Daniel Plans And Love Song

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.

Mike Abendroth here with Pastor Steve Cooley. I'm finally back on Tuesdays again. Try to kick me off with me.

I thought I could get rid of you, but apparently not.

The Arbitron ratings for those four Tuesdays have gone sky high.

Well, boosted no doubt by, you know, extraneous arrests.

The Problem With Amorous Lyrics in Contemporary Christian Music

Yeah, I know. Steve, when you think of gospel ministry, do you experience God this way? Here's some Casting Crowns lyrics.

Okay, oh, don't dog Casting Crowns. Your love is extravagant.

Your friendship is intimate. No, I don't. I feel like moving to the rhythm of your grace. And now this next line. I don't talk to the Lord this way. Matter of fact, I don't talk to anybody this way. Maybe when I was trying to win my wife when we first were gonna date or something.

But now, okay, here we go. Casting Crowns, your love is extravagant. Written by Kipley, Peter, C, and Anderson, Jared. Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place. Your love is extravagant. I wanna give them the benefit of the doubt.

I can tell, but I'm putting you on the hot seat.

I'm gonna say this is a Song of Solomon, you know, kind of thing that they wrote.

I'm just gonna guess that. Well, it says the chorus spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin. So they, I don't.

Maybe they're meshing, mangling metaphors.

Well, maybe. I know that Fernando Ortega has written songs about the Lord, and then on the same album, same CD, he has songs about his wife.

I understand that. Or his uncle. Well, I mean, because I've read, or I've, you know, I listen to a lot of Fernando Ortega and, you know, things where you just go, okay, this has nothing to do with the Lord.

Yeah, driving down my car on some Arizona highway. Yes, but still, your love is extravagant. Your friendship is intimate. I feel like moving to the rhythm of your grace, your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place.

Do you think it'd be fair to say that Casting Crowns should probably have, they should have sent these lyrics to their elder board for just a quick okie-dokie? Well, I wish they'd just sent them to me.

I would have said, I would have given the old Sheriff's Department thing, which was 10 -9, which means run that by me again, because that would have got a big scratch.

Capture my heart again. Your friendship, it is intimate. Spread wide in the arms of Christ is the love that covers sin.

I don't know. Maybe we could get them on No Compromise Radio and they could, you know, we could give them the old Explanation Priest.

Okay, well then why don't we do this, Steve? You like some of their stuff.

Tell me about some of their good songs or things that you appreciate. I really can't, but I was listening, well, I listened to their Christmas album quite a bit, actually, during the, and I just appreciated a lot of the arrangements and whatnot.

Even though there's one song on there, I listened to it a multitude of times. It's by Longfellow. I listened to the lyrics, The Bells on Christmas Day. It has nothing to do with Christ whatsoever. It's a nice song, but it has nothing to do with Christ.

Good for winter solstice.

Yeah, beautiful song for winter solstice. Yes, did you get that line of mine that I actually wrote myself on Sunday morning? Yeah, I probably,.

I think I was the only one who laughed, actually.

Righteousness in America today is about as rare as a song about Jesus at a winter solstice concert at a public school. Yeah. Not that I attend any of those. No, certainly not.

Frosty the Snowman, you can always sing that during Christmas. Nobody's offended. There are people who object to that. I mean, we could get going on the whole, you know, the Satan statue or whatever, versus the Ten Commandments.

Oh, that's right.

I forgot about that. Steve, this is what we call amorous lyrics. And I remember Sinclair Ferguson down in Orlando, and he was talking about lyrics of an amatory nature.

Yeah, I mean, I just don't, I would not expect to hear that on my Christian radio station. I would be disappointed if I did. Actually, what got me going on those guys, it was a different song. I'm not going to be able to remember because we didn't talk about this at a time, but there was, oh, it's something like, On That Day or something like that.

It's a great song by them. Yeah. So anyway. Anyway. I just didn't know if that's the way you praise the Lord or not. No, I think that's unfortunate. And if they were here right now, actually, you know, we should see, I mean, we're a big show.

We've got a huge national audience. I think 14 at last count.

Why the Transcendent God Matters More Than Feel-Good Religion

So, well, how about this, Steve? Yeah. Would it be fair to say, okay, I'll talk about myself. Then you can talk about yourself in terms of views. I tend to like songs that focus on God's transcendence more than his eminence.

And I know both are very important, that God's over us, his holiness, his supremacy, his sovereignty, his eminence, that he's close to us. There's a friend that sticks closer than a brother and he's compassionate and kind.

I prefer the songs of the first category. I just opened up my Bible to Psalm 99. The Lord Yahweh reigns, let the peoples tremble. He is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake. I tend to like those songs better in all honesty.

Me too. And there's a reason for that.

It's like Fernando Ortega. There's a song he has where he says he touches the mountains and they smoke. I just like, well, and there's a reason for it. And the reason is because the God who's my buddy, when things are difficult, when life is difficult, when bad things happen, quote unquote, bad things happen, the God who's my buddy doesn't really, doesn't help me then.

I need to think about the transcendent God, the one who ordains all things, controls all things, and who ultimately has my best interests at heart, even when I don't feel it. Feeling songs aren't going to carry me through.

It's truth songs I need. I need to know the truth about God and rely on that, not the emotive sense of who God is.

Okay, Steve, maybe a retort would be, a response would be, all right, God is transcendent and he is to be feared among other gods. Great is the Lord, greatly to be praised. Tell of his glory, his wonderful deeds among the peoples, Psalm 96 language.

But then God decided to have his, the father decided that the son would cloak himself with humanity. And now we've got an extra special eminence. There's a closeness because of the condescension in the incarnation.

Is that right thinking? Yeah, no, that's right thinking. And I think that's true and that's good and that's helpful. I think it's helpful for us to grasp really who Jesus is and to appreciate that. And I think it's amazing to think of God's love in that way.

But I think what helps me the most in terms of transcendence is when I think of a God like that and yet one who would forgive me, who would send his son to die for me. Those kinds of things help me. And the fact that he is eminent, eminent.

Yeah, I mean, that's helpful, yes. But I like the transcendent part too, because I need to think about a God who not only cares for me, but is able to care for me.

Steve, I'm reading, excuse me, Isaiah 53. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. He was pierced through for our transgressions.

There is a very close aspect to it. The eminent part I like and I have a substitutionary sin bear. But I think, Steve, as I analyze myself, if I could play shrink for a moment. Please do. Theological shrink.

When I first got saved, I was fed up with every song, kind of like a K-love song, every song, a boyfriend-girlfriend song. Every song is a Britney Spears song, except the object of affection is God and not one of her other, you know, boyfriends or husbands or something.

And so I think I revolted against a lot of the love and compassion and care of God, even though I would have believed it. But I think I probably preached more heavily the transcendent attributes of God.

But now as I get older, I'm starting to appreciate God's compassion, mercy, patience, and grace more than I did before. I think I had an appreciation, but I'm trying to tell others about that more now.

Well, you know, I think in part that's maturity. I think in part it's just living more of life and recognizing that sometimes I think what we do is we look at ourselves and go, okay, what are the areas I need to grow in?

And as we grow in them, we come to appreciate even more those qualities that are true of God. For example, patience. You know, when I was younger, maybe not so patient. As I've gotten older, a little bit more patient.

But when I compare my level of patience to the patience of God, you know, kind of puts me in check and makes me appreciate him and love him all the more, so.

Worship in Heaven Includes Both Transcendence and Intimacy

Steve, Revelation chapter four, the song there in heaven seems to be of transcendence. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the Almighty who was and is and who is to come. Worthy are you, our Lord, for you created all things and because by your will they were created.

Still there's transcendent singing in heaven.

But there's also, you know, that intimacy too, because he's with us.

Right, and then the next chapter, chapter five, worthy are you to take the book and break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

I think we've got to grab both. Yeah, we do. And that's why I think the new song to intro No Compromise Radio, as soon as we can get the engineers to fix it, your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place.

I really don't even get that. I'm sorry. I think if, you know, I really think we should try to get them maybe in studio. That'd be great.

You know what, Steve? I think you've set a precedent and that precedent was interviewing people on Tuesdays without me. So you have

If I can get them, then they're mine. It's green light. You do a Tuesday show. I would prefer not four.

Tony's four shows worthy. I'm not sure these guys are, but you know what? I could be wrong.

Well, I doubt that, you know, the funny thing about the deal with Tony was I did four shows and I could have easily done four more. I mean, I had so much more stuff to ask him and I never got around to it.

Steve, give me a few of your favorite hymns. Can you just, I know this is off the, I was going to talk about James White on the show and we ended up talking about fragrances and secret places. Great is thy faithfulness.

Transcendent. Yeah. I mean, the ones I really like usually are about the transcendence of God. I'm not, you know, I mean, clearly, a mighty fortress, immortal, invisible. I mean, I like the attribute songs.

I'm not going to lie. You know what? If we sang a song on Sunday morning, well, I mean, the ones I really don't like, you know, are kind of the Daisy Arminian songs. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me.

You know, I mean, I wouldn't like songs like that or the carousel songs, you know.

What's the one, because he lives. Do you like that one? I believe that's Gaither. No, I don't.

And to hold a newborn baby. I can face tomorrow. No, you know, how, you know, I could change it so easily because he forgives. I can face tomorrow because if I had to think about, you know, bearing my sin, my own sin from day to day, that would be unbearable.

That would cause me to, you know, really dread tomorrow.

Steve, you have a quick wit and a very I don't know about that. Well, I think you do. Okay. And maybe you should write lyrics for hymns and we could do, I'll take care of the music part. You do the lyrics.

Oh, I'll do the easy part, man.

Critiquing Rick Warren's Daniel Plan as Law Without the Gospel

All right. No Compromise Radio today. You can check us out on noco90 .com. I still am waiting for Pastor Steve to do a guest host NoCo 90.

I've had my crack team of research, development and script writers at work on that. And we should have something in the next six months.

I want you to know it's harder than it looks.

Well, I mean, yeah, I'm sure it is.

I have asked Justin Peters to do a NoCo 90. I thought you were going to say Justin Bieber. Actually. I asked Biebs. Yeah. Yeah, he was going to charge me for that. All right, let's change the subject a little bit.

Okay, please. All right, Rick Warren. Bestseller, Not Purpose Driven Life, Not Purpose Driven Church. The Daniel Plan. I'm reading CP Entertainment, the Christian Post Entertainment website. Now, there's already something wrong with this, isn't there?

The Christian Post. The tabs at the top are Home, Church Ministry, U .S., World, Politics, Tech and Biz, Opinion, Blogs, Video, and then HuffPost. Why is that? Huffington Post. Just kidding.

And Entertainment. So this is under Entertainment. Do you find any? I don't find anything entertaining about it. Yikes. A diet book?

Okay, Christian Post Contributor, Anagra Kumar writes. Foie gras. What's the stuff they have in Scotland that's in the stomach? Haggis? Yeah. I had some of that in Scotland, matter of fact. I'm not surprised that you would eat that.

Mine, well, I had to.

It was put on the plate in front of me. Okay, I'm going to scratch that off of places of visit then. I do. I didn't want to put,.

Oh, speaking of visiting, I think you're going to, Pastor Steve's going to go to California for a No Compromise Discernment Conference. I am going to do that, yeah. That's late April, I think.

Church of the Cross, is that right? You wouldn't do more than me. Yeah, I think that's correct. Yeah, Saturday morning, and yeah, so that should be fun. Okay, you're going to preach on Sunday too? Yeah.

Yes, I am. I just don't remember the town it's in.

I think it's, I don't know, it's off Route 49.

Northern California, I don't know. I don't know, but you're going to love the people there. They're super nice.

I'm sure I am. Rick Warren's bestseller, Daniel Plan, seeks to change lives, not just food habits. New York Times bestseller, Daniel Plan, 40 Days to a Healthier Life, explaining that the book isn't just about dieting, but based on biblical principles and aimed at helping people make a difference.

And I have one word for all this, law.

There's another book on law. It's so much law. And you know, what's with the 40 days? Anyway, 40 days, now, how about this? 40 days of a purposeful diet. Oh.

But the Daniel Plan, Steve, is more than a diet. It is about living a healthier life based on biblical principles. A godly life.

Yeah, law without the gospel. You know how much weight they've lost at their church? It's like 12 billion pounds or something like that. Every person at the church had to agree to lose five pounds and they

Well, here's what I, well, I was going to ask something and I know the answer to, I better not do it. You can't love if you don't have the energy to love, Warren said, if you go home every night and lie on the couch because you're exhausted from not eating right, sick, and your blood pressure is too high, well, how can you make a difference?

Change your life and change the world. That's our goal with this book. Change your life and change the world. You know, it really all starts with you. It all starts with you. It's all, it's not about you, but it's about you.

Well, morality, be good, do good. Be better. Yeah, didn't Karl Barth write a book called Not Law and Gospel, but Gospel and Law?

How about if he just, you know, tells it like it is? This is the second part of my self-improvement trilogy, you know, or something like that.

Here's the great news, that the New York Times understands what category to put this book in. They know, and so you could put things like, okay, the gospel, and maybe it's a Herman Bovnik book or something.

Bovink. Yeah, Bovink, excuse me. I'm reading the book and I don't know how to say the name, and you don't, and you do, and you aren't, and you is.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Where is you at, Steve? Put that in your grammar checker.

I know. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And so here is the New York Times list. It's under advice, how to, and miscellaneous. Wow. See how to, just more morality, more law, law and gospel.

How to be a better person by Rick Warren.

The Daniel Plan's Five F's and the Problem of Moralism

Okay, Steve, the plan is centered on five essentials. And by the way, these are Essentials. These are essentials and these are alliterated as well. Always alliterate, I think Jay Adams said. Yeah. Yes, that was a pun.

Faith, small F. I think earnestly contend for the small F faith.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Earnestly contend for the faith. With a small F faith.

Okay, food. Yeah, food. Okay, that's close though. You know, we have engines and we have cabooses. This is food and faith. They go together kind of like fellowship for Baptists. Right? Okay, food and faith.

You know, that sounds like a great name for a magazine or something.

I think that's the name of our new church. Food and faith. They'll know we're Baptists by the name of our church. Food and faith.

Number three, any guesses for the next F? Now think about the Daniel plan. Think about being in shape and stuff like that. Flat stomach.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I mean, you know, you're not letting me look at anything. I know, I know. Very good though, fitness. Fitness, well, flat stomach, fitness, okay.

Okay, for focus. Okay. And five

Five-thirty. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I'm just coming out with the F's, you know. Well, the last F is not felicity. It is friends.

Friends are friends forever. If the Lord's the Lord of them. Now here is how Mr. and Mrs. Kumar explains faith in the article. Faith as explained is recognizing,. I think this is, you know, trying to distill Warren.

So is this going to be a biblical principle here about describing faith?

Well, you know what? If you get faith wrong, I pretty much can tell you food, fitness, focus, and friends is going to be wrong. Okay. Faith without foods, fitness, focus, and friends is dead. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

What is this, a tongue twister book or what?

Faith is explained as recognizing and using God's power in life and treating one's body and mind with the care that he intended. What is that?

Is that Joel Osteen? Can you imagine? That is, oh, oh.

The food message is taking the junk food and choosing real whole foods. Put off, put on.

Hey, that's right. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Super fluidy of naughtiness.

Put off the old man. And it says for fitness, the authors encourage participants to bring back fun and exercise while focus is about talking to your, talking back to your negative thoughts. I kid you not.

Oh, come on. And for friends, doing the Daniel Plan as a community, in a community, is more effective than doing it individually. Is Benny Hinn the co-author? I mean, what is this? Steve, it's not a book, it's a movement.

But it's positive confession. It's, you know. See, talking about Benny Hinn,.

Is there any circumstance, are there any circumstances in which you would go on Benny Hinn and how long would the interview last?

And would there be five shows? There are two circumstances in which that would happen. Number one, a gun being held to my head. Okay. Well, or any member of my family. So let's just force, would be to keep with the F going.

Okay, force, and that would be kind of taken part three.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And so the other way that that would occur is if he invited me, I would go so that I could confront, you know, again with the F. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I wanna stay on the F. So, I mean, the only way I would get on is I'd say, thank you.

And I would never say Pastor Benny, by the way, because he's not a pastor. Well, never a pastor. I don't think of any church. But I would say, thank you for having me on the show. Now, I'm going to spend the rest of my time telling you why everything that you've taught your entire life in ministry, so-called, is wrong and unbiblical, and why you should stop doing your show and repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

See, Steve, my guess is,.

Like with the current administration in the White House, and other administrations I know do the same thing, they vet all kinds of speakers. You can say this, you can't say that. Give me what you're going to say.

Type it out. They're trying to control everything. Lou Giglio, tell me what you're going to say. Oh yeah, now you can't say such and such. And so, I guarantee you that the Benny Hinn Association, whoever's leading that thing, was doing some vetting with Michael Brown, and they knew what he was going to say or wasn't going to say, because what's he going to do?

Get on there and say, thank you for having me on. I'm now going to rebuke you on TV? How's that going to go over?

No, probably not very well. I think actually Benny has, the director of his fan club does the vetting. So you have to join the fan club and then...

I think the fan club vetting department is right next door to the miracle certification and credentials department.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm a charter member of the Benny Hinn fan club. Yeah, I just, I don't see how you can go on that show. We're talking about, I guess we're talking about Michael Brown now. I don't see how you could go on that show and expect to have any credibility when you get off, because, I mean, you are besmirched by just by virtue of being in his presence.

You know, I mean, it's, there's a stench to get off you.

Steve, I did do some checking here with my crack staff while you were talking. Okay, yeah. 15 ,000 church members doing the Daniel plan collectively lost 250 ,000 pounds.

I wasn't that far off, 250 ,000, 12 billion. I mean, that's close.

So Warren said, I had a thought, it wasn't spiritual, that we are all overweight.

I'd say most of his thoughts aren't very spiritual, but I do. Most of his thoughts are underweight.

I stood up before 20 ,000 people and told them I had gained three pounds a year, but I'd been your pastor for 30 years, so I needed to lose 90 pounds. Wow. Yeah, now I'm all for health. I'm for staying fit and doing the Auschwitz diet.

You know how I like to count calories. Health is health forever. Uh-huh, here's this rule. No snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Well, that's pretty easy. Now we're to the S's.

Yeah, S, S. I mean, you've got to alliterate everything, right?

So to the Daniel book, can we give a few words that all start with the same letter to kind of stay away from them? So avoid.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not prepared to alliterate, you know. Allow.

Anyway, today, Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, Daniel Plans, stay away from the book. It'll be at found at some library. A library used for 50 cents in about five years anyway,.

At most. 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 six. 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.

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