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No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.
Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. We come to the book of 1 Corinthians. We've had a few weeks off and I'm dying to get back into this book. This book is intriguing. It's inspiring. It's interesting.
If you ever wanted to go to a conference in the world and you said, well, let me pick a conference that's teaching a certain book of the Bible. Right up there at one of the top, at the top of my list, I would say, I want to hear about 1 Corinthians.
Because who writes like this? Who says, let me deal with this issue at Corinth. Let's talk about division in the church. Let's talk about lawsuits in the church. Let's talk about immorality. Let's talk about things that are going on.
There's no discipline. What about celibacy? What about meat offered to idols? What about should women be veiled in public worship? How do we celebrate the Lord's Supper? Are spiritual gifts for today, speaking in tongues for today?
Is Jesus going to come back? How should we give? Aren't those interesting topics? And that's exactly what Paul does in the book of 1 Corinthians. He deals with these issues because the Corinthian church had problems.
They had issues and Paul deals with those. And the main issue here in chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, what's the problem that Paul addresses? If you had to say for some kind of college Bible test or your kids said, what's the issue of chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4?
Paul is dealing with one topic, pretty much only one topic in chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4. And that topic is disunity. Who would spend that much time on disunity? Well, Paul does because unity is very, very important.
Look at verse 10 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Now, I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.
For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now, I mean this, verse 12, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ.
And then in verse 13, Paul gives the shock treatment. It's the cold water in the face. Have you ever received cold water in your face? You kind of get startled, and Paul startles by saying, verse 13, has Christ been divided?
That's kind of a shocking statement. Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? We know the answer to that. And then he says down in verse 17, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.
Paul says baptism is important, but there are some things that are more important. Would you agree with that? You could be baptized in water, but still not be a Christian. Baptism, on the other hand, you could be the thief on the cross, and you could be saved, but not baptized, and still go to heaven.
But let me ask you this question. Could you ever go to heaven without hearing the gospel preached? The answer is no. Some things are more important than others, and the great official duty of the gospel preacher was to preach the gospel.
Paul said there's a priority of preaching over baptism, because baptism doesn't save. It's an important identification with the church, but preaching saves. And so I'm going to be doing the main thing, and that is preaching, because I'm here to do Christ's commission, and that is preach the gospel so people get saved.
I think I mentioned last time that you don't want your pastor to be a CEO, an administrator. If you have to hire a new pastor someday, you say, well, we really want to have a good kind of, a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy.
We want him to do some janitor work, good business administrator. He's really good leading singing. His wife's got a good voice. I mean, there's all kinds of things you could look for. But you find one thing, and that is he preaches the gospel.
Yes, that's it. Anything else, as I said last time, is gravy. You want to find a person who lives to preach. They exist to preach, because that's how people get saved. Paul said in chapter 9 of this book, woe to me if I do not, what?
Preach the gospel. Salvation does not come without preaching. So there are different priorities, but you've got to preach the right way. If I got up and preached that you're saved by works, what would you call me?
Go ahead, say it louder. I got a lot of different. I was looking for the word heretic. You'd call me a heretic, and we all would say, that's right. You're preaching a gospel of works, and we don't want that.
And evangelicalism would say, don't preach that way. But not many evangelicals would say, if you preach, you're saved by grace alone through faith alone, but you've got to preach it in the right method.
Not many people say that. They'll say, as long as you preach the right gospel, we don't care what way it comes. Just preach the right gospel. And Paul says in chapter 1 verse 17, you've got to preach the real gospel, and you've got to preach it the right way.
And what does Paul say? Not in a way that somehow would distract or detract from the gospel. He says in chapter 1 verse 17, not in cleverness of speech. Why? Look at this. So that the cross of Christ would not be made void.
There's a way to preach that makes the cross vacuous, meaningless. To preach the real gospel in the wrong way voids out the cross. That's pretty amazing when you think about it. Paul says there's a way to preach the good news, to announce the good news, but do it in a wrong manner, the manner of preaching.
And I said last time, it would be wrong if you wanted to sing great is thy faithfulness to the tune of Barney's, I love you and you love me. R .J. MacArthur said, sing holy, holy, holy to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Form and function have to go together. Content and methodology have to go together. When it comes to preaching the cross, there is a way that you can be a Sunday school teacher, an evangelist, a mom or a dad, that you preach the right gospel, Jesus Christ, substitutionary death, literal resurrection, soon return.
But you do it in such a way where the attention goes towards the way you deliver it, not towards the substance of what you deliver. Rhetorical displays over content. Paul says, I'm not going to let that happen.
So last time we looked at some of the ways you could evangelize and make the cross void that we would want to run away from. Let me give you those quickly in review and we'll pick up a couple new ones today.
Number one, the first way we saw last time that you could make the gospel void is when you dress the gospel with trying to look good. You dress it with the clothes of fashion. People dress fashionably, I assume, because they want to look good.
And so if you preach in such a way, evangelize in such a way where you want to look good, you can void out, make vacuous the meaning of the cross. When Paul preaches the cross in chapter 118 and following, guess what he gets from the Jew and from the Gentile?
He does not get a standing ovation. He gets what derision. He doesn't get applause. He gets martyrdom. Woe to the one who gets up and says, I want to preach and I want to look like Cicero. I want to look like Rome's greatest orator when everyone would come and admire me.
Second way you can make the cross void of its contents because of the way you deliver it, when you dress it with the clothes of comfort, that is when you preach a felt needs gospel. I said last time that forgiveness is the issue, not do you have a great marriage or you're not lonely anymore, managing relationships, talking about money and finding fulfillment.
You can have the world and still go to hell. Tell me if you think this is felt need preaching. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it.
But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. Jesus, Luke nine. Number three, we need to review these and get on to the new information. The third way you could make the cross void by your certain method would be when you address the gospel with what I call a power tie dressing for success.
Do you think it's good for the preacher, for you, for the evangelist, you, for the one who is a Sunday school teacher to say, my main goal as I teach about Jesus should be numbers, should be attendance.
You know, it's the ABCs of church growth. What are the ABCs of church growth? Attendance, buildings and what? Cash. That's what we want to do. We want to try to be successful. I personally never want to get to heaven and hear from Jesus this, well done, good and faithful market driven servant by most studies.
Did you know over 90 of the churches in America have 200 people or less? It's an interesting phenomenon. We don't say to ourselves as leaders, how many people do we want to have come to the church? And what's our five year plan and 10 year plan?
Or we might say, what happens if the church gives us growth and we plan strategy. But at the end of the day, we preach. And if God brings people, he brings them. But we don't change the method. We don't change the message.
I never figure out a sermon by saying this. I wonder if this will work. I wonder, does it work? I wonder if I preach this sermon in such a way that maybe more people will come. No. One man said, anything goes as long as it is defended for the sake of evangelism, our church growth.
You can't mess around with the motives and keep the message pure. It's a fact that if you market the church, you're going to change the message. Are we in the truth business or in the profit business?
Well, if you think that was bad, how about this one? New information. Number four today, how can you make the cross void of its contents? Well, number four, if you dress it with clown outfits, I call this dressing it with entertainment.
Did you know consumers want entertainment? There's a God that's on the horizon and his name is entertainment. Now, I'm not saying every clown ministry is wrong. If you want to have an Awana clown ministry or something, fine.
But clown ministries on Sunday morning worship, I don't go for at all. As I've said before, over my dead body, will we have a clown? My ministry on Sunday morning worship. I talked to a person the other day and I said, oh, you go to that church.
It was a particular church around here. And I said, well, that's interesting. Scott and I were buying a bike from this particular person. Oh, that's neat. And he said, oh, yeah, I saw your email BBC pastor at BBC Church.
You know, I think I know you're the pastor at BBC Church. Yeah, that's right. Try to try to be, you know, under the radar. And I said, well, you know, we having some guest speakers lately. And, you know, the kind of speaker that I really like.
And I wanted him to go the guy that's going verse by verse. He teaches the tough stuff. He teaches the encouraging stuff. He's really just he teaches the whole counsel of God. God is sovereign. I thought, come on, just say it.
You know, I could just I'm just wanting to say it. He goes, I kind of like it when when we had the guy. He was the magician. He did the magician sermon. I mean, the day that you have to have video clips of comedies, R-rated comedies, our Braveheart, for that matter, to supplement the sermon is the day that you say to all your people, the Bible is not sufficient.
The Bible has no power. Shamefully voiding the message by the methods. Vance Havner had some words for this particular church. Ichabod Memorial Church decides to pack them in with folk music. And then they say over at Ephesus, we'll try a TV personality.
Then Pergamos says, well, we're going to have a fella who can play the fiddle and beat tap drums and blow a harmonica all the same time. Then over at Sardis, they say we're going to put on Aunt Dinah's quilting party.
Come dressed like they were 100 years ago and we'll all see Nelly home. Then over at Laodicea, they have a talking horse. I heard one of those horses some time ago. They asked him how many commandments he stomped 10 times.
How many apostles he stomped 12 times? Some nitwit in the crowd asked how many hypocrites they were in this church. And the horse went into a dance on all fours. People love to be entertained. I don't mind entertainment, but entertainment in the house of God for worship.
Please define worship. Please define entertainment and tell me that they're not parallel lines that never intersect. The Bible alone, true or false, tells us everything we need to please the one who has made us in a local worship service.
And you won't see magicians and mimes and entertainment. My job is not to entertain. Oh, if we laugh once in a while, it's usually calculated because after the laugh comes the throat slitter. I'm just trying to manipulate you a little bit.
No, just kidding. I'm not saying we can't laugh. What I'm saying is I'm not here to entertain you. I don't get up and go, I've got to really entertain the folks today. I'm not here to amuse you. I don't think anyone, when they've been in the presence of the living God, has said to themselves, quite entertaining.
Jeremiah 5 says, an appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule on their own authority. And my people love it so. 2 Timothy chapter 4, the last book that Paul has ever written, the last chapter he ever wrote before he had his head chopped off, not for his comedy routine, might I add.
2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 3, we need to pick the right kind of leaders, the right kind of elders, because they want to make sure to give the word of God out to the people and not give the people what they want, especially if those people are immature.
2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 3, right after the big preach the word passage in verse 2, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, or might I say entertained, they will accumulate for themselves entertainers, teachers in accordance to their own desires.
Some people, Paul says, at the end days, Timothy, they won't endure sound doctrine. This is a hatred. This is a dislike. This is like, don't you preach doctrine to me kind of folks. And they don't want healthy hygienic doctrine.
They want something else. They want their ears to be tickled. Frankly, I think when you hear Bible preaching, sometimes your ears aren't tickled. Most times your ears what? Burn. If you say to yourself, I don't really want to have the word of God prune me and conform me and make me like Christ and deal with my sin and encourage me in righteousness.
I just want to be tickled. I want to go there and go, you know, that was very good. I was entertained for an hour. I wasn't thinking about other things. That's excellent. Tickle my ears. I've got a hankering for something that's spiritually unhealthy.
Problem is there's lots of teachers who will be happy to teach that. Vincent said teachers of all kinds swarm like the flies of Egypt. The demand creates a supply. The hearers invite and shape their own preachers.
If the people desire a calf to worship, a ministerial calf maker is readily found. Look at verse four of this passage and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, verse five, Timothy, entertain people.
Be the clown. Draw the crowds. He doesn't talk that way at all, does he? Listen to what Tozer said. If this is true, and I believe it is, then the present inordinate attachment to every form of entertainment is evidence that the inner life of modern man is in serious decline.
The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no spring within his own breast, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living.
He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from stimulation which society affords. Tozer said it is not hard to see why the great God entertainment is so ardently worshipped by so many, for there are millions who cannot live without amusement.
Life without some form of entertainment for them is simply intolerable. They look forward to the blessed relief afforded by professional entertainers and other forms of psychological narcotics as the dope addict looks for his daily shot of heroin.
I think if you click on YouTube, you're going to see that exact same thing, sadly, happening in the church. And it is my belief that if you wrap the real gospel in the form of entertainment, you make it void.
Let me ask you this question, for those of you that might disagree. If I have to use entertainment to get you to listen to the gospel, is there a problem? The answer is yes. But I forgot about Ephesians.
Then he gave some as clowns, some as prophets, some as comedians, and some as stand-up. No. Doesn't God know what he's doing when he gives pastors and preachers and evangelists and apostles and prophets?
Show me a prophet who preached the Bible, and I won't show you someone who said, let's invite him back next week. It would be persecution, more likely than not. Spurgeon said, I thought we were the salt of the world, not the sugar candy.
You say, yeah, but people are bored with the Bible. Well, people are bored with the Bible. The cure is not entertainment. Number five. Number five, if you've got the real gospel, but you wrap it in this, is it made void?
Number five, the gospel can be made void when you dress it with the clothes of pressure and manipulation, coercion. If you didn't think I was going to talk about this, you would be wrong. So let's just talk about it.
Years ago, I got here, 13 years ago. For the first five years, I heard this refrain almost every week. Something in effect like this. Pastor, you don't really believe in evangelism, I guess. Oh, I thought I did.
You know, how do people get saved at this church? I thought through preaching. And you know what every one of these conversations was driving at? Mike, you don't do a what? Altar call. How many people here have seen altar calls?
All right. How many people here have never seen an altar call? A few, praise the Lord. All right. Just to get your attention, nobody was ever saved because of an altar call. Not one person was ever saved because of an altar call.
You say, well, I don't believe that. I think people were saved because the gospel was preached at an altar call. But let me give you some reasons why I don't think altar calls are ever going to be popping their heads up at Bethlehem Bible Church.
You say, what is an altar call? Well, typically, an altar call is something at the end of the service. And the lights sometimes can be dimmed. The mood music is playing. The organs are kind of, you know, playing just as I am, right?
Stanza 45. I surrender all, have thy own own way. Preachers praying and talking, leading for a decision for Christ. God has been speaking to you, and you need to know you have forgiveness. And so he'll say something like this.
I'm going to ask you to come forward. Come up and pray. Come up and do the. My son's filling in my sermons for me. Every head bowed, every eye closed. That's right. I see that hand before it's too late.
God's knocking on your heart and you want forgiveness. Come to the front. Give your life to Christ. Maybe they'll say, just raise your hand and I'll see that hand. They do it a variety of different ways.
If you're here with friends or relatives, they'll wait for you. Don't let distance keep you from Christ. It's a long way, but Christ went all the way to the cross because he loved you. Certainly you can come these few steps and give your life to him.
Why don't we do altar calls? Number one. Why don't altar calls show themselves at Bethlehem Bible Church? Number one, because there's no command in the Bible to do any altar calls. There are commands to preach.
There are commands to evangelize, but there's not a prescription in the Bible. Do this altar call. There's not a description in the Bible. This altar call has been done. I've searched the Bible. I've especially searched the pastoral epistles where the pastors are instructed on what to do.
And the Bible is quiet about altar called altar calls. Turn with me if you would to first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 11. I believe the burden of proof for altar call proponents is on the altar call proponents.
The Methodist Episcopalian Church began this idea 1800s camp meetings. Finney, the heretic Finney and his proponents also push this into the spotlight. But what about first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 11?
I don't do altar calls because number one, they're not commanded. And number two, I don't need to do them because God saves through preaching. So we preach. So they believe faith comes through hearing.
Whitfield, the Calvinist never did altar calls. Wesley, the Armenian, he never did altar calls. It's not until heretic Finney comes along that altar calls were pushed up. And we're going to talk more about this later.
But before I go farther, first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 11, whether then it was I or they and Paul almost just, you know, off the cuff says, I know it's not off the cuff because it's spirit inspired.
So we preach and so you believe. Do we really think that if I don't get people to come up to the front, they might leave the church and then God could never save them again? People say, don't let the people get out of the church without coming up to the front without giving an invitation.
Friends, I don't invite you to come up to the front. I invite you to believe. I beckon you to believe in Christ. Why call you to the front when I can call you to the Savior? Come here and receive Christ is confusing at best.
Where's the biblical justification for that? People say, well, you don't do invitations. If you mean I don't call you up to the front, you're right. But I invite you. I beseech you. I command you. You have to look to Christ and live.
There's no other way to be saved. Venture on him wholly, as one man says, let no other trust intrude. None but Jesus. None but Jesus can do helpless sinners good.
And in the evening at 6, 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.