Silence is Golden

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.

Tuesday guy is in the proverbial casa. Hi. See, there's a role reversal.

Steve, what's new with you? What's new with me? Well... Grandfather of three. Grandfather of three. Yep. Little Autumn is not so little anymore. She's a couple months old, and Steve Jr.'s in town, so that's fun.

So we're just having a great time. I mean, Jerry's on the fire department. I mean, everything with the family is great. Steve, I'm looking at you now.

You don't show much gray. I've got a lot more gray hair than you do. Is that because... I don't worry as much. You know what? That could be. That actually could be.

Do you dye your hair at all or anything? TMI. No, I don't. Okay. I don't. Would it be wrong for a man to dye his hair? It would be biblically wrong. Under, I think that's Leviticus 42.

I think... I was going to say Jeff Beck, but I meant Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck, I think he talked about that the other day, exposing the myths, you know? Of hair dye? Yes. Yes. Okay. Could you give me a little background music for the message moment?

Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians and Personalizing Scripture

Ladies and gentlemen, a message moment. I'd like every head bowed, every eye closed, every lip bit.

You're not biting your lip. First Corinthians 16, I plan to visit you after passing through Northern Greece. I won't be staying there long, but maybe I can stay a while with you, maybe even spend the winter.

Then you could give me a good send off. Wherever I may be headed next, I don't want to just drop by in between other primary destinations. I want a good, long, leisurely visit. If the master agrees, we'll have it.

For the present, I'm staying right here in Ephesus. A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here. There's a mushrooming opposition.

You know, I couldn't help but think that almost sounds like an Elton John song from the 70s. I don't know what that is, but it doesn't really sound very much like the Bible. It actually, you know, he does do a very nice job of personalizing Paul.

You know, in other words, we really kind of get to think, gee, what if Paul was to just write a letter?

What would he really sound like? Uh-huh. Well, I think that's Paul in his felt-need way, slap-happily addressing the Corinthians.

Yeah, what if Paul was an unbeliever writing a letter to some buds?

Yeah, he's just kind of punching them on the shoulder a little bit, a little bro hug, man hug. Steve, when you—let me just ask you a little—this is a little theological quiz, because Steve's teaching this IBS class now, Institute for Biblical Studies.

Looking at the will being free, and he could have said, let's look at Erasmus, the freedom of the will, and then Luther, bondage of the will, but instead he's updated it and revised it in his own message format.

Yes. Yes. And you're looking at Norman Geisler and James White discussing the will, right?

Two titans of intellect.

Yes, and so since you're the teacher, teachers ought also to be students, because every good teacher is a good student. I would agree with that. Wouldn't you say that? Wouldn't you say it's hard to lead if you don't know how to follow?

I would agree with that 100%.

Give me another truism while we're at it.

It's hard to have a corporation with just one person.

That was impressive. That was very impressive, although I think legally you can do it, though.

A forest composed of one tree is lacking. Yes. Okay. It's excellent. It's almost poetic.

Uh-huh. You know what? This is why you tune in. This is why we pay the station 60 bucks a show. Really? I think it is. Okay. I think people to people, with the false doctrine at 430, I think they get cheaper than we do.

People, people to people. Mm-hmm. Although, look.

You don't need to ask God for forgiveness. That's some other old dispensation or something.

Now it's just kind of granted naturally.

Yeah, yeah. And maybe the Seventh-day Adventist on Saturday, they probably get a discount, too, especially for their Saturday show. Okay. Oh, it makes sense. Yeah. The Saturday show. See, now you get it.

Prayer, Revelation, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

Okay. So back to the quiz. Steve, when you talk to God, what do you call that? Prayer. Prayer. Okay, good. So far, so good. And when God talks to you, what do you call that? Delusion. Yeah, see? That's right.

Outside of the Word, there's trouble. But I'm telling you—I'm not telling Steve because he knows this—the evangelical world in the Western realm is chocked full of mysticism and Roman Catholicism and prayer walking and talking to God and spiritual formation and Dallas Willard and Richard Foster.

It is crazy. And so now when we say God speaks through the Word alone and scriptures are sufficient, we are the Kooks and Barneys.

I Ching Christianity, right? Yeah, seriously.

And so do we all desire for God to talk to us in a personal relationship and He walks with me and He talks with me along the 110?

I really love that song. It's the best.

But we're just trying to say that, of course, if you look back, words in time, and you say, you know, I see how God has led me and God had opened that door or shut that door or this, that, or the other, you can look at things providentially.

But in terms of God speaking, revelation that has to be confined to the Word of God, Steve, or else what happens?

Well, you've got chaos eventually. You know, people getting different revelations from God. He says this to me and He says that to you and which one's right? I mean, you utterly wind up with chaos. You have to.

Steve, the doctrine of total depravity is very helpful. So with your class, with the bondage of the will, if they don't understand depravity, they won't get the will being bound, right? No. Okay. Tell me how important is the doctrine of total depravity in understanding unconditional election?

Well, it's essential. And that's how the Arminian, Dr. Geisler, goes after the whole idea of free will or, you know, the opposite bound will. He says, well, total depravity only means mostly depraved.

You know, I mean, we've got to take a moderate view, not the extreme view. You know, set up these false choices, which he does quite well.

Holy flexible, not rigid, righteous. Got to be balanced. Yeah. Sometimes balance is good, isn't it? Yes. You've got to be balanced. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. You have to be balanced. You have to have a... What's the difference between a Chalminian and Calamari?

Well, Calamari is nasty and Chalminians are just wrong. Chalminians are wrong on one point.

Calamari is wrong on every point. I bet our friend John up in Idaho could whip us a good recipe up with Calamari and some spicy peppers and deep fat fries. It's impossible. And ship it down to us. You know, after all Patio Daddy's recipe sending, I have not received one calorie or parcel of food from John.

Sad times. John Dawson, where are you? I think he should send us Calamari burgers.

Maybe Ted the linguist has been talking to John the Dawson. And so how do we pronounce Ted's name again? Ted Krasuski.

Sorry, Ted. One thing I've learned is if it starts with a K and it looks like it's of Polish origin, then you just say Krasuski.

You just say something different every time. Okay, so what we're after is we're after the doctrine of total depravity and how it affects something else. It also affects the way you view God speaking to you personally.

And so with the Quakers and the inner light, they were after God speaking to them in a way that, you know, I don't say it's a bad motive, wanting God to personally talk to you. But if God doesn't want to do that because he's given his revelation in a final form now called the canon, 66 books of the Bible, we don't know if God's talking to us or not because sometimes it's our own flesh and it's our own sin and it's depravity.

So like with Proverbs chapter 3 and Jeremiah chapter 17, we have to trust in what God says because what if depravity has torqued our view of what God has said and he didn't really say it, but our heart said it.

Yeah, Jeremiah 17, our heart is deceitful and wicked. And so, look, if I took every thought I had and said, oh, that's God talking to me, I'd be in a lot of trouble, you know, because they're not all good thoughts, first of all.

Secondly, they're not all godly thoughts. But thirdly, they're not all correct thoughts. Not everything I think is correct. So how do I discern what is from the Lord and what is not? And the answer is, does it jive with what the Bible says?

And if it does, well, then it's not necessarily God talking to me. Maybe he's just calling to my mind things that I need to be focused on anyway.

Absolutely. And if you fill your mind with scriptures, then there's something actually to recall with a random access memory there. Yes. And so what we're trying to do here at No Compromise Radio, even the continuationist, even the charismatic, even the Pentecostalist, even the third wave revivalist should understand that we're trying to go back to the Bible.

Scriptures rule. And continuationist drool, is that the way it goes? No. Scriptures is what we're after. And so, friends, we walk by faith, not by sight. Furthermore, we walk by faith, not by what we hear from God on the inside.

You know, there are belly buttons that are inies and outies. I think we need to use that. Every time you look at your belly button, you ought to say to yourself, I need to hear from God from the outside because my antenna is broken.

I might be regenerate. I might be justified. I might be progressively sanctified. But I still need my trust in an outside source. Hence, Jeremiah 17, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord because the heart is deceitful, as Steve just said.

Why Mysticism and Inner-Voice Christianity Spread

So, Steve, why do you think there's such an influx, a torrential downpour of false teaching? I didn't say false teachers, although they might be. But it's a false teaching that says, look to the inside, have God talk to you, sit there and be silent and let God speak to you outside of his word.

Why is this?

Well, I could give you a number of reasons. First of all, it seems spiritual. It seems spiritual to be contemplative and to be, you know, silent and to just kind of listen. But secondly, I think it's because it's easier.

It's hard work to study the scriptures. There you have it. And it's easy to just kind of let go, let God and listen to, you know, the still small voice and see what he's going to say to me today. And thirdly, I think it's more exciting.

You know, I mean, there's a certain drama in saying God told me this rather than saying, you know, I was studying the Bible the other day. Oh, really? Yeah. The Bible. Well, that's, wow, that's fascinating.

Mark Iaconelli says, silence is God's first language.

In the beginning, God didn't say a thing. He just stood there and contemplated. No.

In his book called Downtime, Helping Teenagers Pray, page 56. I thought 1 Corinthians chapter 14 was pretty big, Steve, on the only way someone's going to learn is if the speech is edifying and intelligible.

And so silence might be golden, but I don't think it's edifying, nor is it intelligible. I am all for sitting there being quiet, turning off your iPhone, turning off your headphones, turning off the radio, turning off, you know, the Boston Sports Hacks on 98 .5 and WEI, et cetera, and sitting there and listening to God.

No, to just sit there and think about God and his thoughts. I'm after that. But to say God now is talking to me in silence?

Well, so 2 Timothy 4 doesn't say preach the word after an extended period of contemplative silence for the congregation. Silence the word.

All right. How about this? By the way, I've got this little thing called Think on These Things, August, September 2012, Gary Gilley's ministry, Southern View Chapel. And he writes some good articles, even if his book reviews sometimes are subpar.

Yeah. Modestly. Modest Yahoo. And so here's what he said, quoting, he's put all these quotes together. Bruce Demarest in his book called Satisfying Your Soul, Restoring the Heart of Christian Spirituality, Colorado Springs NAB Press, page 128.

Steve, I'm going to just tell you these things and then maybe you could kind of do them because delayed obedience is. Disobedience. And I want to be obedient. And one person doesn't make a corporation.

Steve, did you know love makes a family?

Oh, that is so deep. That is so deep. One wave does not make an ocean.

Now, see, that's that's pretty good. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Again, he said, breathe normally as you exhale. Imagine with God's help that you are breathing spiritual and emotional impurities out of your life.

Steve is looking with perplexed. Let's see. Another word for Steve would be right now, flummoxed.

I have to tell you that instantly takes it transports me into the new age. I start to think about chakra and all, you know, all these kind of. This is the new age.

This is the age of Aquarius. And we have. What's the thing in Lost? What were they trying to do?

Who are those people? I never saw Lost, but this just this just yells at me new age. And in fact, what it really sounds like is the doctrines of demons. This is the Dharma initiative. We're we're yeah, we're going to take some satanic practices and we're going to Christianize them.

These might include worry, fear or anger. So you want to breathe these impurities out of your life.

I'm breathing them out through the filter of my nostrils.

By the way, I said spiritual a second ago. That was a Nebraska talk. And for Ted's sake, I want to redo that spiritual. I do now. I no longer want to say milk. I want to say milk. Very nice. I don't want to say or when I mean are and are when I mean our.

OK, OK. And don't say worse when you mean wash. That's right. You can ask your wife about that.

Yes, I can. I or. Focus a few moments, Steve, on one impurity, then on another. So let's just focus on our sins. This is just crazy. The act of the will aids conscious sinful release of sinful impulses, a silencing of false self that describes scripture's old man.

Steve, was there a Batman character who was a bad guy and he was a protagonist named False Face?

Yes, he was. Yeah. The old TV show, but not in the comic books. I don't think so.

I'm not sure. But this is false face religion. Steve actually just called this the doctrine of demons.

Well, I think it is. And when you were saying that, I just thought, you know, there there is a time for, you know, Allah, Psalm 51 or whatever, contemplating your sin and kind of. But I think you have to balance that or confessing your sin.

Right. First, John. But I think we have to balance that with knowing that what? That our sins are paid for. We, we agree with God that they are sinful, that, but we also have to rejoice after that thinking, I can't believe that my savior died for me and including that sin, that the thing that, you know, besets me or whatever, whatever the issue is.

And we don't somehow get rid of them on our own. We don't breathe them out or I don't even know, you know, treat them like there's some kind of what's the word where you, you cleanse your body by drinking liquids and sweating out that, you know, all those kinds of things.

This is rubbish. This is like colon cleansing.

Yes. It's quite bad. Steve, but what about the spiritual aspect of the still small voice? What about it?

I mean, listen, I want somebody to show me the, the Bible verse. It says, you know what Paul says, scriptures all well and good, but sometimes you just have to listen to that still small voice. I don't remember that.

I don't remember one of the apostles ever saying that. And, and I could be wrong, right? Isn't no compromise radio, you know, special address to, uh, Mike.

Gary Gilley says, of course, every mystic's favorite passage on the subject is Elijah's still small voice. First Kings 19. For example, Ruth Haley Barton tells us Elijah's willingness to enter into solitude and silence, open room for God to minister to him in ways he had not yet experienced.

Now here's what Gilley said. Classic Gilley. Even a cursory reading of the account finds that Elijah had no desire to enter into solitude and silence as Barton describes it. He was running for his life from Jezebel.

Depressed and ready to give up his life as a prophet. God graciously reached out and restored this man, but Elijah wasn't looking for an experience with God. Additionally, there is no command anywhere in scripture to try to duplicate Elijah's experience.

Simply put, while seeking a quiet place to be alone with God is without question a good idea and exemplified in scripture. It is not a command and has never taught for essential discipleship.

You know, you're in trouble first of all, when you go to a narrative to try to prove something that is, you know, a historical book. But secondly, you know, you're in trouble when you take a single incident and try to fashion an entire doctrine and practice out of it.

I mean, you're just, this is the height of folly and it really is kind of a substitute. This is instead of like, instead of dealing with problems, you just wallpaper over them. And instead of studying the word, you just kind of make some kind of practice up that makes you feel better about yourself.

And that's what this is. Well, some charismatics would be very ecumenical, others would not. But the same practice that the Roman Catholics do with adding magisterium and tradition to their view of authority, scripture not alone, so to the charismatic.

It's not sola scriptura for the charismatic, right? This denies the fundamental principle of sola scriptura because it's scripture plus something else.

Plus mystical experience, plus, you know, intuition, plus the still small voice, plus whatever. It's always something extra. You know, why can't we have revelation today? Oh, I don't know. Because God told us we don't.

We have his word and that's all we need. No, no, no. You still need something more. It really is a denial of sola scriptura and you might as well go back to Rome by the time all said and done. Because you can practice all these things in a Roman Catholic monastery or a nunnery or whatever.

Why are why are evangelical Protestants, hence the word Protestants, protesting Rome? Why are they running back to St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Abigail or whatever their name is? I always think of that name, isn't it?

Abigail of Teresa, whatever. Somebody like that. Yeah. Wasn't there, wasn't there, isn't there a girl who sings now, a rock musician from Canada? And doesn't her last name start with an A? I think of the same person every time.

Are you talking about Avril Lavigne or something? Yes, that's right. Yeah, her first name starts with an A. That's right. Skater boy. See you later, boy.

All right. What does M. Basil Pennington say? If we invite God with attention, open the inner spaces with silence, he will speak to our souls. Now listen, now think about 1 Corinthians 14 about edifying and intelligible.

Not in words or concepts, but in the mysterious way that love expresses itself by presence. See, Steve, you're just such an old fogey. You don't, you don't, you ever just sit there with your wife and you don't talk, but you just are enjoying one another's presence, communicating.

I mean, come on. Yes, but, but this is, you know what I really think this is? This is opening the front door and inviting demons into your life. I mean, this is bizarre. This is to say, I don't really, I don't want to focus on God as revealed in scripture.

I want him to talk to me in a new, fresh way. Somebody might talk to you, but it won't be the God of the universe.

Henry, I can promise you that. Henry, no one said. Solitude is the furnace of transformation. It's time to do some burning, baby.

Solitude. Well, in that case, we ought to all go up to the Rocky Mountains and lock ourselves up for, you know, a while. Rocky Mountain.

So you can get this booklet, by the way. Think on these things from Southern View Chapel. If you were just write them and say, give me the think on these things. Or they have all kinds of old ones. Steve, do you think these kind of mystics have a low view of scripture or a high view of scripture?

I don't know, but everybody's sitting around the campfire and everybody's, well, OK, sorry.

Steve, you're going to just, you're going to be blown away. Well, they have a low view of scripture. Absolutely. Dallas Willard's old book, Hearing God Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, is reprinted this year by IVP.

And here's one of his quotes on page 187. We can even destroy ourselves by Bible study, specifically by the study of Paul's epistles. Now, let's just say I'm taking that out of context, which I am. I didn't give you pre-context, post-context, anything else.

You're misrepresenting what he's doing. But would there be any time you would write that in a book?

Only, yes. Only if I was writing it as a wrong view to refute. Screw tape letters.

Yes, the enemy said. Yeah, exactly.

If I was saying, you know, some people say, blah, blah, blah, but I tell, you know, here's what the scripture says.

The Bible does say there is no God. But the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Exactly. So if it says here, a fool would say, you can be hurt by Bible study. Now, I guess if he meant somehow, well, if you study the Bible and never go serve other people and you stay inside all day in the house, I don't know.

But when he says then, especially by the study of Paul's epistles, if I was preaching 1 Corinthians 14 right now, I would say you are not recognized.

Yeah. Well, I mean, in light of not just Psalm 19 and Psalm 119, but the many imperatives in the New Testament to study, you know, to study the word, to be approved, to show yourself approved and everything.

What does that mean? Well, except for your moments of solitude where you really grow and learn.

What rubbish. Steve Willard said in answering the question, how do you learn to hear the voice of God? Quote, the only answer to the question, how do we know whether this is from God, is by experience.

Yeah. Who else would talk like that? Let me see. So today you especially need to write info at No Compromise Radio. And if you say on the subject line, for Steve, regarding RE, doctrines of demons, etc., then I'll make sure to pass it on to Steve.

That would be outstanding. And I'll forward it to Mike.

So any ideas on T-shirts on Tuesday Guy? We're wanting those, the Tuesday Guy on Saturday.

This is NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can write us. At, yeah, anything.

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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