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The social justice gospel isn’t. It isn’t gospel. It is all law and it produces either self righteous people or sour, crabby people. Is there any joy to be found?
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, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is a good day to be alive. So far I have not, I think almost every day that I�ve awakened and went and had a cup of coffee and went out in the little sunroom there, our new little room, sat by the fireplace, looked outside, thinking, �It�s good to be alive.
I mean, it�d be good to be in heaven too, but, you know, we fight to be alive, and I�ve been home now for almost 10 weeks out of the hospital after acute respiratory failure. That�s kind of scary, like, �Oh, I can�t breathe.
Anyway, getting better. So 11 weeks, that�s about three months out. In about another six months or so, I should be back to about normal. Maybe it�ll take a little longer than that, but I�m trying to exercise, I�m trying to I did five push-ups the other day, but it killed me.
Part of that was I�m just not very strong upper body, but the other part was it takes more cardiovascular stuff to do push-ups than you might think, especially when you�re the big 6 '1", 61 years old.
My father died at 55, my mother died at 66, and I was thinking for quite a while, �Oh, yeah, I beat my father by six years, you know, off we go. I live much healthier, I don�t eat gravy bread every day, I don�t, you know, guzzle the scotch and, you know, smoke cigarettes.
But anyway, that�s not how it always works. But anyway, thanks for your prayers. I really appreciated feeling much stronger and encouraged. Had a CAT scan this week, and the lungs are looking better, and there�ll be follow-ups and all that stuff.
But we�re all dead men and dead women walking, are we not? You can live a life of great health, and then all of a sudden something happens, an accident or whatever. And I know the Lord has taught me much in this latest trial.
One of the things he taught me was, �Why are you worried about your prostate cancer coming back when you�re dead Anyway, you have to kind of like, it�s a health triage in your own mind, you know, what�s �Oh, you know, my toe hurts.
I have a neurological foot problem now, which is true. I have kind of a toe drop, a foot drop. My foot, something�s wrong with it, some COVID neurological thing, whatever. But I mean, so what do you do?
Well, I�ll take care of my lungs first, we�ll figure out the foot drop later. And please don�t send me your homemade foot drop recipes, right? When I was having a cold, when I was a kid, I�d go to Grandma Abendroth�s house, and she would give me, she�d get like a spoonful of sugar and then douse it with cheap scotch.
And that�s, it burned on the way down, I don�t know if it cured any cough or anything, but I always go over to Grandma and Grandpa�s for highballs. I usually had a Shirley Temple because I was about five when you go to Grandma and Grandpa�s for highballs.
Well, anyway, I�m feeling better. Thanks for praying. I really, really appreciate it, and especially thankful for you who not only prayed but sent me little videos, sent me texts. I don�t think I probably responded very often or very, maybe I didn�t even respond, but I just want to say thank you.
So last show, I was talking about the social justice gospel, and I wanted you to recognize it as not a gospel at all because it�s just chock full of law. Dismantle systems, you know, stop oppression, recognize white privilege.
You just go down the list of what they teach, and you can listen to the last show, and it�s just law, right? There�s no good news. There�s no final forgiveness, final reparations. I�m telling you, if you pay off people for reparations, it will never be enough.
I mean, the leech has two sisters, give, give, the scriptures talk about, and it�s the same thing. There�s just never satisfaction because if you think about it theologically with law, there�s never true satisfaction because it can never be perfectly kept by one who has Adam�s sin imputed to their account, and therefore, consequently, has a sin nature.
Of course, if we look at the Lord Jesus, that�s a different story, but for us here on earth, it�s just all law, and even back to Sheldon in around 1900 when he writes the book In His Steps. He�s a liberal Methodist pastor who inspired Rauschenbusch, who was a big social justice guy in Hell�s Kitchen in New York City, and we have in his steps book promoting what would Jesus do, so you do it, even if it�s got the Christianese to it.
I mean, there�s lots of social justice stuff that has no Christianity at all in it, but some Christians try to marry it, and we can thank Tim Keller, Gospel Coalition, people like that for inroads, even though they might nuance things, and for them, at least, they would bring in certain gospel aspects, but it�s in the church anyway, and I wanted you to see clearly and plainly that it�s all law.
It�s all law. Law is due, gospel is done. Law is do this and live. Gospel is Jesus did this in your place, not for his own righteousness, he already had inherent righteousness, but for us, for our righteousness.
It is finished, and we now have forgiveness. If you look at Ephesians 1, in him we have present tense redemption, apposition, forgiveness of sins. That�s what we get, forgiveness. That�s good news. How would you like to be forgiven?
For those of you that are listening who are forgiven, isn�t it wonderful to be forgiven? All I�d like to do is be forgiven, and you are, not based on anything you�ve done, but based on the work of another.
Therefore, I wanted to talk some about how crabby people are, how down, dour, on one side people are who are under law. The flip side people are under law, they become self-righteous, prideful, and arrogant because they actually think they can keep it.
But you got one of two options, really, depressed, down, dour, or self-righteous, prideful, arrogant. So, neither of that group, neither of them has joy. They might think they have happiness, especially the self-righteous people, because I keep the law, but they�re not full of joy.
What�s missing? How can they receive joy? What about you? Maybe you�re a Christian and you think, you know what, my joy meter�s low. I�m sometimes happy, but it�s based on circumstance, and that joy that surpasses all understanding, to use a verse without its perfect context, but the same idea.
How could I have joy? You know, it�s funny, when I look at Bible verses and people try to make sermons out of them or get theology out of them, I think, well, you know what, your theology�s true. What that person said was true.
It�s just not from that verse. So stop using a verse out of context to make your point. Just use a different verse. That�s okay. We�re all up for that. Jesus in John 2, I think, unlocks for us the missing element in a world full of law.
So that�s what we�ll call it today, the missing element in a world full of law. I�m going to still say I�ve got COVID brain fog if I make a mistake. That�s true, but I�ve made mistakes anyway. By the way, I don�t edit the show, as you can tell.
Maybe Spencer does. Like I just kind of coughed a little bit. He might take that out. Spencer, if you�re listening, I just try to clear my throat a little bit. You can take that out. That�ll be no problem.
We�ll still make the 24 and a half minutes. I do need new intro music and outro music. I�m working on that, but after 13 years, why change? 13 years I think I�ve been doing this show every day, day in, day out.
Do I do it for me or do I do it for you? Of course I do it for me because I like to hear myself talk. I�m hoping, in all honesty, that I can serve you in some way, shape, or form. It does help me because, for instance, if I�m going to preach on John 2 and then I talk about it on the radio, I can hear myself construct either poorly or well arguments and thoughts.
It�s easy to read something and say, �Oh, that manuscript, those notes that I have for the message, they sure look good, but do they sound good when they come into my eyes, processed in my brain, and then out my mouth
Sometimes that�s not so easy. Richard Sibbes said, �The special work of our ministry is to lay open Christ, to hold up the tapestry and unfold the mysteries of Christ. Richard Sibbes. By the way, they called him what was the nickname of Richard Sibbes?
The Puritan preacher? English. Not all Puritans are good. He was good. He�s the exact opposite of a bad preacher like Richard Baxter. So, what�s Sibbes� nickname? Well, my nickname for Richard Baxter is �Law Only but that doesn�t really seem to work.
�Sola Namas. Forget Baxter. Richard Sibbes. He had a nickname, and you�d never guess it in a million years. I could�ve never guessed it, but I love it because it�s just so unique. Nobody�s ever been called this.
I guess maybe you could be a rapper and be called this or something. He so often talked about Jesus and Jesus� beauty in terms of his compassion and his humanity and his desire not to crush bruise reeds.
He so often talked about the grace of the Lord Jesus and how he was merciful and pitied the downtrodden and those enslaved to sin. And he so often dropped in the name of the Lord Jesus and his work that he was called there�s two words, but I�ll give you the second word first.
He was called �the dropper. And the dropper sounds like you�re dropping it�s like the dipper, right? Will Chamberlain dipping in the basket into the basketball hoop. He�s called the dropper because he would drop in the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ into his sermons regularly.
And the modifying word for dropper is �sweet. He�s called the sweet dropper. I wonder, is your pastor a sweet dropper or is he just law, get going, measure up, �Oh, my pastor really convicts. My pastor�s like Paul Washory, just I don�t know what I would be called by other people.
I know what I used to be, I would have been called, but in the last five or ten years, I hope there�s some degree of that where if Abendroth�s going to get up and speak, he�s going to talk about the Lord Jesus and he�s going to drop in the name of Jesus regularly and often to extol the Lord Jesus and comfort the saints.
And there�s conviction there too, that�s certainly true when we think about what the Lord has done for us and we don�t measure up. I�m all for that, but the sweet dropper. You can get law elsewhere, by the way.
You can get it on YouTube. You can get it from your wife and your husband and other things, but there�s only one place you can get good news, real news, news that will give you joy, and that�s found in the second person of the Trinity, incarnate Jesus.
Oh, it�s found in the triune God, right? Father, Son, Spirit. I�m not trying to discount the Father or the Holy Spirit because the Father sent the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God enabled Jesus and the Spirit of God implies his benefits to us.
The sweet dropper, Richard Sibbes, was surpassed in dropping the name of the Lord Jesus by John the Apostle in the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to John, but John had a little help, i .e. the Holy Spirit breathing out the exact words for John to write.
Today, on No Compromise Radio, we�re going to look at John chapter 2 and see joy incarnate, which will be the exact opposite of the laws of social justice, of legalistic systems, of maybe even some of your pastors that just drive with the law like somehow it�s a measuring stick to see if you measure up to God�s standards to get into heaven.
That�s not the law for us as Christians anymore. The law used to accuse and condemn eternally, but Jesus paid for those sins and now we have God�s law. We have a different relationship to the law. The law is the same, but I�m not under the law now as a condemned criminal in front of a judge.
I�m under the law now as a son whose father wants to have his name glorified and me to do the right thing, so therefore I want to love my wife as Christ loved the church. John chapter 2. If you haven�t studied the Gospel of John lately, at least the last two days, what I try to do at home is I read my Bible, have a cup of coffee, and then while I�m getting ready, dressed, making the bed and all that other stuff, I mean, by the time I get up, why do I make the bed?
Well, I like to make the bed. I want to help out. I�m no superstar for making or anything, but I like to make it and start off the day kind of like, you know, Jocko, Jordan Peterson, hey, make your bed.
Got one thing done, off we go. Kim�s already probably out by then, had met with the lady and been to the gym by the time I get up, which I�m sleeping a lot more now than I was before with this whole COVID lung.
I didn�t have bacterial infection, bacterial pneumonia. It was the COVID pneumonia. You know, people put the in front of COVID, the COVID pneumonia. By the way, if you have COVID problems and you want somebody to talk to, I mean, I�m not soliciting phone calls from ladies to get, you know, some counseling from me because I don�t counsel ladies in person.
But if you�re a man and you need, like with prostate cancer, you have COVID lung or something like that, you need to be encouraged or you want to ask a couple of questions. What I ended up doing or not doing, the mistakes that I made or things that seemed to go well, you can just email me, mike at no compromise radio .com and I�ll talk to you on the phone.
If you�re a lady, you can always email me and I�ll find a lady to talk to you. We�d like to be able to help you in any way we can. Years ago when I was a new Christian, I mean, for whatever reason, I was told, Christians give, okay, how much do I give?
And before being chintzy with money and, you know, stingy, then it�s like, oh, well, you�re supposed to give 10%, I was told. Okay. Gross or net? Gross. Okay. Ride it on gross. All right. Well, I wasn�t involved with the church then.
Where do I send the money? So I sent the money to Chuck Swindoll, Insight for Living, I think his radio show is called. I sent it to the Billy Graham organization. I sent it to some other place and then I sent it to Bob Larson Ministries.
Bob Larson used to be on the radio and he was, you know, cast out demons kind of guy and he�s a charlatan, in my opinion. I don�t know if an expose has ever been done on the guy, but you can pull him up on YouTube and there�s a lot of Bob Larson stuff that was going on in the early �90s.
Even on KKLA, you know, it�s like, Raul Reis on at 10, John McArthur on at 1030 or, you know, 11, then Charles Stanley, then Chuck Swindoll, then Bob Larson. Crazy. And so I sent money actually to Bob Larson Ministries.
And then I wanted to help out because I was told you need to serve. Okay. Did you show me the verse and I�m willing to do it. So I thought, well, maybe if I buy some coats and put Bibles in the coats and I see a homeless person, I give them a coat, it�s got a Bible in it.
Or I�m just trying to think of something to do, because again, I was not in a local church. I was going to different churches and trying to check them out and everything, but I just didn�t process it all in my mind yet.
I remember wanting to go to the bookstore because somebody gave me like a boot camp, a manual, like new Christian book or something. I mean, it was Valley Book and Bible, they call it in Van Nuys, California.
I called it Valley Heresy and Aberration because they sold just nasty stuff. They sold fine things too. Anyway, I called Bob Larson�s ministry and said, I know you�re coming to town for such and such a message or this, that and the other.
And you know, you�re always talking about these poor people or homeless or demon possessed or whatever. And I�d like to offer my services to help, you know, when you�re in town. Okay. We�re all set. Just send us your money.
And I can�t prove it, but I think it was because there was no kind of ministry besides we need somebody to open up the envelopes and pull the check out and cash it. But I did that in light of who God is and giving it to him.
So I�m sure that counted as it were. John, the gospel that John was allowed to write underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the fourth gospel, we call it, that�s not synoptic, it�s just a gospel gospel.
The theme, of course, is Jesus. The theme is Christ, the son of God. And you�ll see that he�s the only begotten son, that he brings new life that is salvation, that he in every way fulfills the Old Testament, and that he, the creator of the world, has made everything.
That�s, you know, John 1, 1 and following. And he is the son of God 41 times. Jesus is called the son of God in this book. He regularly says, 20 times I think, maybe a little bit more, he calls the heavenly father my father.
And to quote one of the verses, calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. That�s why the Jews try to kill him. Jesus, the eternal son, adds humanity and comes to rescue. Of course, in the gospel of John, there�s a bunch of I am statements.
I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the gate to the sheep, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection of life, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the true vine. Not only those I am statements, but just the blunt, bald I am statements.
I am, right? They pick up stones to kill Jesus because he said, before Abraham was, I am, the Greek word ego, a me. And therefore, this Jesus shown in the gospel of John is the ultimate everything. He's the ultimate savior.
He's the ultimate fulfiller of Israel as he is the tabernacle that we behold the glory of God. He's the ultimate fulfillment of every festival of Israel from Passover to the Feast of Booths. And he is the ultimate Passover lamb.
He's the ladder reaching to heaven. He's the bronze serpent, like the bronze serpent that was lifted up in Numbers. Those all point to Jesus. Well, in John, there are seven, excuse me, six signs and signs point, signs should direct you somewhere.
Sign, signs, everywhere a sign. Blocking up the scenery, breaking my mind, how's that work? But these signs, they're good for the scenery. They're telling you what to see. Healing the nobleman's son, chapter four, healing the crippled man, chapter five, five thousand fed, chapter six, man born blind, chapter nine, Lazarus raised from the dead, chapter 11.
And the one we'll talk about today, tomorrow, is water turned into wine. Now, I like to teach this passage for lots of reasons. One is, because I think it's undertaught, I think it's undervalued. I think it's like, well, you know, it's not that big a deal.
It's kind of regular, it's kind of almost profane, normal. It's not like, you know, raising Lazarus from the dead, I mean, it's water into wine. There are all kinds of issues with this because some people are teetotalers and they don't want to drink any wine.
So how could Jesus save the best grape juice for last? You know, there's a lot of that kind of stuff. What is this here? Oh, I forgot that I had this in my office. I probably needed this when I was in the hospital and I had to call my wife, give her the passwords for the computer, tell her where the life insurance policy is, and I probably should have just, I just needed some special affirmation.
I declare God's incredible blessings over your life. You will see an explosion of God's goodness, a sudden widespread increase. You will experience the surpassing greatness of God's favor. It will elevate you to a level higher than you ever dreamed.
Explosive blessings are coming your way.
Where was that in the hospital? I think what they should do in the COVID isolation unit, they should have the affirmation. That's affirmation number five, by the way. And I paused it. Explosive blessing, yikes.
So next time on No Compromise Radio, we'll get actually into the text of John chapter two. This was all a setup. This is what we do on No Compromise Radio, right? It's, do I pontificate? Do I enunciate?
I'm thankful to even breathe. You know, every time now that this is true, I read the Bible and it says stuff about breath I think, you know what? I'm thankful for breath. Let everything in has breath.
I mean, I have it because it's the grace of God. Praise the Lord. Anyway, you can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can go to the website and don't forget our YouTube channel, No Compromise Radio, for a bunch of YouTubes.
Hopefully we'll have some more. 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 bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.