Hiding Heresy (Part 1)

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Mike Abendroth. Abendroth, it actually, I think it should be pronounced in Deutsch, Abendroth, something close to the like, something close to that,

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Today, I found something online by Jared Moore. Steve Proof forwarded it to me.

October 25th, Jared Moore, 10 Heresy Hiders in Evangelicalism.

And so heresy, those that would split off and not teach proper doctrine, how do we hide heresy in evangelicalism?

Now, I find it fascinating that we even have to look for it.

Why would we have to look for it? Well, because we have the book of Jude, for instance, and Jude will tell us very insightfully.

Imagine Jude was going to sit down and he was going to write a book, kind of like the book of Romans.

This is the great faith that we have and all the wonderful things that we have learned about God summarized by the incarnate

Christ and His wonderful life, death, and resurrection. He was going to just sit down and write a positive, encouraging gospel, epistle rather.

And here it says instead, "'Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you "'about our common salvation, "'I wanted to write to you about Christ Jesus.

"'I found it necessary. "'I was compelled, I was moved to write appealing to you "'to contend for the faith "'that was once for all delivered to the saints.

"'For certain people have crept in unnoticed "'who long ago were designated for this condemnation, "'ungodly people who pervert the grace of our

God "'into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, "'Jesus

Christ.'" Hey, Master and Lord, I wonder if Master there means despot. You might wanna buy a book and figure that out.

If you could ever find a book on God being a despot, God being a king, I probably would buy that book and then you could figure out if that applies.

So the point is, these people have crept in. And most often, most regularly, false teachers and unbelievers don't come to the church and say, hi,

I'm a false teacher, I'm a heretic, and therefore listen to me because then they know they'd be thrown out.

Well, at least some Bible teaching churches with church discipline would throw them out.

Others would probably just welcome them and sit down and have a discussion. Let's discuss things.

Let's have a conversation. And I'll get to that in a little bit. But today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about how heresy hides in evangelicalism.

And I'm just going to play off Jared Moore's excellent article because I think he's onto something here.

Heresy does not promote itself as heresy. It does not advertise itself as heresy. It does not act like cigarette companies now are forced to act by Congress.

Smoking is hazardous to your health. They don't walk in with that. If you believe me, you'll go straight to hell.

There's no placards. There's no sandwich boards on these kind of people. So we have to be on the lookout.

And in today's evangelical climate where you can't say anything bad about anyone else, you can only be known for what you're for, not what you're against.

You have to be positive and encouraging, look for what's best in a person. Everybody has a right to their own belief.

I mean, and the list goes on and on and on. And basically it is, Christians, you better stop fighting about these things and just rally around our common salvation.

But our common salvation by definition is propositional. This is true. This is false.

It's antithetical. This is black. This is white. Heaven is antithetical. Hell is antithetical.

Death is antithetical to quote Vance Havner. So we are forced in evangelicalism to protect.

Obviously we are to nourish, but we are also to protect people. And someone has to look out for it.

And it's not just the job of the elders and the pastor. You, if you're listening today and you're a lay men or a lay woman or a lay boy or a lay girl, you need to be on the lookout as well.

This is not something that is just done for you. Yes, it's done for you at the leadership level.

Like a dad would protect his children from any harm. So too, the leaders are responsible for the flock and to make sure there's not a wolf that jumps over and sheeps clothing and then damages and ravages the flock.

But you need to be a discerner. You need to examine everything carefully. First Thessalonians chapter five.

You need to be a Berean. And you need to do those things. And so that I don't think needs to be your only ministry, but that is part of ministry.

People don't like discernment blogs and heresy hunters. And I remember Benny Hinn saying, if you're a heresy hunter,

I think he was addressing Hank Hanegraaff at the time. He was going to get a Holy Ghost machine gun and blow Hank's head off was the veiled threat.

And Paul Crouch doesn't like that either. Heresy hunters and trying to figure everything out.

That's wrong. Stephen Hayhater's verdict. He didn't like that either when we're trying to pick every part of God's perfect pixel apart.

He didn't like that either. Well, thankfully we don't answer to any of those people.

And if the text tells us something, then we clearly do it. And so what we're going to do is we're going to go through Jared Moore's list here.

And then I have an additional one that is quite timely and relevant to the elephant pachyderm room, et cetera.

So today, 10 heresy hiders in evangelicalism. And it says here, if you want to penetrate evangelicalism with heresy, here are 10 things you can do.

So see, I like the style already because it's kind of no -co style, no -co radio style, where you kind of do the opposite.

You tilt things in an opposite fashion. So it's a good learning device. It makes you listen.

It makes you sit up and listen. Number one, put your heresy in a song with a good beat.

It will be sung in churches all over the world. Boy, isn't that fascinating? That's exactly what

Arius did. Arius, a version of Jehovah's Witnesses before Jehovah's Witnesses existed.

Arius denying the Trinity, although taught the Trinity, denied the Trinity, and then manufactured more disciples through songs.

Because songs can change a lot. So that's why it's so important to have the right kind of songs today in our churches.

And so just put the song, put the heresy in a song, and you're going to be okay.

The other day, somebody in the church on Sunday nights, we have pick your favorite hymn night. Every Sunday night, you just raise your hand, pick your hymn, favorite hymn, and someone picked

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. And that's talking a lot about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and all who live in love are thine.

And it's written by a liberal. And so we have different words to the same tune. I think it's the

Ninth Symphony. And so you can sing that. The song isn't bad, but the lyrics are bad.

And so why do I want to indoctrinate my people with the fatherhood of God, God's everyone's father, when that's not true?

Jesus said, you have a father to certain people, the devil, can you imagine meek and mild Jesus saying that?

And then, because if you're not a Christian, God is not your father, he's your judge. And then the brotherhood of man, we're all brothers.

Well, in the sense that we're all sinful, that's true. We're all image bearers, that's true. We're all humans, that's true.

But we're not all brothers because we're not all saved. And brothers in the New Testament is a term regularly used for Christians, Christian men and women.

So first of all, put your song, your heresy in a song, especially with a good beat.

I always find it fascinating that people like to raise their hands to songs that have good beats, but the laments and slower songs and what they might call a dirge, the hands don't really go up.

Even though the lyrics might be excellent, oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Number two, the second heresy hider in evangelicalism, put your heresy in a song with some sentimentality.

Many evangelicals like to sing about how mommies, babies, daddies are the glory of heaven. We did on Sunday night, somebody raised their hand and picked, because he lives or he lives,

I could because he lives, I can face tomorrow. And there's something about a newborn babe.

Something about a baby, but I can't remember, I can't sing it. I can't even hum actually, If I had a kazoo, I probably couldn't even kazoo the song.

But anyway, that sentimentality, that helps sell. I think Bill Gaither wrote that song.

So we actually had a Gaither moment here at Bethlehem Bible Church. The Gaither moment. Number three, appeal to the sinful nature.

Quote, I want to hear how awesome I am. So tell me how awesome I am. That's number three.

So if you want to get heresy in a church, appeal to the sinful nature. That's smart advertising. Al Qaeda studies us and terrorists study our system so they know for weaknesses.

That is a good way to study our weaknesses. And then you play up to what people want to hear.

That reminds me of the time I went to some Navajo Indian. It was like a it was like a parade and it wasn't a parade.

It was like a carnival. We would go there and it was an Indian gathering. And you could buy tomahawks.

You could buy beads. They had sweat tents. I mean, it was just I don't know what those things are called.

It was like a little carnival, a little fair, a little get together, like a medieval fair, except it was an Indian fair. But I don't think

Indian fair go together unless you like Beriani. So the lady went up and she paid the

Indian palm reader, the Navajo palm reader to read her palm and, you know, look at the lines on her hand and everything.

And then she said, you know, you used to be a Nubian princess. Wow. You know what?

They never say you used to be in the lowest caste system as a manure scooper.

They never say that. You used to be some kind of wonderful person. But here, how awesome I am.

So tell me how awesome I am. It's this whole fallacy where since you are so lovable,

God had his son die for you, that you get your worth and value by the son's death for you, that you say to yourself, well, you know what?

I must have been valuable and worthy and worth full of worth because Jesus died for me.

And see, that's the exact opposite. That's not what the Bible teaches at all. And the way I like to remind people of this is when it comes to home makeovers, they pick dilapidated houses to redo and they show you before and after pictures.

And then you think, boy, those men and women and the construction team that came alongside of them really did a great job.

Way to go. And it's true regarding cosmetic makeovers on women. And for that matter, men, where you go in and you see someone and they're frumpy and they have a bunch of wrinkles and gray hair and some, you know, they got the women's version of a mullet.

I think women used to wear mullets. Now, that wouldn't be scary. A mullet and a variety of those things.

And then they redo them. They give them a new haircut, a new makeup, new wardrobe, etc.

And it's a lot harder than the before and after pictures. And then you think, wow, that person had a lot of worth. That person was really, there's something inside of them that just came out.

I don't know. You may think those things, but what you should be thinking is the purpose of the show would be to say, wow, congratulations, applause to the makeup artist herself or himself.

That's the point. And so when Jesus died in our place on our behalf, it wasn't because we were lovable.

Romans chapter five says the opposite. We were ungodly, not like God. We were helpless.

We could not help ourselves in our spiritual state. We are spiritually unable, totally depraved, corrupt.

We couldn't help ourselves. We were sinful. We weren't saints. We were missing the mark that's described our life, always missing the mark of God, whether it was loving

God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, loving our neighbors, ourselves. We were missing the mark of the creator, judge and savior

God. And so we were ungodly. We were helpless. We were sinful. And the text says in Romans five as well, we were enemies for descriptions of what we were like when the son of God died for us to magnify

God, the father, God, the son and God, the spirit to show how much he loved us.

And that love planned and eternity passed in the eternal counsels of God and then executed at Calvary, but executed prior to that, too, by Christ's love and his life.

And then his death and resurrection, et cetera, executed or applied rather by the spirit of God in time when he would save those who the father chose and the son died for.

So we say hallelujah to God because he has now helped the helpless.

He is made godly, the ungodly. He has reconciled the enemies and made them friends.

And then he has taken sinners and made them saints. And so the focus isn't on the people at all.

The focus is on the Lord God Almighty. Number four, appeal to the idolatry of your hearers.

If you live in an entertainment centered society, make sure you entertain while presenting your heresy.

If you live in a postmodern society, make sure you say nothing absolute while appealing to the only truth you know, quote,

I'm not sure, end quote. So that's the fourth heresy, Heider and evangelicalism.

If you'd like to slip a Mickey to the evangelicals, appeal to the idolatry of the hearers.

And so just make them happy, make them want to clap, make them smile, amuse them. Or talk about things the way

Joel Osteen would on Larry King. Nothing definitive, nothing absolute.

Appeal to the only truth you know. I don't know. Or as he said last time, you know, you know.

So let's see, we are no compromise radio ministry. We are a ministry, as the prelude said, or the postlude, coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church.

If you need a good Bible teaching church, we're going through First Corinthians chapter nine now on Sunday mornings.

And it's been mind blowing. It has been boggling my mind to watch how the cross of Christ, the life of the

Messiah is applied to the problems of the Corinthians and how that's important today in a society full of lists and full of do's and don'ts and full of moralism, full of therapeutic moralistic deism, dealism, as Christian Smith has, you know, called it, made famous maybe by Michael Horton and evangelicalism.

If you if you want to cut through all that, you just watch Paul deal with a church at Corinth.

It's fascinating. So that's Bethlehem Bible Church. We are no compromise radio ministry. Do you know what? I don't think

I'm going to get through this list today. I'm not going to get to this list today. So I might as well talk about what

I wanted to. Let me mark down. I've made it through number four. So we'll do that next time. Five through ten.

But let me give you my eleventh one. This has nothing to do with Jared Moore. So you don't have to get mad at him. You can just get mad at me if you'd like.

This has to do with how do you get heresy? How do you get heresy in evangelicalism?

And this is a blatant thing, but it's still a way to get it into evangelicalism. What you do is you have a panel of men who are supposed to talk about some of the differences they have in methodology.

Pretty much they have the same theology, the same doctrine of God, the same doctrine of Christ, the Christology, same doctrine of the spirit, more or less.

Maybe there's some charismatics thrown in here or there, but they generally agree on the fundamentals of the faith.

And then you sit down and talk about methodology, how your theology applies and how it is worked out in the life of the local church and in your particular setting there.

And so that's what you do. And it's called the elephant room. And then you think, you know what? For whatever reason, maybe with the best motives, you say, well, let's open that platform up a little bit and ask a heretic to come in and ask him to talk as well.

Now, why that heretic, T .D. Jakes, was asked in the elephant room, too, I don't know.

I'm not sure if Luke MacDonald asked him or if James MacDonald asked him. My imagination tells me or my thoughts tell me it was

James MacDonald. But certainly James MacDonald could put the ixnay on T .D. Jakes, and then he's now revised the purpose statement because it's not a bunch of Christians sitting down talking.

It's a bunch of people. Now, there are settings that unbelievers can sit with believers and talk, and I'm fine with that.

But you send the wrong message when you invite a heretic who tries to couch the Trinity in terms of his modalistic fancy, a

God in three manifestations instead of God in three persons. And so just conveniently sweeping another table and then inviting them in.

Now, January 25th is the elephant room. You have to pay big bucks to watch it.

I think 99 that day, 79 in advance. And what T .D. Jakes will do is he is smart enough.

He's either going to quit and not be in it. That would probably be the best for everyone. Dever dropped out, and I give him kudos for that,

Mark Dever, because he didn't want to be on the same panel talking about Christian things with an unbeliever. This is an in -house debate.

This has nothing to do with unbelievers asked. We're not going to ask someone who doesn't even understand, well, understands the

Trinity and denies it. It's one thing to completely understand it. It's another thing to understand it and then deny it.

No one's saying that we can somehow grasp as finite fallen people the ins and outs exactly of the

Trinity. But God is one God and God manifests himself.

No, no, he doesn't manifest himself with three persons. I think of the song, holy, holy, holy, God in three persons, blessed

Trinity. The Father's a person, the Son's a person, the Holy Spirit's a person, the Father's not the

Son, the Son's not the Spirit, and the Spirit's not the Father. You know, the Father is God, the Son's God, the Spirit's God, etc.

There's a way to do this with our theology to make sure we understand. But anyway, the way you get a heresy in is you invite

T .D. Jakes, and he'll say the right things, and he'll be coached, and he's smart enough to figure it out, and Driscoll maybe ask him a bunch of questions on what do you believe about this, and what do you believe about that?

But it most likely will end like the first elephant room ended, and that is, well, we just agree to disagree.

There's nothing resolved, nothing definitive, and it's just okay, whatever you do, it's okay for you, it's okay for me, and there's no resolution at all.

There's no okay next step or anything like that. So if you'd like to get heresy into evangelicalism, how about just invite an unbeliever to the table?

And I thought that was quite different from what elders were supposed to do on the island of Crete.

Paul knew what to tell the people on Crete, and he had said to Titus, For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

And so that applies to T .D. Jakes, except for the Jewish aspect. They must be silenced, since they're upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

And so we silence those people, we don't give them access to the table, we don't let them belly up to the bar and say, now you have a microphone, here is the microphone.

No, we shut you off in every way shape and form we can, including by critiquing you and saying things about what you believe because it's not true.

This is a way to get heresy into evangelicalism, and Arianism back in the day, not that long after Nicaea, flourished for a long time because of foolish decisions just like this one.

So if you want to get heresy in, ask T .D. Jakes to come be the elephant room too. It's not too late to have him say no to that.

God bless you. 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.

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