Arguments from Atheists (Part 3)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, Mike Abendroth.

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It is Tuesday in NoCo world land time. Konnichiwa.

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Konnichiwa. Steve, I will be in Montana. What was that to hunt for at October?

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And Sean Connery's right hand man, the guy who was in Jurassic Park, he wanted to raise rabbits in Montana or something got shot at the end.

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How did he say Montana? Montana. I have no idea. All right. I mean, it's been so long since I watched that movie,

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I really couldn't tell you. All right. And 2015, Sean Connery. June 25th, 26th and 27th,

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Billings, Montana, Raffmonts, the church is the title of the conference, the church.

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And so I wanted to ask you, Steve, because I get the privilege to speak with some of these guys. I'm not listed in alphabetical order, but I'm on the second tier.

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I wanna know. And rightly so. Yeah, yeah. So Phil Johnson's gonna be there, Todd Freel, Chris Roseborough, JD Hall, Jean Cliet and myself.

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Do you want me to ask like Phil or Todd, any questions? Is there any kind of secret questions

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I can go with, loaded for bear? Because it is Montana. Yeah. You know, I've never been to Montana, but here's what

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I wanna know is, what's with Jean Cliet and squirrels? That's what

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I wanna know. Maybe we'll go, they take people out shooting and maybe we'll go shoot squirrel. And then have a squirrel boil?

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I don't think he's gonna like that. Now, I think they've changed the times before, but I did notice this,

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Steve. Friday, Todd Freel speaks from 9 a .m. to 10 .50.

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Yeah. So he gets an hour and 50 minutes. And then I get from 10 .15 to 10 .45.

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So that means I have to talk over the guy. Well, at least it's not after lunch.

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I mean, that'd be worse, right? It's hard enough to guest host Wretched Radio, let alone talk while Todd's talking.

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Follow him up. Yeah. Yeah. You get half an hour and he gets... It was a typo.

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No, I was gonna guess, you know, that he was like your warmup, you know, just getting the audience all set for you.

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So you get 30 minutes of quality time while he's struggling for an hour and 50 minutes. Well, Thursday night,

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I'm batting last. So that's 8 to 9 p .m. That's a kind of tough slot. But Friday, I'm up early and then it's

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Phil Johnson doing cleanup that day. Saturday, it's Mike, JD, and Phil.

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So we'll see. I wonder if Phil's got his messages done already. He's not even prepping.

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He's just kind of going on the fly. That's right. I know, I know. Well, on No Compromise Radio, we try to mix it up a little bit.

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Mondays are sermons, Wednesdays are interviews, Thursdays and Fridays are wissy wig.

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Remember wissy wig? What you see is what you get. See, there you go. I remember meeting with someone saying, now, if you're going to get a word processor and program and you're gonna get a word perfect or something like that, make sure you get wissy wig.

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I thought, I have no idea. This is Cobalt, Fortran, Basic Plus. I don't know what you're talking about.

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I mean, when I was in high school, computer class was, can you land the lunar module on the moon without making it explode?

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Calculating gravity and such. Yeah, I really didn't do any of that until I got into junior college.

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And then I actually programmed a football game at one point in Basic. Seriously?

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Yeah. I did not know that. Although I have some fond memories. Steve and I knew each other back in Los Angeles as well.

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And I would go to Steve's house and he would show me Thief, the game.

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We would get in Steve's car. I think it was a Honda Accord. And we would listen to Van Morrison sing songs.

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Be Thou My Vision. I know. I mean, that was the best. Over and over and over again, infinite loop. So on Tuesdays, Steve and I talk about issues in the church, ecclesiology, topics, updates, current events.

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And, you know, Tuesdays have started off with, you know, we're kind of ornery. We get after people.

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And they have just devolved into just sickening, sweet, kind, loving.

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What's the word? Intriquely? Intriquely. Yeah, that's a good one. Now listen, radio.

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I mean, this is kind of meant to be straight talk and banter back and forth. And this is like the

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McLaughlin group, right? Where you just kind of go after each other a little bit. Maybe we should bring the McLaughlin in for the

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McLaughlin group. My friend actually went on the airplane with McLaughlin and the group, and he went in their

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Learjet. He's pretty gruff. I know, he's pretty. Is he still alive? I don't know, but he'd always, reaction, you know.

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Has Saturday Night Live done parodies for the McLaughlin group? Because if they have not, it would be perfect fodder.

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Except nobody ever watched them when they were on. They had ratings of like 0 .2. I think the first time

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I ever saw Pat Buchanan was on the McLaughlin group. Really? Yes.

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Okay, well, this is gripping radio. I saw Pat Buchanan walk out of a Marina Del Rey hotel once that I stayed at.

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Did you? Yeah, when he was running for president of the USA. How did that go? He didn't wave.

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Oh. Yeah, and neither did his presidency. And he didn't win. So yeah, if you want to be elected president, you wave to Mr.

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NoCo. Do the wave. Sometimes they do that in church when you're preaching, I noticed. I sit in the back and I do the critique.

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And all of a sudden, when Pastor Steve is preaching in the congregation, in the auditorium, in the sanctuary, the wave starts.

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Yeah, the 12 people that are there all do the wave. Uh -huh. All right, so we're looking through, this is third part and the final part of.

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They do the wave as they're walking. Yeah, yeah. See ya. Oh, you're preaching again. See ya later.

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12 Good Arguments Atheists Advance Against Christianity. Now that's not my words, those are not

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Steve words, but this is back in January 6, 2013. I found an old article and it had things like, there's too much suffering, exclusivity of Jesus can't be true.

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And so we're up to number seven today. Do you want to say something first? It looked like you wanted to talk. No, I don't. Okay. I don't want to say a thing.

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So number seven, according to why Christianity can't be true, this particular website reports that the

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Bible is full of errors. So when you hear that, Steve, and I know you have a lot of friends and you talk to folks that you knew before you got saved and are involved in their lives.

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They say the Bible is just chock full of errors, chock full of nuts coffee. What do you say? You're rolling your eyes, by the way.

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Yeah, I mean, there's the typical, well, why don't you give me some of them because they typically can't, but you know,

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I've had people like post in internet discussions, post an entire list of errors.

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And then I Googled that and found the entire list of answers to all those objections. So I posted that and they go, you just Googled that and posted it.

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And I'm like, so did you? You know, what's the beef, you know? So don't I. Yeah, so don't

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I. But the truth is the Bible isn't full of errors. And what drives me nuts is if you study church history or if you know anything about church history and you know some of the

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Mayans, the Jonathan Edwards, the B .B. Warfields, the Machens, all these men who were brilliant, by the way, and you think, well, didn't these erudite, intelligent men with IQs of like 200, didn't they realize that the

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Bible was full of errors? Or did they just have a blind spot? And the truth is they knew the

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Bible better than I'll ever know the Bible. And their conclusion was it's inerrant.

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There are no errors in the Bible. Steve, those Princetonians are a bunch of Scottish realists. They don't know what they're talking about.

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Thank you for that. See, I think I prefer Jesus's words and we have a little motto around here, a little jingle, and your view of the

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Old and New Testament should be just like Jesus's view of the Old Testament. Right? It's he is the

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Lord and Jesus said, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, we'll pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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And so I think he had a pretty high view of the law. Yeah, what we call that is WDJB. What did

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Jesus believe? Oh, nice. I need a little trinket. You know, we're trying to raise money for that new building to BBC and so we could do trinketology.

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Well, I mean, it's so, if the Bible is full of errors, then why didn't Jesus, the master teacher, correct them?

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And instead what he did was he affirmed over and over and over again, the Bible.

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You know, you have heard it said, you have heard it taught, but not it is written, but I say to you.

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You know, he never said that. What he did say was, you know, your traditions are wrong.

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Your teaching is wrong. Let me tell you what the scripture really means. But he never said the scripture is wrong.

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The scripture is an error. God's word is wrong because it never is. Steve, you'll find this fascinating.

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I know I did. 2 Timothy 3, we're familiar with. In verse 16, all scriptures

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God breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and for training in righteousness.

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All scriptures breathed out. And so S. Lewis Johnson would say, well, most people think all scripture refers to, well, the

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Old Testament. But he said, it refers to the Old Testament, but in context there, do not forget that 1

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Timothy had been written as well. And so if you wanna be a stickler and say, yes, but Paul was meaning the

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Old Testament. Well, he was meaning the Old Testament and he was also meaning 1 Timothy because this is 2 Timothy.

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Yeah, I mean, he could have said it differently. He could have said, you know, the -

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All scripture, which is inspired. Some of it is, some of it isn't. I mean, there are a lot of things he could have said, but he didn't.

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And, you know, when Peter refers to Paul's writings, he says in 2 Peter, you know, there are some things that are hard to understand and they're distorted and whatever.

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And he goes, but, you know, he says ultimately that Paul's writings are scripture. So, I mean, it is without a doubt the standard of scripture or whatnot.

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But getting back to this idea, the Bible is full of errors. Well, no, it's not. And that's the wonder of it. We were discussing in an earlier show about how, you know,

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Sam Harris described these guys as basically sand covered rubes.

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You know, they're just hillbillies from the Middle East, just dopes. Well, it's really, it is a miracle, sorry to upset the apple cart here.

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It is a miracle that these rubes, these simpletons could put together a book that doesn't contradict itself.

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Well, I love 1 Timothy 5 as well for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.

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And so here's Paul talking about scripture from Torah. And then he quotes Jesus and the labor deserves his wages.

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And so you have the affirmation of many different texts saying that the scriptures are true and inherent.

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And, you know, to me, this is a canard, Steve, the Bible's full of errors. Therefore, I'm not under the Bible, I'm over the

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Bible. And so anytime you say, I'm a critic of the Bible, I criticize the Bible, I judge the

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Bible, it doesn't judge me. And we're forgetting Hebrews chapter four, where this word judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

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The Bible isn't on trial, it stood the test of time. It's true, affirmed by Jesus, you're on trial.

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Preach it. All right, number eight. Atheists love to say, according to this article, Christianity may be true for you, but it isn't true for moi, para mi.

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Truth is relative. You know, your truth may not be my truth. Well, truth is either true or it's not true, right?

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I mean, there's no, the question is, you know, can anything be objective?

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And the answer is yes. Again, we get back to this singular foundation. The creator who spoke and everything came into existence, he alone sets the standard.

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He sets the rules. He decides what is right and what is wrong. And what he says stands the test of time.

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Steve, don't you think that sin is so insidious and drives people to a form of mental insanity where they can say there's no such thing as truth in philosophical religious arguments about Christianity and such.

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But when they go to the doctor, they want the objective, cold, hard facts. That's those rapidly growing cells in your body.

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You know, some people call them cancer. We kind of call them rogue cells. It might be true for you, but for me,

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I'm not necessarily sure it's true for me if you've got those. It could be cancer or it could be muscle or it could be.

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Yeah, yeah. Why do we even take biopsies to find out if it's benign or?

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Yeah, there is no truth. You know, actually what they should say is there's no absolute moral truth because there are a lot of things that they want truth on, right?

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It's true that you must have oxygen to survive. If you don't believe that, walk into a room full of halon.

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You know, you will quickly. Only Steve would say halon. Are you calling 911?

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Emergency dispatch 911. This call is recorded. Yes, my name is Mike Ebendroth. My house is on fire.

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Please send the fire trucks. What do you mean by fire trucks?

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How do I know you're telling the truth? Yeah, what do you mean by fire? Could you describe that? Well, it's true for you, but it might not be true for me, the dispatcher says.

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I don't believe there is a fire there. The men are busy taking their figurative breaks and cleaning up their figurative car.

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I mean, it's just, this is just don't judge me. I want to judge the Bible. All right, so see, we're moving at a pretty good clip,

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Steve. Yep. Because otherwise we were going to be doing four shows at three a show. Now we're doing three shows at three, three, and six.

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I guess. Yeah, okay. Number eight, Christianity may be true for you. Oh, sorry. Number nine.

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It was so good though, you want to do it again. Yes, but Steve, how do I know that you're telling the truth when you are telling me

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I've already read that? Well, you're right. It's subjective. Number nine.

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Number nine. Number nine. The God of the Bible is a moral monster and restricts human freedom.

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Fascinating that they put those two together. Let's do the first part, then do the second part, then let's do them together.

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The Bible teaches that God's a moral monster. Well, because, you know, the God of the

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Old Testament, because they like to bifurcate the two, the God of the Old Testament ordered, you know, for example, the extermination of peoples and the putting to death of this group and that group.

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And, you know, how could he do that and still be moral? Who defines moral?

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God. I mean, it all comes back to that one thing, right? Who's in charge?

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Who sets the rules? Who decides what's right and what's wrong? And if it's the atheist, well, of course God's wrong, right?

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And if it's God, of course the atheist is wrong. The Malachi audience, they would look at things with their own senses and then judge

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God and lie to that versus going to scripture. Scripture teaches God is just, God is wise, God is holy.

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He always does the right thing. And so we have to view everything in light of God's word. That's a good paradigm for you listeners to engage in.

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And so, Steve, when people say, well, what about killing babies and killing Canaanites and genocide and eradicating these tribes of people who are in Palestine ahead of time?

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Let's just jump over all that. That's just child's play. Let's go back to the flood.

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We have eight people and you can just imagine families. What would you do if you were back in those days and you weren't part of the eight?

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Well, you'd find a hill and then you'd find something to climb up and then you'd hold your kid up really high.

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You'd probably drown first, holding your kids up, your five kids, and then all the kids would drown. All the pets would drown.

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Everybody drowned. I mean, we're talking thousands and thousands of things drowning both people.

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So Jesus affirms that because of the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God.

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And so, why do we play around in the shallow end of the Canaanites when you've got the flood? Right, and the truth is every single person, listen to me carefully when

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I say this, every single person, man, woman, and child deserves death and hell. That's what we deserve.

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That's what we merit because we're sinners against a holy God. That's what the

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Bible says. The Bible says, you sin, you must die. And yet God is gracious.

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The fact that he doesn't destroy the world is evidence of his grace.

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And people say, well, how can that be gracious? Because they don't understand the holiness of God. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

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And God said, I'm going to blot out man whom I have created. And all he saved was

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Noah and his family. And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And you think about the grace you've received.

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I mean, what do we deserve? Steve's life before he was saved, my life before I was saved, even sinning now as Christian men.

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God is generous and gracious, but we must not evacuate his holiness and righteousness or you just have a

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God of your own image. You have a God that's like you. Which is exactly what the atheists are after, either no

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God whatsoever or a God that they can like, you know, a God that they can agree with. And that God would not be the

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God of the Bible. Can you imagine the religion that says, I've got to be acceptable before God will accept me.

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But that is the religion of the world. That is what a sinful heart always does with every other religion except Christianity.

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Christianity is, you can never be acceptable. Actually, you're deplorable in God's eyes. But God has accepted you because he accepts you on the basis of another.

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He accepts the Lord Jesus. This is my beloved son. And so since Jesus has done this work, we don't have to become acceptable in God's eyes in order for us to be saved.

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We are acceptable in God's eyes because of what the Lord has done. And that'll rock your world when you think about it.

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Well, God is not a moral monster because he and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, second person of the Trinity came to earth.

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He entered into his creation with the express purpose to save sinners. But that's not a moral monster.

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That is a loving act of a loving God, incredibly generous. Absolutely. Well, we're running out of time so the restricting human freedom thing, we can skip.

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Let's jump down to number 11, Steve. The church is full of hypocrites. I mean, I actually love this statement because it is so dumb.

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It's so ignorant and it is so easy to respond to. I just think. Well, I mean, obviously if being a hypocrite means doing something other than what you believe, well, in some sense, every mere mortal is a hypocrite, right?

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So true. You mean to tell me you go home at night after work? Yeah, but your house is full of hypocrites.

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You go to work, your work is full of hypocrites. I can't believe that you're going to go do that. You know, let's go to Foxborough Stadium.

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At least there's some righteous people there. I mean, listen, the biggest hypocrites, honestly, are those who know the most, right?

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Those who know the most about the Bible and yet fail to do every single thing contained therein.

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And the truth is we can't. If we could keep the law, then we wouldn't have needed a

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Savior. And so I would say I am a hypocrite. I'm a forgiven hypocrite. I have

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Christ's righteousness imputed to my account. He never was a hypocrite. And so I repent and I don't want to be a hypocrite.

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But listen, you think that the church is, you know, and this is what the church does.

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The good people go to church and the bad people, they play golf on Sunday. But the church is full of really bad people.

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We are the bad ones. We are the peculiar people. We are the enemies. We are the wicked, but God has forgiven us.

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And so we're not better than anybody. You'll actually find people at the local church level and every evangelical church that are worse than you are and you're a pagan and they're a

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Christian. So what's shocking about that? I mean, again, God saves sinners.

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He doesn't save righteous people. I mean, the righteous don't need saving. It just is so amazing.

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I don't go to church because, you know, there are too many hypocrites there. Well, so you don't want to be around other hypocrites.

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So you're willing to go to hell where you're going to be full of unrepentant hypocrites times a billion.

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And then there's always the crass answer, right? There's always room for one more. I know. Number 12,

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Christians cherry pick what they want out of the Bible. For example, they forbid sex outside of marriage, but are happy to eat shellfish and wear polyester.

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I mean, I just - Oh, I hate that. It is just so - But you Christians - First of all, I never wear polyester.

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So that's real rubbish. Yeah, but your Bible cover is made out of polyester, I noticed, Steve.

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Is it? Yeah, yes, I know that. The ESV is cutting corners these days, crossway. I'm burning at them. Steve, what should a

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Christian do in response to this? Because if you're caught off guard, you might not know what to say because there are prohibitions for shellfish in the

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Bible. Yeah, yeah. And if we only lived under the Old Testament strictures, then that would be right.

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You know, God gave Peter a vision. He said, all food that he has given, that God has given is fine to eat.

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It's okay. It's no longer restricted under the Old Testament codes.

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So this is a matter of hermeneutics. It's a matter of understanding that we are no longer a theocracy.

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We're not Israel. We're not bound under Israel's laws. We live in a new covenant.

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We live entirely differently. And so that's just rubbish. We can mix fibers and wear different clothes and it's all fine.

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I mean, I don't wanna say anything too controversial, but. Might as well, it's

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Tuesday. Okay, women can wear pants. Oh, nice. Nice.

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Well, you know, we're trying to get some new trucker hats for NOCO Radio that say NOCO Radio on them. And so we'll just make sure that they're all, what, silk or satin or something like that.

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No polyester. It's just, I mean, pick and choose. No, we don't pick and choose.

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We use a system of hermeneutics that tells us we, the church, are not Israel. We don't live under those strictures.

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They do not pertain to the church. The Bible has different stories and accounts of writing to particular people.

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This is what he said to David. This is what he said to Moses to tell the people. This is what he said to Judas.

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And so you just have to read the Bible naturally, normally, in a fashion like that, and you'll quickly understand the church isn't underneath mosaic law like shellfish stuff or I sinned when

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I ate those shrimps last night. Do you eat shrimps or shrimp? I don't eat either one, but not because we're under any dietary restriction.

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My name is Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Write us, Tuesdayguy at NOCO Radio, our info.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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