Puritans: Good or Bad?

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.

Opening Banter and Studio Setup

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, Michael Lee Abendroth, and we here are in the studio with all kinds of props. You can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you want to order Sexual Fidelity, the book, go to NoCompromiseRadio .com and order the book, and I will send you things to go bump in the church for free.

It won�t notify you that on the cart, but I will send it anyway. Israel, assuming we don�t have to have mandatory vaccinations to get in or something like that, that will be February 23rd of not this year, but next year, 2022, with Omaha Bible Church is Pat Abendroth, who�s also now the podcast king, the Pactom Podcast.

I�m looking at the passage that I�m going to preach tomorrow from 2 Peter 1, verses 5 -11, and I�m wondering what it says in the Message Bible. Hmm, I wonder what it�s going to say. Well, it says, �So don�t lose a minute in building on what you�ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing of others.

With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet. Praise the Lord. My hand�s up, worshipping. I�m no longer on Twitter, except what you�ll have on Twitter. Matter of fact, my son here is Hey, Luke, I�m on the actual radio right now, and I�m just continuing to talk, and I thought, okay, here we go.

Anything you want to tell? The radio, live on Facebook, FaceTime, Face. What are you talking about? Well, right now, the only thing I was talking about was an introduction, and I was talking about don�t let the grass grow under your feet, according to 2 Peter 1 in the Message Bible.

The Law as a Mirror of Sin

Hmm, that sounds great. Well, I was just thinking about, I just don�t want to tell you, and see what you thought about my analogy of the law as a mirror that shows us our sin. And so in Romans chapter 3, it says that the law speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed.

And I think specifically in view there is the revealed law of God that shows our sin. But Romans 2 says that even the law of nature that�s written on our heart shows our sin. So the analogy that I had was an ugly this is for high school students.

Imagine someone super ugly, extremely ugly, that would make you recoil when you saw them. You don�t want to let people know you�re looking at them. And imagine that person before they had tools to make mirrors.

Would they have understood that they were ugly, that they were different? Well, probably. They could see in the stream when they�re drinking water, they probably know, people look at me funny. But the difference between people who have the revealed law of God and people who don�t, both can see their ugliness, but it�s like we have an Ikea mirror that I just look at and go I can zoom in.

I�ve got the little circle mirror that zooms in. I can see all the blackheads that I need to get. And both know. One is a little bit dimmer. We can�t quite see as clearly, but the law is written on everyone�s heart.

But when you have the revealed commands of God, it�s like you�re looking straight in the mirror at the most disfigured face you can imagine.

Well, with a little light bulb around it in a circle and a ten times magnification, right?

That�s right. And it makes you just fall down looking at yourself because you�re so nasty.

Oh, well, you know, it�s interesting because there are so many people, Luke, that I don�t think they preach enough law as the mirror, and it�s just like, well, you know, Jesus loves you kind of thing.

And of course, Jesus does love sinners, but Romans 3, 19 there, it�s, you know, we need to get people to the point where they would say, I mean, we preach and the Spirit of God does it, where they�re like, you know what, if you�re right, I�m damned, I�m going to hell, I don�t measure up, I have nothing else to say except, you know, the song of silence.

That�s Romans 3, 19. The song of silence that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

That�s right. So now you�ve got the mirror for the first use of the law. Civil use is the restraining, but how about, what are you going to use for like the norming or the guiding? What would be your illustration for that for the third use of the law?

The norming or the guiding. Some type of... It�s like... Oh, you know what just popped in my mind, Luke? It�s like a Sherpa. And the Sherpa guides you up to the top of Everest.

Yeah, but yeah, and if you make some wrong turns, you might get into trouble, but the Sherpa�s got a rope tied to you and he�s not going to let you fall all the way down the mountain. That�s right.

You might fall 100 feet, but you�re not going to fall...

And you might break your leg and need an amputation, but you�re not going to fall all the way to your death.

It�s interesting, too, because it�s so dangerous when you go up to Everest. They start that final ascent from Base Camp 4, I think, to the top on the summit, and they go to the death zone at nighttime.

And it�s kind of nice because you only have a light, because if you could see what was six inches to your right, it�s an 8 ,000 foot drop to the bottom. Ouch. I know. I don�t think I�m... You know, you and I, we swam Alcatraz together, but I don�t think we�re ever going to do Everest.

Yeah, I think I�m pretty... I�m good here. I saw a show the other day on Everest, Luke, and they have something close to the summit, and if you need a little shelter, it�s called Green Boots Cave. So there�s a guy who�s been frozen for 10 years and he�s laying there with green boots on, so it didn�t work out so well for him, Green Boots Cave.

Are they green Doc Martens? No, I think they�re better than that. You should have been here for the last show, Luke, because I was talking about Mary Bateman. She was known as the Prophet Hen of Leeds, and she was killed by hanging because she was convicted of poisoning someone, but she made her claim to fame by putting some acid on eggs, chicken eggs, and the acid said, �Jesus is coming.

And so then she would re-insert the eggs into the hen�s oviduct, and then when the hen laid the egg, re-laid the egg, out came the egg that said, �Jesus is coming. Wow, tricky.

You need that to get people to be regenerated. I know.

No one on this show has ever said blackheads, and no one has ever said oviduct until we started talking about it. Well, now we have. Uh-huh. All right, well, I just wanted to tell you that. I probably should leave you to your show.

All right, I�ll get back to the show, and maybe we�ll have you come in and we�ll do a call-in radio show sometime with Luke Abendroth. Sounds good. All right. Talk to you soon. I�ll see you soon. Bye.

I love you. All right, well, how about that? That was spontaneous, was it not? Luke is teaching some high school students, and I think he has two more Wednesdays that he teaches or something like that, and I think I�ll address him when I�m in California visiting, and then he is moving down to San Diego way and looking at different churches, trying to figure out what church he�ll attend, and so I think one day maybe I�ll attend his church that he�s pastoring.

Who knows what will happen in the future? No one really knows. Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. I was going to start off a certain direction and, of course, didn�t make it.

Puritans: Good, Bad, and Discerned Carefully

I have something from Thomas Watson. Now, when you hear Puritan, the word Puritan, I don�t know what goes through your mind. What I used to hear was good, Calvinistic, theological, English, Reformation, that type of thing, and when I hear Puritan now, I think to myself, some good, some not so good.

Some Christ-centered, some too much self-examination, some law gospel, some law gospel law kind of thing. So, just because you hear the word Puritan doesn�t mean they�re necessarily good. When I read Joseph Alain, Alain�s Alarm, I�m thinking, �Ah, I think he�s pushed it a little bit.

I don�t know if I really see free offer as much as I want to or sola fide, et cetera. If I go to Richard Baxter, I see a bunch of law. Gnome is law, neo-gnomism, law, legalism, it�s justification by faith, working through love.

And, of course, John Owen went after Richard Baxter for that wrong view. So, just because you hear the word Puritan doesn�t mean it�s good. I think Joel Beakey�s got a book on different Puritans, and you could just read a little summary of each one so you could kind of put them in their theological categories.

Are they Anglican? Were they Conformist? Were they, you know, whatever they were, so you can kind of put them in a box. I like to know if I think of a theologian, �Oh, they were Amil, they were Paedo-Baptist, they were Covenant theologians, they were law gospel.

I mean, I just like to know, and it�s very helpful. Well, one of the ways that you could start reading about the Puritans is if you just pick a Puritan and begin to read a few of his things. And I think a good place to start, because it�s very biblical, Christ-centered, but also not navel-gazing, and easy to read, not many big words, with lots of word pictures, by the way, too.

And his name was Thomas Watson. He lived in the 1600s. And Thomas Watson, if you get his book on the body of divinity, which I think contains his work on the Ten Commandments, there is going to be much good for you when you read Thomas Watson.

Here�s a little thing that he wrote as kind of like a little teaser for you, so you might go get a Thomas Watson book on what may be that Puritan paperback series, All Things for Good, Romans 8, 28, Watson�s little booklet on that.

Here�s what Thomas Watson said in a little article called, �Sweetest friend, sorest enemy. Sweetest friend, sorest enemy. I think this is from his Ten Commandments book. We are apt to have slight thoughts of God�s wrath.

And this is a discussion about Matthew 25, �Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire. That�s what he�s addressing. I should have said that earlier. We are apt to have slight thoughts of God�s wrath.

The Hebrew word for wrath signifies heat. To show that the wrath of God is hot, therefore it is compared to fire in the text. Fire when it rages is dreadful. So the wrath of God is like fire. It is the terrible of terribles.

If when God�s wrath is kindled but a little and a spark flies into a wicked man�s conscience in this life, it is so terrible that it will be�what will it be when God stirs up all his wrath? Psalm 78. How sad it is with a soul in desertion.

God then dips his pen in gall and writes bitter things. His poisoned arrows stick fast to the heart. While I suffer thy terrors, I am disgraced. Thy fierce horror goes over me. Psalm 88. Luther, in desertion, was in such horror of mind that he had no blood seen in his face, but he lay as one dead.

Now if God�s wrath be such toward those whom he loves, what will it be toward those whom he hates? If they who sip of the cup find it so bitter, what will they do who drink its dregs? Solomon says, �The wrath of a prince is as the roaring of a lion.

Proverbs 19. What then is God�s wrath? When God musters up all his forces and sets himself in battalion against a sinner, how can his heart endure? God is the sweetest friend, but the sorest enemy. Thomas Watson, 1620 -1686.

My name is Mike Ebenroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. There are some books written by Puritans, published by Banner of Truth, that are very accessible and kind of nice, small paperbacks, easy to read.

Banner of Truth, either out of Carlisle, excuse me, I didn�t have time to hit the mute button on that one, Carlisle or in Edinburgh, UK, Banner of Truth, for the most part, with few exceptions, publishes great books.

I did talk to their leadership about why you�re publishing the Baxter stuff, but anyway, the one I have in front of me is called �Justification Vindicated� by Robert Traill, T-R-A-I-L. So it�s a series they have called Puritan Paperbacks, and you can buy the whole thing, I don�t know, it�s probably $500, or you can buy them here and there, like Ralph Venning, The Sinfulness of Sin, All Things for Good by Thomas Watson, Justification Vindicated by Robert Traill, you can find a bruised read by Richard Sibbes.

Some of those are right up there that you just get, and you just work your way through. And again, Puritans, just because it says Puritan doesn�t mean it�s good, but for the most part, the Banner of Truth stuff will be good.

Robert Traill wrote this book on justification, and man, it is so good, because our society today with this final justification and new perspectives on Paul and federal vision, it�s just kind of back in the news again.

And mostly, I think, the counter-reaction or over-reaction, pendulum-swing reaction against sola fide and faith alone is because they�re afraid of antinomianism, they�re afraid that if it�s free, it is a free justification, it is sola fide, then how do we control the people?

I think that�s really the rub. What motivates a Christian for holy living? And is it the guilt, grace, gratitude paradigm? Or is it, well, you know what, you need to keep doing things, and there�s a big difference between the ground of our salvation, Christ, and the evidences slash fruits of what we have in our life that the Spirit of God is making.

He says, Robert Traill, in Justification Vindicated, �The subject of the controversy is the justifying grace of God in Jesus Christ. Remember, this is the 1600s, same thing back then as now. �Owned it is by both sides, and both fear it is abused either by turning it into wantonness, hence the noise of antinomianism, or by corrupting it with the mixture of works, hence the fears on the other side of Arminianism.

Both parties disown the name cast upon them, and the one will not be called Arminian, and the other hate both the name and the thing of antinomianism, truly so called. You've got Robert Traill who understands that if the biblical truth of justification by faith alone is 6 p .m. on a clock, we overdo it with extra law, legalism, or somehow our part to it, and Arminianism, semi-Pelagianism even, or then we underdo it at 5 o 'clock, and then we have no law, and we therefore are lawless.

And so he deals with that controversy. I think you would be encouraged to go back and study justification. I say regularly that that should be a class in every seminary, a whole class on justification, because it's such an issue.

Traill said, �All the great fundamentals of Christian truth. Oh, I think he's... Yeah, what am I doing? Yeah, Traill, �All the great fundamentals of Christian truth center in this of justification, the trinity of persons in the Godhead, the incarnation of the only begotten of the Father, the satisfaction paid to the law and justice of God for the sins of the world by His obedience and sacrifice of Himself in that flesh He assumed, and the divine authority of Scripture which reveal all this.

There are all straight lines of truth that center in this doctrine of justification of a sinner by the imputation and application of that satisfaction. There can be no justification without a righteousness.

No righteousness can suffice but that which fully answers and perfectly answers the holy law of God. No such righteousness can be performed but by a divine person. No benefit can accrue to a sinner by it unless it is in some way his and applied to him.

No application can be made of this but by faith in Jesus Christ. And therefore, when you read things like that, it's like, �This is good. This is important for me to understand and work through, especially in light of history, because true or false, there's nothing new under the sun.

Traill begins to deal with the idea of justification by faith alone because he knew there were legalists, there were Arminians, there were the Richard Baxter, the Baxterinians, and somehow they had faith mixed with obedience and faith mixed with love, and you don't want to do that.

You don't want to have any type of our obedience, our love, our response as the ground of justification. The ground of justification, dear Christian friend, is Jesus. It is his life as he was under the law and he was meriting for us righteousness.

We receive his righteousness by imputation and he receives the penalty of our law-breaking on himself by imputation. This is important, and when you look at Traill, he will weave through issues of this very thing and, of course, you're going to bring John Owen into it and anytime Owen comes in, I'm happy.

John Owen said, �Despite concessions on both sides, the distance and breach continue as wide as ever they were, nor is there the least ground toward peace obtained by any of our concessions. For unless we can come up entirely under the decrees of the Council of Trent, wherein the doctrine of the Old and New Testament is anathematized, they will make no other use of any man's concessions, but only to increase the clamor of differences among ourselves.

Owen, �I mention this only to intimate the uselessness of such concessions in order unto peace and agreement with them, while they still have a Procrustes's bed to lay us upon, and from whose eyes they will not recede.

We can't bargain when it comes to sola fide. We can't say to ourselves, you know what, there are concessions to antinomians. There are concessions to neonomians. We have concessions for sola fide because it strikes one as, you know what, then you can just go be hellions and run around.

It strikes us as, you know what, if you're not going to teach sola fide, then just how many works are you going to have to do? It strikes us that we say to ourselves, you know what, how does God receive my works, even though my works are not done with a perfect motive and with perfect delight?

Answer, since the Lord Jesus receives us, He receives our works as well. And all this is connected, justification, sanctification, all influenced by sola fide. We believe in the duplex gratia, the double benefit, Jesus takes care of our sins, right?

Pardon? And then He takes care of us in the doctrine of sanctification, the Holy Spirit changing us on this life incrementally and dipping up and down, of course, based on our own sin. But still, it's true, this power of the Holy Spirit for sanctification.

Reading Puritans with Discernment

Well, anyway, all this started off with Puritans, and do we like Puritans, and should you read them? The answer is yes, but be discerning, like always, a Berean. We want to commend your discernment. And then what do I do?

I listen to somebody that I respect, and then if they say something, then I take that to heart. They're not always right, I might not always agree, but that's a good place to start. So when Sinclair Ferguson says, you ought to read John Owen, I think, oh, therefore I should.

Well, I'm no Sinclair Ferguson, since you listen to the radio show. You ought to read Puritans, especially when it comes to the doctrine of justification. So you could read something by Owen, although that would be harder to start, Volume 5, I believe, but you could start off very easily with Justification Vindicated by Robert Traill.

If you like to study the sovereignty of God, try All Things for Good by Thomas Watson, a whole little booklet on Romans 8 .28, God works all things together for our good. Anyway, my name's Mike Ebendroth.

We're talking about Puritans in general. I think you can find a lot, but you want to be careful because I find them really pretty introspective. I would say my idea of Puritanism has gone from hagiography and, you know, exaltation and they're celebrity Christians to, well, not all of them were as good as I thought they were, and therefore you want to be careful.

But Robert Traill is going to be very influential for you, and it's going to make sure you don't deny essential elements of justification. You don't want to be an antinomian, and you don't want to be a neonomian.

You want to believe in what we call free justification by faith alone, and that will spur you for holy living, spur you into holy living and everything else. We hope to be going to Israel soon, and so you can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com.

I think I need 10 or 12 people to sign up to go for my part, but I think I'm able to have about 25 people to fit on the bus. You can also reach me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. We've had lots of visitors to the Church these days, so I'm encouraged about that.

And I think the next couple shows I might talk a little bit about 2 Peter and the subjective side of assurance. Assurance is a big issue, and we want to make sure we navigate that properly, and we'll do that, hopefully, next time on No Compromise Radio.

Don't forget, my brother has a new podcast called The Pactum, from the Pactum Salutis, that is the covenant of peace we call the covenant of redemption, the eternal arrangement that the Father and the Son have as the Holy Spirit witnesses that and then applies Christ's death to us.

Thanks for listening.

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.