Still Small Small Esteban Voices

No Compromise Radio

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

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

00:08

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

00:16

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.'"

00:24

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

00:30

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.

00:41

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Tuesday guy, house in, casa in.

00:50

Buenos dias. Steve, tell me, you use some vernacular in the

00:55

Spanish language. Do you like Spanish food? Mexican food?

01:00

Si. You know, I just went with my daughter the other day. We went to a restaurant in town and I had enchiladas with mole.

01:11

They make the mole with peanut butter. It was very, very good. That sounds great. It's very good.

01:17

Wow. And it's in Holden. Do they launder money there? No, actually, people go to this restaurant.

01:24

They do. Steve, I looked at the Spectator the other day. This is the

01:30

Spectator UK because Carl Truman had quoted, or said there's a couple of interesting articles.

01:35

So I thought, you know what? I'll take a look at it. And it says here in the Spectator, just a little blog comment in their coffee house blog deal.

01:44

Open, excuse me, opposing gay marriage now is as brave as being openly gay was in 1970.

01:53

Is that Johnny Rotten right there? Where is

01:58

Johnny Rotten? I think Johnny Rotten, Johnny Lydon, has been on a bunch of reality

02:03

TV shows in the last 10 years. And you know, I guess he's still alive where Joey Ramona's dead and Joe Strummer's dead.

02:11

I guess if you're a punk rock band lead singer and your first name's Joe, then that's probably a bad deal.

02:18

It's like, you know, well, I won't go to that analogy.

02:24

It's not really appropriate. All right, well, there are at least some brave people out there today that will tell people the truth.

02:31

I'm thankful, I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful too. Now, Christianity Today has a section, a portion of their magazine.

02:41

It is called Her .Menudix. And it's usually written by this lady.

02:48

And she's discussing things from a feminine perspective. Which I guess would be her perspective.

02:55

Yeah. Yeah, she's feminine, therefore. Now it says here, it's an article which

03:04

I don't know the name of it. In the world we are entering, the concept of the Bible will be completely different, said

03:10

David Parker, theology professor of University of Birmingham. Speaking recently at the

03:15

Hay Festival in England, Parker predicted that technology will prompt personalized digital versions of scripture, like an individual copy of the

03:24

Bible. And so here it says in this article, Her .Menudix, biblical has become the word, become evangelical brand.

03:33

We read the Bible, we quote the Bible, we live by the truths and teachings of the Bible. For us, much would be lost if biblical authority eroded and eventually disappeared.

03:41

But she says, Luhrmann's recent book, When God Talks Back, Understanding American Evangelical Relationship with God, there's a difference between basically what this guy is saying, the

03:53

Bible says versus God just told me. Steve, how often does God speak to you? Well, every time

04:02

I open the Bible or listen to a sermon in which it's exegetic. Steve, we've talked about this so many times, but still

04:09

I would say most people think God speaks to them, most Christian people. Outside of the text, some leading, some moving, some whispering, some still small voicing.

04:22

What's right with that, if anything, what's wrong with that? I can't really think of anything right with that.

04:29

I mean, this is, you know, well, in fact, you know, one of the things

04:35

I write in my introduction to my book is I talk about, you know, people always say the Lord laid this on my heart or whatever.

04:42

And I said, I'm just not that spiritual, I guess, because the Lord doesn't particularly lay things on my heart.

04:48

He sticks them in my craw. Now see, now that would be a good book. Let's hope it's not on, what's the self -publishing money?

04:58

I'm not even going to say, because I haven't been published by them, so I don't want to jinx it. What if they want to publish me?

05:05

Steve, it's a funny story. I'm not going to try to sound like a big shot at all because I'm not, but the agent -

05:11

The author of many bestselling books. My book agent. And see, you really need an agent when you have to try to promote your own books and try to get into the editorial boards of certain publishers.

05:23

I mean, like, I know how to do that. Yeah, that's why you'd have the same agent as Bill O 'Reilly has. Not. And so it was funny.

05:35

She called yesterday and she said, now, one of the books that you've written that we haven't been able to get published yet, I talked to a certain editorial person at such -and -such a company.

05:45

What do you think of that? And it's a company that I regularly blast on NoCompromise Radio.

05:51

Lovely, lovely, smashing. And I said, well, that'd be great because I just figure, you know, theologically,

05:59

I don't want any compromise, but I'll do anything to get my book published. Yes, my most recent

06:06

NoCompromise book is coming out on some compromise publishing, you know, so. So I said to her, the question that any self -respecting,

06:16

NoCompromise Bible is the only truth man would say, and it was, what's the royalties? Let's just cut to the chase.

06:27

How much am I getting? Followed up by another question that the gift of discernment has certainly given me over the years and it's proven to be valid is.

06:34

What's your cut? What's the advance? Well, the cut's always the same for her.

06:40

Oh, okay. So when God speaks to us, you know, when I, now this is anecdotal evidence here, but the people that I respect the most in the world, either dead or alive,

06:53

God never said boo to them. He never said two words to them. He never said anything to them outside the word of God.

07:02

Is God speaking to us today, that paradigm? Do you think it's narcissistic,

07:09

Steve? Is it influenced by the culture of narcissism? You know what? I mean, I can think of times when

07:15

God did speak to me, but it was prior to me being saved where. Yeah, small

07:21

G, the God of this world. But I mean, so I don't know if it's narcissism or sometimes we just want to believe that God would speak to us.

07:30

You know, we want to think that we're important enough or that there, and you know, let's just be honest.

07:36

When I was wanting these kinds of messages, it was at a point where I was not willing to do any studying or, you know, any hard work.

07:43

I just wanted, you know, tell me what to do. Oh God of my mind, of my imagination, tell me how

07:50

I should live my life. Steve, tell our listeners again who your God was when you first went to AA.

07:56

Well, the God of. Or what the guy said you could have a God of. Well, yeah, I mean, we're sitting around in our circle and, you know, somebody says, we're talking about turning our life over to higher power.

08:06

And somebody says, my higher power is Jesus. I go, okay, my higher power is God. Okay, my higher power is part of, or is this group?

08:16

And I thought, okay, that's pretty stupid. And then it got a lot worse. My higher power, one woman said, is a part of my brain

08:24

I've designated to be my higher power. I just about passed out. I bit my tongue so hard because I didn't want to laugh.

08:32

You know, you're not allowed to laugh. And I'm just like, that is just foolishness. Steve, there are some people who hear from God who are good students of the

08:39

Bible. They read the Bible maybe more than you and I do put together, but I would say, generally speaking, one of the reasons why people love to hear from God allegedly is because they're lazy, to follow up on your point.

08:51

So if we can make point number one, let's say don't be lazy, right? Study the word of God.

08:57

There's plenty that's already been written. What did Paul write to Timothy? Show yourself approved that you can hear

09:03

God when he speaks to you. See, I think great minds think alike because I just turned the

09:09

Bible to that page and it says a couple verses, one verse ahead. Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

09:20

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed,

09:28

Paul writing to Timothy, rightly handling the word of truth.

09:34

And so what's good for the goose is good for the gander. What was good for Timothy the elder is good for all other

09:39

Christians. He should tell people, this is what I do, this is how you should study as well. And so do your best, spadadzo, energy.

09:46

Can't the Greek word there handling the, what's it called? Accurately handling, yeah. Dividing the word of truth, can it mean dreams and visions and voices in your head too?

09:56

Well, some people erroneously think, Steve, that it was Paul, the tent maker, he'd have to cut the animal skins perfectly so that they would meld together for the tent because you don't have any water, you don't want water running through the tent ceilings and stuff.

10:12

But in the original Greek, the classical Greek that influenced the Koine Greek, it actually means what you are saying.

10:19

It's a still, small voice. Oh, okay. If you parse what God says to you with butterfly kisses properly,

10:28

I think you'll come to the same point. Okay. Now, does God give you a butterfly kiss, Steve?

10:33

When was the last time he did that? I don't know. All I can think about is the schmaltzy song, butterfly kisses.

10:42

Steve, now I did make a mistake. I said that it was his book, When God Talks Back, Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God, but it said

10:50

T .M. Luhrmann, and it actually is a she. And so I don't want to disrespect her or anything.

10:58

And here's basically what she did. She interviews a lot of evangelicals. She observes what they do.

11:07

She, according to the article, embedded herself in the life of church for Sunday worship and weekly group meetings.

11:14

She even had a prayer accountability partner, and she met with a spiritual director.

11:20

She did a lot of sampling at the Vineyard Movement. See, that'd be good. Excellent, yeah. If you go to Grace Church in Los Angeles and talk to people who, you know, did

11:29

God speak to you, the ratio would be smaller. Yep, much smaller.

11:34

Right? And so then she said something about what people want from faith is to feel better than they did without faith.

11:42

That was one of the things that she found out that these people wanted. And so maybe they're thinking, I want to feel better with my newfound faith, and it's good for God to speak to me.

11:53

I mean, that would alleviate a lot of my problems, Steve. I've got decisions to make, and if God would actually say something, I would know for sure.

12:00

But he doesn't say anything, so what am I left to do? Instead of just be lazy and hear from God or just study on my own.

12:08

Steve, I think a lot of it has to do with not trusting in God and walking. They need to walk by faith.

12:14

Well, and again, you know, getting back to the other thing, just do the hard work of studying what the

12:20

Bible says and what it means and sorting things out and trusting in the Holy Spirit, as you were saying.

12:26

But yeah, that's just hard. It's much easier to just kind of lay back and, you know, talking about the vineyard.

12:33

What do those services mostly feature? It's not biblical exposition, it's ecstatic experience.

12:41

You know, people go home, they're excited, they're on fire, but what are they on fire about? It's not the holiness of God, it's not the forgiveness of sins, it's not all these other things.

12:51

It's about the great experience that they've had. They've just offered up strange fire before, oh, sorry.

12:59

But it was a great time, you know? Steve, did you go to the vineyard with the Sandheim Vineyard on that field trip? I did not, no, but I did go to the

13:06

Mott Auditorium with my good friend, Tony. So - The what auditorium? Mott Auditorium. Mott, what's that?

13:12

We saw the - Mott the Hoople? No, we saw one of the Kansas City prophets there, Bickle.

13:18

Bickle, you know? And then, you know, we saw people falling all over the place, roaring like lions, and just really having a great demonic time.

13:28

Yeah, well, I think you have heard me tell the story probably 25 times that we took a group of men to - 30, but who's counting?

13:33

Yeah, well, God told me it was only 20 and that Steve always exaggerates. So, anyway, we went to the vineyard in Anaheim.

13:44

Steve always exaggerates. Why was it kind of, it actually sounded like thunder when he said it, but only

13:51

I heard it. Well, our listening audience also heard it. That's the

13:58

Fiber One bar. So, I'm going to the Anaheim Vineyard, and this was when, what's his name was, the pastor?

14:06

Mott the Hoople. Oh, yeah. John Wimbley? John Wimbley, and so he was there.

14:12

And so I said to the guys, listen, he's going to either preach from Acts or from 1 Corinthians 12 to 14.

14:19

Why would I say that? Because that's what, although, you know, Bickle didn't do that.

14:26

He opened up to Matthew and, you know, many are called, but few will accept, was ultimately his text.

14:34

Really, I didn't know that. That reminds me of the - Many are called, but few will accept, yeah. The S. Lewis Johnson story about the kid who said one day to his parents when asked, what did the pastor speak about today at church?

14:44

And he said, he talked about cold Christians. And the parents are like, what do you mean cold Christians?

14:50

Many are cold, but few are frozen. And so he just said -

14:55

You learned that last year at Mount Hermon, didn't you? Yeah, that's right. And so, of course, we are at Anaheim Vineyard.

15:03

This is probably 1991 or two, and John Wimber does come out onto the platform on the stage there, and he's in a wheelchair with oxygen.

15:12

And I just thought, you know, I'm sad to see people decay as they get older and die. But his theology must not have worked, and he didn't have enough faith, because why was he not upright and walking around?

15:26

And why was he on oxygen? Should have just healed himself. Anyway, we had a bunch of guys seated in the back, and a guy came up to me and said, do you think you could calm your guys down a little bit?

15:40

Now, our guys were guffawing and were laughing some, but not really too much.

15:46

And he said he's an associate pastor, and was I the leader of the group, and where was

15:51

I from, and calm these guys down. Well, here's the thing, Steve. Maybe our guys should have been a little less slap -happy at looking at this extraordinary display of demonic pseudo -Mormonism or something.

16:06

I don't know what it was, peyote -induced. But why didn't he go up to the front of the stage, and when people were doing some spiritual moonwalking, and spiritual dead flies, and doing all this other stuff, why didn't he tell them to calm down?

16:21

I don't know, but my question for you is, why weren't you ready with, well, we're just slapping our knees in the spirit?

16:27

You know, something like that. He said to me, where are you from? Now, we're in Anaheim, so we're far away from Panorama City, so I thought it'd be okay if I said

16:35

I'm from Grace Church. That was a mistake, too. In L .A., when somebody says, where are you from, they're asking what gang you're with.

16:42

Oh, I didn't know that. You should have said Eastside. I could have said, do I listen to the Black Eyed Peas, or something like that.

16:48

They have some gang signs. He would have said, Black Eyed Peas, what's that? Anachronism, boys and girls.

16:54

The service is over, we make our way over to the bookstore, and this guy comes up to me, and he slaps me on the back too hard.

17:02

You know how there's a way to do it? Yeah. So I called the police and filed assault charges. Good for you.

17:09

And he said, you're where John MacArthur's at, aren't you? And I said, well,

17:17

John is the pastor, yes. And he said, bet you won't find any John MacArthur books in the bookstore here.

17:24

And so we began to talk, and I could tell this was going nowhere. So he left, and I just didn't want to make a scene.

17:31

And we were walking out of the bookstore, and there was a John MacArthur book. No discernment.

17:36

They just have whatever. I thought you were going to say, he slammed me on the back a little too hard, so I gave him a little shot in the windpipe, and took him down.

17:46

No, God told me in a still, small voice, don't do that. Don't respond.

17:51

Yeah. So I think basically what this article is trying to tell us is here's this lady, she studies evangelicalism, and she finds a bunch of people that hear from God.

18:00

And so what do the people who are listening today, Steve, what do they do?

18:05

If we're saying God doesn't talk outside of His word anymore, what do we say to them if they say, no, but I've heard from God, therefore it must be true?

18:13

How can these men say, no, I've experienced it? You know, that is the age old question, but here's what we know.

18:23

Jeremiah 17, nine says, the heart is deceitful above all else. We believe in our hearts, certain things, and we're wrong.

18:30

But here's what we know about the Bible. The Bible is never wrong. And if Jesus, or if God the

18:36

Father says that He has spoken to us in His Son, and this is the last word He's going to give, and there are all these injunctions at the end of Revelation and all through Scripture about adding to Scripture.

18:46

Well, why is God speaking to us any different than adding to Scripture? Why would He speak just to us, a special message for us, but it's not for anybody else?

18:56

You have to ask yourself why. What's your view of the Bible? What does that say about your view of the

19:02

Bible? And what if one time God speaks to you and God's wrong? Well, what if He has bad

19:08

English? You know, it's like these people say, God told me something, then they end their sentence with a preposition or something.

19:15

I'm thinking, oh yeah, okay. Steve, don't you think David Wells is right when he said, if you do accept these subjective impressions and God's speaking to you as authoritative, especially over and against the

19:29

Scriptures, you have now replaced autobiography in place of Scripture.

19:36

So what happens to you, therefore it must be true. No, I can't deny anything's happened to you because I'm not you.

19:44

But we have to go back to the Bible. What does the Bible say? And it's back to you, Steve's verbiage age -old question.

19:50

Is the Scripture sufficient? Are the Scriptures sufficient or are they not? Well, I mean, ultimately what you ought to do if you're gonna be consistent then is, you know, you need to have,

20:01

I'll just call it the book of Steve, the 67th book of the Bible. And, you know, as God talks to you, you write them down and you add it onto the

20:08

Bible because it's inerrant. It's, you know, everything that the

20:14

Bible is supposed to be, right? Because it often, except for it's not gonna be consistent. For example, you know,

20:20

Amy Grant believes that God wants her to divorce her husband because God wants her to be happy.

20:26

Even though that's contra the Bible, then Amy needs to have right after Revelation, the book of Amy, and she could just write down, you know, what

20:33

God told her and how she can justify that. And I'm not just picking on Amy, I'm just pointing out as an example, this is what

20:39

Christians do all the time. They justify their own sinfulness by saying, God told me,

20:46

God gave me a peace, God, whatever. And sometimes it's not even sin. But ultimately you just have to say, is the

20:53

Bible sufficient? Is it enough? You know, was God right when he told Peter to write this down?

20:59

You know, he's given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Was that correct or not? I think,

21:05

Steve, that all too often, no compromise style is these people have erected false idols.

21:10

A kinder, gentler Mike would be, do you know, have you forgotten that God doesn't want you to know all these details?

21:17

And he wants you to walk in a way that acknowledges his sovereign, providential authority over all.

21:23

And you walk by faith and not by sight. And if you have decisions to make, then you ought to do what

21:29

God says, and that is trust in the Lord and do good. And then he's gonna work these things out, right?

21:35

It's gonna be, I'm not gonna lean on my own understanding, I'm gonna acknowledge him in these ways, and he's gonna make my path straight.

21:41

But no, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna trust in the Lord, I'm anxious. God, tell me what to do. Do I marry the guy or don't

21:48

I? Well, maybe God can make the guy flee to Venezuela or something so you can't marry him and you realize that that's a closed door.

21:55

But you don't need to have God speak to you for you to live a rich and full life and be guided by the spirit of God through scriptures and through circumstances and other things.

22:07

God told me not to pay my house payment because then I'd qualify for a government subsidy and he wants to bless me in that way.

22:15

God told me, I mean, there are all sorts of things. With few exceptions, Steve, the people that say

22:20

God told me have horrible theology, are not well -versed in scripture.

22:26

Now, there are a few exceptions, of course, in the Grudems and the Pipers of the world. But most of the time, I think to myself, why would

22:32

God speak to you when you can't even defend the Trinity? You don't even understand pneumatology.

22:39

You think the church is supposed to be a rock and roll circus or something. Why would God speak to you?

22:44

If God was going to speak to people, most of the time, Steve, in scripture, when God spoke to people, I think they were pretty, from the human perspective, heady, heavy people.

22:53

That is to say, Elijah. I mean, he'd be speaking to R .C. Sproul or Sinclair Ferguson or somebody like that.

23:00

You know, he wouldn't be talking to, well, he wouldn't be talking to Steve, you know. Well, and I mean, tell me, this doesn't happen too.

23:07

If they're going to make a movie about, you know, some God talking to somebody as John Denver or it's Jim Carrey, or it's, you know, some complete fool, he just picks some loser off the street instead of the godliest man around.

23:23

I don't know the exact quote, so maybe you can recall it for me, Steve. The Lily Tomlin, when you talk to God, that's called prayer.

23:30

When God talks to you, that's called schizophrenia. Well, even unbelievers realize.

23:37

Of course, can you have a relationship with God that's a two -way relationship? Well, obviously, but never the twain shall meet when it comes to you talking to God, that's called prayer.

23:48

When God talks to you, it's called scripture. But pastor, what about the scripture that says, he walks with me and he talks with me?

23:55

What about that verse? That is a verse, but it's called a hymnody verse.

24:02

It's called a lyrical verse. And that is right up there with the, how great to hold a newborn baby.

24:10

And you know, all I can tell you about, he walks with me and he talks with me, I'd call that Rodgers and Hammerstein theology because it's straight off Broadway, baby.

24:20

Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. Steve Cooley is here. You can write Steve Cooley at Tuesday Guy, Tuesday Guy at NoCompromisedRadio .com.

24:29

Steve, are you gonna do some Saturday shows at all? Or what should the listeners be? Yes, I am. I'm gonna start calling them

24:34

Saturday Guy on Tuesdays. We'll start podcasting them on Tuesdays. Well, the new website's up and eventually,

24:42

Steve, people can go to the Tuesday Guy site and then just listen to only the shows for you and the shows that you have with me.

24:48

Really? I wanna make my grandkids listen to all those shows. I'll have an audience of four, at least.

24:55

So, good to have Steve back after sabbatical. You can write us info at NoCompromisedRadio .com, October 4th and 5th.

25:00

Pat Abendroth here at Bethlehem Bible Church. Go to bbcchurch .org. Don't miss it. Pat's the smart

25:05

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

25:12

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.

25:22

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.

25:29

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

25:37

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