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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Steve Cooley is right here, present and accounted for. No me gusta. When they used to call your name at school, did you yell out here or aqui or what'd you do?

Yo, estoy presente. Cuidado.

Romans 9, Divine Sovereignty, and the Beans Illustration

Steve, before we start today, talking a little bit about our favorite TV preacher in a new segment called What's Right with Joel Osteen. Okay. Let's go to our message moment here. We have the message.

It's a moment. And I thought about Romans 9 and you said to me just before the show, hey, what about Romans 9 kind of thing? It's a great

Where two minds are alike. It's a great moment in synergy or something.

Yeah, so Romans 9, do you know that whole chapter about kind of God does what he wants?

Remember that chapter? And who are you to answer back to me?

Let's see. It says here, what was the one that I was after, Steve? Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. Not so fast. You know, that was an ancient Hebraic saying. Slow it down.

But translate it into the Greek. It was not so fast, please. Now, how do you say that in Spanish? You have exceeded the radar. You have exceeded the radar. Why did you shape me like this? Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans?

It doesn't say that. It does say that. You want to know frijoles is in the Bible. There it is right there. There you have it. Double cooked beans right there. If God needs one style of pottery, especially designed to show his angry displeasure, and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness.

Isn't that all right? Well, I guess the pottery for his anger would have to be some kind of neo-modernistic, you know. That's pottery, it looks like.

Hosea put it well. I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies. It doesn't say that. It does say that. So, Steve, that reminds me of that whole beans thing, the cooked beans. Remember back at the rest home in Los Angeles off Van Nuys Boulevard?

It was a Jewish rest home. And I think you were just new to the Bible study and we started up the ministry of the rest home ministry. I was preaching Jesus is the only way. And again, mostly Jewish folks there.

I think it was called Bogertove Rest Home. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it was called G'day-ay. And I said, Jesus is the only way. Something about the exclusivity of Christ. And a woman in the back said, beans.

Beans.

And you remember what I said after that? I think you said beans are very good in some burritos. No, I said, you may be saying,.

And interestingly, Steve, she had her head down the whole time. She raised her head to say beans, then lowered her head again. It wasn't because I said every head bowed, every eye closed. A little altar call.

One more convert. It's like the resurgence website where Greg Laurie says that he's ministered in Harvest Crusade. For, he's ministered to 4 ,405 ,000 people.

Wow, they should put that on the front of their church. You know, over 4 ,500 ,000 people served.

I didn't know if that had to do with the 405 freeway or what that had to do with. I don't know. Rick Warren has sold 30 million purpose-driven books. Mark Driscoll had said on the resurgence website that he's more quoted.

He's a quotable pastor.

Can you say purpose-driven without getting permission ahead of time? Is that permissible?

In the RF, in the radio frequency wave form that we have, we have a special TM that we've paid for, so we're covered. Okay. Yeah, so anyway, the lady back at the rest home, the Jewish rest home, Bochertove rest home, he, she put her head back down, and then I said, ma 'am, you may be saying beans now to Jesus as the only sin bearer, but one day you'll stand before him and bow your knee and call him Lord, and I want you to believe in him now.

I said something to that effect, but I do know she exactly said the word beans and then put her head down.

It was a moment, kind of a message moment. It was a message moment, and I thought you were going to say cool beans.

So is there any Spanish bean saying? Beano, Beano Cook?

Yes, there are, but I will not. What would Beano Cook say? Yeah, I just want him to go there. Okay.

Joel Osteen, Bootstraps Religion, and Taking Scripture Out of Context

Well, Steve, I saw on The Daily Caller, it is a website, thedailycaller .com, kind of a funny name for The Daily Caller, don't you think?

Well, unless you have somebody who calls every day.

And there's a guy here named Dr. Brian Lee. Okay. And he is a pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Washington. Now, I don't know if this is the same Brian Lee we know. I don't think it is. I don't think so either.

But he said, here's the name of the article, what's wrong with Joel Osteen? And he basically says Joel Osteen has a moralistic sola bootstrapsa kind of message.

Sola bootstrapsa, the little known sixth sola of the Reformation.

He said, the mantra that Osteen gives at the beginning of his sermon, what does he say to everybody? He has to say to their Bibles, they talk to their Bibles before they start. Talk to their Bible.

Yeah, what is that again? Say to your Bible, be mine.

Something, everything's in here for me. It's all about me. What does he say? Steve, this is a radio. I should have that someplace in front of me. Is the microphone live? Is this thing on? Yeah, well, anyway.

He said something about, this is the Bible, this is God's word, we wanna do it and be all we can be or something. And this is like an army deal or something. But he said, it's really a message about us.

It's about people, it's not about God. And then Brian Lee says this, God is as big as I think him to be. That's the message of Joel Osteen. So think bigly that God would do big things for you. He might help you if you help yourself.

And that's almost sub-Christian.

Now here's what Osteen said, that God needs you to do something first so he can bless you. And he uses Lot's account in Genesis chapter 19. And basically he says, quote Osteen, God is saying to you that what he said to Lot is true.

Hurry up and get there so I can show you my favor in a greater way. Now here's a no compromise moment that I thought was really good of Dr. Osteen. Here's Dr. Brian Lee. In Genesis 19 .22, the angel does tell Lot, get there quickly, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.

God waiting on Lot to step out in faith so he can bless him? Not exactly. It is God telling Lot to flee to Zohar, a city of safety, so he can rain down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. What is that called when you take Bible verses out of context?

I think that's called taking them out of context.

What is it called when you always take the Bible out of context?

That's called iso-Jesus.

It's called I'm a heretic kind of thing. Here, I found it. This is my Bible. You have to repeat after me. This is my Bible. Tonight I will be taught the word of God.

Tonight I will be taught the word of God.

I can do what it says. I can do. I can do what it says. I can do. See, isn't that moralistic? Amen. You should see Steve's lips are actually pursed. Amen. With his tongue sticking out just a hair. Here's what Brian Lee says.

Again, bootstraps. That's what he says.

You know what? Let's start doing that. It sounds almost like a curse word. Again, I say bootstraps.

Let's make this the moralistic jibe. Whenever we hear this from people, we'll just say bootstraps. Eric Loody's running off on some kind of horrible nonsensical thing. Bootstraps. Bootstraps. Yes. Did I just say Eric Loody?

You did. All right, we're gonna do a show on Eric Loody one of these days on how we don't think you should go there to the set of free apart from me and us three. And Ellerslie. Climb a theological tree at Ellerslie.

Yeah. Is that written down? That actually was kind of rhyming or something.

Well, you know, when you're on a rap roll, a riff as they say, you know, then you just kind of go with it.

All right, here's what Joe Osteen told 41 ,000 people at this stadium in D .C. It only cost 20 bucks to get in, by the way. Wait a second. Have you ever talked to 41 ,000 people? Well, on Wednesdays, there's actually 82 ,000 people listen.

And on Tuesdays, it's usually like 20 ,500. Ouch.

Ooh, that was searingly painful.

So he said that the affirmation and encouragement that Osteen gave the people was. God is waiting for you to act.

That's a Christian message. Yeah, because God is in yonder heavens, wringing his hands. I mean, this is the God who is impotent, who can't do whatever he wants. He really needs you to go first, and he can't really make you do anything.

I'm just like, if that is the God you worship,.

Then you are wasting your time. Yeah, for those of you who are just tuning in today for the first time, welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Yes, it's great to have you along for the ride. And we don't want you to listen to what you're supposed to do and how you can activate God, initiate God.

You're the catalyst for God. What kind of show would that be, Steve? Some kind of flint, God's flint. Because it only takes a spark to get a fire going, and you have to be the spark.

Well, another way I used to frame this is I'm like, you know, with the whole prosperity gospel, you have to give to get and all this kind of thing. It's like God is some kind of cosmic vending machine.

You put the money in, and then you get what you want out of it. Well, Osteen just says, you know, you tell God what you want.

And then basically you get it. Steve, when we were kids, you'd have M &Ms. They were probably 25 cents, and a stick of double mint gum was probably a dime or something like that. A stick? Sorry, a pack.

Okay.

But they were sticks then. They're now in little bubble wrap things or something, right? Yeah, used to wait till they went on sale for like, you know, you can get three for a quarter.

Yeah, I don't do double mint anymore and juicy fruit especially. I'd eat a big red though. Yeah, but not juicy fruit. Juicy fruit's kind of nasty. Yeah, that was pretty lame. Big red. Sometimes YouTube how to make gum, and you'll find that interesting.

You probably won't want to swallow it when you're done. I doubt that I'll find it interesting. Yeah. Okay, so back to the whole vending machine thing. Is it for recycled tires? God is a vending machine.

Now, who would have thought, who would have thunk it, that vending machines at the airport, you can buy $300 Bose headphones and stuff.

It's crazy. Because the whole idea of having even that kind of credit limit before.

Would have been insane. But anyway, we digress. Okay, so now here's what Brian Lee said, what I thought was interesting, and this will be very apropos to you listeners who go to a smaller church, sometimes feel like they're left out.

You know, the little train that could, we're just at a small. Left behind. Yeah, left behind, uh-huh, that's right. The Pope got raptured, I think, in that series. But we digress. How did he get raptured?

I'm not really sure. He should have been happy to see all the Christians leave. People got raptured.

All the people got baptized as infants got raptured, and even Papa got raptured.

Well, you know, it's what happens when you just try to be politically correct in your theology.

Okay, so move on. I think that's the new Christian version of the Laura Ingall Wilder series,. Papa got raptured. So here's what he said. You're gonna like this. Earlier Sunday, 45 worshipers, 0 .1 of Osteen's crowd, gathered at Christ Reformed Church in Logan Circle to hear a message of sin and salvation, the good news of a God who loves those who are his own sworn enemies.

They responded to God's word with prayer, song, and confession, and received the benediction of a God who pardons sin full and free. There was hope and inspiration, too, but of an entirely different sort.

Admittance was free. Well, I don't think,.

You just don't want to make people feel bad about themselves, and when you start talking about sin and that they need God's forgiveness, that's a real downer.

Well, you know what? If I'm gonna go to a night of hope, I need some hope, right? So if I'm gonna go to a place called Night of Hope, I pay $20 to get in to listen to Joe Osteen. The good news is I think you can probably see portions of his body from far off, even in left field.

Oh, yeah.

Because they got big screen TVs and stuff like that. That's not what I was thinking. Oh, okay. I was thinking you could see his pearly whites from the long nail. Oh, yeah, sure, the glow.

I wonder, by the way, I wonder who sings songs there, probably, who would be some of the singers at such an event? Bono. Yeah, maybe Bono would like to, yeah. Sure. Okay. All right, Steve, that was a kind of a bomb with me on Joe Osteen, so tell me what you've got here in front of you.

Now, you're in the driver's seat,.

You're in the lead train there. I am in the driver's seat. Okay, well, I found something where Rick Warren has embarked on a new thing, a new diet, and it has helped 15 ,000 members of his church collectively drop 260 ,000 pounds.

Wow, and that's actually heavier than a regular pound. You know, there's pound sterling and regular pound because evangelical poundage is a lot heavier. It's a little more like pewter.

Well, I mean, you know, it's no accident that Rick Warren likes those Hawaiian shirts because Oh, Steve. What?

Okay, keep going. I want to know if this is a diet. You know how I like to be on diets? I actually, looking over there at my desk, there's a whole big thing of beet juice there. I'm having nothing today but nuts and beet juice until tonight, and when I get home for dinner, I'll have fried cheese and hot dogs.

Well, now, this is from, you know this is true because it was in Time Magazine. Now, they, Daniel and his friends, refused the royal food and wine, choosing instead a diet of legumes, literally seeds, and water.

At the end of 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the biblical message is to go vegetarian, right? Well, Daniel's decision to forego rich foods like cakes, meats, wines, combined with the New Testament passages calling the human body a temple of the Holy Spirit certainly seems to suggest as much.

But listen, this person, she, by the way, she went to Princeton University and got her MDiv, but listen to this, she says, but the historical context of the book of Daniel suggests that the text is, in fact, has very little to do with diet or health.

And I'm just like, she gets it.

Hey, when the Princeton women understand texts and Rick Warren doesn't, what would that tell you? Like, to quote a great theologian, what would that mean?

It would mean that Rick Warren is far afield. So she went back to her Princeton prof and asked him, and he said, let me get to his quote here, the point is not the triumph of vegetarianism, I like that part, or even the triumph of piety or the triumph of wisdom, Seau is the doctor's name, but the triumph of God.

And I'm like, he gets it. Wow, okay, that's good, and his name's not even Peter Singer.

Yeah, he understood it perfectly. All right, well, Steve, what I did is I just randomly opened my Bible, I kid you not, and it's open to Ecclesiastes 11, I kid you not, in Ecclesiastes 11. Is there a diet here?

There's a new diet, it's called the Ecclesiastes 111 diet. That's 11 colon one, 111, right? So this is Ecclesiastes 111. Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. And so, see?

There's a diet. If you've got Wonder Bread or anything like that, whatever bread you have, you have Ezekiel 4 bread, you just need to cast it on the water, and it will help you because it'll be kind of soggy and mushy and all that stuff, and probably after several days when you find it, you won't want to eat it.

As my pastor likes to say, no likey. No likey that.

We have some news for you if you're listening today. Here's the news. In light of all this jocularity that Steve is I've got more, though. Okay, no, hold on, just a second, but this is just a point I have to just insert right now because I have no notes.

I have to say something. Insert point. Insert point here. If you ever hear about a diet in the guise and in the livery and in the cloak of Christianity, and it has something to do with a Bible verse, run.

Because it's going to go back to the Old Testament. It's going to put you under some Mosaic law. It's going to twist and contort and unravel everything, and it'll sound like it's got a verse to back it up.

And it's not going to do anything. Now, it might help you lose weight. I guess if you're not eating deep fat fried Twinkies, what you eat in Exodus will help you. But you must be careful that just because something says Bible and diet, actually the Bible says God made everything good.

And if you want to eat dog, eat dog to the glory of God. You can't kill a neighbor's dog first, but you can eat whatever you want.

That's disgusting. All right, so I can't eat dog. If you go on a dog diet. I'm not doing that.

No, but if you go on a dog diet, you'll lose weight because you won't kill any dogs. Oh, I would lose a lot of weight.

So this is Michael Horton. Michael Horton first brought this to my attention. I like Michael Horton. Yes, I know. You've talked to him. Yeah, he's a very intelligent fellow. He says, a national paper asked me to comment on this latest plan from a passionately creative Christian leader.

Of course, that's Rick Warren. Says it was the health editor of the national paper. He said, I've never talked to a health editor before, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And he goes, I declined in short order.

And he says, when I was growing up, the Old Testament was a quarry from which to sculpt heroic examples to emulate. Dare to be a Daniel meant something like, man up, don't be afraid of lions. You do your part and God will watch your back.

Still in that genre, or genre, as we like to say. Bootstraps. The Daniel diet focuses predictably on what obsesses most Americans today, obesity. And he says, to badly paraphrase Isaiah, I am out of shape and dwell among an out-of-shape people.

Oh, nice. I knew you'd like that.

That is very nice. That's almost message-esque. That's almost like the beans thing in Romans chapter nine.

He says, it goes back to our human way of reading the Bible. We look for ourselves and God is just in the background. He calls him here a supporting actor in our drama. And that's how many people look at it.

He says, Leviticus is relevant only if we explain how the dietary laws somehow reveal secret principles of universal health when that wasn't the point of these laws at all, et cetera. He just goes on.

But it's just amazing that, again, that this woman from Time Magazine, that this liberal, one would presume, professor at Princeton Seminary, Old Testament professor, they get it. And Rick Warren, the evangelical, does not get it.

Well, Steve, why are we not consistent? We meaning these other people, not necessarily us. But it says in Daniel chapter 1, 16, so the steward took away their food, you know, the king's food that they didn't want to defile themselves with that were offered to pagans, took their food and wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables.

So should we have a new diet about taking away wine? And if you, it's the Christian Daniel wine fast thing where you don't want to have any wine, you should have Methodist Welch, Professor Welch's grape juice instead.

So we just take that part of the Bible and make that run.

Well, in fact, you know what? Here's how you get rid of obesity in our kids. You bring out a really good-looking meal, you know, maybe it's just a hamburger and fries or pizza or something like that, and you put that on the table.

And then you, at the last second, maybe even after you pray for it, you take it away and you replace it with vegetables. Watch what those kids do then. I don't want to eat this stuff. Okay, well, then you're going to go to bed hungry.

Everybody loses weight.

It's a win-win. Steve, I have to digress just for a second, but if you're one of those parents, well, listen, if it's the kid's birthday or something, it's Friday night, kids, what do you want for dinner night?

And you want to please the kids and it's family pizza night or it's a birthday, you get to choose chimichangas or whatever you like to eat. Okay, but day to day, Steve, did your, I know my parents didn't.

They didn't say, well, what do you want tonight? Oh, honey, you don't like meatloaf. What would you like? I want hot dogs. I know some parents, they don't give their kids anything except what the kids want and they have built their prison in the kitchen brick by brick by brick.

Yeah, Monday night was usually deep fried Twinkies night and then Okay, that's right. Tuesday was call out for Shakey's pizza night. Oh, we serve fun at Shakey's. Also pizza. Wednesday, we'd have as many Frosted Flakes as we could.

We used to have like a contest. Of course, I'm joking, but Steve, tell me about Rick Warren. What do you think his next book is going to be? Do you think he's getting more biblical or is he spiraling farther out?

The Purpose-Driven Diet.

A Purpose-Driven Diet and that's, you know what you actually have to do? You have to, you only can live on the purpose-driven book. You tear out a page and if the page is man-centered, you can eat that page for the day.

Oh, well, then you can eat the whole book. And it's higher in fiber, I think, than the typical diet. Well, I mean, imagine that.

He sold 30 million copies, right, of his Purpose-Driven Life book. So you combine that with dieting books, which are always very popular. I think 40, 50, 60 million are not another question.

Well, Steve, for the No Compromise listeners who would like to go on a diet and, do you have any suggestions for them? The No Compromise Diet. Yes, we're going to start doing that, the No Compromise.

Yeah, I invented it many years ago, but here's the first time we're going to announce it. Yes, go ahead. Tell me what I should eat this week. It's a Cinnabon for breakfast, a Cinnabon for lunch, and a Cinnabon ice cream.

And a sensible dinner. And a sensible dinner.

Please don't get your theology from Joe Osteen. Please don't get your theology from Old Testament diets, especially if promoted by Rick Warren. Isn't this simple? Isn't the Christian life simple?

Well, it's supposed to be simple.

What to say no to, what to say yes to. So if you'd like to get your theology, how about picking up R .C. Sproul's book, Chosen by God? How about picking up, what, a John Murray book? How about picking up a John MacArthur book?

Why don't those guys write diet books?

Because they believe in self-control.

I always remember MacArthur saying that sometimes for dessert, if he was offered dessert, he'd say, no, thank you. He could, in the Lord, and had liberty to do it, but he wanted to teach his body who was in charge.

Do you just say no? Shades of seminary prof we used to have, who used to just go like a day or two without eating, just to prove to his body that he was master over it. Who was that, can you tell me? MacDougall.

Oh, I didn't know that. I like MacDougall. All right, MacDougall said in Hebrews 6, if Hebrews 6 teaches you can lose your salvation, you can lose your salvation. Now let's see if it teaches you can do that.

That's good. Okay, we've got 30 seconds to go, Steve. Anything edifying or encouraging or positively K-love to end us on? Positively K-love? I have Sirius Radio now for at least three months trial on my new car, so do they have K-love?

I don't know, but if they don't, they should. They don't, they have a reggae station. Is reggae bad?

Is yoga bad? It's all horrible. Is trans poly saturated fats, are they bad?

According to Ezekiel 25.

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 six. 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.

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