Beyond Celebrity Christianity

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Ebendroth. And today for the third Wednesday in a row, it seems like we've just done this, it seems like just it's been done in one day, but Luke Ebendroth is back in.

Is this a studio? I think this is the same shirt I had on last time. Maybe, but I changed. Yeah.

And by the way, since we're doing a different setup, some of these books back here, I don't really like.

This was like my section, my bad section, but I've been too lazy to move, like, you know, Turretin, Calvin, Burkoff.

There's some crazy things back here. I mean, even William Barclay. I mean, it's crazy. So anyway, don't judge me, dear viewer, based on what's back here or what's over here.

Get the portable campfire back there too. There you go. That's right.

There are portable campfires are us in case we need to roast some theological s'mores or something like that.

Oh, you know what? Speaking of which ADD radio, I opened up my Bible. This is an ESV study Bible here. And I don't know where this came from.

Maybe somebody snuck in the middle of the night and put it here. Maybe they want me to be more dispensational or something, but swift and dreadful, the horsemen are coming.

The white horse, the red horse with the bloodthirsty rider, all these horses.

And it says at the very end, yes, the pale horse rider will strike its victim down.

The wild beast of the field and the vultures of the air will devour their flesh and pick their bones. And the greedy hell will swallow up their souls.

This will be the inevitable result. The white horse, red horse, black and pale are with us now in shadow, but will appear in all fullness of their power when the saints are caught away.

Who put this in my Bible? Somebody good. Somebody, somebody trying to be good.

Well, the new format for No Compromise TV, YouTube, whatever we want to call it, video has been kind of a variety show format, some

Bible teaching, message moment, Kooks and Barney's Award, et cetera. Let me know what you think of those past episodes.

But for a few episodes, I wanted to sit down with my son, Luke, and just talk about ministry and theology.

And Luke is one of the pastors at Redemption, North County Church, Carlsbad, Oceanside, North County.

Is it technically in Carlsbad? It's in Carlsbad. Yeah, yeah. And so Luke is a seminary student at Westminster Seminary, Escondido.

What's the biggest difference between Escondido and Philadelphia? Well, one's a lot warmer than the other.

All right, well, that's a big difference. Very politically correct. And Luke's been here for Christmas time with his wife,

Hannah, who's expecting another one along with Luke and then little Eleazar. So it's been fun.

And I, probably by the time this shows, I'll have been to California to spend some time with Luke. On today's show, not what it's like to grow up in a pastor's family, pros and cons, not what

Redemption Church philosophy of ministry or theology is about, but kind of current evangelical issues.

When I was in seminary, it's as if I had my finger on the proverbial pulse of who was teaching what.

Did this guy teach the right thing? This guy went off the rails. This guy did such and such. And so Luke's got his finger on that pulse a lot more than I do because I'm old.

I'm senile. I've got a bad memory. My elasticity of my brain is bad. So now

I bring in the reinforcements. It's called nepotism. But remember, it's not nepotism if he could do it.

So if he can pull through, it's no longer nepotism. So I'd like to just talk about a few things in evangelicalism,

Luke, and then get your opinion. And so this is gonna be kind of rapid fire. I'm gonna say things like, what's your take on Kirk Cameron being an annihilationist and promoting it?

What is your take? Kirk Cameron being an annihilationist? I think he should change his mind.

Again. Yeah, back to not being an annihilationist. It doesn't seem super complicated.

So he seems like he's surrounded by good people, godly people, and the masters.

I don't mean Masters University, but way the master guy, what's his name? Ray Comfort. Ray Comfort, yes.

Why was I gonna call him Ray Masters? Ray, what is your only comfort? That's right. How do you think someone, without peeling back into their motives and intentions, how does somebody for years think eternal conscious torment in hell, and then now says annihilationism?

Whether that's Stott, Fudge, or Cameron? Honestly, I don't know what is going on in his mind.

And I didn't really even watch any of the videos or anything where he explained his take, but it doesn't seem like something that is informed by tons of exegesis.

Usually, whether this is Cameron or not, but it seems like it's something that kind of goes with the leftward drift of evangelicalism in general.

So I don't know if that's true for him, but that seems like it's often the case. I mean, he seems like a fine fellow.

And then now we dropped the hammer kind of thing. But you know what I was surprised about and disappointed in?

How many people immediately got online to say what a great guy he was? Like that has anything to do with anything.

He needs to be called to repentance when you begin to teach annihilationism. And people say, well, what about John Stott?

You're gonna throw your John Stott books away? No, I'm not gonna throw them away. I'm just gonna sell them.

But you know what? This is a serious error. So I hope people will come alongside of him and help him think scripturally and biblically and not emotionally.

I think, Luke, over the years, I've noticed people that once they start tampering with the doctrine of hell, I think they're doing it because in their mind, they can't stand a loved one who's eternally, consciously in the presence of the lamb,

Revelation 14, and just an utter excruciating terror. Yeah, right.

If it wasn't in the Bible, I wouldn't believe it. Well, yeah, unless you think like Thomas Aquinas that the immortality of the soul is evident from nature.

So even, I mean, I think there's obviously bigger metaphysical problems. Can a soul cease to exist?

That's kind of the point of a soul being immortal. So I think obviously it's just kind of comes up in a biblicistic perspective that's modern and anti -metaphysical and all those things as well.

So I'm sure what you're saying is true, but. Okay, good points. That leads me to the next one.

When it comes to Aquinas, you mentioned him. Now you might not quote

Aquinas from the pulpit or say to one of these new guys at church, some of these young guys. By the way,

I'll pause on Aquinas. Tell me about the young guys at church who are all fired up about studying the

Bible. You've even got to read through the Bible in a month program and they're on track now. Tell me about some of those guys.

I don't mean by name, but just how excited they are. And it's wonderful to see the youth craving scripture.

Yeah, I think, I mean, there's, we've got a range of guys from 15 to younger 20s, 22, 23.

And there's excited about theology, excited about doctrine, excited about good Bible teaching. A lot of them are coming to our church and then either getting saved or getting excited about the word and then bringing their families to our church.

So I don't know what else to say besides it's been really encouraging to see what the Lord's doing.

I think with the younger generation in general, I think you see an interest in theology and in just truth and politics.

It seems like, you know, the famous saying by the guy who said, the two things you don't talk about are politics and religion.

The only two things that probably really matter in life. It seems like the younger generation is interested in those things and recognize they're important.

Of course, theology being, I guess, the queen of the sciences, but yeah, I'm excited about them.

I saw many of them in Omaha for the Pactum Conference in October and they're all fired up, excited.

And in the old days, I was the older, well, I've always been older than Luke, obviously, but I'm the old guy and this is my son.

And, you know, if they liked me, then they'd like my children and like my son. Oh, you're Luke's son, you know, 14 years old, the

Shepherd's Conference or something. So people would just like him because they liked me. That sometimes still happens, but now it's the reverse.

Some of these young men are so thankful that the Lord is using Luke to teach them the Bible. They think

I'm wonderful just because I'm his dad. And so it goes both ways. They're like, you're

Luke's dad? Yeah, yeah, I used to be known, he used to be known as my son, but now our relationship is

I'm known as Luke's dad. So when it comes to Aquinas, give me your, you know, if you read

Aquinas, do you become Roman Catholic? Should you ever quote Aquinas? Do we say, what do we say?

How do you think through reading Aquinas and then talking about him in public?

Yeah, I'm definitely getting asked this question because of nepotism, but I think,

I mean, I think there's been a lot of good work done recently by guys at places like IRBS and other seminaries, founders, other places like that, that are wanting to use

Aquinas thoughtfully, and not just because he's Aquinas, but because he represents something, certain metaphysical commitment that we're actually able to know metaphysical truths outside of us.

And that changes our approach to scripture and helps us understand even the language of the

Nicene Creed and other documents. And so I think with Aquinas in general, he's a helpful figure.

He's an intellectual giant. I even look at his commentaries occasionally. I mean, obviously he has problematic statements on things like justification and the

Lord's supper, but I think we should be able to, especially as pastors take, as the old saying is, take the meat and spit out the bones.

I think there's a lot of helpful things for us there. And one of my favorite R .C. Sproul quotes is he talks about how so much of our modern world, including our approach to biblical interpretation and things that maybe even with Kirk Cameron seems so obvious to us and the assumptions that we bring to the

Bible, so much of them are shaped by figures like Descartes and, or especially Immanuel Kant, starting with the subject.

And at the end of his book, The Consequences of Ideas, R .C. Sproul says that we have two paths we can choose between in the modern world, two ways that we can go down.

One is the way of Immanuel Kant. The other is the way of Thomas Aquinas. And so of course,

R .C. Sproul is a staunch defender of justification by faith alone and these other important Protestant distinctives.

He's famously against evangelicals and Catholics together. He's not waffling at all and becoming a

Roman Catholic, but I think what he saw was something helpful that's missing today, not just in theology, but in philosophy and our day -to -day approach to life in how we think about the world.

And so I think that that's something that I, I'll just say, I agress. I agree with R .C. Sproul and other people.

Is that a good enough answer? See, that's good. I like that. Would you ever quote Aquinas from the pulpit or would you just be careful when you did?

I don't know. I don't think I've ever quoted him. I think it's Meister who says, whenever he,

Steve Meister says, medieval theologian once said, his kids always say, just say

Aquinas. Well, I think we also have to, we don't wanna give up all of our ground to the papists and say, and admit that they've had all of church history.

At the end of the day, Aquinas was long before the Council of Trent when certain things were anathematized about our confession.

So I think that you have to take that into account too. He wasn't a modern day Roman Catholic.

Of course, they utilized much of his theology. But yeah,

I think, I don't know. I probably wouldn't just because I think you're the one that told me not to. So I don't know why you're trapping me.

Well, people will argue, Luke. Oh, see, this guy went to Rome. This guy became

Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox. This guy did such and such. And Aquinas was involved.

Well, that could be true and most likely is true. But many people who have read Aquinas still stay

Reformed. Well, I do look at Owen and these other figures. Owen is quoting

Aquinas. He's reading the latest Thomists on certain issues and quoting them positively.

I mean, even people like Bellarmine are quoted by Reformed scholastics. So, I mean, I think if you look more deeply into our tradition, the

Reformed tradition, and you start to see even works that are for many years were untranslated from the

Latin like Turretin, but then including more theologians, you see that it's really a simplistic approach to write off everything that Aquinas taught.

And at the end of the day, we want the truth. So if he's teaching the truth, that can be helpful. And if he's not, then we can leave him behind.

But I would just defer to people like the guys over at IRBS and founders that I mentioned, or people like Dr.

Dolezal. All of these figures, I think, have a helpful approach of utilizing him, but we don't want to abandon our

Protestant distinctives. It made me think of how often Calvin quotes

St. Francis of Assisi. Did you say that that way on purpose? Why would they do that?

So anyway, yeah, that's what I call him. Mike Ebenroth, Luke Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio, kind of current events, people, issues, stuff that's on our radar.

You mentioned John Comer last show or two shows ago. What's the deal with him?

Why should people avoid him? What to watch out for? Like if somebody came to you and said, Pastor Luke, I'm reading

Comer. It's been great. It's transformed my life. I'm not as busy as I used to be. We should have the people at church read this book or whatever.

Most people have said that to me. So it's not just a hypothetical. Yeah, I think, I mean, looking into him, there's certain things that are positive, right?

So he's all about - He's an image bearer. Well, yeah, he's made in the image of God. That's no, no, beyond that.

I mean, I think what people find helpful, especially who don't read too deeply into him are things like that.

You know, I need to eliminate some of the busyness from my life. I need to slow down and spend time with the

Lord and with my family. Obviously those things are positive. We don't necessarily have to disagree with that.

I think also he is wanting to go back to discipline and sometimes that's a good corrective for our circles where we're almost allergic to discipline and we forget that the confessions often talk about daily family worship and daily private secret worship.

So I think some of those disciplines are good, but he's definitely not writing from a broadly reformed or even really a

Protestant perspective. He mentions things like, I'm on the spot here, so I don't know the exact places where he quotes these things, but he mentioned things like the fact that we actually need to stop reading the gospels and asking, what does this tell me about the person of the

Lord Jesus and who he is so that I can trust in him more? Instead, we need to do the opposite and look at this and say, how did

Jesus live and how can I imitate him? Which I would say is exactly the wrong way to read the gospel.

So it's very, it's definitely a mixture of and blending of the law and the gospel commonly in his works.

He's resuscitating often Roman Catholic mystical works.

And then in addition to that, he has very problematic. I think this is probably the most concerning thing that I jump to with people who are very influenced by him.

He has a very problematic doctrine of God. So for example, he denies simplicity. He denies impassibility.

He even says that God gains new ideas from our prayers.

So we pray to God and God thinks, oh wow, Luke, I never thought of that. Why don't

I answer the prayer in the way that you specified it to me? So -

He needs to read Aquinas. Well, I mean, I think, yeah, I think this is a, it actually is a very concerning issue because of the breadth of the influence and the total lack of concern over statements like that, where it doesn't even seem like it's that big of a deal.

And I think we've really lost sight of the majesty, as you mentioned in the last recording, the majesty and the holiness of God, that he is the one who upholds all things, that he is the one who gives everything its being at all times and in him, all things exist.

In him, we live and move and have our being. So I think there's just a huge problem with his doctrine of God.

So I definitely don't think the positives outweigh the negatives in any sense.

If you have problematic, if you have a problematic view of the gospel itself and the distinction between the law and the gospel, and then you have a wrong view of God, I think that's enough for us to avoid somebody.

That's kind of old school, no compromise. That is, I mean, I think it was MacArthur who said, when asked about some teacher, he said, well, he's got a false view of God and a false view of man, but beside that, he's probably okay.

Well, this is good for us to talk about because so many people, liberal, not politically liberal, but theologically liberal, will want

Jesus as an example. And of course, when you look at the Lord's life, there are many times where you think, what a wonderful example.

The disciples in Luke 11, they saw Jesus pray all the time. Lord, we'd like to learn how to pray like you.

And so you see that he'd make a wonderful example. He is an example in 1

Peter 2, when it comes to suffering, right? Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

And so Jesus as example, it's true that he's a good example, not in everything, right?

He's out in the wilderness to be tempted. He's a sin bearer and all that. But it was S. Louis Johnson, Luke, who was talking to a guy and he's like,

I don't want Jesus as a bloody sacrifice, a propitiatory wrath assuaging

God. I don't need a substitute. I just need Jesus as my example. And Louis said,

S. Louis Johnson said, how are you doing when it comes to living up to your example? And he said,

I'm not doing it. And Louis said, that's why you need Jesus as more than example. Example, yes, but as substitute.

So it just reminded me of that story. I wish I could talk like S. Louis Johnson with that Southern gentlemanly drawl.

Yeah, it's pretty good. Who knows? Okay, let's see. What else are we talking about? How about celebrity Christianity?

No Compromise Radio today, YouTube version, Luke Abendroth, Mike Abendroth. When I say celebrity

Christianity, what's your knee jerk response verbally? The first thing I thought of was Nicki Minaj and the

Nigerian Christians, but I don't think that's what you have in mind. No, that's not. I'm glad she was sticking up for them.

A Christian celebrity. I mean, I hate to even put those words together, but big shots, either self propelled or propelled by social media or propelled because they're just excellent communicators of God's word.

It seems like, here's where I was going. It seems like we've seen kind of the down, the decreasing of Christian celebrities by death or by disqualification.

It seems like the Lord is almost saying by providence, local church is where it's at.

Whether it's conferences, whether it's people falling out of ministry, dying. Is that your take on that or no?

I don't know. Yeah, I always was taught you don't want to read providence too much, but it's like, what is it? The John Flavel quote is providence is like Hebrew.

It's best read backwards. So I guess we're reading it backwards. I don't know why the

Lord and his providence is doing that, but I think we've obviously seen some of the dangers of celebrity

Christianity, especially when it's opposed to orthodox, creedal confessional strands of Christianity.

So, I mean, obviously there's been so much good that's been done by even men that have recently died like John MacArthur, Votie Bauckham.

I mean, you have these men that stood up for the truth, that love the Lord, that fought for what they believed.

And I think that was useful and important in my life being influenced, especially by John MacArthur.

And I just think of him as a godly leader and a manly guy who loved the word.

But I think there's obviously negatives about celebrity culture in general, wherever it is.

But there's also, to me as a young man, it's also a little discouraging to look around and wonder who were kind of the adults in the room.

They used to have R .C. Sproul and these guys. And of course there's negatives from all these conferences and things, but it's also as a young man,

I think probably for you as a young man, there is something about being part of something bigger, having somebody who can rally the troops and say, this is what we need to face.

This is what we need to fight against. So in my mind, not to undercut your point, but I think there's pros and there's cons.

There's something about, it feels like it's missing in evangelicalism because it doesn't feel like there's anybody really left.

Again, I can't read Providence either. It's just kind of like a hunch or maybe, I don't know, mental evaluation of these things.

It seems as if it's back to the local church again, because that's where it always should be.

And is it wrong to have a conference? I don't think there's anything wrong with a conference, but I think that conference needs to be centered around a local church to encourage the people in the church.

If outside visitors want to come, fine. If people have bigger names, fine. We'll use those names to bring people in to hear the truth.

And so I don't want to come across as anti -conference because we would like to have a conference here where the church could be edified with somebody who's gifted comes in and teaches.

But these big organizations is just fascinating. I'm not making any judgments on T4G, right, gone.

G3, gone. Shepherd's Conference. I mean, it's still around, but what will be the future of the

Shepherd's Conference without John? I think Canon Press and Doug Wilson and those guys have a pretty big influence.

What are the other influences? The Gospel Coalition has a pretty big influence, but I think they're much more liberal than I would like.

Anyway, I just didn't know what you thought of conferences and celebrity culture. Yeah, I think

I'll defer to the gray hair being the crown of the head. I think it's probably very interesting,

Luke, for you to go to Westminster Escondido and see the professors there. And they're just regular guys.

They're in your prayer group, whether it's Michael Horton or Scott Clark or anybody else. If I go to URC Escondido and Chris Gordon's preaching and Robert Godfrey just walks past me, it's just kind of,

I don't know, maybe the reform guys don't come across so much as I need eight bodyguards or something.

I don't know. Yeah, that's probably true. Maybe they don't need the bodyguards because they can handle it themselves. Well, maybe nobody knows who they are, right, in evangelicalism.

I'm not sure. Let's see, what else do we want to talk about? Things that are in the news, evangelical news.

What do you think is going to become of kind of Christian nationalism? Now, there's probably 10 different definitions of Christian nationalism.

And if you are wanting the nation to be more Christian than I am, then you're extreme or whatever.

But what do you think is going to be the outcome of Christian nationalism after it, like everything else, runs its course?

Well, there's going to be a Christian prince to promote the true religion. I don't know what's going to happen.

Yeah, I'm not sure about some of these big picture questions, probably because of just where I am in life.

But I think it'll probably, I don't think it's going to die anytime soon. It seems like it's something that is important.

And I think a lot of young men are drawn to these strong loves for their country, their family, their nation.

And they're tying that to their love for the Lord Jesus and trying to figure that out. And I don't know,

I just wish there was more people like Samuel Rutherford who, he can write Lex Rex and he can have certain views of the church and the state that many would disagree with today.

But then he can still write the loveliness of Christ and all of these sweet, his letters that are just dripping with the gospel.

So I wouldn't describe myself with that moniker, but I think if we had

Samuel Rutherford's and not others who are promoting things that we don't want to encourage,

I think they'd be maybe less concerning to me. But I don't know, it's still something that I'm trying to wrap my arms around.

I think we need to affirm and uphold the spirituality of the church. I think we need to know that the gospel is advancing no matter what happens and empires rise and fall.

And we have a hope in the gospel that goes beyond all things. And of course we have a duty to serve our neighbor in the civil realm as Christians to love one another.

So I don't know, it's a little bit of a - Okay, no, I like it. You know what, I thought it was excellent. If I was watching the show,

I'd be thankful for the Samuel Rutherford insight because I thought that was really good. What about, you see this kind of fight now between confessionalism and biblicism.

Where do you think this is gonna end? I mean, I'm giving you these questions. What do you think the outcome's gonna be? But you've got people that are saying, these confessions and they're not above the

Bible or equal to the Bible. And then biblicists come to the passage and like no one else has come to the passage before, what's the text say and mean?

And I have the spirit of God. Are they just gonna kind of coexist side by side or what do you think might happen?

What might be an outcome? Yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't say I'm a Christian nationalist and I definitely wouldn't say

I'm a biblicist. But I think it seems like to me, but in my little world of people that I know, it doesn't seem like many people are really fighting for biblicism anymore.

There's not as many, I think dispensationalism has kind of fallen out of favor, which even dispensationalists will comment on.

So I think there's definitely a change and a desire to return to confessionalism.

And so I think that will probably continue, but I don't know exactly. I think you're right.

And the reason why I'm asking all these questions, there's this gospel movement that's been happening for 20 years, gospel -centered preaching, gospel -centered parenting, gospel -centered communication, gospel -centered podcast, and gospel barbecues.

And one of the downsides is how people are gonna react to it. We should be gospel -centered, Christ for pardon, Christ for power and unapologetically so.

But then there's the remnant that the group of people that are like, I don't need to study my Bible, it's

Lord's Day only. And then you go to the confessions that talked about daily Bible reading, right? And with the family and all that.

And so I don't know where the biblicism confessionalism thing will go. I should probably study church history and find out do confessional churches end up going what?

Stale, mental, emotionally vacuumed, I don't know.

So I thought maybe you might have some insight and you did, especially with Samuel Rutherford.

There we go, at least I added something. I know, the good news is the Lord is faithful and if he can keep the

Corinthians, he can keep you. Lots of people thought that Christian fell into sin, oh me, oh my.

Okay, that's a fine response, but you shouldn't say to yourself, if that guy falls, I'm surely going to fall.

No, if that guy falls, yes, people could fall. So don't fall, rest in the gospel, say to yourself,

God is faithful and if he can keep the Corinthians, he can keep me. So my name is Mike Avendroth with my son

Luke, No Compromise Radio. Today's kind of current evangelical issues, maybe Mario, that's what we should call it, current evangelical issues.