Hiding Heresy (Part 2)

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The Thief on the Cross (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
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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.
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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 back to No Compromise Radio ministry. It is 3 .30,
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I believe, here in Massachusetts, and you are listening to WVNE Radio, 7 .60
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on your AM dial. Remember the first time I was ever on the radio, I believe it was an AM station,
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K -O -I -L. In Omaha, Nebraska, I won a contest, and you were able to go into the radio studio and say a couple things, and I probably said, um, uh, different, our.
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I don't know what I said, but I remember going into K -O -I -L, and then they gave me a little transistor radio, AM only, but I would listen to the
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University of Nebraska football games. It was about 1969, and I remember those games with that transistor radio up to my head, listening to coach
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Bob Devaney. I even had a T -shirt, Bob Devaney for president, and I would listen to those
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Nebraska games with Jerry Tagge and Jeff Kenney and Joe Orduna, and those were good old days, and then
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I was a disc jockey during my college days, probably only for about 18 months, two years, and it was a punk rock show.
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It was a community access radio station, KZUM, I think 89 .5, small little radio station out of the house of a,
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I don't know, some crunchy liberal vegan kind of person, and we would go in there, and Bill Stoughton and I, we had a show called
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Aural, meaning pertaining to the ear, A -U -R -A -L, Delights, and so we would play all kinds of things.
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He was into synth kind of rock, and I was into punk rock and Joy Division and stuff like that, and so I don't know if the show was really any good or not, but we would just go in and play our records on Thursday nights, and then a while, let's see, how many years ago was this?
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Maybe six or seven years ago, Kim's grandmother, Kim is my wife, and she had a really neat grandmother who went to be home with the
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Lord this year, Evelyn Nichols, and Evelyn Nichols, I think at 88, 89, maybe a little bit earlier than that, she started a radio show for children,
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Heart to Heart with Grandma Evie, and it's fun, we have all those old cassettes, and Heart to Heart with Grandma Evie were stories, missionary stories, gospel center stories for children, and so I remember being on that talking to Grandma about how to have family devotions, how to have family devotions, and so there's been a stream of radio that has gone through my life from K -O -I -L to K -Z -U -M to,
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I can't remember the Santa Cruz station Grandma was on, oh, well, can't remember, to WVNE, so I guess the point is, what comes around goes around.
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All right, on No Compromise Radio Ministry today, I still have one book left to give out, Glorifying God by Thomas Watson, great
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Puritan writer, it's a daily devotional with some of Watson's key writings, and it is compiled and adapted by Patty Hummel, my friend, it is a
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Thomas Nelson book. I've been hearing good things about Thomas Nelson, and I hope
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I continue to hear more. Well, today is part two on heresy hiders in evangelicalism.
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Jared Moore wrote an article, October 25th, 10 Heresy Hiders in Evangelicalism.
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How do you get heresy into local churches? You can't just say, hi, I'm heresy, you have a little mascot, that'd be good, the heresy mascot,
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Harry Heresy, that'd be funny, and you could have some animal, what's an animal that starts with an
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H? Horse, the heresy horse comes in, you dress up like a horse, or like a rabbit, hair, the hair, hair heresy,
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I don't know what it would be, but heresy likes to cloak itself, it likes to be covert, it likes to use subterfuge, don't you like that word, subterfuge?
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It likes to creep in unawares through people, as Jude 4 would say, crept in unnoticed with kind of night goggles on when you're sleeping, the prowler of heresy.
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So how does it come to a church? It has to sneak itself in, it just can't say, hi, I'm heretical, unless it's an
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Oprah Winfrey book reading church, or there's one down the street from us, and they get together and read books and talk about those things, and I'm sure they wouldn't know what heresy was if it bit them, so we're talking about mainline, no, we're not talking about mainline churches, we're talking about mainstream evangelical churches.
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So 10 heresy hiders in evangelicalism, I'll give you the first four quickly in review. Put your heresy in a song with a good beat, number one, number two, put your heresy in a song with some sentimentality, number three, appeal to the sinful nature,
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I wanna hear how awesome I am, four, appeal to the idolatry of your hearers through entertainment and through something that is not absolute, no absolute truth, just make it postmodern, and now number five, so no -compromise radio today, number five here, here's my paper,
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I don't have the retched -er camera around here, I guess we could make this with a camera, but then you wouldn't know when to watch it, because right now, it's not 3 .30,
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it's really 12 .10 Eastern Standard Time, it's raining outside, it's a fall day, and it's cold, it's supposed to snow on Thursday, actually, how about that?
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So no camera, that's the moral of the story, keep your cards and letters coming. We're getting low on funds, better send the money.
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Oh man, number five, dress it up in new clothes, don't present heresy how previous heretics presented it, instead dress it up in new clothes, present the heresy like a politician does, use catchphrases that sound biblical, most people will walk away thinking, saying, and believing your catchphrases.
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Now the most important thing there that Jared said is how heresy cloaks itself in the livery or the garb of Christian vernacular.
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So when you talk to a Mormon, it takes a long time to get it out of them that they're actually Mormon, and so what you have to do, if you say, do you believe in Jesus, have you accepted
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Jesus in your heart, whatever you wanna say, they know Christian terminology, but the thing is their definition of your
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Christian words are different. See, I even said that, different. I hate it when I say different, like it's two syllables, it's different.
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So actually we have a listener who's a linguist and they sometimes make comments that are usually pretty good comments, but they just wanna know if I was from Missouri because they said only people in Missouri say different.
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And so I said, well, I must've been influenced by Missouri when I went to the Ozarks as a kid. No, wait, are
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Ozarks out there, are they? I don't know, are they? I think they are. I think maybe the
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Lake of the Ozarks, those are in Missouri. I do remember having deep fat fried lobster tail.
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I'm on this juicer diet, now I have just juice for breakfast and juice for lunch and then kind of eat whatever I want for dinner.
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And so my skin is probably looking like it's orange from all the carrot juice.
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So what unbelievers do who wanna promote heresy is they come into your church and they have all the right language.
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That's why it's so important. What do you mean by Jesus? What do you mean by his death?
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What do you mean by his resurrection? After all, they could say he just was not literally resurrected, he was resurrected in your heart.
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That's what liberals say, for instance, that I believe in the resurrection of Jesus because he was raised up from the dead in my heart.
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It has nothing to do with the gospel historical, objective fact that happened 2000 years ago.
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So I think that's very insightful by Jared, dress it up in new clothes, new catchphrases.
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Number six, change definitions. If you'd like to heresy hide in evangelicalism, change definitions.
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Do you know what? I didn't read every one of these word for word and I guess this is melding into what I just said last time.
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If you change the definition of words, you can sign any document or agree with any orthodox doctrine.
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You know that what you mean, you know what you mean, just make sure no one else does. Try to please everyone a little bit for after all, when it comes to doctrine and evangelicalism, you don't have to be orthodox, you just need to sound orthodox.
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Well, that's fascinating. Now, I did make some comments on number five that would be apropos for number six, but I will say something in addition.
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When you change the definitions and you want to just sound orthodox, that's exactly what the
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Roman Catholic Church does when it has the ECT, for instance. Evangelicals and Catholics Together, early 90s, a lot of people signed it.
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Thankfully, men like D. James Kennedy, R .C. Spurl and John MacArthur didn't sign it and they had a show where they talked about the differences, but others did sign it like J .F.
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Packer. Let's see, who else? Bill, who was Campus Crusade guy,
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Bill Bright. I wish I had somebody in my ear telling me, oh, that's
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Bill Bright. There are others who signed it as well. And you read it and at first glance, if you don't have your theological spectacles on, you think, yeah, that's the language.
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So if someone says they believe that you're saved by grace through faith, well, what do you mean by grace?
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What do you mean by faith? I can say that and I know what I mean, but the
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Roman Catholics can say that as well. And we mean something completely different. Different, different.
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And certainly the Catholics, if they're right, then I'm wrong and I wish somebody would help convince me of that instead of just calling me a
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Catholic basher. If they're concerned for my soul, when they want me to be helped, but I am concerned for the
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Catholic soul because the only Catholic that's going to heaven is a bad Catholic, a Catholic that does not agree with the doctrine of the
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Roman Catholic Church that teaches you're saved by grace through faith, by the Catholic's definition.
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Because it's not grace according to the Bible and it's not faith alone, it's plus sacraments, et cetera.
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So see how tricky that is. Do you believe in faith alone, grace alone? As we try to define things with precision so we understand what is going on?
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Because there's a lot at stake. There's a lot at stake when it comes to who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.
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And if we hide behind, oh, don't say anything bad about me or you're bashing people.
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I'm not bashing anyone. I'm trying to tell you the truth. I'm trying to tell you, you need to get it under your thick noggin that you ought to open up your own
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Bible and begin to read it. Read your New American Bible, read the Douay version,
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I don't care what it is, and find out what the Bible says about salvation. It's the only way we're gonna know.
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We're not gonna know through a church. We're not gonna know through a magisterium. Look at the
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Bible. So when it comes to ECT and other things, it's the evangelical naivete, naivete, naivete, that gets them in trouble.
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And so the Catholics know exactly what they mean. I would say, on average, they're smarter than the typical evangelical.
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And that's why if it's a Catholic in an evangelical debating, I think the Catholic usually wins the debate, although what they are talking about, they don't win, unless that debater is
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James White, and then there's not gonna be nothing but smoke. You're gonna need a fire extinguisher afterwards because James, A, knows the real faith.
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B, has studied the opponents. And C, goes by the rules of the debate.
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Will somebody just please go by the rules of the debate besides James White? Number seven, appear cool, sweet, metro, or simply different from other pastors.
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Spike your hair and dress cool. Say curse words from the pulpit occasionally. Be edgy, a type of shock jock.
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Be the Howard Stern of the evangelical world. So if you like to hide heresy, then do that.
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Now when I read that, I think I know what person he's talking about. If I was that person and I would read that,
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I would say, well, I'm not trying to get heresy into the church, I'm trying to teach the truth. Well, we do like cool.
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We do enjoy trendy. We follow fashion.
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And so not too many people like nerdy people. Unless you're a nerd yourself.
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But nerds aren't cool. They haven't ever been cool. They're not cool in junior high. They're not cool in high school.
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They're not cool afterwards. And sometimes people don't think they're cool in the church. And so what you do is you say, you know what?
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I think I'll try to find a rich part of town like Heibles did, like Warren did.
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Like on some cases for certain that I know of, Harvest does. Let's try to find a rich part of town where there's lots of young people and plant a church there.
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Now, at the core, there's nothing wrong with planting churches in rich places with a lot of young people because everyone needs the gospel.
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But here's what I would look for. In addition to, if people plant and continue to brag about how many churches they plant,
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I want them to also plant churches in places that are sparsely populated and they have a lot of uncool people there.
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Where are the churches for the nerds and the geeky kind of people? Where are they?
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Where is that in the strategy, the master plan strategy of some of these church growth places and churches and organizations?
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Now, if I learn about some, I'll be happy to talk about them. But I would just say in general, it's much easier to plant a church with cool people.
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You know, if I had to pick, you said, you know what, Mike? I think you're kind of a hypocrite.
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Do you like cool people or nerdy people? Well, I'm sure in my life that I would say, oh,
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I want to be around cool people. I don't even want to be nerdy myself.
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I want to be cool. I want to be, maybe I don't want to be cool. I'm not ascribing to be cool, but I don't ascribe to be nerdy.
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Let's put it at least that way in the negative. But when it comes to, that's my personal life.
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But when it comes to pastorally, I am to minister to all kinds of people, Jews and Gentiles and Greeks and barbarians and slave and free and male and female, black and white, cool and nerdy.
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And so I just think there needs to be a movement. I'd like to figure out a way that I could put a national conference on.
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This is along the same lines, a national conference for small pastors, for insignificant pastors, insignificant in the eyes of maybe evangelicalism and certainly the world, but not in the
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Lord's eyes. Something where the people who weren't in the know, they showed up too.
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Those who weren't cool, they showed up. Those pastors having 35 people in a poor farm community where there wasn't too many cool people.
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Everybody seemed to wear overalls. And I went to a tractor warehouse the other day. I'd never been to a tractor warehouse.
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There's a new one in our area and it opened and it sells cool things. I mean, it sells tractor kind of things, but it also sells,
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I don't know, what else did it sell? Ladders and tires and it sold a variety of different things.
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John Deere shirt, it had a big section of shoes, boots, work boots,
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Carhartt stuff. And as the Red Sox have the pink hats, the Carhartt now has pink hats as well.
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But anyway, where are those ministries that say, you know what, let's go for people who the world doesn't really love.
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And we wanna make sure they know about how God loves sinners. Well, number eight, what are we doing on No Compromise Radio Ministry today?
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You're writing me at info at nocompromiseradio .com if you'd like. Or if you go, we're trying to give a little more updates on Twitter now and on Facebook.
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And so if you wanna find out what's going on there, you can, maybe where I'm gonna be speaking in the future, et cetera, you can do that.
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We're doing 10 Heresy Hiders in Evangelicalism. Jared Moore, he's basically giving me the platform to launch on what
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I'd like to talk about. Eight, get everyone to like your personality. If everyone likes you, then you can say almost anything.
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Always be in positive and encouraging. So if you wanna be promoting heresy, then make sure you've got a good personality.
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And that's exactly what happens. These personalities who do promote heresy, they are smart, articulate, they are personable, they have unique personalities, they're good leaders, managers, et cetera.
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Very, very true, good insight from Jared. If your flock gets to know you well enough, they realize the dings you have in your character and the flaws you have in your person and the sins that still haunt you.
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And then they think, you know what, I better focus on the Jesus that he talks about, not him. Now we are to be examples of the faith as pastors and elders.
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We are to have people imitate the faith as far as it is Christ -like, Christ -centered, et cetera.
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I understand all that. That's the problem with being on radio or a theologian or a pastor. You have to parse all your words and say all these things and no one gets the wrong idea.
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But if people are here because they like me at the end, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad.
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That's one of the reasons I like to be gone during the summer is because the same gospel that I preach, the other pastors here preach, and we just move on.
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I'm going to move out of here one day, either because I can't stand the cold and I get older or I'm gonna die or the
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Lord will come back. I guess that last one doesn't apply to the situation at hand. But the church hopefully will move on because I don't want it built around a personality.
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Now, I know the church takes on the personality of the pastor to some degree. Sadly, both his faults, gladly what he excels in as the
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Lord gives him strength to do that. But anyway, the personality is a good way to get it in the door.
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So Joe Osteen, he's got a winsome personality in that he smiles and seems like he's a good old boy, tells jokes, says some dopey thing about raise your
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Bible and repeat after me. That is so bad. Number nine, how to get heresy into a church.
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Grow the crowd numerically. If your methods produce visible numbers, then you can almost say anything.
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In evangelicalism, numbers equal success and success, not biblical obedience, is the goal.
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And so this is exactly what happens. This happens even with people who are orthodox in their belief.
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And so whether it's Driscoll or somebody else, when they critique others because those others don't have as many numbers,
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I find that fascinating. And so we are not, we are not supposed to be at the end of the day, in terms of evangelical
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Christians, pragmatist. If it works, therefore it must be right.
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That is not true at all. If it works, it must be right. I'm sure there were times where these gods and goddesses in Egypt worked, where some kid was offered up and the illness was stopped and the plague was stopped.
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That doesn't mean it's right to do. And we are not pragmatist. We do what God requires.
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And if it works, fine. If it doesn't work, fine. Our responsibility is faithfulness as good stewards, not will it work.
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And so if you say, well, I just have a lot of people, we've got a lot of people and you don't, therefore what we do is right and what you do is wrong.
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Now there's no glory in trying to be small for small sake, but there's glory to be said for the pastor and the elders in the church saying, this is the
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Lord's church and he wants some small churches. He wants some large churches. He can do whatever he wants, but we need to be faithful to preaching the sacraments slash ordinances, church discipline, et cetera.
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That's what we're going to do. And so when you hear people saying how many thousands of people were there, the new elephant room guest is from Hawaii and on the elephant room site, the guy, his bio, 14 ,500 people.
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Well, if the person had 10 ,000 come on a Sunday like John MacArthur, because John was preaching faithfully the text verse by verse, big centered, a big view of God, Christ centered.
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Well, then I don't care about the numbers because a lot of people heard George Whitfield. It doesn't mean George Whitfield did the wrong thing.
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I almost, I said Whitfield, didn't I? I'm turning into a German. But after I listened to that guy's message online, the
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Hawaii guy, I wish I knew his name. It was horrible. 14 ,500 people come to hear that.
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That is unbelievable. And so you got a lot of people show up and you're Hawaiian and we'll have you on the panel.
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That doesn't do me any good. These days you got book publishers have to sell books.
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That's just life. And I don't blame them one little bit for that because they have to shut their doors if they don't sell books.
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But you don't hear from a lot of people who have small congregations and no influence because no one will buy their books unless it's so stellar that it just has to be written.
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This is a book that has to be published. But most often, and it's happened to me several times,
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Mike, this is good information. Evangelicalism needs this. It's encouraging, it's biblical, it's
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Christ centered, but nobody knows you. And so therefore your books aren't going to sell. We're going to have to pass.
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I'm telling you, it happens a lot. And there are a lot better writers than I am by far.
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But I think the books that I have are important, but nobody buys them because nobody knows who
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I am. If you knew me, to know me is to love me. Well, I think you get the point. Number 10, increase giving and baptism.
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If you're bringing in money and numbers, you can say or do about anything. See the Lord's blessing. I remember when I got to Bethlehem Bible Church, numbers went up and giving went up.
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And therefore, even though people didn't like what I was preaching, people didn't like necessarily me and my style, they said, well, the
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Lord's blessing. And so that kept me under the radar for a while before the big blow up because their own wrong pragmatism kept them from going after me earlier because they thought the
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Lord was blessing with numbers and giving. Sometimes the Lord does bless with numbers and giving. That's not why we do things.
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That's not what we're after. And because numbers and giving goes up, then we say anything. If the world likes you, the evangelical church will like you as well.
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Make sure the world thinks you're a big deal. Well, the world should think we're weird. The world should think what we preach is offensive and foolishness.
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And so we don't really want to care what the world says. So good job, Jared Moore. I appreciate that. We are
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Bethlehem Bible Church's No Compromise Radio Ministry. Happy to be on your station.
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Why don't you tell a friend, nocompromiseradio .com. You can go to our iTunes. You just download them. 24 minutes and 30 seconds every day.
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And as my friend Ray says, a no -co a day keeps the confusion away. No Compromise Radio Ministry, info at nocompromiseradio .com.
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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.