Reformed Cage Stage

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.

Jude and the Archangel Michael

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. Pastor Steve here, and that means there could actually be a message moment coming up. I don�t know. Erin Benziger said the other day she was at a Starbucks or someplace and she heard the Drifters, this magic moment, and she thought of No Compromise Radio.

This man! I just greeted you in Japanese, by the way. Oh, I didn�t know that. Domo arigato.

De nada, senor. Claro que si. Okay, well, we�re just having a real international show here. Jude.

My little buddy. My little pal. There is a commentator who writes on the book of Jude, and he subtitles it, Steve. I think it was Coder is the last name of the commentator. And he subtitles Jude, the Acts, A-C-T-S, of the apostates.

Ooh. Now that is a good title. That�s pretty catchy, yeah. Uh-huh, I like that. And then he goes on to deny everything orthodox. Just kidding, just kidding. The message, quote unquote, Bible�s in front of me.

It doesn�t always get things.

This message moment.

But I did find this fascinating, because this is kind of the MMA translation. This is the Rowdy, Ronda, what�s her name? Rowdy?

Oh, Rousey. Yeah. Rowdy, is it Ronda Rousey? Yeah, I guess.

Jude, the archangel Michael, who went to the mat with the devil as they fought over the body of Moses. That�s not bad. As they fought over the body of Moses, wouldn�t have dared level him with a blasphemous curse, but said simply, �No, you don�t.

God will take care of you.

That�s not the worst that he�s ever done. No, but he took him to the mat. Yeah, that�s kind of interesting. Uh-huh. These people. Well, I mean, it does draw a picture, right, in your head? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I�ve been slammed down on those wrestling mats before. It doesn�t feel too good.

No, so you have to wonder, you know, who got the most bruised.

Felt like my arm was discombobulated. Been there. It was all fun and games swinging my younger brother, Pat, around in a circle when we were in our teens, until when I was in my teens and he was in his single digits.

Yeah, yeah. Until his arm popped out of the socket. Then it wasn�t so funny. How do you have to hold the elbow again to put that thing back in the socket? I don�t know, but that sounds ugly. You know, when you� I�m about to cringe.

You have younger siblings and you�re horsing around and then they get hurt, you know, inevitably the younger ones get hurt and then they�re like, �I�m going to go tell Mom and Dad. Don�t tell Mom. Don�t tell Dad.

But they have to and their arm is drooping down to the floor because it�s dislocated.

Yeah, it�s a little hard to just kind of, you know, I don�t know what he�s talking about, Mom.

Yeah, that wouldn�t work. Steve, I have a variety of things to talk about. I know you�ve got Christianity Today, but do you need to say anything about it? No. Not at all. Okay. This is God�s Part and Man�s Part in Salvation by John Risinger.

Okay. Okay? Yeah. You want to go for that? Sure. Seriously, in all, with all candor, when I sit down to do the show with you and you don�t really know what we�re going to talk about, sometimes you do, but a lot of times you don�t and I just go, �Let�s go with this.

And you just go. It makes it so nice. All right. We could either do that or the early warning signs of adult onset Calvinism. Want to do that instead? Oh, yeah. Let�s do that. Okay. Okay. I have why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless.

That�s kind of fun. And then the other one I have here in front of me. This is right up your alley. Direct revelation and marriage proposals. God told me we should get married. Uh-huh. I mean, that pretty much, that settles it, right?

This seems like it would be a hard one to carry a whole show. Let�s see what onset, you know, adult onset. Calvinism, whatever that is.

Sovereign Grace, Calvinism, and the New Convert

Now, do we believe that the word Calvinism rightly describes what God�s Word teaches about salvation? Yes. Okay. So, why do we even say Calvinism? Calvin had his faults. If somebody�s just tuning in now and they hate Calvinism, you know, all the haters of Calvinism spell it C-A-L-V-A-N.

Calvin. America. Isn�t it just an economy of terms that we just have a word and it just describes a lot? So, in theological parlance, we just throw out the word Calvinism, but we�re really talking about God is sovereign in salvation.

Yeah, it just means the necessity of the sovereignty of God in salvation, yeah.

If God is sovereign in salvation, who isn�t sovereign in salvation? Hmm. We�ll see. Everybody else. God votes for you, Satan and all his witchcraft shows vote against you, and you cast the deciding.

Vote. Yeah, there�s only a couple problems with that. First of all, there is no vote. Secondly, Satan wouldn�t have a vote even if there was. And thirdly, you couldn�t vote because you�re dead. Yeah, yeah.

And your vote is always no. Yeah.

Other than that, no problem at all. Yeah. Yeah. I vote no. As the unbeliever, I vote no. I hate God. I reject Jesus.

Here�s a stiff arm. Satan votes no, so I guess you lose. Two to one. I know.

It�s a losing battle. Well, people begin to move from Arminianism, from free will and resistible grace, and they hear preaching from faithful Arminian preachers that talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Maybe they listen to Billy Graham preach the gospel, the good news found in 1 Corinthians 15, 3, and 4. They go to an independent, fundamental Baptist church, or they are in a charismatic church, or a free will Methodist church, and they begin to study the scriptures, as you referred to a while ago, Steve, in Romans 9.

And they catch, by I think the grace of God, that salvation is sovereign, and God is on the throne when it comes to salvation. And then they, when they�re not careful, they go off the deep end with that truth.

It�s the truth, but they go off the deep end. Give me the psychology of that.

Why does that happen? Well, I think it�s just like a lot of different things. You get super excited, you know. When I get saved, I sold all my comic books, all my records, I sold everything, you know.

Don�t believe it. I�m just going to get, you know, I�m going to purify myself by getting rid of stuff, you know, and as if that was going to solve everything, you know. And I just think this is kind of our response.

We recognize that there�s something different and we just want to do something, you know. So, yeah, I mean, we come to the doctrines of grace and all of a sudden you�re just like, oh, please, you know, you didn�t choose God, you know.

Steve, I, in my mind, think that when I first got saved, while I had a desire to evangelize for the glory of God and I wanted my loved ones to not go to hell and to be born again, I think I went a little overboard with my zealousness.

I was glad to tell the truth and sometimes I look back and think I need to be more zealous like I was then, but probably just a little overboard in my infancy as a new Christian, as my immaturity showed forth with, you know, I just think I went overboard.

Pete Well, I think it�s easy to do. And, you know, so now, I know you do the same thing now when I�m preaching, I�m like, I try to, I kind of keep the voice of Spurgeon in my head, not that I could reproduce Spurgeon, but it�s like, you know, if they�re going to go to hell, let it be over our bodies, you know, let us beg them and urge them, you know.

And so, you know, I think it�s tried to say it this way, but believe like a Calvinist, preach like an Arminian. In other words, really with an urgency and a fervency and with a begging, you know, I want to beseech them.

I want to, you know, I�m an ambassador of Christ, 2 Corinthians 5, and I want them to believe. I want, as much as it depends on me, I want them to believe in the Lord.

Peter Steve, is it possible to preach like a Calvinist, emphasizing the duty of man so you don�t even have to say, I�m going to act or preach like an Arminian? In other words, people say preach, believe like a Calvinist, preach like an Arminian, but what if the retort is, preach like a Calvinist, because you know that through the preaching of the gospel, God saves people and you don�t have to then water anything down.

Peter Well, yeah. I get that.

I get that too. But I know typically, you know, there's more of, when you think about an Arminian, although, you know, the mashing of scripture and stuff like that, but you tend to think of, you know, asking people, encouraging people, exhorting people to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.

And, you know, we see that kind of preaching in the Bible and we want to do that too. It's not just like, we don't just declare these things in, you know, without emotion. Let's just put it that way. We don't declare them without emotion because there is, how can you look at people and recognize that each person has a soul and each one of them is going to have to one day stand before their Creator and give an account for their lives, an account for what they did with the Lord Jesus Christ and not think, boy, I need to urge those people to believe.

I don't want them to go to hell.

Pete. When I was preaching this last Sunday, Steve, on the doctrine of hell, I just was looking out at people thinking, every one of these people is going to die, and then if they're not born again, they are going to go straight to hell forever.

It was very sobering.

It's pretty quiet in the sanctuary. Pete. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing what you're, you know, how that happens now. You know, if you're, if you have to be preaching and there's nothing wrong with this, but if you're preaching on marriage, you know, and you can get lots of laughs about the husbands or lots of laughs about the wives, you know, and stuff like that.

But when you preach about hell, people pretty much aren't laughing too much. Steve. I know, I know!

I'm reading Ephesians 5. It says, Pete. Because she desired it, right? She allowed it. When I had an overzealousness, understandably so, when it comes to evangelism as a new Christian, then I received the second blessing, that is, that God is sovereign in salvation, tulip doctrines of grace, Reformed theology, call it what you will.

I think I was a little overzealous as well, and I think that's what Altrogi, if that's how you pronounce his name, is talking about with adult-onset Calvinism, when it's this cage stage, everything's always about Calvinism all the time.

Pete. Got to take people, you know, correct every bit of their theology, right? They could say, well, I'm a four-and-a-half point Calvinist. You're no Calvinist at all! How dare you call yourself a Calvinist?

Symptoms of Adult-Onset Calvinism

Mark What the author says, approximately one out of every four Christians will encounter adult-onset Calvinism, commonly known as AOC. I thought that was clever. During their life, either personally or in someone close to them, it can be a scary thing to encounter, especially if you're not familiar with the symptoms.

The person you once knew and loved is suddenly a completely different person. Pete Fire-breathing Calvinist. Mark. So, here's what he says to do. Number one, don't panic. Number two, it gets better. Because the people then, they mature, right?

I hope so.

Pete Yeah, hopefully, yeah. I mean, there's no guarantee. Some people remain in that kind of stage, you know, they want to drag everybody into the cage with them, and you're not leaving this cage until you're a Calvinist.

Mark Here's what they say for distinguishing possible symptoms of said adult-onset Calvinism. One, a sudden urge to correct everything and everyone all the time about every possible thing. Hey, don't we do that on NoCoRadio?

Pete I don't see the problem with that, actually. Mark Come on! Who wrote this? Some Sovereign Grace guy, I bet. All right. Two, a growing conviction that every worship song you've ever sung is heretical and should be excised from the church catalog, including the Nicene Creed doxology in most of the songs.

Now, what I will say is this, there's certain liberty in hymnody, and I want to be careful, but there are certain songs that just ought not to be sung. Pete I agree.

Pete. I mean, you know, there are, well, there are a lot of songs that should not be sung. And you know, in terms of modern songs, we refer to them sometimes as Jesus is a boyfriend song, and I was just thinking about one that, you know, Hold Me, Jesus, and I'm like, boy, if we ever were going to sing that on Sunday morning, I'd be like, excuse me, I need to leave the room, like, immediately.

Mark Steve, I don't know the year, but my guess is it was about 1975 to 78 with Debbie Boone and You Light Up My Life. Pete Can you imagine singing that? But there's some songs today that are exactly the same, it just has a better tune.

Pete Well, you know, like I know.

A quote-unquote church that sang The Climb. Mark I don't know The Climb. Pete Well, that's a song by, what's her name? Cyrus, Miley Cyrus. And you know, so the idea of singing one of her songs, and I don't care if it was before her completely jumped off the deep end, you know, stage, that's still just a bizarre song because it has nothing to do with the gospel, nothing to do with the Christ, nothing to do with the Bible, but let's just sing it because it's talking about, you know, improving ourselves and, you know, getting to the top and the climb.

Mark Steve, even with children's songs, we sometimes begin teaching our children at a young age. This is the opposite of biblical verity. And so, let's sing Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder when it's the exact opposite.

There's no ladder to climb to get to heaven. God comes down. Christ Jesus is incarnate. He's the one that descends from heaven to earth and Climbing, Climbing Jacob's Ladder.

Pete I read an article, and I don't even remember the article, but I thought it was by a usually reliable author. And you know, the first part of it was, if you're still doing blank, then you haven't even climbed the first rung of Christianity.

And I just thought, law. Mark. Right. And I was just like, climb the first rung of Christianity. I'm like, I just stopped right there. I'm going, I don't even want to go any further.

Pete I'm depraved and can't climb. That's why I need someone who's called a savior who can climb up instead. Pete. Deep and wide. Remember that song? Deep and wide, deep and wide.

See, I've been saved from so many of these things.

Mark I know, you only have Mormon jumbo in your mind. Pete Yeah, I do have a few of those. Mark Deep and wide's about God's judgment.

From the minor prophets. Pete I doubt that.

Mark. It is, it is. I was listening to Abner Child the other day. I wish I could remember, type it in deep and wide and I think you'll find out.

Pete Yeah, but I really think that probably has something to do, isn't it talking about God's grace or something like that? Mark. There's a fountain flowing deep and wide.

I think it's about God's love, you know, but you need hand signals. So you go deep and wide and you can do that. Pete. Yeah, that's really talking about judgment. The one that I, the one that I always loved was, brought me to his banqueting table, his banner over me, his love, talking about God really loves us.

It's from Song of Solomon and the literal Hebrew translation, he brought me to his house of wine. You have all these little Welch's grape juice drinkers, you know, God's brought me to his house of wine for a big feast.

Mark. Well, you know, you have to understand it really wasn't wine in the sense that we have wine today.

Pete. Oh, it's the, there's a few different words for wine and oikos and glucose and all that. Mark. Yeah, and glucose. Pete. Cage stage, Mike Ebendroth, Steve Cooley, hopefully we're past the cage stage, but we're trying to minister to you all, right?

We're above, we would never do those things. We're past that. I think that's number three when you feel like you're past.

Mark Yeah, we're way past that. Well, number three.

Strange and inexplicable ability to listen to 300 John Piper sermons in a single day. Pete Dude.

Mark Dude. I could never do that.

Mark I know. Well, see, I would, I can see where this guy's coming from, but that was not involved in my cage stage in any way, shape, or form. Pete No.

Mark Yeah. Pete No, John Piper was not a formative. Of course, then he's Sovereign Grace, so. Mark Right, yeah, see?

Pete. Yeah. Mark. Who can we put instead of John Piper? Let's say we're cessationists or something, who would we listen to? Maybe Reformed Baptists would listen to Al Martin 24 -7. Mark. Al Martin, yeah?

Okay. Who else would be someone that they'd listen to all the time? R .C. Sproul, maybe?

Pete Well, see, people are probably waiting for us to say John MacArthur, but John MacArthur wasn't always a five-point Calvinist. Mark Say what? Pete True. Truth.

Mark I love the story that when John was preaching through 2 Corinthians chapter 5 at Grace Community Church on Sunday mornings, and S. Lewis Johnson happened to be in the congregation that day. Pete I was there too.

Mark And he said, as Lewis did, I was quite pleased to know that John MacArthur was now a five-point Calvinist as he was preaching through chapter 5. I think with a little help from Phil Johnson, if I remember rightly.

Pete It was an exciting day. Mark Okay. Let's see what else. A burning passion to convert everyone, especially your extremely godly parents who taught you the Bible, Calvinism.

Pete. Now that's good. That's really good. Mom, Dad, let me tell you, you got it all wrong. What, you mean Jesus Christ died first? No, no, you got that right, but.

Mark. That's funny. I mean, I laugh at all this stuff because I think I'm in there. I'm in that list. And maybe, you know, there's still parts of me that still are in there, but I just think now my strategy is different.

I continue to preach the Bible verse by verse. I try to talk about, I talk about Calvinism on the show with you, but on the pulpit, just keep preaching and pretty soon the lights go on in the minds of the people.

God really is sovereign. If you preach from a God-centered perspective that is biblical, I think it's easier for the congregation to grasp.

Pete I agree in that, and I know you do this too. I really go out of my way. I try to find new ways to present the gospel. I mean, it's the same gospel, I just kind of reword it, repackage it, kind of reimagine it.

And I do the same thing with Calvinism. I don't want to use those words, but what I do is I teach the text and I just show the sovereignty of God and how he saves people in every time it comes up, which is pretty frequently.

So, yeah.

Mark Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley, you know, you kind of check your text and you think, okay, I need to get home and somebody's sick and all that. So, we only have a few more minutes, I think I can finish.

Pete. Okay, check your text. Jared. Check your text! A growing level of arrogance that is directly inverse to the number of blog posts you write about humility. That's clever! Pete. That's very clever.

Jared Very clever. Pete I'm so humble, but these people who just don't get it drive me nuts.

Jared Steve, I've been approached several times by people to write blogs on a regular basis. The problem is I already have a constant ball and chain of feed me, feed me, feed me, and her name is No Compromise Radio, so I don't need another.

Pete You don't need another blog. Jared This is my daily blog right here. I talk, that's my blog. Pete It's a blog talk. Jared Blog talk! Pete Welcome to blog talk. Jared Constant cravings for cigars and microbrews, even though they make you incredibly sick.

Pete. Yeah, you know, I don't know that that's the cage stage, though. I think that's the kind of more, you know, as the pendulum swings back, because the first step, I think, in Calvinism is a certain legalistic tendency.

And it's later on that you realize all the freedoms you have. And, you know, I think there's a tendency to almost kind of put your freedom in other people's face.

Jared Steve, we know people because we are people and we're getting older. Pete And therefore, we know people. Jared Yeah, yeah, we are people, people knowers. Pete Yeah. Jared Yeah. Gnosis and OIDA. Pete People knowing other people.

Jared Epigonosis, yes. And so I watch people and say to myself, we see the pendulum. And so if you grow up in a very strict family, and then you get out of the house, you go crazy. And if you grow up in a very crazy house, and then you grow up and or get saved, you become very, you know, I want to do the right thing now.

And so it just goes back and forth. And many people who have grown up with a King James only, fundamentalist, Arminian type of background, maybe just charismatic background, where there are lots of rules, then get saved, and then they realize what Calvinism teaches, i .e. you're justified by Christ's work, because of Christ's work alone, through faith, and you cannot become more justified by not smoking or smoking, then they say, okay, then I better try it.

Little dab will do you.

Pete. You better try it. And I'm like, there, I don't know. There's just, I'm like MacArthur. And I guess it's because I grew up around smoking, but I've never thought that taking dried leaves and, you know, lighting them on fire and inhaling them into my lungs was really a great idea.

Jared. But it makes you dizzy. Pete. Yeah, okay. I don't need to be dizzy. I do that all my own, just chasing grandkids.

Jared I don't need to be dizzy. Deep suspicion of anything that might cause the slightest bit of emotion in church, especially those awful worship songs noted above.

Pete. And well, and you know, this gets back to what I was saying earlier. Listen, it's not, to me, it's not enough to just declare the truth. I mean, yes, I want to do that, and yes, that's the goal, but I want to be impassioned about it.

I want, and I want people to get it, and I want them to be fired up, and I want them to, you know, have the pathos and to really just kind of, yes, that's right, and that's good. And, you know, for people who are sitting there not believing yet, I want them to go, I can see he's fired up, but I don't get it.

Jared. I love emotion, and we would never want someone to be emotionless. Who are the people that we know that are emotionless? Data, Spock.

Pete. Yeah. I mean, what a horrible preacher he would be, right? It's not logical, Captain.

Jared But even to this day, I don't like fake emotion, contrived emotion. I love that Alistair Begg sermon where he's preaching at 830 in the morning, and everybody's trying to just get hyped up with music, and he's thinking, I haven't even been, you know, awake long enough to become super emotional.

I become emotional in response to God's revelation. So give me some of God's revelation. How can the first song that you sing in the morning at 830, everybody's all amped up? Pete Too much coffee? Jared What does it say, Steve, for a sanctuary, a house of God, that will not allow coffee to be brought in?

Pete I think it's, I think they're concerned about their carpet and their furniture and everything else, so I don't really think that's terrible. Jared Have you ever spilled coffee in the sanctuary? Pete Negative, because I won't take any coffee into the sanctuary, nothing but, I mean, I drink coffee, but I'm only taking water into the sanctuary because I know me.

I mean, I'm a human being. Some people apparently are not human beings because they're never worried about spilling. Jared Maybe it's a spill-proof lid. Pete Yeah, there's no such thing. I look for things that are Steve-proof and they usually aren't.

Jared All right, well, no compromise. Radio today, we are just saying that we do affirm the five points of Calvinism and God is sovereign in salvation, but people need to just kind of mellow out a little bit.

Pete Yes. And I mean, not be mellow about the truth, but just understand that not everybody arrives at perfect five-point.

Calvinism right away. Jared. And if you do really believe it, it's only the grace of God that's allowed you to believe it anyway. Pete. Preach.