Raising Children Without God

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

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

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

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, glad to be your host today.

No co -radio, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. Our real focus, as you know, is to point you to Jesus Christ, the one who never compromised.

We'll gladly and freely, it's not gladly, but we'll freely admit that we compromise. We don't wanna compromise.

We look to Christ Jesus who never did compromise, and we're glad that we have such a representative substitute.

Aren't we? Super glad. And we should not be surprised when pagans act like pagans, because that's exactly what pagans do.

They have no resources. But occasionally, pagans even outdo themselves. And so I saw the other day,

CNN, why I raise my children without God. Now, this is written by a person who is a mother of two teenagers in Texas.

She blogs about raising her children without religion, and she is known as TXBlue08.

Now, I don't know if she doesn't list her name because she's embarrassed, but in the day and age of anonymity and you just write whatever you want, nobody knows who you are.

I think it's pretty low, pretty classless to do. If you ever give comments on blogs without giving your full name,

I don't really respect that very much. Oh, I still might respect you, but I don't respect that.

Just tell your name. This anonymous deal, well, you know, due to security purposes.

Security purposes, you? I mean, maybe you're the governor of the state or something. I don't know.

I'm sure the governor doesn't listen to the show, but what if he really did? What if the governor secretly listened to No Compromise Radio?

I just heard from a friend, a listener in Edinburgh, Scotland and this particular person said that I would not be on the radio in England because they have

Ofcom and they, you know, meticulously scrub through all these kind of programs.

And since I say that Christianity is the only true religion, therefore, by implication, by definition, by logic, then other religions are false.

So you can't say Islam is false or Hinduism is false or Jainism is false or something like that because then you can't be on the radio.

I don't know where we've come from. Maybe I do know that and where we're going. Sadly, I think

I know that, but I'll get to this situation. So why I raised my God without children.

That's about what it was for this TX Blue 08. Why I raised my children without God. So I just want to talk about this a little bit and get into the mind of paganism and into the mind of the way people think today.

Certainly, when you think of Romans chapter one, when people don't honor

God or give him thanks, what does God do? Sometimes God just lets people prosper.

Sometimes he snuffs them out. Sometimes the light switch gets dimmer. Romans chapter one tells us here, it says, "'For what can be known about God is plain to them "'because

God has shown it to them,' natural revelation, "'for his invisible attributes, "'namely his eternal power and divine nature, "'have been clearly perceived "'ever since the creation of the world "'in the things that have been made "'so they are without excuse.

"'Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God "'or give thanks to him, "'but they became futile in their thinking.'"

That's the part that we're going to focus on today. "'Futile in their thinking, "'and their foolish hearts were darkened.

"'Claiming to be wise, they became fools "'and exchanged the glory of the immortal

God "'for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals "'and creeping things.

"'Therefore, God gave them up.'" God gave them up. God gave them up.

That's the ghoulish refrain here in Romans one.

Fiendish. So, here, this lady writes with the futility of her mind at the forefront.

And, you know, in the old days, people had enough Bible knowledge and they had enough consideration of the way the world worked.

They sat and thought about things long enough to realize there had to be a creator. And if it was

Thomas Jefferson, or if it was Abraham Lincoln, or if it was

Benjamin Franklin, or their wives, they knew the

Bible. They were steeped in biblical terminology and parlance. I said that word last show, too.

This is the parlance movement. Jack Parlance. Wasn't he a vampire in an old show? Anyway, I know it's not parlance.

Steve here, if he was here, he'd correct me. Steve's still on sabbatical. Where is Steve Cooley? I'm having to do Tuesday shows.

It's not as funny because sabbatical Steve. Let's call him sabbatical Steve instead of Tuesday guy.

Don't you think? Sabbatical Steve. Where's Steve? Oh, he's on sabbatical. And then if he's back, he's still on mental sabbatical.

He's just off kind of in sabbatical land somewhere. So, these are the reasons why this particular person is raising their children without God.

And it just doesn't even come close to the old days of people understanding the

Bible and being steeped in a biblical worldview. Number one, why

I raise my children without God from TxBlue08, put up online by CNN, I, reporter, producer.

God is a bad parent and role model. I mean, she writes, if God is our father, then he's not a good parent.

Good parents don't allow their children to inflict harm on others. Good people don't stand by and watch horrible acts committed against innocent men, women, and children.

They don't condone violence and abuse. He has given us free will, you say? Our children have free will, but we still step in and guide them.

Aye, aye, aye. Well, just a few comments, I could make a whole list. That could be the whole show right there.

I would just note that there's nobody innocent. No one is innocent. And so, let's just throw that little deal out there.

God doesn't condone violence and abuse in the sense of sinful violence and sinful abuse.

You say to me, could there be any other kind? I'm just trying to be as exact as I can.

God hasn't given us free will. We don't have free will. Your children don't have free will.

I'm glad you still step in and guide your child, but there's no such thing as free will, and this is just chock full of errors.

He, God, is a good parent, and I don't know if we wanna call him a role model or not, but let's just talk about our

Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. God is a caring

God, a providing God, a compassionate God, and he doesn't just stand by and watch horrible acts committed.

If we'd like me to push the theological envelope, he causes and ordains and overrules and permits and providentially orchestrates everything that has happened, including the most heinous sin in all the world, and that is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the only innocent one, the

God -man himself, crucified by sinful men, nailing him to the tree.

Acts chapter two, Acts chapter four. Sovereign God, who but God, the greatest parent of all, the greatest

Father, could take something so wicked, so sinful, and cause it to give him glory as he shows both his justice, shows his infinite grace, shows his inflexible justice, and he hasn't figured anything out because he just knows it, but has displayed forth his wisdom and glory in how to reconcile sinners and still be holy.

That is an amazing thing, and if you can wrap your arms around that, then all the other sins that, frankly, we don't know why all these things happen outside of it's a fallen world and that bad things happen and putting the blame on Adam, putting the blame on ourselves.

We're not to blame God for sin. We're not to blame God for the way the world treats itself,

I don't mean the world creation, I mean people in the world sinning against others. Here's what people do.

They know there's a God, they try to deny him by their unrighteous deeds and suppress the truth and unrighteousness,

Romans chapter one, verse 18, and then they try to figure out a way to do this in their mind so they can just sleep well at night, and God's a bad parent.

When anyone who would just read through the Bible would see that God can take sinful acts of Joseph's brothers that they themselves did by their own fallen will and turn it into something good.

And so it's the classical trying to understand providence when

A, you're ungodly, B, you have no Holy Spirit to illuminate you, and C, you've got an agenda.

And so I don't want to be mad, I don't want to be mean, because I was a pagan once as well, and I'm only safe based on the grace of God, based on his sovereign working.

He opened my heart. But this is, you know, I want to hate the things that God hates and to call

God a bad parent because he condones violence and abuse, this is just lies, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

Number two, written by this liar, why I raise my children without God. I mean, please just give me a real argument and for CNN to stoop to post these kinds of things.

God is not logical. She writes, how many times have you heard why did God allow this to happen?

And this, it's not for us to understand. Translate, we don't understand, so we will not think about it or deal with the issue.

Take, for example, the senseless strategy in Newtown. Rather than address the problems of guns in America, see, how foolish.

Sex isn't the problem. There's lots of sexual sins. Sex isn't the problem. There's lots of people who overeat.

Food isn't the problem. There's a lot of people that drink too much. Alcohol isn't the problem.

There are a lot of people who get shot with guns. Guns aren't the problem. It's the human responsibility.

We defer responsibility to God. He had a reason. He wanted more angels. He only knows why. He writes poems saying that we told

God to leave out our schools. Now he's making us pay the price. If there is a good,

God is good, all -knowing he is, all -powerful God he is, who loves his children, he does love his children, does it make sense that he would allow murders, child abuse, wars, brutal beatings, torture, and millions of heinous acts to be committed through the history of mankind?

Doesn't this go against everything Christ taught us in the New Testament? What did Christ teach you in the New Testament?

Because you obviously, by the way you write and by the way you think, have no clue about the

New Testament. You have no clue about the New Testament. How about Luke chapter 13?

Have you ever read Luke 13, Mrs. I -don't -know -your -name because you hide behind an anonymous pin?

This is just crazy. To think about the world through a pagan's eyes, this is what it yields.

Talk about unthinking. Faith isn't unthinking, faith isn't illogical.

Oh, there's a trust in faith. Some things I can't understand because I'm fallen, my mind is not omniscient, and it's finite.

I'm a creature and I can't understand all the depths and riches of God and to try to understand what he does and how he does them.

I do have to trust, like a child to a good father, that he knows what he's doing and he has ordained things for a reason and Romans chapter nine tells me one of the reasons why he's ordained these sinful things is because he will receive glory.

Who can let sin ride and go for thousands of years and still make something good out of it?

And again, I take back, I take this person, I take anyone else back to the text, back to the text that talks about the most heinous sin yet it was ordained by God and something good

God made out of that day where Jesus Christ was crucified. Men of Israel, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.

This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You, crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

That's Acts chapter two. And then it goes on to say in Acts chapter four, for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand

God and your plan, God's plan had predestined to take place. And now

Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

I would like to know what Anonymous Lady's option is.

Random chance, some solar convergence.

She says the question should be this, why did we allow this to happen?

How can we fix this? No imaginary person is going to give us the answers to tell us why.

Only we have the ability to be logical and to problem solve and we should not advocate these responsibilities to God just because a topic is tough or uncomfortable to address.

So how you doing so far? Pick up a philosophy book and just tell me.

Tell me how we're doing so far. The answer is found in man and it makes some sense because once you try to get

God out of your mind, then you're left with what? Chance, evolution, human beings, the perfect power of human potential.

Problem is that's not logical. She thinks God's not logical. She will not submit herself to the

New Testament writings, to the Old Testament writings. Mankind is responsible.

Yes, God ordains everything and he's overall, he's sovereign overall. I understand that.

I understand that God causes calamities and God ordains sin.

I have to admit it because if something happens, it's not outside of God's sovereign plan and control.

But he does it for a reason and that reason is his glory and that reason is going to be for his children, the elect, their good.

Number three, she writes, God is not fair. This is why she raises her children without God.

God is not fair. If God is fair, then why does he answer the silly prayers of some while allowing other serious requests to go unanswered?

I've known people who pray that they can find money to buy furniture answered. I know people who pray to God to help them win a soccer match answered.

Why are the prayers of parents with dying children not answered? If God is fair, then why are some babies born with heart defects, autism, missing limbs or conjoined to another baby?

Clearly all men are not created equal. That's the first thing she said that made any sense. Why is a good man beaten senseless on the street while an evil man finds great wealth taking advantage of others?

She should probably read the Psalms and she would understand some of that very thing. This is not fair.

A game maker who allows luck. See how the deck is stacked to use the game verbiage to rule man's kind's existence has not created a fair game.

Well, fair, Mrs. or Miss, is going to be you sin and you immediately are executed.

That's fair, that's just. My kids at least know, and they've been taught from a young age, life is not fair.

We don't want fair. We want grace, don't we?

We want grace. I don't want what I deserve. You don't even know the half of it. I don't want what

I deserve. I don't want what I've earned. I have planted sinful corn and I don't want the crop.

Number four, God does not protect the innocent. See, I hate to even say these things because it's just so blasphemous, so lowbrow, so guttural, so unthinking.

This is just an emotive response to I can't figure out the world and I'm not going to pick up the

Bible. I'm gonna throw a little thing out there that this is what Jesus, this is what Jesus taught. You say,

Mike, are you mad? I'm not mad. I'm sad. I don't like blasphemy.

There's some righteous indignation that I feel brewing up when people talk like this. People say things like this.

I want to respond and say, that's not true. And you say, well, then you can respond. This is my platform. So to whatever degree

I can say things through my platform that God has given me, I'll say it. God does not keep our children safe.

As a society, we stand up and speak for those who cannot. We protect our little ones. Why can't

God with all his powers of omnipotence protect the innocent? The next,

God is not present. He is not here telling our children to love a person they cannot smell. See, touch or hear does not make sense.

See, this is just all talk. This is called futility of the mind. This is suppressing the truth of unrighteousness and this is what you get.

God does not teach children to be good. Really? What does he say?

A child should make moral choices for the right reasons. Telling him that he must behave because God is watching means that his morality will be externally focused rather than internally structured.

Really? I guess that's what Jesus meant in Matthew chapter five, six and seven on the

Sermon on the Mount. You have heard it said, but I say to you, I guess that's what it was all about. See, now

I know. Now I can have a God -hating pagan just, I'm just gonna say run her mouth, run her pen and then that's it.

Yeah, it's like telling a child to behave or Santa won't bring presents. Hmm, yeah.

We take God out of the picture, we place responsibility of doing the right things onto the shoulders of our children. See, it's all back to the human.

Listen, when you've got a low view of God or a non -existent view of God, where else do you turn?

It's got to be turned inward. And if I was gonna be a pragmatist, I would tell you it doesn't work.

And if I was going to be a theologian, I would tell you the fall was really true and this is an evidence of it.

Self -sufficiency, self -reliance, self -sufficiency, the view that humans are good, the view that humans have potential, the view that we have self -actualization and powers appropriate to that.

I'm just making that up. Didn't even sound good, but I tried to rescue it. I so tried to rescue that.

God teaches narcissism, she says. God has a plan for you. Telling kids there's a big guy in the sky who has a special path for them makes children narcissistic.

Well, you know, she probably has been influenced by Joel Osteen and by Joyce Meyer and by a lot of the

Rick Warrens of the world who put this big focus on us. Who but Rick Warren can write a book that says, this life's not all about you and then for the next 240 pages, write this is all about you.

And so she understands, I guess, evangelicalism and evangelicalism is in many quarters narcissistic.

Sadly, I grant that. So I see how she's been influenced. But God has a plan for himself and I'm thankful that somehow

I'm included. I'm not the center of this crazy love of God that he can't live without me kind of thing.

He has a way to receive glory and I secondarily, but thankfully, happily, with great rejoicing, am glad that I have been noticed by God.

I matter to God. Okay, I said it, I matter to God. But I did say secondarily.

I do not want religion to go away. I only want religion to be kept at home or in the church where it belongs.

And so I guess you can say the opposite here in your

CNN I reporting blog. It's a personal effect like a toothbrush or a pair of shoes.

Isn't that nice? It's not something to be used or worn by strangers. I want my children to be free not to believe and to know that our schools and governments will make decisions based on what is logical, just and fair, not on what they believe in imaginary God wants.

That's what I believe. What do you believe? I don't even know if there were comments on here, but I just read this and said to myself, it's

Romans one. I say to this lady, if I didn't believe the

Bible before, based on your blasphemous, illogical, emotional, sappy and bad arguments,

I do not believe in the Bible because this is a classic illustration of the futility of the mind.

But before we get too righteous or on our high horses, we as Christians have the mind of Christ only because of the grace of God.

It's only because God has graced us. God has put his scepter towards you so you can approach him through the person and work of Christ Jesus alone.

That was God's plan. That was God's eternal plan. And God could have chosen everyone.

He probably shouldn't have chosen anyone, but thankfully he's not just a just God, but he's a gracious God.

And so this is the kind of lady that needs to have her eyes opened. If I was left to think to myself, how will we live a life when people are teaching children like that?

What will the world come to? It would be a sad day. But Jesus Christ is Lord. He reigns and he is sovereign,

Psalm 103 says. Psalm 115 says, 1 Timothy 1 says. Aren't you glad for that?

And so don't despair. Open your Bibles and read and you'll see before your very eyes Romans 1.

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

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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

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