Bad books - "Sins of Scripture"

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

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Ebendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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I'm your host, Mike Ebendroth. I think this is about show 32, and we're just working our way through No Compromise Radio type of topics.

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If you've got a question, info at nocompromiseradio .com. If you'd like podcasts, if you'd like to get some other, we're gonna have some desktop downloads and other things, you go to our radio website, or our website, www .nocompromiseradio

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.com. And as your host today, we're looking at books that you should burn or books that should have you turn pages.

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Today is Wednesday, October 28th, and today is book day. Last week, we looked at a couple of books that you should buy.

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Michael Horton's book, The Gospel -Driven Life, and that you should also buy Ted Kluck's books, a variety of those,

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Why We Love the Church, Why We're Not Immersion, et cetera. So I'd like to talk about positive things. That was last week.

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And today, we wanna look at a book that you should burn. I saw in the news last week that there was a man who's a pastor and he wants to burn all kinds of Bibles.

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If it's not King James, he wants to burn it, and it got some publicity. I think that's pretty childish.

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I think it's pretty dumb. I think it's wrong more than anything else. And so when

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I say I have books to burn, that basically is a way to get your interest and for me to tell you it's not good for your soul.

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It's not sound doctrine. It's not hygienic. It's not good for your kids to read. It's not good to waste money and give this to the publisher, in this particular case,

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Harper San Francisco. You wanna be careful. And as a pastor and as a radio host, I have obligations.

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My first obligation is to teach sound doctrine, and I also have another obligation, to refute those who contradict.

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So that's what we have to do here on the radio station, and that's what I have to do as a pastor. It's just not standing up for the truth, but when you stand up for truth, you stand up against error.

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And so today, instead of having a page -turning book, we wanna have a book burning. This is a book that you ought to burn if you have it.

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And the book today is called The Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Spong.

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The Sins of Scripture. Now, right away, you should say to yourself, not with the

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New York Times, this book is long overdue, but you should say The Sins of Scripture.

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And what you see, the subtitle is from Spong, exposing the Bible's texts of hate to reveal the

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God of love. John Shelby Spong's book, The Sins of Scripture. Ought to be burned.

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He is, or was, an Episcopal bishop of Newark before he retired, and he is known for his blasphemy, his arrogant presumption that he is above Scripture.

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This book is endorsed by Publishers Weekly, no big deal.

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Boston Globe, no big deal. New York Times, no big deal. But probably the most interesting praise that's on this book is from Bill O 'Reilly.

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Bill O 'Reilly says, "'The Sins of Scripture' challenges Christians to look beyond the myths of their faith into the heart of the matter.

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To some, the book will be heresy, to others, revelation. But above all, it will make people think which is just what

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Bishop Spong meant to achieve." And so, while I might like some political views of Bill O 'Reilly, he doesn't understand the

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Bible, he doesn't understand good hermeneutics, he doesn't have the Holy Spirit to illumine him, and I would not give this book praise.

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I would not give this book a thumbs up. I would not give this book a neutral. This book is pure blasphemy.

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Let me give you some of the subtitles that are here. The Word of God is section one, and in that section, why this book, this theme, this author.

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Section two, the Bible and the environment, talking about birth control, talking about green earth, talking about the ethics of overbreeding.

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What are the ethics of overbreeding? We have an earth here, and that earth is to be subdued. We are to populate this earth.

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We are subdued this earth. This earth is not going to last forever. There will be a very interesting earth day one day when

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Jesus Christ returns, and the whole thing is obliterated. And 2 Peter 3 talks about that roar with the fervent heat and the elements will burn up.

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We don't want to worship the creation. We want to worship the creator as we look at creation. This fall day,

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I'm looking out the window right now, just seeing the trees and the sky and the beauty of the creator.

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Then Spong goes into his next section, the Bible and women. What do you think this liberal atheist unbeliever is going to say about the

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Bible and women? And he's got sexism in Christian history as one of the chapters in that section.

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He's got menstruation and the male fear of blood. He's got the women as a source of evil chapter.

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Of course, he'll discuss that in some detail. But then the section that I think is the most interesting is this, section four, the

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Bible and homosexuality. He has four chapters. The ecclesiological, easy for me to say, ecclesiological,

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I can't talk. It's a lot easier than you think it might be.

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No, it's a lot harder than it might be. The ecclesiastical battle over homosexuality.

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The holiness code from the book of Leviticus, the story of Sodom and homophobia of Paul.

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Paul had homophobia and we've got some bad things in the scripture and we ought to excise those things according to Bishop Spong.

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And so we have on page 127, Spong is waxing unequivocally about what the

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Bible doesn't really say when it comes to Genesis 19. He starts off with a chapter saying a

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Sodomite, that at one time meant simply a citizen of the city of Sodom. Today, Sodomite has come to mean one who, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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That's not the part of the book that I really object to. I object to how he goes and how he just obliterates authorial intent.

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He obliterates Genesis chapter 19. He doesn't talk about the wickedness of Sodom. He just spins it all so it is politically correct, so it is sociologically correct.

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And I have to say in the outset, as a sinner myself, I wanna make sure we all understand that all kinds of sins are forgiven in Christ Jesus, the great savior of sinners.

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Jesus came to save sinners, and he saves those who are adulterers, fornicators, and homosexuals.

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And people say, well, you know, this is not a topic that can be addressed today in a formal environment, in a public environment.

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And I think that's probably going to be the case. Soon enough, we'll have to decide, are we going to teach all the Bible, or will this be like Canada, where you have four sections of scriptures that you cannot talk about if you want to keep all your money, and then also not get thrown into jail.

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So we have to be careful, and I would say right from the get -go, if you're a heterosexual or a homosexual, you're a sinner, and you need to be saved from your sin.

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And your sin will express itself in lots of different ways. Your corrupt heart will manifest itself in ways with your body and your mind, and you need to be saved from your sin, because it is a sin against a thrice -holy

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God. And we wanna make sure that we understand that all sins can be forgiven. Short of the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit, that would be for another show, we know that the Bible teaches you can have forgiveness.

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And so, while I'm not trying to single out one particular sin that somehow is unforgivable,

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I am singling out Spong's horrible, blasphemous, unbiblical book that just contributes to this whole kind of, if you stand up against a sin, you're homophobic.

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I stand up against stealing, but does that make me afraid of people who steal?

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Here's what he says on page 133. The Bible supports the prejudice of homophobia only by having its message twisted with a strange literalization, coupled with the ability to read ancient tribal history and practice as if it could be made holy by calling it the word of God.

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If that is what biblical morality is, I want none of it, end quote. At least he's honest.

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At least he's honest. If you read the Bible in a normal, literal, plain, grammatical, historical way, then it is offensive.

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It calls men and women out on their sin. Whether that sin is greed or idolatry or homosexuality, all sins are against a thrice holy

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God. And at least Spong has enough nerve to say, I don't want that, I don't like it.

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And frankly, who wants a God who is so holy? And by the way, one of the attributes that people don't really like about God is his immutability.

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God does not change. He never has changed. And so think about it. All his attributes are immutable as well.

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It's one thing to be righteous a majority of the time, but once in a while, maybe a little unrighteousness wouldn't hurt us as a creation.

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And so we look at God, though, and he is, on the flip side, immutably righteous.

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While we like justice when it's for our benefit, we don't really like justice when we're on the receiving end of some kind of penalty.

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And so who wants a God who's just all the time, yet God is immutably just? Who wants a

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God who's holy all the time and transcendent and set apart and different and not part of the creation?

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Well, God is a God who is immutably holy. And so some argue with God and his attributes, not necessarily that he is just or holy or righteous or he's true or he's faithful, but that he's just always faithful, always true, always kind, always loving.

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He is immutably just, immutably righteous, and immutably abhorrent against those who would somehow turn the

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Bible into something it is not. It is not some book to be trifled with if you don't like something in it.

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If you don't like something in it, then I say you should have retired from the Episcopal bishopship a long time ago.

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Just go tell people you are what you are, and that is an atheist, agnostic, Christ -hating Bible hater.

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That would be better. At least he'd be more honest. But Spong hides behind his clergy outfit and he says this in page 133.

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For that reason, I, for one, will no longer tolerate or respect anyone who quotes the

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Sodom story to justify this violent prejudice. Now if you disagree with homosexuality, you're prejudiced and you're violent in your prejudice.

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This has got hate speech written all over it. He goes on to say, this ancient and destructive text, now exposed, according to his exposition, rather it's an imposition, must never again be used in my hearing in the service of oppression.

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Well, I hope you're listening, Reverend Spong, but there's nothing in you to be revered. Spong, I hope you're listening to this because I'm going to give you an exposition of Genesis chapter 19 that any person would give if it's just a normal, plain, literal reading.

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Spong says, when people seeking to use these texts from Genesis to defend their homophobic prejudice realize that they have come up against solid opposition, they do an interesting two -step.

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This story, they say, does have some weaknesses since it is found in the Hebrew scriptures, which in many of their details have not been adopted by Christianity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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I just don't even want to read any more of that. I'm going to read from Genesis chapter 19. What does the text say? What does

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Genesis chapter 19 say about the wickedness of Sodom? Luther said of Genesis 19, he confessed that he could not read this chapter without feeling deep revulsion.

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I agree, deep revulsion. This is Mike Abendroth, you're listening to No Compromise Radio Ministry, nocompromiseradio .com.

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And today's Wednesday, and we're talking about books, not that you should turn their pages, but that you should burn. The Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Sprong ought not to be purchased by any one of the listeners to this podcast or this radio station.

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It is not good for you. It is spiritual strychnine. Children walk around when they're really small and they find something, a marble, a tack, a nail, a piece of glass, and what's the first thing they do?

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They put it in their mouth. They wanna get to know it by putting it in their mouth. And we have to be careful. We have to say, no, that's not good for you.

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And you need to be careful that you understand Genesis chapter 19 and don't put things in your mouth like the author of Rescuing the

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Bible from Fundamentalism, John Shelby Spong. S. Lewis Johnson said of Genesis 19, the divine ability and necessity of executing judgment upon the ungodly is the lesson of Genesis 19.

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And a man named John McNeill, a Jesuit priest, said in a Bible conference, according to Christianity Today in 1977, there is no clear condemnation of homosexuality or homosexual activity to be found anywhere in the

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Bible. Really, I guess that's pre -Spong. That's pre -Spong issues.

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I just read this, and if you just read it normally, literally, plain, naturally, you'll get the text.

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You'll understand God is a holy God. God gives swift judgment when it comes to vile behavior and that God does not spare those who die in their sins, whether they're heterosexual or homosexual.

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And so we will have the passage easily interpreted. You could read it on your own and you'd get it as well.

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Genesis 19, two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city.

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When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. And so these angels come and with proper signs of respect and Oriental Eastern dignity, there's bowing on the ground.

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And Sodom is about 25 miles away from where they had come. And we see what's going to happen.

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It's at the gateway of the city. That's where all the public activity was being done, city officials, all kinds of business done there.

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And so we maybe suspect Lot might've had a position of power, maybe he was prominent.

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And so who knows? Does Lot put up with wickedness? I think we can find out.

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Verse two, my Lord, he said, please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.

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No, they answered, we will spend the night in the square. And here with good hospitality, Lot says, all right, please come, please turn aside.

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It's a forceful invitation. He insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house.

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He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast and they ate it. Why did he insist?

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Because I think he knew the wickedness and the vile nature of the city. It wasn't like Lot was just passing through.

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He lived there and he knew what parts of town were bad, what happened when the sun went down, how people were iniquitous, how they were perverse, how they were licentious, how they acted according to their own hearts, how they did what was right in their own eyes.

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And Sodom said, you know, we need to have you come have a meal. And he even baked the bread and he prepared the meal.

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This was not given to some kind of servant or some kind of slave or someone else. He did it himself.

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Verse four, before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house.

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Now, when people say, well, you know, this is a different interpretation. That's not what it means. If you just read that in any language, that means before they went to bed, a lot of men from every part of the city, young and old, surrounded the house.

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Well, what does surround mean if it doesn't mean surround? What does house mean if it doesn't mean house?

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Does a dog mean a rat, mean a boy, mean a cow? It means a house. It means they surrounded the house. Literally, and the men of the city, the men of Sodom from young to the old, all the peoples of the end.

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That's what it talks about. All the people, all the people, young and old. Not the people, no, the men.

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And here come the men after these angelic beings. They called out to Lot, verse five, where are the men who came to you tonight?

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Bring them out so that we could have sex with them, so that we can engage with them, so we can be with them physically.

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And so I think that was just reading the NIV there. Whatever translation you want to read, it's going to say the same thing.

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Let me read to you Genesis chapter 19, verse five in the New American Standard.

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That would probably be better. Bring them out that we may have relations with them.

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And so we see depravity. We see when it comes to, we want to know them in Hebrew that it's talking about a intimate knowledge who as a husband would know his wife.

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This is a sexual connotation. And who knows what the angels look like, but they were attractive enough to these people that they wanted to have sex with them.

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No wonder in Genesis chapter 18, verse 20, God said there's an outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah that is great and their sin is grievous.

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And so we come to the passage and we see what's going on. Some say this is because there's a lack of hospitality.

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Friends, you can do whatever you want with a text, but just don't call it Christianity. We have in our society today a massive capitulation of so -called

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Christian denominations who will say, you know, we need to re -examine what's going on with homosexuality.

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To ask the question is to seal your fate. And this didn't happen because of homosexuality coming up.

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This happened because of men and women's roles were being re -examined. If you have to say we need to re -examine what we believe, you're done, it's done before it started.

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You might as well put a fork in the organization, the institution and call it something else. At least thankfully with the

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Anglican debate today in the Church of England, at least those dear Christian men and women in Africa will not put up with it.

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And they're gonna say, we don't even want any economic assistance from you if you don't believe what the

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Bible says. If you don't believe the Bible, then you don't believe the Bible. But if you call yourself a Christian, you believe what the

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Bible says. Why didn't Jesus come along and say for so many hundreds of years, over a thousand years, you have misunderstood

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Genesis chapter 19 to mean that there's wicked evil people and homosexuality's sin.

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It's just a lack of hospitality. Why didn't Jesus do that? But you have people like the

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Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, they do that. You have the United Methodist Church, they do that.

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They put out 14 ,000 word reports on the subjects and they can't even agree. They can't agree what is right and what is wrong.

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And you've got the message Bible and other things like that that torque the word. You have all kinds of these issues.

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And so we wanna make sure we're very, very careful when people come along like organizations that call themselves gay and Christian.

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Nancy Croter, a lesbian, writes an article called the Lesbian Christian Experience.

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Malcolm Boyd speaks on the Gay Male Christian Experience. We wanna make sure that we just say a plain, regular reading of the

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Bible would tell us that that is not true. And again, for the umpteenth time, fornication and adultery and idolatry and greed and gossip and slander, these are all also sins.

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Sins need to be forsaken, repented of, and you can find the mercy of God. Romans 1 is clear.

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God gives a society over to what they want and it turns out to be vile affections.

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Men with men, women with women. Just accept what the Bible says, that the

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Bible teaches that homosexuality is sin. And you know the wonderful thing about Jesus, he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

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And so when you know you're a sinner, then you realize I can have forgiveness found in Christ Jesus.

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This sin is forgivable. First Corinthians chapter six. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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Paul says, you know that. He was there for 18 months and he taught them that very thing. And he said, you know, if you're not careful, you'll have friends and relatives and people in society that seem good and you're gonna be tricked by this.

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So he says, do not be deceived. Neither the sexual immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves will inherit the kingdom of God.

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But such were some of you, but you were washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So see what we have here is we have a sin that is sin and it's forgivable.

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And so drunkenness is a sin. There's all kinds of sin out there and we wanna make sure that we understand that when we preach the gospel to people, our enemies are not homosexuals.

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I don't wanna have homosexual enemies because I want to love them. I don't wanna have enemies who are

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Democrats. I want to love them. I don't wanna have enemies who are some kind of, there's a bigger fight and there are spirits that we can't see.

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There's a bigger battle behind the scenes. We should be loving sinners. That's what Jesus did.

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We should be loving sinners to the nth degree. Loving enough to tell them this is sin.

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Back to Genesis chapter 19. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, no, my friends, do not do this wicked thing.

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Why would Lot say that? Do not act wickedly if it was an issue of hospitality.

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Here Lot thankfully, wonderfully defends his guest and that's what you had to do back in those days.

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It was a courageous thing. It was a virtuous thing. They come to try to take themselves, to please themselves with these visitors and he stands up and he is a courageous man.

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And so I think good, good Lot, so far so good. But then it becomes tragedy.

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Verse eight, now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man. Please let me bring them out to you and do to them whatever you like, only to do nothing to these men, do nothing to these men as much as they have come under the shelter of my roof.

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Now, I still think it's heinous. I still think it's horrible. And as a dad, I think it is really bad.

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But what happens is we have this group of men. They're wanting to commit sodomy with the angels.

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And he says, no, you can have my daughters. He was hospitable. He was good and kind at the initial outset.

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And then he wants to give his daughter over. I just looked down on the clock and we're 24 minutes in. This is going by too fast.

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I can't believe it. We're gonna have to do part two of this. It's gonna be part two. This is No Compromise Radio. We're looking at Genesis chapter 19.

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And I want you to go out and make sure you love all kinds of sinners today. Every kind, just like Jesus did from every tribe, tongue, nation.

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And you love those sinners. This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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

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