, you only hear my voice in those places where the erudite Dr. Johnson made a couple mistakes, and I fixed it. Oh, okay.

But tell me the topic. What were you writing about? Well, it's just different, well, it's going to sound like things that go bump in the church, but it's not, it's misperceptions, it's things that people think they know and they don't know.

So I guess that's what I'd say. Okay, that's good.

I like that kind of style. And Steve, I wrote a book a while ago that nobody wanted, it was kind of stewardship fables and stuff like that. And so I recently, in the last couple of weeks, just as time allows, I just scratched the whole stewardship thing.

And it's just right now the working title is No Compromise, colon, Lies. Just lies. Lies. He's just evangelical lies. Like you have to tithe, you know, what does redeeming the time mean? All kinds of things.

Just lies. That's a book title for you, Lies.

Oh, I want to read that so I'll know the truth.

Steve, I do read Christian Post online, the Christian Post. And lately there's a battle between the Doug Dynasty guy and Bill Maher to buy the Christian Post. Did you know that? No, I didn't know that.

Yeah. By the time this show airs in 2015, they'll probably already be sold. But I don't know what Bill Maher would do with it except implode it. Yeah, it probably wouldn't be good. But I go to the Aquila Report and I go to the Christian Post in Christianity Today to figure out what's going on in Christianity.

Worship That Reflects Both Rejoicing and Lament

And the one that I saw today that you have in front of you as well, evangelical worship is too cheerful, neglects sin, theologian says. And so the Christian Post reporter, Knapp Nasworth, he's the point guard for Connecticut.

This is Knapp Nasworth. What's the point guard's name? Shabazz. I don't know. I think it's Shabazz. Really? For Nebraska? No, no. For Connecticut. Oh, for Connecticut. Oh, yeah. That is the guy. Shabazz Napier.

And so here we have Knapp Nasworth. I think... They might be related. I played basketball with Brian Bosworth. Did you really? Yeah, I did. I actually schooled him because he's one of those football guys and they're not.

He wasn't an athlete. Yeah, but you didn't want to drive to the hoop.

That would be a bad little forearm shiv. I know.

And so I like this article because Dr. Cornelius Plantega, who is the senior research fellow at Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, basically said that worship services are too peppy, too happy, too upbeat, and they don't consider sin enough in their worship services.

So Steve, here's how I think about it. Are there songs of rejoicing? Psalms of rejoicing? Answers? Yes and yes. But what about laments? Do Christians sing laments? Yes, they do. Steve, if I think of some songs like Now Sacred Head, Thou Sacred Head Now Wounded, I don't know much about music.

I just know that that doesn't really sound like, to use Michael Stipe's words, happy.

Peppy people. No, it's a little dirgy, you know.

So is there a place for songs of lament, tunes sung in minor keys, and you don't always have to feel the Holy Spirit, meaning the bass, drum, rock out, guitar, percussion?

Well, yeah. I mean, what do we do during worship services? Obviously, we rejoice in the fact that we're redeemed, our sins are forgiven, and all that. But sometimes it's good. Now this will be shocking.

Sometimes it's good to think about the price that was paid in order that we might be forgiven right? So some of that is going to be like Now Sacred Head Now Wounded. We need to think of Christ's suffering.

Why? Because that is what ultimately leads to our redemption. And so it's good to think about the whole process. And sometimes, you know, different aspects might not leave us feeling so good, but they're good to think about.

Well, Plantinga says sin isn't talked about much in evangelical churches these days. I think he's right. And then he went through the catalog of songs, the CCLI songbook, Christian Copyright Licensing's International Library.

And he said this, the biblical tradition of lament, which is all through the prophets and the Psalms, is gone. It's just not there. It's not there in the modern songbooks.

Well, I think there needs to be, again, a reflection of our undone-ness, you know, before God when we, I mean, every time we sin, if we just kind of go, well, I'm forgiven and blow it off, then I don't think we're really, I mean, it's possible to be saved, I guess, and sort of have a not so good attitude about it.

But I think in order to honor the Lord in the best way possible, what we ought to think is a wretched man that I am. And that's the kind of thinking we ought to have when we sin, when we fall short.

And then we are more joyful when we go to the next few verses. And Romans 8 says that there's no condemnation for us because we're in Christ Jesus. And so we realize we're wretched, then we realize his great grace.

Steve, how about this? Would this be proper thinking? Revelation 5, we have these creatures singing a new song, the four living creatures, the twenty-four elders, they're all before the Lamb. Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God.

Now, the text doesn't say...

I was going to say, I think that would be proper thinking. I think that would be proper thinking, yes.

But my question is, there, implicit in blood and slain, is the concept of sin and ransom and atonement and redemption and the blackness of the curse going all the way back to Adam. And so why is there rejoicing?

Steve, do you think it's, you know, rubbing people's noses in it to remind them that they're a sinner before we turn them to the cross?

Well, I mean, no sin, no need for redemption. No need for redemption, no death of Christ. You know, and so it all goes back to one thing. Unless you know you're a sinner, right? Unless you recognize your sinfulness, then you'll never understand your need for a Savior.

And so is it good to talk about sin? I think it's good. You know, is it good to even sing about sin? I mean, I think about that song, the bliss of this glorious thought, in my sin, not the part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Is that a great thought or what? Yes, but it all goes back to one thing. It's the darkness, the blackness of our sin, you know, the need that we have to be redeemed from it.

And that's where the joy comes from because we recognize that it has been nailed to the cross.

While we don't often recommend Cornelius Plantinga's writings, our academic institution, I will give him props today because he studies the CCLI and he reads a lot of books by David Wells. That's a good thing.

That's a very good thing. And then he said, I want to make sure I get this quote correctly, he said, mindful that seekers come to church in America, no-fault culture, so an American no-fault culture in which tolerance is a big virtue and intolerance a big vice, worship finders in evangelical churches often want nothing in the service that sounds judgmental.

I think he's on to something. The only sin is to say you're sinful. This is back to Schuller's days. I think Schuller would be very happy with where we are today. I mean, preaching for a verdict?

No. That's just, you know, how about preaching for neutrality, preaching for harmony, preaching for peace.

He said, this is one of the reasons why, quote, lots of evangelical churches these days are unrelievably cheerful. We're so cheerful.

Why? I have no idea. I'm just supposed to be. I go to church and all of a sudden Mr. Rogers' neighborhood busts out, you know, I mean, aren't you glad to be here today? Do you have your sweater on? You know, it's terrible.

It's kindergarten. It really is childish, anti-biblical, un, well, I mean, it's just un-Christ, it's not Christ honoring at all to fail to talk about sin, to fail to talk about the reason why we are there, right?

It's not to get our sins removed that we're there, but we're there to worship the King who has removed our sins.

Stephen, isn't it even biblical for Christians who sin against the Lord to mourn over that sin? Because if they look back to the gospel that God justifies the ungodly based on the work of His Son, the Eternal Godly One, that we ought not to continue in sin that grace might abound.

There's a mournful aspect of that, and we come again on Sunday thinking, I know I don't lose my salvation when I sin, but I've lost sight of the cross when I do sin, and I need to be reminded of what Jesus has done once again.

I don't take my sin lightly. I mean, sometimes we think the fact that we are positionally perfect negates anything that we might do now. You know, any sin that we might commit now, well, that's not true, and we ought to feel the effect of that, and certainly, I mean, to put it in human terms, if we're children, we disobey our parents, they still love us, they still care for us, they're going to forgive us, but we don't just, it's like there's no consequences, nobody cares, well, that's not true.

Steve, we are realists. We realize we sin, right? There's empirical evidence for sin out there, as one scholar says.

I'm breathing, therefore I sin, I mean, that's pretty much.

Planticus says, ceasingly cheerful worship does not, or I think you should say unceasingly, but it says unceasingly, does not fit in with the lives of people who come to worship. And so, don't we struggle, don't we sin, isn't life hard, and then all of a sudden you walk into the doors of the church, and now you have to be super joyful and happy when your lives really aren't that happy.

I remember years ago being at R .C. Sproul's church, and they do this whole, I mean, it's very high church, very formal, and you know, there's like a little intro over the P .A., you know, because they want everybody to quiet down.

Is that introit in Latin, I-N-T-R-O-I-T? I have no idea.

Okay, go ahead. But they do this whole thing, you know, you have exited the profane and entered the holy, you know. Well, the idea, though, is to get you to shift your mindset out of worrying about the humdrum daily grind, you know, and all the things that have gone on in the week and everything else, and to think, I'm here to worship the Father, Son, and Spirit.

That's what we're there to do, and to, you know, to just focus our minds and our energy that way. And I think, you know, if we fail to reflect on sin and to reflect on the gospel, I guess we could say, right?

I mean, if you have no sin, then you have no gospel. How can you have good news unless you know the bad news? And if we fail to do that, then we're really not fulfilling what we're called there to do.

The Consequences of Sin and the Need for the Gospel

Mike Abenroth with Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Pastor Steve, I have a question for you because you're kind of a movie buff. What does it say that movies, I'm just thinking of one now, Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, they have there in that show more about the consequences of sinful choices than worship services do in a majority of evangelical churches?

Screenwriters know.

Plantinga talks about that. Well, to get, you know, old school popular culture on it, just a song popped in my head. It's like, don't bring me down or, you know, don't let me down. Because that's what people, people go to church to not be reminded of who they really are, right?

I mean, and we're talking about the broad evangelical culture. People don't want to be reminded that they're sinners. They don't want to be reminded that they fall short of the glory of God. They want to be affirmed in their personhood and their goodness and, you know, the things that they do are inherently right.

Steve, what does it say in our culture, even in churches today, where sin isn't talked about, therefore you have no reason to think about the Lord Jesus and what he's done in his life and death. But also we don't even want the guilt associated with sin.

And so we'll take a variety of prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, hedonistic cultures, anything to make us reminded, not reminded, that we're sinful people and that we're not holy.

Well, therapy is much better for us, we were told, you know, than guilt or feeling the consequences of our actions. And we really have a society that doesn't want any consequences, doesn't want to reflect on those consequences and wants to be liberated from them.

And so our society is reflected in the church services that we go to.

And how much different would Paul be, Peter or any other of those men, than the culture? Listen to what Plantinga says about the Apostle Paul and how he wouldn't really, he wouldn't like most churches today.

You know, it'd be good to ask a question, if Jesus walked in today, you know, just assuming hypothetically, theoretically, if Jesus walked in, what would he think? But what if Paul walked in? You know, sometimes visitors will walk in and it's a professor from a theological school or a pastor, and you know, they're kind of sizing everything up.

Plantinga says, where is Paul's easy smile? Why does he not want to, why does he want to discipline people? Why is he so doggone dogmatic? Where are the stories in his sermons? And where does he get off implying that the woman singing special music in church should not do so while also lying on top of the church piano?

Well, come on, you know, the Apostle Paul would be perfectly fine with all those movie clips. He would love those.

Those are inspired movie clips. We are children of our era, and it just flashed into my mind watching Gunsmoke growing up. And what was the lady's name in the saloon all the time that was the friend of the Gunsmoke guy?

True confession, I've never watched an episode of Gunsmoke. You've got to be kidding me.

I forgot the guy who was the sheriff in Gunsmoke, but I think... James Ernest. Yes, I don't know his name, though, in the show, but I do know the lady's name. I think it was James Ernest. Kitty. Sheriff Bill.

Yeah, Kitty. Kitty's laying on the piano singing a Sandy Patty song. I think Paul would give the thumbs down and probably hold up a minus three if he was voting with the subjective judgment of Russian Olympian judges.

We were listening, Janet and I were listening to some song the other day, and I can't remember what the song was, but I thought, you know, I could honestly see this being a, quote unquote, special music song in some, because, you know, they did Miley Cyrus' The Climb at Saddleback.

I don't know that. Oh, I mean, some of the songs that qualify as special music, you just go, OK, but not only is there no gospel there and no hint of Christ, but you really are, you're reading into it.

I mean, it'd be like reading, this morning's scripture reading is going to be from Lord of the Rings, pages, you know, whatever, where Bilbo says to, you know, come on. And the problem is culture has so invaded the church and the church is oblivious to it.

You know, you can sit there and you listen to a song and you go, that's a beautiful song about Jesus' love for me. And then you find out, you know, it was written by Elton John or something. I mean, who knows who wrote it?

But it has nothing to do with the gospel.

The guy didn't love Christ. And, you know. Steve, the song The Climb, of course, it's about man's climb up. But, you know, it would be one thing. I'm looking at Ephesians chapter four. Therefore, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men.

In saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he also descended into the lower regions, comma, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all things, that he might fill all things.

Maybe that's what Rick Warren was thinking about when he had the Miley song, Climb, sung at Saddleback.

I don't know, but that's just it's just dumb. And, you know, any time, you know, I mean, what's next? Well, I guess we should have expected 20, 30, 40 years ago to show up on a Sunday morning and have somebody sing Fly Me to the Moon or whatever, you know.

Seriously, Steve, when you were there with me at Saddleback's center there, self-worship center, when we were there, I kid you not, they, for special music, that lady in the inappropriate outfit sang the Celine Dion song.

And then that other time we went. What, I drove all night. I don't even know what one of her songs would be. These boots are made for walking, as far as I know.

It was the theme from Titanic. My heart must go on or whatever.

And then they were talking about being punctual and, of course, more law. That's what you get at Saddleback is more law, more moralism, more things to do. And then they were talking about being clean and cleanliness.

And, you know, most of us don't have the ability to go be missionaries and talk about moralism in other countries because our garage is a mess.

Yeah. You know, and what kind of witness is that to the world?

So they had a video and they went around and interviewed pastors and asked them to see their garages and would try to embarrass them, pastors on staff at Saddleback. And so then they said, well, what's next is cars.

And so we're going to do that next week. And then I kid you not, the final song of the worship service with a bunch of dirty garage stuff on stage props was Car Wash, working at the Car Wash. Yeah. 1978-ish.

I mean, I wonder if we could go back far enough. I wonder, you know, what they would have done during the disco era, you know, maybe some staying alive by the Bee Gees. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that would have been perfect. And we could have had some, what's the lady's name, who sings, who said she was a Christian and then had liver failure or something, Donna Summer. Donna Summer.

Well, I was thinking too, here's another great one. I mean, you know, this could be like during the midst of Paul facing all this persecution and stuff like that, Gloria Gaynor, I will survive, you know.

Well, I mean, that's how insipid some churches are, where you have to take the culture and try to somehow make church relevant by importing the culture into it and giving the culture back to the church.

And you just go, wait a minute, we're not here to change the culture, but we're not here to be changed by the culture either, right? I mean, that's just wrong. We can't Christianize the world, but we shouldn't allow the world to secularize the church.

Steve, you're smart. You might be as smart as David Wells in this article. He says, God is on easy terms with modernity. That's what churches are trying to project and mostly concerned with, quote, church growth and psychological wholeness, end quote.

So no wonder Rick Warren goes around to the neighborhood 30 years ago or whenever and says to the people, what would you like in church? And they tell him and he knows how to deliver.

See, I've got another song for you. The kinks give the people what they want. Perfect. That's, I mean, you go around, you do surveys, you go, what would you like in the church? And you go, and then you just give it to the people.

And guess what? They respond, you know, and if they haven't got the word, then you pass out the flyers and you go, you asked for this and we're giving it to you. We, you want a church that won't waste your time.

We're giving it to you.

You know, I think, Steve, our services would be more populated if we had Ray Davies as the worship leader and he could go into David Watts or something. He'd do some great guitar riffs. Wouldn't that be great?

Yeah.

See, I know. And who else could we get? People would be like, Ray Davies, isn't he in his 80s by now? I think he probably is.

Plantinga exclaimed, they used to be champions of the holiness of God, churches, of contrition for sins against God's holiness and therefore grace that justifies sinners. But a lot of that has dissipated.

But I don't think the sin has dissipated, but a lot of the discussion of the sin solution has dissipated.

You know what I would like to just, what would be interesting to me is to go sit into a church, sit in a church like that and hear how they might mention grace, but never explain it. Because if you explain grace by necessity, you have to talk about grace.

You have to talk about the holiness of God. You have to talk about sin. Yeah, you have to discuss those things because otherwise grace has no meaning. It's just a little happy term. But when you dig into what grace is, that's what makes it amazing.

It's not amazing that God loves good people. What's amazing is that he loves people who are not good, in fact, who are his enemies. And he sent his son to die on behalf of bad people, horrible people who sin and who hate.

Him. Steve, you're causing me to lament.

Well, you know, hey, if the shoe fits, pal.

You can write us at info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. We're getting lots of questions these days about sin and lots of women's questions. Women listeners about should they be teaching men? What's your quick answer on that?

No, that's my quick answer. Now, you know, could they preach the gospel? Yes. Should they be teaching other believers? No. Yeah. Decipling them? No.

Thanks, Steve, for being on today. My pleasure. 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 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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