Tolerance or Repentance?

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.

Tolerance as the New Cultural Virtue

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. It�s Mike Abendroth, super thankful to feel better. You know, when I�m sick, I often think to myself, �Mike, have a good theology of sickness. Why? Because we need good theology, even with sickness.

So it is fall here in New England, and the N-word of the day isn�t �hen-oh. The N-word of the day is tolerance, so we�re going to talk today about tolerance. Are you a tolerant person? Are you intolerant?

Are you anti-tolerant? Do you tolerate everything but tolerance? So today on No Compromise Radio, I want to discuss this because it�s a very popular word, isn�t it? It�s an N-word. D .A. Carson has a book called The Intolerance of Tolerance, or The Tolerance of Intolerance.

I think the first one, excellent book. What is the biggest virtue we have today? What�s the highest virtue? The most virtuous virtue? I think the word probably is, or the topic is, tolerance. And really, what is tolerance?

Should we be kind people, and do we tolerate other people�s bad behavior? How do we work through this as Christians? It is a big issue, specifically when it comes to gay and lesbian issues. And even in front of me here, I have the it�s pronounced metrosexual .com article about the gender-bred person, version 2 .0.

And we have, �Gender is one of those things everyone thinks they understand, but they don�t. Oh, oh, see, I didn�t know that. There are so many things. I just thought, kind of like Verdad, it was truth.

This tasty little guide is meant to be an appetizer for understanding, it�s okay if you�re hungry for more. So gender identity. We have non-gendered, and we have woman-ness and man-ness. We have dumb-ness.

We have agender, if we want to express things differently, masculine and feminine. We have biological sex, asex, our femaleness, our maleness. And attracted to, on one side, nobody, on the other side, men-males-masculinity, women-females-femininity.

So there�s a lot of different ways we can work this. Identity, attraction, expression, sex, gender-bred people. And so then you can go into schools here in Massachusetts and teach people about gender-bred persons.

Tolerance, Gender Identity, and the Rejection of Sin

And let�s think through gender identity. Let�s take gender identity for our example. I identify as a man, but I identify with a lot of what it means to be a woman. I�m sensitive, kind, familial, and I really like dark chocolate.

Kidding, stuff�s disgusting. Possessing this woman-ness does not make me any less of a man, but it�s a large part of my gender identity, and those traits affect my life and influence my decisions as much and more than many of my man-ness does.

I just have one question. I could read more of this, and I could tell you about the gender-bred man that�s the gender-bred, and join the discussion. Zero tolerance for intolerance, right? Love and equal is greater than H8, so love and equality is greater than hate.

This is a safe place for people of all identities. Of course it�s safe, where love and equality are supported, and ableism, sexism, classism, faithism, there we go, heterosexism, racism, sexism, and any other ism will not be tolerated.

Thank you for understanding. That is awful. That is not evil can evil. That�s awful can awful, as my father used to say. Zero tolerance for intolerance. I think that�s pretty intolerant, don�t you? How intolerant of them to say that faithism is hate speech.

See where all this is going? Coming to a theater near you. Instead of the word tolerance, would we serve our Lord and King, the Lord who bought the church with the price of his own blood? Would we be better off to say, instead of tolerating sin, tolerating unrighteousness?

See, here�s the thing. I know people put up with my sin a lot. That�s not the point. I put up with other people�s sin a lot. But love covers a multitude of what? Sins. True or false? It�s a glory to cover transgression.

True. I�ve just given you Bible verses. But I�m not going to celebrate sin. I don�t celebrate drunkenness. Matter of fact, it has, you know, God could just say drunkenness is bad and there could be no practical ramifications.

There could be no reasons why from a human perspective, but God just says don�t. And that would be fine. But drunkenness is bad because it hurts your body, hurts your brain, hurts your wallet, hurts your memory, hurts your self-control, hurts your liver.

There�s a lot of things. I�m not talking about alcohol. I�m talking about drunkenness. So, I don�t celebrate drunkenness, even though there might not be anything wrong with society when there�s drunk people, although we know differently now, don�t we?

So, when it comes to fornication and adultery, oh, maybe it�s fun for a season, but what does it do? It destroys family. Talking about adultery in particular here. And it undermines vows and promises.

It reflects poorly on Jesus� love for the church as we think about the bride of Christ and Christ the groom. So, there�s lots of reasons why adultery is bad for society, right? So, it doesn�t take you very long to go to the inner city and think where are the men, right?

The men impregnate the women and then run off. Maybe they�re not even married. Maybe they are. But I would think sin is sin, even if God says there�s no reason for it except I�m the creator. See, we�ve forgotten that.

Why do you think evolution is so popular? Because if you can get rid of God the creator, then it�s just a chemical romance and off you go. By the way, if I am intolerant, if I don�t celebrate sin, what do people care?

Well, why do they really care? I mean, I�m just a chemical reaction, so why do you care what a chemical reaction says? And here�s the answer to the question, and you get it straight from the horse�s mouth here at No Compromise Radio.

Deep down, they know they�re sinful. Deep down, Romans chapter 1, people know that there�s a God. And deep down, they know there�s judgment. Every single person knows. And they don�t want to be reminded of it.

Remember, we live in a society that�s so sinful, for the sake of sexual freedom, you will kill babies. Now, that�s pretty bad. So, if you think this is just some passing fancy, some fleeting whim, you know it�s all out, full bore.

When I used to ride a motorcycle, and you pull that accelerator all the way back, it is all out. It is full bore. When you say, for the sake of my sexual freedom, I will kill a baby, and I will jam a forcep into its head, and kill it when it�s got a half a leg stuck out, right?

Stuck in. And so, even now, it was in the news not that long ago, remember? College students talking about post-birth baby killing. I mean, of course they�re going to be into that, because they worship, and they have an idol, and its name is sexual freedom.

And so, don�t you tell me about these other things. And so, what�s the difference? The kids in the womb are out of the womb. There�s no difference. It�s still a baby, and they will kill for the sake of sexual freedom.

That�s the society we live in. Now, on a side note here, don�t ever forget that we as Christians aren�t any better than unbelievers. I mean, we were unbelievers. And what made us believers? It wasn�t our own will.

It wasn�t our own goodness. It wasn�t our own virtue. It wasn�t our own law-keeping. We are the beneficiaries of grace. We have received sovereign grace. We have been the recipient of sovereign, distinguishing grace.

Whatever we are, whatever we believe, it�s all stemming out of the great death of Christ Jesus, the God-man. And so, every benefit we have, it�s because it�s with union with Christ, and we�re in Christ Jesus.

Correct? And when we talk to people, they�re not the enemies. You might hate the sin, and hate the murder, and hate the abortion, and all that, but these people aren�t the enemies. And we want to present the gospel to them.

We want to preach the gospel to them, and they can be forgiven. Christ�s death on the cross is so great that drunkenness can be forgiven. I mean, my grandma used to have to intercept my grandfather at work on Friday.

He�d get paid and drink it all by Saturday night. And so, she�d have to go there and get the check and bring it home, and bring him home drunk too. She wasn�t drunk, but he was. Can God�s death, the Son�s death rather, God can�t die per se, but can the Son�s death, thinking about His humanity dying, assuage the wrath of God for adulterers, for murderers, for abortions?

The answer is yes, yes, and yes. And so, then when we move to this zero intolerance for intolerance, you know where this is all going. I mean, it�s homosexuality, and it�s gender stuff, and it�s any kind of sexual identity and or difference, and or perversion, and or, and or, and or that�s outside of a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage.

So, is it shocking that if marriage promotes and preaches Jesus� love for the church, the bride, that there isn�t an all-out attack, satanically driven through hypocritical lie speakers against marriage?

Well, yeah, it�s no surprise, but it�s no fun either. And so, at No Compromise Radio, while I am friends with people who fall into a variety of sinful categories, I don�t applaud their behavior. I love them in spite of their behavior.

I don�t celebrate their behavior. I still love them. But the word tolerance today is a jumping off point for you better not tell me I�m sinful anymore. Don�t you dare give me the sin word, because that�s a swear word.

That�s a four-letter type word, even though it�s only got three letters, and we will not hear from you. We must not hear from you that homosexuality is a sin. Oh, yeah, you can tell me it�s a forgivable sin, but I don�t care.

You cannot say the word. I disagree with homosexuality. I don�t think it�s right, and I think it�s sinful, or else you have the tolerance police that are going to be knocking at the door as soon as they can legally.

They�d want to do it now, but they�re waiting for the law to catch up with their agenda. And so you�ll see these things in Houston happen, and then they back off, but it�s all just slowly getting the kettle to the boiling point so the frog doesn�t jump out.

Repentance, Forgiveness, and the Gospel Call

So, what do we do? What do we do when sin is a hate speech word? What do we do when we say fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God? But I�ve got good news for you.

Such were some of you. You can be forgiven. You can be cleansed. You can be changed. I mean, they hate that. They hate that kind of speech. And Jesus Christ�s death is so great that you can be washed and cleansed and justified in the rest of 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

So, out goes, you know, sin, and in comes tolerance. And if sin is a word that is of the horse and buggy timeframe, then repentance is too. So, instead of saying repent, then we have to say tolerate, you know, put up with.

Spurgeon said, �Brethren, we shall not adjust our Bible to the age, but the age to the Bible. So, in Romans 1, Paul writes, verse 32,. �Though they know God�s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

That�s my sound board. What do we do? We have to not accept lifestyles. We have to clap and applaud them. We as Christians can�t do that. But if you have a religion in society called tolerance, that�s the new religion, the repentance, then anyone that comes across in any other way must be silenced according to their agenda.

This is a safe place for people of all identities where love and equality are supported. And ableism, sexism, C-I-S-S-E-X-I-S-M, I have no idea what that word means. You can�t call somebody a sissy.

I don�t know what that is. Sessy. Classism, faithism, heterosexism, racism, sexism, and any form of ism will not be tolerated. Love plus equality is greater than H -8, hate. Now why do Christians buy into some of this?

Why are we seeing the Andy Stanleys of the world and other leaders start to, I mean, they�re just not clear. I think you have to be clear with this. And so if you ever have to think, you know, well what really does he believe when he preached that sermon when Gracie met Truthy?

Now what did he mean by that? How did he mean that? I mean friends. He�s an excellent communicator. And there�s a reason why people communicate vaguely. Sometimes they don�t know how to communicate. And other times they do know how to communicate.

See the rub? I know. So why do people, why are people caving in? That�s my point. Why are Christians caving in? Well, some, maybe lay people, they don�t know what the Bible teaches. Right? And so the Bible�s old, old-fashioned.

Here we�ve got new science and, you know, we�re no longer in the Stone Age anymore and we were wrong about slavery and now we�re wrong about this too. Maybe that�s what some people think. Others are simply just afraid.

They�re afraid because if we don�t stop talking about it, somebody�s going to harm us financially, taxes, try to put us in jail. And for others, I think we want to be liked. We don�t want to have horns and we don�t want to be West, what is it, Westboro Baptist where they�re, you know, got the picketing stuff going on and that sinful nonsense.

We just have idols and idols are, I want to be loved. I want to be accepted. I want my reputation versus I have to do what God says. Excuse me. Here�s the rub. Are you ready for the rub 16 minutes into the show?

Without repentance, you can�t go to heaven. Without repentance from sin, you can�t go to heaven. Without a sin-bearer Jesus, you can�t go to heaven. And so if we just tolerate sin, accept sin, affirm sin, applaud sin, celebrate sin, we�re not doing our friends any good.

Now, I want to be kind and as I�ve said many times before, I have some lesbian friends. Our family has friends that are lesbians and I say hi to them. I hug them. I tell them I love them. I help them around the house.

There�s a variety of things. I don�t hate anybody. Hate is, listen, you�re in a burning building and we�re just not going to say anything about it. So this whole thing about hate speech is just thrown around in such a fashion that I�m quite confident my lesbian friends would defend me.

They might not like what I say about what is sin and what is not, but I think they would defend me that I�m a kind person. I�m nice and I tolerate them. I try to love them anyway. Right? Because we disagree, but I love them anyway and I think actually they show some love to us as well.

So it goes both ways. But my point is, you can�t go to heaven without repentance. And so that�s why we need to preach repentance. And the word of the day, tolerance, is taking away any need for repentance.

If the N word is tolerance, the out word is repentance. Now think about Jesus for a second. Did Jesus teach tolerance? I mean, we after all were called Christians, small Christ, that is followers of Christ.

And so did he ever teach tolerance? Was there ever a time he even said tolerance in the Bible? So depending on your translation, listen to Luke chapter 10, verse 10. �But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, �Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you.

Yet be sure of this, this is Jesus talking, �That the kingdom of God has come near. I say to you, it would be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!

For if the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.

And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades. It would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than those who are rejecting the gospel preached by Jesus.

People need to repent. People need to change. But repentance, I think if repentance is described these days, I would use the word ravaged to bring destruction on repentance, to devastate repentance, to have a tornado come down and wreak destruction on repentance, to pillage it, to sack it.

And that's what all this discussion about tolerance ends up doing. The Bible doctrines come under attack. And we just do what as a church? Think about it. If you count how many times your Bible says repent or repentance, in the New Testament alone, over 50.

When you think of John the Baptist, what was the theme of his preaching? Matthew 3, 2, repent for the kingdom of God is what? Kingdom of heaven is near. How about Jesus? Public ministry starts, Matthew 4, repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

Mark chapter 1, repent and believe the gospel. The time is fulfilled. Matthew 9, I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Sinners are called to repentance. Jesus sends out his disciples.

Mark 6, they went out and preached that people should what? Repent. Jesus is raised from the dead. The father has accepted his sin sacrifice. Not Jesus' sin, but Jesus acting as a sin sacrifice. He declared after his resurrection, repentance and forgiveness of sins, preached to all nations in his name.

There's a catastrophe in Luke chapter 13, two times. Repent or perish. You're all likewise perish if you don't repent. Peter begins to preach and has recorded sermons in Acts chapter 2 and 3. Repentance.

Paul, Mars Hill, Athens, commands, God commands all people everywhere to what? Repent. And then he talks to the Jews and the Greeks, Acts 20, they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.

So the moral of the story is the world is going to try to shut up Christians and it's tried to do that for a long time. Before we have any panic attacks, we need to not worry because worry is sin. The opposite of worry is trust and we're going to trust the Lord.

He builds his church. I don't build it. You don't build it. We don't want to build it. I don't want to be in competition with the Lord Jesus. And so he builds his church. And so how does he build it? By perfect people, by awesome preachers, by wonderful evangelists.

Well, sometimes he gives the church some of those things. But the church, when you think of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, is built with commoners, just the hoi polloi, just the regular people, not the higher ups, not the mucky mucks, not the celebrity Christians, just the regular people who are faithful farmers, faithful housewives, faithful janitors, faithful sales reps, faithful electricians, faithful nurses, just working hard behind the scenes, working with their hands, living a quiet and peaceful life, proclaiming the gospel to their friends with good news telling them you can have all your sins forgiven in Christ Jesus.

Are you interested? You must repent and believe. And so that's the way the church is built. It's always been built that way. And not one person for whom Jesus died will ever perish because God always gets his man.

He always gets his woman because the triune God never fails. He's never been frustrated in one thing he's ever done. And so in eternity past, when the Father, Son, and the Spirit agree, here's a group of people to go rescue, everyone will be rescued.

And after the last one's rescued, it'll be over. And so we have trust and confidence in the Lord God that even when we're dealing with sinful people in a sinful world, if I think of a lot of the folks that I've described here, I am a worse sinner.

I was a worse unbeliever. I was a bad person. And so if God can save me, he can save others too. But I just will refuse, along with you at No Compromise Radio, to say I'm going to put repentance away and never call people to turn from their sins because that is the human response after hearing the gospel of the resurrected Savior.

Repent and believe the gospel. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

Ministry Sign-Off and Station Disclaimer

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 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.