Chrystal Cathedral is Broke

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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 king.
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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. I am trying to keep a straight face right now.
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Steve Cooley is here in the studio, and we are sitting in Worcester, Massachusetts, and right now it happens to be raining.
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It is a rar day. What is rar? Roar. I'm not really sure, but all
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I know is it's so unusual to have inclement weather up here in New England, and it's somewhat distressing. Actually, rar is
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R -A -W, raw, pronounced with a New England accent, because you have to add the R there.
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And Steve, you're just worth singing Don't Go Breaking My Heart. Were you Elton John or were you
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Kiki Dee when you were singing that? I'll take the fifth on that. Today we'd like to talk about the storm cloud that has appeared suddenly and dramatically, and probably, if we think about things correctly, quite happily, over the
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Crystal Cathedral. I think there should be some kind of orchestral drum, not a drum roll, but the deep bass drums kind of pounding right now.
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Yeah, almost like, well, no, that's kind of like hoof prints running around. That's Monty Python.
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I hear a horse coming over. Clump, clump, clump. No, but, you know, I mean, deep, dramatic kind of buildup to this, because this is a most serious and distressing bulletin we have here.
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Well, if you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we do recognize that love, biblical love, it's not happy when bad things happen to people.
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We would never want bad things to happen to people, and even horrible things that happen to some false teacher.
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But when a theological system slash church that is apostate goes under,
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I think that is worthy of rejoicing. Preach it. So today we're going to be talking about the
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Crystal Cathedral and how they are not only spiritually bankrupt, but how they are fiscally bankrupt.
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Christianity Today, April 12th, 2010. It says here, Crystal Cathedral apologizes for debts.
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Sarah Bailey said they are getting together at Crystal Cathedral to discuss debt payments after businesses against them have filed for lawsuits.
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$2 million in unpaid services. What does that tell you? It tells me they owe a lot of money, more than I make in a week.
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I like this part of that where it says, or I find it interesting, when asked, cathedral administrators told them, told these folks here at this briefing, that there were as many as 185 creditors waiting in line to be paid.
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185 creditors. You've been borrowing a lot of money from a lot of folks when you owe 2 million plus to 185 people.
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Well, the thing about it is, Steve, they don't even recognize what the problem is. I mean, Shuler will say, no church has a money problem.
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Churches only have an idea problem. And then he'll go on and say, we've really supported you, people, and so now we need you to tithe and double tithe and triple tithe.
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And it's like Nancy Pelosi saying, I didn't do anything wrong. President Obama, well,
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I don't care that the Republicans just took over the House. It's just, they're so blind and see how this kind of sin enslaves people.
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Yeah, he says, I think we've earned, or he doesn't say, I think we've earned your trust. He says, we've earned your trust.
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And I'm like, hey, that's quite nice of you to say that. But I just found the whole concept of double tithe very interesting.
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I'm like, you know, I think I've read the New Testament a few times, and I don't remember Jesus or any of the apostles mentioning the double tithe.
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The double tithe, that would be for the special anointed ones. Do you do the double tithe, by the way, in the pike position, or is that?
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I think that one guy actually hit his head doing the double tithe. And there was blood in the pool,
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Greg Double Tithe Louganis. Los Angeles Times runs the article,
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New York Times runs the article, Wall Street Journal runs the article. My big problem when people like the media call this a mega church, my problem is it's not a church.
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If we go back to the Reformation and we say, it is a New Testament church with the proper preaching of Christ Jesus exalted, the proper administration of the sacraments or ordinances, that is,
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Lord's Supper and Baptism, and church discipline, how can some humanistic religion dressed in Armani suits be called
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Christianity? Because it has nothing to do with Christianity. But they say they're Christians and they say they're a church.
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Therefore, they are a Christian church, and since they're big, they're a meager church. A meager.
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Well, the problem is, and we want you, as you listen to No Compromise Radio Ministry, to realize that words are defined by many people, but that's, let me rephrase that.
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What do they mean by sin, Savior, Jesus, hell, death? And if it doesn't match up to what the
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Bible teaches, then they are false teachers and they're using code words that they know you like to try to get you in.
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Right, it's just, it's amazing. I mean, just to, the whole possibility thinking thing here, this article that says, listen, that they owed, they wanted protection listing more than 55 million in debt, including a $36 million mortgage.
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And I happen to know that at the time it was billed, in 1981, that the approximate cost of the
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Crystal Cathedral was 18 million. And you think about all the years that he was on TV, not just some kind of TBN deal, but an actual, you know,
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I know in LA, I think he was on Channel 9, you know what I mean? So they paid a lot of money over the years and got a lot of money in, and you just have to ask yourself, what kind of stewardship is it when after all these years, you can wind up owing more than the building originally cost to build and, you know, being ultimately bankrupt, even though you've spent all this money on all this television, you know, and I know
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Reverend Bob, as he's known in our home, doesn't travel, you know, third class, hanging onto the wing, he travels in style.
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So they spent all this money and they're broke. Well, I thought it was interesting when they said in the article, a new chapter for the
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Crystal Cathedral. In other words, chapter 11. You know, the problem is, and everyone knows it if you listen to the show for long enough, his
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TV show, Hour of Power, was built upon a false view of man and trying to build people out of money to get them to feel good.
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And we need to realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come.
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For men will be lovers of, what's the first on the list? Self. In 2 Timothy chapter three, they're lovers of self.
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And he knows how to appeal to people because you appeal to them within their pride, their self -worth, you know, and he'll say,
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I believe in salvation by grace, but really his salvation is not from sin and death and hell and from God's wrath, it's delivering yourself from poor self -esteem.
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Oh yes, I believe in hell, but hell is not a fiery eternal place for Schuller, it's a loss of self -esteem.
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And so this kind of place, I'm glad it's going under, the faster the better. I hope some Calvary Chapel or some other place that actually would have enough temerity to teach the
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Bible would take it over. Yeah, I mean, listen to this quote. This is him talking,
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I think in 2001, he wrote this. He said, I realized that every sermon I preached, whether formally from the pulpit or casually at a coffee shop,
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I don't know how that's a sermon, should be designed not to teach or to convert people, but rather to encourage them, to give them a lift.
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I decided to adopt the spirit, style, strategy, and substance of a therapist in the pulpit.
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As Pastor Steve would say, mm. Yeah, that's horrific.
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Listen, when you preach, do you want people to feel good about themselves? Are you trying to affirm them?
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Are you trying to build them up? Is that what you do when you preach God's word? Well, I don't think they're practicing what they preach,
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Steve, because if you are a possibility thinker, I think you need to do some more thinking, possibly, to get yourself out of this debt you're in.
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And you know, isn't it interesting, Steve, where they say, well, Robert Schuller's gonna have to step down, he's getting older, let's pass off the ministry to the son.
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The son begins to preach some stuff about sin that actually lines up more with scripture than with his father's
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Norman Vincent Peale. Peale is appalling and Pauling is, Peale.
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I said that wrong, by the way. Paul is appealing and Peale is appalling. And he teaches that, and then all of a sudden,
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God tells him to then remove the son and have the daughter come in to give the same spew that the father had done, and that is positive thinking.
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How Christian is that? Well, you know, God told him, and this is a quote, give me two more years, 24 more months, because God wanted to make sure he got the two more years thing.
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He says, don't worry, I have called your daughter, Sheila, too, she is equipped and she will be your egg, or your egg.
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She'll be your legs. She'll be your eggs. Oh, this is for Easter service, she'll be your egg.
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She'll be a full carton. What came first, the daughter or the son? And I mean, you know, this whole thing about women preaching, first Timothy two, don't worry about that, because if God tells you, that sort of overrules what the
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Bible says. Remember when Michael Horton asked Schuller about people are sinners, and should you preach that they're sinners, and then
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Schuller responded, because Horton rightly said, we do tell people they're sinful. Schuller said, quote,
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I hope you don't tell people they're sinners, they will never come to your church if you tell them that.
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So two problems, one problem is, of course we're to tell people sinners, that they're sinners, because they in fact are, but we're not trying to get people to come to our church.
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Tell them the right thing. $500 underneath one of the pew seats, come one, come all.
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It is just so ridiculous. And so we have a person named Robert Schuller who is getting his, at least on earth, comeuppance, and then can you imagine how much worse it will be after telling these people for all these years about how good they are?
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What is it gonna be like for Robert Schuller in hell? He needs to get saved from his own sin, and that's not a lack of self -esteem either.
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Now, you know, I think it was that same interview with Horton where he said that if all of his church became
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Muslim after he died, that he wouldn't be concerned about it as long as they were good people.
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This, I mean, basically the gospel, in quotation marks, of Robert Schuller is be good, think highly of yourself, and things will be well with you.
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That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. When you preach about sin, and if you preach about it long enough, and you tell people they're sinful, when
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God is working, the spirit of God is convicting, then those unbelievers will try to find a solution.
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Steve, you were there yesterday, and I preached at a funeral, and for all we know, a funeral of an unbelieving man, and so the 80 people, or 100,
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I don't know how many were there, needed to be told that they were sinful, and one day they would, in fact, die, and then stand before God, and that there is salvation to be found in Christ Jesus, and a man came up to me at the reception and said, he walked over and he said,
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Father, and my children weren't around, and so I guess, you know, I didn't say don't call any man
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Father. I didn't quote that verse, but he said, Father, do you think God could forgive a man like me?
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Now, that was quite amazing for me to hear, because he told me about his heroin addiction and everything else.
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Now, Steve, if I would have gone to that funeral and said, God loves you all, he unconditionally loves you, and you need to think good thoughts and all that, that man never would have said, hmm,
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I might need to be forgiven. That man would have said, I'm good to go. So that's my big problem, is they're coding, you know, the
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Bible with this, you're great, and why would we have Jesus killed, and absorb the wrath of the
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Father if everybody's good? And, you know, just on a little personal note,
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I mean, I sat back there and thinking, you know, I've been to a few funerals that you've preached, and I thought, well,
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I've heard more, you know, oomph -y messages, but I go, you know, the gospel's there and everything, and so, you know, then last night when you said that,
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I just thought, well, it shows what I know, because what does God use? He uses scripture, he uses faithful men who preach, and you preached the gospel yesterday, and so it's not the manner of, you know, eloquence.
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Is that what you mean by oomph -y? Yeah. It's eloquence? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I just thought, I go, well,
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I've heard Mike better, and, you know, it wasn't like it was bad or anything, but I've heard him better. It was a B -plus on the
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Avendroth scale, and, you know. Which is an A -plus -plus on the Cooley scale. On the
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Cooley scale, it's way, it's off the chart, but. Don't go breaking my heart. But I just thought, and this is true in so many situations where it is not the eloquence of the speaker.
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I mean, think about Spurgeon's conversion, whatever. I mean, it is the truth and the
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Holy Spirit using that truth, applying it, cracking someone's heart, and who knows where this man's gonna be in six months, you know, hopefully saved and plugged into a local church, but the issue here is, what is the gospel, and, you know, what do you do?
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How do you just affirm people where they are? You know, just say, well, you know what, God loves you. You just be good, and God loves you, and you're gonna get to heaven.
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Schuller is as close to a universalist as you could possibly be, and dare to call yourself a
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Christian. He's given his pulpit over to Jewish woman, the radio,
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Dr. Laura. Dr. Laura. Dr. Laura, various people, you know, of different faiths, and, you know, just allowed them to use the pulpit during, for a quote -unquote, message.
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Well, that's an interesting thought that you bring up, and since this is No Compromise Radio, WVNE 760
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AM, you can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. If I was asked to preach there,
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I guess the question is, do you go? And so, for Mark Driscoll to go there and preach one time,
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I don't necessarily hold that against Mark Driscoll. The only thing I hold against the whole deal is, they should never invite you back again, because that's the problem.
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Listen to Robert Schuller in his blasphemous book called Self -Esteem, The New Reformation, page 67.
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The core of original sin, then, is lot, L -O -T, lack of trust, or it could be considered an innate inability to adequately value ourselves.
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Label it negative self -image, but do not say that the central core of the human soul is wickedness.
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If this were so, then, truly, the human being is totally depraved. But positive
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Christianity does not hold to human depravity, but to human inability. And, you know, every time
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I read that, I mean, it's breathtaking, but I always stop when it gets to then is lot, and I'm going to Abraham's nephew.
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I always think that, literally, and then I go, oh, lack of trust. What does that mean?
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I mean, you know, it's - Lack of trust in yourself. Exactly, and it's just, it's a disaster. I remember we used to, one of his book titles was called
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Believe in the God Who Believes in You, and it was passed out throughout the entire jail system.
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You know, they brought in cases of them, and I suppose that's because it didn't sell, and Dianetics was out of print, but they passed out.
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They passed out all over the place, and I used to literally turn to those pages and just look for, you know, it was like, find the malfeasance, the false doctrine on this page, and it was pretty easy.
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I mean, almost every single page had some kind of false doctrine, false teaching on it.
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Remember that game we used to play? You'd turn on TBN. They call it the Trinity Broadcasting Network, but of course you can deny the
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Trinity and still be on it as long as you're kooky enough and have the right money. And connections and bouffant hairdo.
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Isn't that what PhD stands for? Pentecostal hairdo? But back to the show, back to the show.
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You know, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, why am I even talking about it? I have no idea. Well, Schuller's been on the train, so it's not really that much of a big show.
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Here's what it was, here's the game. So if you have Daystar or you have Trinity Broadcasting Network, or you have any of those Christian shows, programming channels, turn it on and see how fast you can spot the heresy.
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And so make it a game, get some snicker bars out, Halloween sizes, and the fastest person who spots an error.
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Gets a snicker bar. Yeah, a snicker bar. Yeah, and see how much weight you can put on doing that. Oh, funny. Robert Schuller and company with the
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Crystal Cathedral owe $56 ,000 for cows and chickens. Well, you know why, though?
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Because they would do the glory of Christmas and the glory of Easter, and you had to have all those animals. And you have the angels flying.
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How much did they owe the angels for flying down the middle of the church? By the way, let's build a church that has 3 ,000 money -making seats.
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Yeah. To then do what? To put on shows. I mean, you know, at least they, though, to their credit, they never had performances of Rent or, you know,
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One Singular Sensation. I mean, all the... Actually, I have been to the
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Crystal Cathedral and I was an unbeliever. I went with my mother. It was 1982, and we went there, and it was pretty interesting.
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And, you know, as an unbeliever, my mother, and as an unbeliever myself, we walked out and said, you know, they never said the word
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Jesus except at the very end, in Jesus' name, amen. So for two unbelievers to realize that Christ isn't preached there, who needs
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Jesus if you're good? Well, you don't want to spoil the evening by chasing people away, you know.
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Well, he doesn't even call them sermons. Did you know that? Because sermons, you know, are some kind of formal pulpit thing.
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And so you don't preach sermons. You don't talk about sin. You know, you talk about the Pope. Quote, I found myself immediately attracted to Pope John Paul II, when upon his election to the papacy, his published speeches invariably called attention to the need for recognizing the dignity of the human as being a child of God.
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Self -esteem, the New Reformation, page seven. See, I thought you were going to say he was immediately attracted because of the robe or something, because he really likes those robes, too.
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Well, it's interesting. How can you be a man trained in the Reformed faith and doctrine and confessions, and he would call himself
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Reformed? I think he did his dissertation. Calvin, something about John Calvin.
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You've got the robe and everything else, and then you get up and talk about a lack of dignity. That is undignified to not get up and preach about sin and the
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Savior, Christ Jesus. And we know why that is, because when you start your church, so -called, in a drive -in movie theater, and you're really more interested about with packing people in than you are anything else, then theology is the first thing to go.
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Theology doesn't work. If you're trying to reach unbelievers, and specifically to reach the wallets of unbelievers,
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I mean, it's one thing to want to reach their hearts, but what you want is their paychecks.
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You've got to change the message. Well, you hit the nail on the head. These kind of ministries are greedy, and we have been warned by the
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Spirit that in these latter days, this is the kind of stuff that is going to happen. And I think, basically,
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Garden Grove, where this place is, could be nicknamed or newly named the
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Island of Crete, because what you have is someone who is after money.
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They're after, what do we say in the King James? Filthy lucre. And so you have people coming along, giving false testimony, and they are lying.
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These kind of people need to be silenced. The ministry needs to go under. And when you have a person say, what is hell?
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Quote, it is the loss of pride that naturally follows separation from God. A person is in hell when he has lost his self -esteem.
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Can you imagine any condition more tragic than to live life in eternity in shame? Page 14 and 15, and page 93 in the self -esteem.
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I can't think of anything more tragic than taking something like 2 Corinthians 5 .21
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that says, God made him who knew no sin, Jesus Christ, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
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Taking that and somehow saying that our righteousness is found in our own belief in ourself, somehow that's what's going to justify us, it's what's going to make us right, that Jesus died that we might have better self -esteem, and that God will receive us on the basis of our own sense of self -worth.
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If you don't know enough to turn away from Robert Shuler, then you need to know the gospel better, because no
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Christian in their right mind would follow a man like Shuler and his teachings.
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We sometimes at No Compromise Radio have airplane barf bag moments. So today is an airplane barf bag moment, and it's kind of sealed, it's a little wax paper on the outside, and you try to throw up as quickly as possible because you have other people there on the flight.
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And so here's the barf bag moment on No Compromise Radio. Page 75, Robert Shuler.
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"'The cross sanctifies the ego trip, "'for the cross protected our Lord's perfect self -esteem "'from turning into sinful pride.'"
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Now see, that makes me want to regurgitate. If it wasn't for the cross,
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Jesus would have become prideful. See, it just baffles me that people are then gonna send money into this lying heretic dog.
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And maybe if we get enough requests for him, we'll come out with some No Compromise barf bags, because -
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You know what? Little no -co barf bag. It would be so handy for this moment.
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"'To be born again means that we must be changed "'from a negative to positive self -image, "'from inferiority to self -esteem, "'from fear to love and doubt to trust.'"
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I mean, that's what Jesus died for. That is what Jesus died for, that we might think better of ourselves.
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Because if we knew how infinitely valuable we are, we wouldn't think so poorly of ourselves.
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The great news is this. We're wicked and we know it. We're sinful and we know it.
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And the best we have is like a filthy rag. And we know it. And look at the newspapers.
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You know it. So if you're so wicked and you're so sinful and you're so vile, how could you ever present yourself as holy before a thrice holy
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God? And the answer always goes back to the person and work of Christ Jesus, the
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Holy One of God. Even the demons knew this is the Holy One of God. And you need to believe in His death on Calvary for sinners like you.
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And without recognition of sin, there's no hope for you, and there's no resurrection for you, and there's no anything.
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So we want you to turn and believe in this Jesus who has been raised from the dead, who died for sinners.
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And we're not asking for double tithes, triple tithes, quadruple tithes. What's a home run tithe?
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But just, it is all about Jesus Christ's perfect life, death, and resurrection.
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Let's pray that this tragedy will turn people to the real Jesus Christ in the middle of this crisis.
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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.