The Imago Dei Compromiser

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, Pastor Steve Cooley. Welcome. Buenos dias, mis amigos. Steve, we're sitting here looking outside at piles and a mound of snow. What goes through your mind when you see all this snow?

I thought it was sand. But if you're listening to the radio show and you hear a rumbling, I guess it could be Pastor Steve's stomach or mine, but it's probably the snow that's on the roof of the building, and when it gets warm enough, it all comes cascading down.

Yeah, it's one of the delightful features of the building. It's kind of like avalanche. So it's what we call the avalanche architecture here.

Do you know, everybody has these new names for ministries, Verve, Collide, Collision, Sparkle. Why don't we call it avalanche?

That'd be good. Avalanche. Avalanche. It's like an avalanche of goodness and mercy coming at you.

Steve, BBC needs to go by the wayside. It needs to be ABC. Avalanche Bible Church. The truth from the pulpit comes at you like a veritable Avalon. It'll bury you. And every seat underneath your seat pew, your pew seat, you get one of those special life vests with the, you know, it'll be the marker, the beacon, so you'll know where you're buried.

I don't know. Somehow that sounds kind of, you know, where we have to have a little briefing before every service, you know.

How to use it. Steve, when you watched or didn't watch the Grammys, what's your take with this basically homosexual agenda being jammed into every living room now? We can't even, when Faith Hill has to walk out, everybody does, don't they?

Did Faith Hill walk out? Yeah.

Well, good for her. Yeah. I, you know, I didn't, I saw, maybe I watched maybe five minutes of the Grammys, but I didn't see any of that. And I was so happy that, you know, cause years past, maybe I would record it and watch it, you know, just to kind of see some of the people playing on there and everything, but I didn't watch it.

And then I saw afterwards and I just go, they did what? You know, married all these different couples. I just don't even get that. It makes me like leery of watching anything, you know, because I'm just going to wind up getting mad.

Well, it's like the Old Testament where people make a sport out of wickedness and they have to do evil before they go to sleep because you can't sleep without doing evil. I mean, for some people, probably for you, Steve, I don't know.

For me, it's, well, you know, I need to floss, I need to brush my teeth, I need to use the restroom. I, I need to, you know, make sure this, that, and the other's set up for tomorrow before I go to bed.

And for some people in the Proverbs, it's a, I've got to do some wickedness.

Well, I mean, it really is the outworking of Romans one, you know, they give hearty approval. I mean, and it's not just enough. I, who, politically speaking, I don't really care what somebody believes.

They can believe whatever they want to believe. I can't, you know, I'm not out to change their mind. I certainly want to preach the gospel to them and God will change their mind. But, but, but to just put this on display as if we all have to accept it or, you know, and really, what do we watch when we watch something like the Grammy Awards or the Oscars?

It's all the cool kids, you know, all the cool kids in school. So look, all the cool kids think gay marriage is just fine. So why don't you?

There's something wrong with you. Ephesians 5 says, look carefully, verse 15, then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. And we live in evil days and you know, days are evil, Steve.

When Ephesians goes, Ephesians 5 goes on to say, would you like to know what Jesus loving the church looks like? If you'd like to know about sacrificial love, a love of protection, a love of provision, a love of nourishment, a love of I'll never leave you nor forsake you, a love of immutability, a love that wants your best, then you look to Jesus loving the church.

And so what did Paul do? Paul said, that's the picture of marriage, which started first. Well, not marriage, but in the eternal plan of God, here is how God loved the church. And by the way, let's have marriage be the picture for that love.

And so when marriage is attacked, Christ is attacked. I mean, this is the essence of it, the base of it. Yep. I mean, they could say whatever they want about loving God, but the God they love isn't the God of the Bible.

So what's the difference between the Bill Nye, Phil Ham, Ken Ham debate, whether it's the evolutionist saying, I don't want to be underneath God who creates and the God who sustains because that God also judges and the push for gay marriage attacking Christ loving the church.

Is there a difference?

Well, not in this sense. I mean, neither one is particularly helpful. I mean, Ken Ham, literally if it, because it was televised, you know, on the internet, if Ken Ham had been able to tie him up in knots and throw his hands up, you know, like he was roping cattle and throw his hands up in the air in victory, it wouldn't have mattered because it's not going to change one mind, one heart, you know, because people suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

It's not that they're ignorant of the truth. They know there's a God. They just don't like the fact that this God exists. I like, I saw a good Facebook post about this matter and somebody just said, you know what, if you want to have some fun, just argue with somebody and, or, you know, get into a discussion with them.

And when they say you're stupid because you don't believe in evolution, you just go, huh? Well, where did that matter come from that just spontaneously came into being? You know, the big bang. Well, it's always existed.

And then you just say, well, actually God has always existed. You know, which is more, more or less, it's just two different worldviews. One says it's rational to believe that matter always existed and formed itself.

And, you know, then life sprung out of that. And the other one says, well, that's dumb.

Steve, if someone were to ask you, well, pastor, I believe the Bible and I understand these things, but what I'm trying to get my mind around is why would God let all this happen? I believe in the sovereignty of God and his decree.

He allows, he permits, he ordains, he causes, whatever the terminology is. Why is God letting it go this far? Can we know the answer to that question?

Well, he's patient and he, you know, he is, he is storing up wrath. I mean, his, he is, his wrath is waxing rather hotly. And you know, it's just a matter of the patience of God and him wanting to, uh, he's going to, uh, save all of his elect and, and his plan is going to go forth.

But God is not permitting this. He, uh, it was ordained, uh, it's going to come about and, and then God will put an end to it and he'll put an end to it all. And he tells us how he's going to do that.

And it's not going to be with a flood. It's going to be with fire.

Steve, Romans chapter one talks about how God's wrath is revealed. Righteousness was revealed, verse 17, and then God's wrath is revealed. And what I find so weighty, and of course, you know this and probably our listeners know it as well, but still to just remember the wrath that is revealed from God in chapter one of Romans is temporal wrath.

He gives people over to do these horrible things and it is a decree of God. They deserve to die. If you give approval to those that practice these things, you do too, but it's all temporal and there's a worse judgment than temporal.

Listen to the words of Romans chapter two to the religious person. If you're a religious person and you're saying, yeah, those people in the Grammys, yeah, those other folks, therefore you have no excuse.

So man, every one of you who judges for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge practiced the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

Do you suppose, oh man, you will judge those who practice such things and yet you do them yourself that you will escape the judgment of God? And then in light of what Pastor Steve correctly said, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

And there's a day, you know, where repentance is no longer available. Forgiveness is no longer available. And you know, that's going to be the day of judgment. The day where his wrath is fully met.

Steve, you sound like you know the Bible because without Romans two in front of you, you just basically summarize Romans two, five, the next verse, but because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

He will render to each one according to his works. Do this and live. I couldn't have said it better myself. Oh, wait. So Steve, when we have people like the Imago Dei folks, it's a campaign with evangelicals saying that God has made homosexuals in his image.

My question is not this. Of course, men and women, every sinner still has God's image and likeness on him. It's marred by the fall, but not completely effaced, erased, demarcated. But what do we tell people when we say that, right?

Are fornicators made in God's likeness and image? Absolutely. How about prostitutes? And liars. How about terrorists? Yes. How about abortion doctors? Yes. Okay. So if we go to them and say, abortion doctor, by the way, you're made in God's image and likeness.

Swell. I'll just keep aborting babies. Thank you.

So while we don't want to be Westboro Baptist-like and just ogres, somehow thinking that we're better than other people, because truth be told, we're probably worse than other people, but we have been given the truth.

I guess the lesson is what you say and what you don't say are both important. And the reason why they're not saying something is they don't want to offend them with the cross.

Yeah. I mean, to affirm homosexuals as image bearers is fine, but what's the purpose in that? I don't need to run around affirming anyone as an image bearer, like you were saying earlier. What I do is for all sinners of any stripe, including me, I want to preach the gospel to myself because I need to be reminded of it.

I need to proclaim the gospel to others. Why? Because they need forgiveness. They need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They need to believe in his perfect life, his death, his resurrection, and they need to trust in that and not in anything else.

And the problem with this is, in affirming homosexuals that they're made in God's image, what you're really saying is, you know what? You don't have to change a thing. If you want to tack Jesus somehow into your own worldview and just kind of continue on the way you are, that's just fine with us.

That may not be the message they want to send, but that's the message I get.

Steve, if it starts off with, listen, sinner of any stripe, you are an image bearer. And therefore you have been made with a desire for the transcendent and you have been made to communicate with God and have communion with him.

And that is the ultimate purpose of God's creation. And this is what's happened because of the fall in your own sin, and this is why you need a Savior, and this is why you need repentance. I wouldn't have a problem with that.

No. Of course not. But when Time Magazine writes an article in their Swampland Religion section, I don't know if that's two separate sections, but Swampland Religion, the Imago Dei campaign and evangelical groups say gays made in God's image.

And it talks about liberals are, the rich are, undocumented are. By the way, if you meet an undocumented person, you can say...

You're made in God's image, which is all true. I think they ought to change Swampland, by the way, to quicksand. Maybe that would be better.

Precipice walking, the tightrope. The message of the Imago Dei campaign, which it says here, according to Elizabeth Dias, she's made in God's likeness and image. Yes, she is. It's launched to erode the culture war battle lines that have helped define evangelical discourse for a better part of half the century.

Their pledge is simple. Quote, I recognize that every human being in and out of the womb carries the image of God without exception, therefore I will treat everyone with love and respect. Now who's not saying I can't treat homosexuals with respect?

It has nothing to do with it.

Absolutely nothing to do with it. Of every homosexual that I've ever met, including the friends of mine that are homosexual, I've treated with love and respect.

I've dealt with, during the course of my lifetime, my previous career, you know, so-called transsexuals, you name it, you know, I've met it. Or him or her, or undetermined, you know.

As we call them in our house, he-she-its.

Yeah. I mean, and I've never said to one of them, you know, I don't like you, I don't like, you know, anything about you, you're less than, you're less a person than I am. And I don't treat them like less of a person than I am.

The compassion of Christ compels me to feel compassion for them. I mean, many of them are in a lot more difficult situation even than I was before I got saved. I mean, they're shunned often by family and they're, you know, they've got a lot of things because the way of the transgressor is hard, as one man I know likes to say.

It's a hard life. And so we need to have compassion on them. But the most compassionate thing we can say is, brother, sister, you need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever else is going on in your life, you need to be saved from your sins.

And the Holy Spirit can change them more than any kind of pressure or anything I'm ever going to do to them anyway.

The leader of this movement, the Amago Dei campaign, is Samuel Rodriguez, Jr., president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. He is joined with other heavy hitters, Elizabeth says, quote, president of Focus on the Family Jim Daley, televangelist James Robinson, producer of the Bible series Roma Downey and her husband Survivor producer Mark Burnett, and the vice president of Liberty University, Matt Staver.

They've all signed on. Are you going to sign on anytime soon?

No, I'm not. Yeah. And I'm sure they have, you know, the best of intentions. I just don't think they've thought through in all these situations, you know, I mean, you can go back 100 years, you could talk about the YMCA, the YWCA, all these things.

They all start with good intentions. But when when your goal is to reach across the kind of biblical gap and make people feel whole and special and welcome, then you're going to eventually, if not initially, you're going to compromise on the gospel.

This is what is not said. It's from the Department of What Isn't Said. If you want to start with this and then again, lead to creator, judge, savior, man's fallen, sinful and foolish, rebellious, this is Jesus, the only savior who atones for sin, raised from the dead.

Your response is repentance and faith. That's fine. And maybe Time magazine just didn't report that. Maybe Elizabeth just threw all that out. But I don't think so. Listen to what Jim Daley said, Focus on the Family.

People have said love the sinner, hate the sin. So often, I think that has fallen woefully short. And it certainly appears like we are hating the sinner as well as the sin. And that is a difference. You have to recalibrate and say, I know you were made in God's image and therefore you deserve my respect.

What does that mean? I have no idea what it means. But you know, is our job to hate the sinner or the sin? It's not my job. I don't, I'm not concerned about hating this, that or the other thing. I mean, for example, do I hate abortion?

Yes. Do I hate abortionists? I hate what they do. You know, and so is that what they're saying? Well, if that's what they're saying, I guess I probably agree with that. But that's not the point. The point is, what's their relationship with God?

How I feel about it is kind of immaterial. This isn't a subjective matter. I know.

You know what this is like, Steve? This is similar to the old way of evangelizing. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Oh, who wouldn't want to sign up for that? It's just an affirmation.

Instead of talking about, well, let me show you first the problem so you'll want to embrace the solution.

But if you confront people, they won't like you and they won't listen to what you have to say.

I guess maybe that's why they imprisoned Jeremiah, ostracized Isaiah, killed John the Baptist. They killed the prophets, right? That's what they did. Rodriguez said, quote, the Church of Jesus Christ and the word hatred should not even appear in the same sentence.

What if every single person can recognize the image of God in the other? Wouldn't that bring down the noise of the hateful rhetoric? Wouldn't that build a firewall between intolerance and bullying? Wouldn't that build a firewall against extremism?

And he basically says you should be known for what you're for, not what you're against. Well, can I tell you something? You know, because I obviously...

Please, that's why I pay you the big bucks. Oh, thanks. At one point in my life, I went through school and whatnot. Now, there was a lot of bullying and I know bullying is like, you know, it's more than it ever was today.

But let's just say for a moment, you want to say something?

No, go right ahead. It's one of the seven deadly sins, bullying. Okay.

Did you know that? Yeah. Let's just say, you know, my junior high school, I think had 400 kids. Let's say every single one of them was a Christian. How much bullying would go on there? Well, if they understand what the Bible says, there would be zero.

So, you know, the gospel is not the problem. They're trying, somehow or another, you know, they're trying to separate the church and the gospel. Well, ideally, you can't separate them. What is the church's mission?

The church is to make disciples. How do we do that? By preaching the gospel to people. That's what we do. And so is there any biblical warrant for saying, well, you know what, before we give people the gospel, we need to affirm them as a person.

We need to affirm that they're made in the image of God. We need to let them know that whatever they're doing, we may not like that, but we love them.

That's not the issue. If you want what's best for someone, don't you want them to give God the son glory and have them not go to hell forever? Isn't that what love is?

The ultimate good is what? That they not go to hell, right?

So Rodriguez, he says this, can we go beyond having a confrontation? Can we have a conversation that is better than a debate? We are coming into the room as equals because we're both made in the image of God.

It changes everything. So what does that say about preaching? I'm not saying if you get in a room, you yell people down. If there's a debate, okay, then have your debate. You get to talk for 10 minutes.

I get to respond. I get to talk for 10 minutes. You get to respond. Okay, truth is debated, fine. But what's happening here? You can't even proclaim to proclaim the good news, to preach the good word, to preach the good news, proclaim the word in season and out of season.

And Steve, it's out of season right now.

Well, and see, here's the funny thing I would say. They would probably agree, these Amargo Dei people, I'm sure they would agree with this, you know, if I said, well, Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me.

They would probably agree with that. But then they would want to, you know, I mean, it almost seems like what they really want to do is then leave it up to these people to figure out how to apply that to their lives.

And Steve, if this is their philosophy and methodology spinning from a bad theology, I don't want to go anywhere near this. This is capitulation. This is, you know, I've got a bunch of Mormons at BYU, and I'll just treat them like we're all on the same team.

It's what I don't say, right? It comes back to the school. What that guy didn't say, that's important.

It is important. And, I mean, again, I don't have any problem, you know, if somebody said, somebody came to me and they said, because they knew I was a Christian, a few people do know that, and they said to me, you know, Steve, I know you're a Christian, I know you're a pastor, I know you're probably not going to like this next thing I'm going to tell you, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

I'm a homosexual. Now, I know that means you don't like me anymore. Am I going to say, you know what, you're right. That changes everything, bro. Get away from me. No. And, you know what, the next thing I don't have to say is, but I want you to know something before we go any further, I affirm you as an image bearer.

Let's just hug that out for a minute, and then we can talk about other things.

Steve, I don't know if this is a sign, if this is serendipity, if this is chance, fate, accident, or something else, but you know, at the bottom of the websites, they give you other things. Other links?

Yes. Elsewhere on the web, most popular. There's also a we recommend section. And so is this related? Because it says we recommend, and this is the article title, why legal weed is working in Colorado.

Now, what's the difference between Imago Dei strategy and legal weed in Colorado?

I don't know, because they both involve getting high, I think.

Maybe we're going to call this new strategy, the Imago Dei strategy, the John Denver strategy. Rocky Mountain High. Did you ever listen to John Denver?

I love John Denver. Do you think that was his real name? It was actually Dutchendorf. It was? It was. It was? No, it really was. Okay. Look, who went to John Denver concerts?

I don't know why, but as an image bearer, that's like one of the most funny things I've ever heard in my life. Just the delivery. Okay, like Avedroth, right? Well, the name's fine, of course, because German names, you know, rock.

It's obviously, but just the way you said it, if we could only capture that look on.

TV. Well, I just couldn't believe that anybody didn't know that.

Well, I knew because Rocky Mountain, Colorado, you know, it's like John Boulder, they could have named him, or, you know, John, what's the other big city in Colorado? Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs. John, hi, I'm John. Colorado Springs.

That rolls off the tongue. No, no, it's what I was thinking about, Steve, was John Grand Junction. Oh, that'd be awesome.

Good evening, my name's John Grand Junction.

Steve, you have to finish the show. All right.

You've got one minute. All around the campfire and everybody's in the image of God, just tying us all up. It's awful hot in here. It is a remarkable time that we live in right now because we have unparalleled resources and what the church is doing, and I say church with a big C, church universal, wringing our hands trying to make sure that we're not offending anyone.

We just need to go back to 1 Corinthians 1 and see that the gospel itself is an offense. When we present the cross, when we present people's need of salvation, that everyone's a sinner, that we all stand condemned before a holy God, that our only way of being right with him is through the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is offensive.

NoCompromiseRadio .com. 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.

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