CBD

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. Steve�s got about 24 minutes before he has to go. I think, are you a prosperity preacher now? You got, you know, like this house that you live in and stuff, more than one bedroom studio.

What�s your problem?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I�m trying to accumulate stuff in this world that I can�t take with me.

Well, be warmed and be filled. I guess you say that to our houses, right? Be filled. I guess we could give it to our kids, right? Yeah, they don�t want it.

They�re like, �We don�t want that dreck, Dad.

Thanks a lot. I was thinking the other day, you know, people are accused of prosperity preaching if they have an extra house or something. And I thought, �Oh, I do have a mobile trailer in Santa Cruz.

Am I?

Mm-hmm. Are you trying to take that with you to heaven, Pastor?

My car�s got 214 ,000 miles on it. Mm-hmm. Could have got one with 300. I know. So, today on No Compromise Radio, Pastor Steve and I want to, we want to have a little memory. We have memories together, and one of our memories is getting up at about 4 .30 in the morning or so, meeting at the church building, driving to Peabody Mass, Peabody, Sherman and Peabody.

I was just thinking about that the other day. Of course, I basically drove, you know, much of the way up there when I was going to Lowell. And so, yeah, I miss those because I thought there was one intersection right where the two meets the 495.

That�s where we stopped for Dunkin� Donuts. Yeah. Well, this particular intersection, though, one Saturday morning, I was coming back and I was super tired, and I missed the right off-ramp, and I just thought, �Uh-oh.

And I go, �You know what? This looks like a clover leaf. So, I went and took the next one, and we wound up doing, I was with Bernard Keswara, and we did all four, you know, so I wound up going the right way after I missed the first one.

It was pretty funny. Well, as many of you know, there�s a Christian book distributor in Peabody, and it�s still there, a large place, and on a quarterly basis, they would have, you know, dinged sets and scratch different Bibles and things like that.

There was misspelling on a Bible, you know, in the front, and they would kind of like sell it for, you know, a third of the price or a fourth.

So, we�d go there a lot. It would say �Bebel� instead of �Bible.

Well, like the Wicked Bible, remember? Thou shalt commit adultery. Yes. Yeah, that was unfortunate. Yeah. I don�t know if that�s a good collector�s item or not. I think it was just a bad translation. Dynamic equivalence.

And anyway, so we have a lot of good CBD memories, and of course, is that what it�s called? CBD.

Yeah, I�m just laughing because I had an idea for a little mistake, you know, instead of the message. There was one on the cover that said �the mess.

Yeah, because it didn�t get spelled properly. And we don�t go to those anymore because They don�t have them. They don�t have them. They don�t sell very many books. Amazon�s taken over the world, of course, and Lagos and all that stuff.

But Steve, I still like books better. I mean, it only takes one switch to turn off Bible Works, and you�re smoked. One switch to turn off the Roman Catholic Lagos, or whatever it might be.

Stop, because I have so much investment in that, it would be crushing.

I know. I mean, we�re talking tens of thousands of dollars, right? Yeah, and a lot of books. But they do give the catalogs, 1 -800-CHRISTIAN, �Everything Christian for Less. Isn�t that funny? That�s their tagline?

�Everything Christian for Less. You get John the Baptist platters here for just, you know, two bucks.

Nice. And everything presumed to be Christian for less.

In the old days, if you went to a Christian bookstore, they, the Christian bookstore, would make more money off the swag and the candles and the posters than they would actually theology books. Did you know that?

It doesn�t surprise me. So, I just opened this up, and these are some favorite authors, Steve, and we have Priscilla Schreier, and we have Sarah Young, Beth Moore, and somebody I don�t know, Lisa Terkhurst.

And are there any books on this page you think might be good recommendations for people that need stocking stuffers earlier in the year than normal? Let me look real carefully.

I�m going to go with no. Okay, so, here�s my question.

The Sufficiency of Scripture over Experience and Inner Voices

In light of 2 Peter 1, verses 16 -21, you�ve preached through it, I�ve preached through it, and we�ll preach through it, we�ve got a more sure word, the false teachers run their mouth, and they�re not true.

We know that the Bible�s true because Peter, the apostolic legate for Jesus, says, �I saw Jesus, Mount of Transfiguration. I heard Jesus, the words to Jesus, �This is my beloved Son in whom I�m well pleased.

And while that was true, I�ve got something more sure, the Word of God.

Yeah, and it�s amazing. I mean, the way I summarize that is just the greatest experience any human being could have, right? And he says, �Yeah, that was great, but here�s something more sure.

And in one account of the Transfiguration, the Father said, �Listen to Jesus, right? Listen to Him, hear Him. And we think about experiences and still small voices and all these other things, that�s a regular diet for many Christians because they read books like this, Lisa Turkist, �Is God speaking to me

Yes, through Scripture, but here it says, �Her own struggle through Scripture, personal stories, practical application, recognize and respond to God�s call. But then you�ve also got Priscilla Schreier discerning the Voice of God DVD curriculum, so I don�t think they�re exactly the same.

Who might be right? How do I determine which book is right?

Yeah, well, this whole idea that we�re to listen to God speak to us, I�m like, �Listen, John the Baptist heard the Word of God. It wasn�t like, �Am I hearing the Word of God or not because his response was, �Here I am, right

I mean, this is what Old Testament prophets did, and John the Baptist, for the record, was the last Old Testament prophet. And, you know, so what happens? They hear God speak to them and they say, �Here I am and they go do, well, the question is, do we have prophets anymore?

Or does Hebrews tell us that this is how God used to talk to us and now He�s done speaking to us because He�s given us His last Word, which is Jesus Christ?

I alluded to the Gospel account of the Transfiguration earlier. It says in Matthew 17, �He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice from the cloud said, �This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

Listen to Him. When the disciples heard this, they fell in their faces and were terrified, but Jesus came and touched them, saying, �Rise, have no fear. And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one, that is, they didn�t see Elijah or Moses, but Jesus only.

Like I mean, when you said, what kind of experience could you have? I mean, that would be the most amazing experience of all time on the holy mountain.

And we know that because, I mean, I�ve heard you teach this a number of times. You know, Peter turns into a babbling idiot up there, right? And so, I mean, it�s not like, it�s not like Peter doesn�t recognize, you know, what he has seen and, you know, and is dumbfounded by it, nevertheless, and he�s not minimizing it.

He�s just saying the Word, the sure, this, the revelation of God is a more sure Word. It�s something you can, well, I mean, how is it more sure? I guess that would be a good question when you think about it.

How is the Bible more sure than experience?

Good question, because this is on the same page with Jesus calling, right? Jesus talking outside the Bible. One of the things that we need is a Word that�s outside of us. It needs to be outside of us, that is, revelation from God, like, you know, in a book now are actually, you know, words coming from Moses given by God in the Old Testament.

But it�s outside of us because everything that comes from us, since we�re not prophets and we�re not speaking on God�s behalf, it�s tainted by sin. So if I say God�s leading me to do something at church where we�re not going to teach through books of the Bible anymore, we�re going to do Oprah book studies, well, then I know it�s tainted for lots of reasons, but one is it�s coming from me, right?

He�s already spoken outside of His Word. And that is why he says, 2 Peter chapter 1, we have something more sure, the prophetic word, and then here�s what he says, �To which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

So you think about our day and age, you know, we�ve got flashlight on our phones, right? Everybody carries a flashlight with them now pretty much 24 -7. But back in those days, if you were out in the middle of nowhere, let�s say you�re trying to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem and it�s dark out, can�t see in front of you and the cliffs and everything else, I�d pay attention if I had a little light.

And so we�ve got a light now, it�s the Word of God, and people need to pay attention to that. Why do they so easily ignore the Bible and say, �How do I know God�s speaking to me in my still small voice burning bosom

Pete We talk about this all the time because it�s exciting.

Joe And it�s so easy. Pete Yes. Joe Come on, grammar, participles, God speaks to us in these last days with Greek and Hebrew letters. Luther said, �Come on. Pete That�s work. Joe Plu-perfect participles.

Pete That�s hard. That�s like school, man. Who wants to do that? Joe Well, this, okay, let�s tease this out. People say, �Steve, I�m a visual learner. Okay, for general revelation, that�s true. You can be in awe of God and condemned with general revelation visually, right?

See your baby�s born, see the sunset, see Grand Canyon, what�s the most impressive thing you�ve ever seen? Niagara Falls, something like that?

Pete. The most impressive thing I�ve ever seen? Actually, I haven�t seen Niagara Falls. I haven�t been to the Grand Canyon. The most impressive thing, I can�t even tell you.

Joe Some kind of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe? Pete Yeah, I was there. Joe Many things I know about Steve Cooley, and he�s a fairly consistent man, and I think he�d be fairly consistent on. There are certain continents I don�t think you�d ever go to.

Pete Yeah, probably not. Joe Well, maybe something like, how about the Egyptian pyramids? Would you make it to Africa that way?

Pete I would. Yeah. I mean, if I thought it was reasonably safe, yeah, I�d like that.

Joe Did you know the NoCo trip to Israel and then Egypt? One week before we were going to leave, then that whole Muslim militia took over, whatever it was called. Pete Sniper fire. Joe Sniper fire. Back to the point, which I don�t know what the point is, but if you would just say, �Well, I�m going to listen to that voice in my mind and take that as God�s Word.

Pete That�s easy. Joe It�s so easy, but it�s going to get you in a lot of trouble. And actually, you know what? Let�s just say this. I think it�s lazy. Pete Yes, it is. Joe Why do you think it�s lazy?

Somebody comes to you for pastoral counsel, I don�t need the Bible, I just listen to my heart.

What do you say? Pete. Well, theologically it�s wrong, but you know, why is it lazy? Because the easiest thing to do is, you know what? It seems right to me. It feels right. Right? I mean, that�s Judges, that�s Jeremiah 17, 9.

There are so many problems with that. I mean, you know, our hearts are wicked and deceitful. When we do what seems right in our eyes, I think the odds are pretty good that it�s wrong in God�s eyes, right?

If we, because of our sin hangover, even believers, if we just kind of go with our gut, we�re going to wind up in a lot of trouble. I recently told somebody that whatever their gut told them to do, they should do the opposite because their gut is pretty much wrong all the time.

Now, I was just, I was half joking, but I was half serious too. I go, if you look at your life and how much trouble you�ve gotten in by going with your gut, I�d stop going with it.

Charles Proverbs says, �A fool trusts his own heart. Charlie Crane says, �When I have to make a decision, I usually pick the one that�s harder to do because I think my own self will try to convince myself that the easier decision is the right one.

Now, that�s not, you know, that�s not Bible, but that�s just probably good practical wisdom. I pick the harder one.

Got a good reason for taking the easy way out, right? Yeah, but come on.

We like Disney movies. They�re so nice and Nemo and stuff. Follow your heart.

Your heart always knows what�s right. Well, you know what? A lot of times our heart does know what�s right, but our heart tells us to do the wrong thing.

Hence, Jonah, peace about it, right? That�s the other thing people say. Not only God told me, right? When I meet somebody and they�re right here in this study, and they�ll say, �Well, God told me such and such and they�re not quoting chapter and verse.

I don�t say it right away because I�m trying to be kind and teach people, you know, we�re all immature. I like to just think to myself, �No, he didn�t. No, no, I know he didn�t do that. And by the way, if God ever did talk again to somebody on this earth, it wouldn�t be to someone who can�t even explain to me the deity of Christ.

Right. Well, and the whole idea of having a peace about it, false. Jonah, he had a peace. I mean, we get peace about a lot of things that we do that turn out to be disastrous and wrong.

Totally. So, we�re just going through this book, and this is kind of fun to talk about. Let�s go to the next page, which I find fascinating, Steve. These are things called the Tony Evans Bible Commentary.

He�s got a Tony Evans Bible too. Now, I critiqued Tony Evans a while ago, and they said, �Well, his wife just died, and that was not fair. So, I don�t know how long ago that is. I�m not trying to say anything about his wife.

I�m just trying to say Tony Evans Bible Commentary, do you think that might fall into a �good, better, best� category?

Couldn�t you find something better? I�m pretty confident I could. See how generous I was there?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Ever been a trans-dispensationalist?

No, because, I mean, the worst-case scenario he gave was �good, better, best right? And I�m like, if somebody asked me, �How would you rate it I�d go, �Having not read it, not good. So, could there be little nuggets?

And I put it this way, �Oh, there could be nuggets anywhere. The question is, how much bilge do I want to go through to find the nuggets? That�s so true.

David Jeremiah. What do you think of David Jeremiah generally?

Should people listen to him? I think he�s a glorious communicator. I mean, I really, what a voice. Uh-oh. What? Nothing. Great communicator. Uh-huh. Okay. Great communicator. I love that. Theologically, I would disagree with him on a number of issues.

I guess if someone had listened to him or Charles Stanley, that kind of, you know, birds of the feather type of thing. I was in the car in Los Angeles, and I just was, I thought, �I�m going to listen to K-Rock, 106 .7.

But now the new K-Rock is essentially 101 .1 K-Earth, because K-Earth plays �80s and �90s during the weekend, which would have been essentially K-Rock when I lived there. Yeah. And now it�s so funny to listen, not to Elvis on K-Earth, the oldest station in Los Angeles, but it�s, you know, Depeche Mode.

I thought you were going to say Elvis Costello. Well, I know they play him too. So, then I thought, �Well, I�ll listen to KKLA. I think it�s the largest Salem, largest Christian station in all the country.

And I wanted to see who was on, 99 .5, and David Jeremiah was on. And I know people think I�ve probably taken this too far, and I talk about it all the time, but I cannot unsee it. And I heard him talk, great communicator, love his voice.

I mean, you could do worse than David Jeremiah, right on the airways and all that stuff. But it was just all what we talked about last show, the takeaways and more law. It's almost like promise keepers.

Those seven promises, maybe with one exception, weren't bad things for society, but I already have plenty of laws, right? Let's just go with 10.

But let me Can I just boil this all down for a minute? When you listen to a sermon, should you be trying to take notes so that you can understand the passage better and remember it better and kind of learn more about God, about the Lord Jesus Christ, about sin and salvation?

Or should you be waiting to the end till the pastor gets to the really good stuff, you know, the, okay, now what does this passage mean to you? Oh, okay, now I can take notes.

Steve, this is the real pandemic in preaching, right? This is pastors trying to say, well, you know what, it's a gospel account of Jesus or something that God has done for Paul, to Damascus Road, and then now what about us?

What do we do? Now, if you said, what's the response? Repent and believe. What's the response? Keep believing, be thankful, have a life of gratitude. There are right responses to the personal work of Jesus, no doubt.

But they've turned it into this thing where, like, instead of just admiring Jesus, like I heard a guy the other day preach, and he said, I was watching a YouTube preacher, and he goes, do you know what, Satan is the accuser of the brethren.

And then he said, in this passage today, we're going to see what Jesus has done and what he did at Calvary to destroy ultimately the power of Satan. And we're very, very thankful for the work of Jesus because he's our advocate and mediator.

And without him, Satan's right when he accuses us. And I didn't need to be told what to do. I just thought, that's right, everything that Satan says about us, it's true. Except the Lord Jesus says, I've paid for that, paid in full.

He's my son. No wonder Luther said, you know what, if you're going to confess your sins, and all of a sudden Satan's attacking you as it were, and you're thinking, you know, how could I ever measure up?

I keep sinning. All right, Jesus paid for that, paid in full, paid in full, paid in full. So when I listen to a sermon, and by the way, I think it's a biblical way to listen, it's extolling the person of Jesus.

And then I go, I'm thankful. I'm happy. I don't need to go, well, now when you go home, make sure you do this with your wife or say this or say something to your kids. So when I listen to David Jeremiah, I typically just hear law.

If you're not reading the footnotes of your Bible, you're in sin. I just want to pass on.

The Net Bible and Helpful Study Notes

All right, we come to things like the Net Bible. What do you think of the Net Bible, N-E-T?

You know, a lot of times I find it helpful, actually, because it's a pretty literal translation. And sometimes it's, sometimes it kind of helps me understand the passage a little bit better.

Me too. I was looking at Hebrews chapter 10, when Jesus said about the incarnation, and behold, I've come to do your will, O God. And that's exactly what Jesus did. You should be thinking about Jesus in his life of obedience.

He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He's a law keeper. But that's a quote from Psalm 40, and Psalm 40 says, I delight to do your will. And so Hebrews didn't translate it that way, but that's in Hebrew.

And then I looked at the Net Bible, because it's free. And I encourage people to look at the study notes. And you've got maybe Matthew, Henry notes, or I was going to say Malcolm McLaren, but Alexander McLaren.

And then it said a good way to translate Psalm 40 verse 8, I've come to do only what pleases you. And I go, that's right. That is good. That is good. So in general, we're not going to have them in the pew, but if you want to read the Net Bible for help, especially online, we would encourage that.

Well, I mean, I don't know if I've ever sat down and just tried to read, read, read the Net Bible. But my thinking on it is it probably wouldn't be too easy to just sit down and read.

I had a Net Bible with interlinear stuff in it, but I actually, I don't think I've hardly ever opened it. But we, you know, we want to say positive things, right? Occasionally. Oh, yeah. Because we're K-love.

Now we get to the negative part, and we only have three minutes to go. We have study Bibles, and it's page 10, and at the bottom of page 10, it does say Joyce Meyer reveals how to age without getting old, long right, but that's okay.

There's the ESV Fire Bible. There's the New King James Spirit-filled Life Bible, third edition. And there's a Spiritual Warfare Bible, which is new, and a Life in the Spirit King James Version Bible.

And then there's the Dakes Mistakes Bible. But we'll just talk about the Fire Bible to start. Originally designed as a tool for indigenous Pentecostal Christians around the world, this special edition is now available to you.

So wait a minute, they're indigenous to Pentecost? Is that what the... I guess they're pretty old.

When I see Fire Bible, I think of F-Y-R-E Bible, because they had the fire festival in the Bahamas. That was a big sham, scam, dude's in jail for it. And maybe this could be the same kind of scam, a fire Bible.

When I hear anything that's designed for a specific people group, I'm pretty much appalled.

Do you think there'll ever be a transgender study Bible? Yes. I think so.

Yeah. And whoever wrote it, or whatever... Notes they have? Yeah. I mean, travesty is what the correct word... It should be called the travesty study Bible.

Well, how about the M-E-V, the spiritual warfare Bible? What's it say here? Equip yourself to wield the sword of the spirit through the word of God and to demolish demonic strongholds. More than 250 declarations and prayers and over 200 tips for effective spiritual warfare.

So in other words, spiritual spell casting.

Is that like Dungeons and Dragons Bible? I think so.

I mean, isn't that what it sounds like? It sounds like we're going to Christianize witchcraft. No, I misread it.

I'm sorry. It says spiritual warfare Bible. It's the Bob Larson study Bible. Well, a lot of this stuff, I just think it's too... The best point you made this entire show, a study Bible should be for everyone.

Men, women, children, Indians, Africans, Americans, Incas.

Without regard to the color of your skin or where you came from or anything else.

Indigenous fire Bibles. I think that's almost maybe, is that kind of cancel culture? I might want to report them.

I don't know. But I mean, what is that supposed to create a picture of indigenous people prancing around a fire or something? I mean, what kind of rubbish is that?

Somebody the other day asked me right here, what do you think of John Eldredge? And I said, I said, do you want me? I said, it's a direct question. Want me to give you a direct answer? They said, yes.

I said, doofus.

Avoid. Hashtag. Avoid. He was a contributor to Dake's Mistakes.

Somebody gave me that once, a Dake's Mistakes Bible. I'm like, what is going on? Why do I need that? What did he deny? Something weird.

I can't even remember. I can't keep up with all this stuff. There are so many. I mean, look at it. There are so many of these study Bibles that are just abominable.

Team Life Study Bible. What do you do when you grow, when you get to be dear 20s? You throw it away. It's done. You burn it on fire. And it's a fire Bible if you don't do spiritual warfare. Well, my name is Mike Ebenroth.

Steve Cooley is with me. Steve, thanks for just kind of random thoughts about CBD.

It's always random when we talk about CBD.

Is it Christian to use CBD? Are you allowed to if you're a Christian? I'm not even going there. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebenroth 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 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.