Salon and Joel Osteen

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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

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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."

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. I'm your host,

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Michael Lee Abendroth. Funniest junk mail

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I've ever received was from Mike Hafenhorff. Hey, how would you like to go to Greece?

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Thessalonica, Berea, head over to Turkey, Ephesus for emphasis,

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Patmos, Athens, Corinth. Well, I'm going to lead a

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No Compromise Radio tour, cruise and tour to Greece, April 2013.

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If you'd like to get some more information, info at nocompromiseradio .com for prices.

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All the prices will be from Boston, so if you live someplace else, you'll have to get to Boston and fly out of Logan with us, but that's not too bad now after all.

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Don't be afraid of Greece and what's going on there will be fine. It's appointed for man once to die, and then the judgment.

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Highlights of Greece, 11 -day tour and cruise, April 2013, we'll know exact dates soon enough. No Compromise Radio Tour, so I'd love to have you come.

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Well, what else is going on? Don't forget, soon enough on the website, you'll see the interview, No Compromise Ever, the video, and that will be

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Carl Truman, Phil Johnson, James White, and myself. What's in front of me today?

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Paradoxes, Peter Barnes. There's a little magazine called The Banner of Truth. Now, what do

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I subscribe to if I am a Christian?

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Well, I subscribe to everything. Westminster Confession? No, just kidding. In other words, what do

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I get? What kind of subscriptions do I carry that might be of interest to you?

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Well, I get The Banner of Truth, a little magazine, and it is definitely worth it. I get Christianity Today because I need no co -fodder, and I like pictures.

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And then lastly, I receive Modern Reformation, Horton and the Group. So those are the three periodicals.

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I get BibSac and Master's Seminary Journal, and those kind of journals, but those aren't really that fun to read.

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I don't know why I get BibSac, just to see what they're doing there, because half the time at Dallas, they're doing crazy things, crazy non -lordship things.

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But here, Banner of Truth, there's a little article by Peter Barnes, who is the minister of Revisbury Presbyterian Church in Sydney.

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By the way, this comes over from England, and it's got a lot of Iain Murray articles and stuff like that. It's called

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Paradoxes. And I loved this little paragraph. Jesus is both

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Shepherd, John 10 and Matthew 26, and Lamb, John 1,

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Lord, John 13, and Servant, Mark 10, Great High Priest, Hebrews 5 to 9, and Sacrifice, Hebrews 10.

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The immortal one, John 10, Acts 2, Acts 3.

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Who dies? Acts chapter 2. Peter Barnes writes, No wonder

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Charles Wesley wrote, "'Tis mystery all, the immortal dies. Who can explore his strange design?"

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Barnes goes on to say, Christ is true God and true man and the one person. That is why so many paradoxical things can be said about him.

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The person who cannot handle two truths together cannot know faith in Christ.

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So I just wanted to encourage you to read the Banner of Truth magazine. You can subscribe to it.

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Just get online, I'm sure. And make sure if you go to Israel, excuse me, if you go to Greece with us, that you're reading your

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Banner of Truth. Wouldn't that be fun to just sit on a cruise ship going across the sea and reading some,

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I don't know, Charlie Stanley. Oh, I have to be careful.

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The negative responses for No Compromise radio mailbag are going up.

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Is Wretched, they call theirs a mailbag? I think they do. So I probably can't use mailbag. Todd has probably copyrighted that, the mailbag.

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Thanks again to Todd for letting me do the show just a couple weeks ago. I think it was like two weeks ago, a week and a half ago.

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All right, I got one today from Salon .com. My friend

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Bob Dunn sent it over to me. Salon .com, known for their theological prowess and their political gumption.

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Here is the name of the article by Chris Lehman. Joel Osteen.

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Now this is, I didn't write this. It's got a big picture of Joel, of course, typical picture. Joel Osteen Worships Himself.

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That's the name of the article. Subtitle, at a

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DC rally, it's clear that the megachurch pastor's childlike faith is really about the power of narcissism.

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Wow, I have no idea what the background of Chris Lehman is, but as an outsider, seemingly an outsider to evangelicalism, he has this spot on, the power of narcissism,

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Joel Osteen. I was talking to a lady on the phone once because my email is bbcpastor at bbcchurch .org.

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Easier if you write info, no compromise. And so whenever I give that to people, that's bbcpastor at bbcchurch .org.

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And then I usually say, any guesses on what I do for a living? And they always laugh. And she said, oh, this lady said,

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I listen to Joel Osteen. I say, oh, you do? You know, this is a recorded thing.

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You know, if you talk to the sales rep, this might be recorded, and I'm sure the bosses listen to it later. And I said, well,

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Joel Osteen doesn't like to talk about sin because he says we all know about it and we all get enough about that.

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So let's talk about other positive things. I said, Paul talked about sin first. Peter talked about sin first.

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John the Baptist talked about sin first. All the prophets talked about sin first. And Jesus even talked about sin first.

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Because if you don't know that you're a sinner, you don't need to know about your Savior. If you don't know how great your sin is, you don't need a greater

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Savior than all your sin. And she said, yeah, I never thought about that before. But I'm shocked how many people

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I meet as a pastor. They'll find out I'm a pastor. I like to tell them about, you know, what

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I do because then it just slides into spiritual talk. I'm so spiritual. And you don't know how many then tell me that they're trying to actually impress me that they know something about spirituality.

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They're trying to talk my lingo. They're trying to talk my language. I tell them I'm a pastor, and then they respond to me.

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I like Joel Osteen. Now, of course, if it wasn't for the grace of God, I'd be following Joel Osteen.

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I'd be giving money in popcorn buckets to him, sending it so I'd receive my special blessing in a nice parking spot.

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So I'm thankful that it is by God's grace alone that I don't think that way.

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I don't believe that way. And I think it's heinous, his theology. But this plays to greed so much it's not even funny.

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How do you get money from people? Well, you play to their fear or you play to their greed.

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There are other ways, but those are two top ways. How do you extract hard -earned money from people?

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How do you extract money that was given to people? Well, you extract it by fear.

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Why 2K? Buy these tires or your kids might get hurt. Or if you give, you get.

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Here, spend $5 on this lotto designed for uneducated, poor, greedy people.

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You'll get a lot of money. Well, you just soon get hit by lightning 50 ,000 times.

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But hey, there are people who from this location have won $300 ,000 over time.

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They give out just enough to kind of keep the thing going, just enough. So here we have this article on salon .com.

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I don't usually read Salon. Once in a while, I go over there just for fun. He's talking about Lakewood Church in Houston and how

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Joel has taken his show on the road to National Stadium to, quote, live in victory, to seize their destiny moments, and to fulfill

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God's plan for their personal, financial, and emotional success.

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How can anybody be so dumb? I don't mean Chris. I mean the followers. Now, Chris talks about how it kind of rained at the

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Washington rally billed as the America's Night of Hope, and it was drizzle and a little rain, so they had to cancel it.

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You know, a few cloudbursts here and there. And then he said, the glummest rain out announcement of the young 2012 baseball season, quote,

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Night of Hope postponed until 4 p .m. Sunday. Oh, my hope is postponed.

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That's like the church up the street from the radio, and it says healing room open Saturdays 10 to 12.

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What do you do if you need to be healed at 1230? 168 hours of the week minus two, you can't get healed.

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So, if you need to get healed, here's the time slot. You better make sure you're there. I guess you could swing by Walmart first and pick up some balm.

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One prominent Night of Hope t -shirt was emblazoned with the inspirational divine message, I can do all things.

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Of course, taking out a context of Philippians chapter four, the context of contentment, you can be content in Christ Jesus.

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I don't think that would sell over so well with Joe Osteen. And the writer here,

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Chris said, I can do all things, all things that is, but summon the faithful to stand out in the rain.

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Oh, you know, part of me, I guess it's pride that I don't want people like that,

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Chris, to think of me the same way he thinks of these people. So, part of it is, yes, it gives evangelicalism a bad name, but it's worse than that because it's a false teaching.

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It's taking advantage of people. Now, the people want to be taken advantage of because they heap up teachers, 2 Timothy chapter four, after their what?

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They accumulate teachers after their own desire. So, it's, of course, incumbent upon the false teacher to repent and to believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and to teach his gospel. Not the false teacher's gospel, but the

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Lord's gospel. But there's also something to be said for the followers, because these people are following them based on their own enslaved will,

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I know, but their will that is responsible. Bank of TV cameras set up on the pitcher's mound,

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Joe Osteen said, isn't it great to be here? It's another great day the

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Lord has made. Well, we had some rain last night. If it wasn't so sad,

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I'd laugh. Oh, I guess I just laughed. Osteen's serene depictions of God eternally uptending designs for the fates of individual believers are not the sort of inverted

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Calvinism. Osteen's God is not an intensely personal presence guiding believers out of pitfalls into—oh, is an intensely personal presence—guiding believers out of pitfalls into inevitable glory and joy.

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Not so much a raging patriarch as Geneal Cruz director.

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God's dream—this is now Osteen—God's dream for our own life is so much bigger than our own.

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Let's not put any limits on God. Osteen called the deity running over and abundant.

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Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant and they ask you if you want to supersize this? Well, God is a supersizing

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God, and he wants to supersize your joy. I have no words.

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I know this is radio. We did the No Compromise video production with Carl Truman, James White, and Phil Johnson.

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You can take pauses because we're going to edit all this stuff. It was very hard for me because in radio you just need to keep talking for 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

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I almost said 24 hours. We should do that sometime. The NoCo Marathon. But if I tape three or four shows,

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I'm exhausted. It's like preaching a sermon or two, right? Sad.

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When you are criticizing yourself, you're criticizing God's creation. The next time you think something negative, turn that around and say,

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I am God's masterpiece. Paul, why'd you say, oh, wretched man that I am?

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What was that all about? What was all that about? I'm the chief of all sinners in 1

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Timothy chapter 1. What was all that about? What's all that deny yourself? What's that all about?

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What's God's will for you to suffer in 1 Peter? What's all that about? Now, listen to what

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Chris Leman said. The talismanic faith in positive utterance, in other words, word faith, name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, words are containers, that old

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Copeland -Hagan heresy, is another key article of belief in the word faith tradition.

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So, he knows it. He knows Oral Roberts and these other charlatans,

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Jesse Duplantis and these guys. It's all word faith. You just, you can't talk about illness.

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You know, yeah, if you need to go get cancer treatment, that's fine, but you should just talk in a certain way.

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It's crazy how people can believe that, except when you play to people's greed and you play to people's low view of God.

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No wonder it's so important to have a high view of God, a transcendent God, what Machen called the awful transcendence of God.

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God is holy. God is other. God is above us, who by His will decides to be close to us, a manual

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God with us. Now we're back to Chris Lehman criticizing the

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Osteens on salon .com. When she finds herself, this is, he's talking about the wife, assailed by cares, anxieties and negative thoughts,

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Victoria reported, quote, I visualize a bouquet of helium balloons in my hands and I literally hold them, hold those balloons out and release them to the heavens.

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And as I release those balloons to him, I say, I may not have the power to change my circumstances, but God has the power to change our circumstances.

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Now, for a second, I thought she was going to say, well, I hold out the helium balloons and I inhale them and I say, as I release those balloons to him,

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I might not have the power to change my circumstances. See, that's what I thought she was going to say. Here comes more hate mail.

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I'm sure it's going to be mocking, speak the truth in love. I'm moving forward, went the lyrics to one of the intra -sermon studies in Journey -esque hymnody.

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So they had a rock band there, a Christian rock band, of course, and the lyrics were in one of the songs at the

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Joel Osteen concert. I'm not going back. I'm moving ahead. I'm here to declare to you that the past is over.

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Wow. Hmm. An American Idol contestant,

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Danny Gokey, I don't know Danny Gokey, performed a Christian rock number of his own,

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My Best Days Are Ahead Of Me. And then

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Chris Lehman says, which seemed to make short work of his once debilitating grief, quote,

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I don't get lost in the past or get stuck in some sad memories. Age isn't nothing but a number.

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If I keep getting better, I can be anything I want to be. Chris Lehman says, that sounds like an

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Army's recruiting slogan. Chris Lehman, now listen to this.

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He's got this dead on. Unbelievers get this. Why can't believers get this? Thankfully, some do.

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Probably most no -compromise radio listeners, most wretched radio listeners. There's a term from the psychiatric clinics that neatly captures the outlook of someone possessed of grandiose fantasies about the imperial reach of the self and the principled refusal to acknowledge anything poised to diminish such fantasies, such as the passage of time.

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All right, ready? That term is narcissistic personality disorder.

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Now, you know what I think about disorders and syndromes and illnesses and diseases that is of the mind, of the brain

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I get, of the mind, I think it's a spiritual issue. But he does know this is a narcissistic, moralistic, therapeutic deism.

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This is not the gospel of good news. This is not a declaration of what God has done in his son at Calvary.

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This is all about you. Do this and this is what you get. Buy this and this is what you'll be.

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Say this and this is what God will do for you. This is sick, because it makes the person the sovereign, and it makes

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God the dog on the leash. Chris Lehman said, to grasp the overweening self -absorption of the

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Osteen faith. Isn't that interesting? At least he knows it's not the Christian faith. One need look no further than the frequent recourse

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Osteen makes to his own success story in sealing the case for God's providential plan for the believer's own life.

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In other words, talk a lot about yourself. Talks about become a better you, where he saw

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God's favor in home -flipping a deal for himself and Victoria, and how he gets premium parking spaces.

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But neither, Chris Lehman said, are going to make the key connections that earlier Protestant divines have preached, going back to Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin.

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That the divinity does not, in fact, have your own personal happiness occupying pride of place on his exhaustive to -do list.

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That's not in God's list to do. Now, it is on God's list to do.

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It's blasphemous the way he phrased it, but it is on God's. God does take care of his children, and God loves his children, and God blesses his children with all kinds of wonderful things.

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But that's not the point of the word faith theology. Lehman said, this is why

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Edwards, for all of his better -known hell -and -brimstone sermons, urged onto believers a stoic consent to being in general.

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Consent to being in general, just a regular life, to live a quiet life and work with your hands, as Paul would say.

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Not a plan for individual life advancement. Advancement. For Osteen, of course, the story of this woman's survival was a divine miracle.

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Now, he's talking about Rwandan genocide, and there was a person that made it out and didn't get hacked up to death like 100 million

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Rwandans did in genocide. So he tells the story of this one that got out. But the author said, but if this one survivor was enjoying the loving favor of an omnipotent

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God, what are we to conclude that this same God thought of the more than 800 ,000

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Rwandans murdered in the genocide? Was their faith wanting? Was God planning unparalleled new successes and joys for their surviving family members?

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Are these the people Osteen has in mind when he exhorts his listeners not to be victims, but victors?

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It is something of an obscenity even to frame such questions. Yet they are the inevitable outcome of a theology -free success gospel.

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Theology -free. There's no theology in it. There's no Pauline Christological talk pitched exclusively to tales of individual triumph.

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Osteen's sermons all begin with a self -empowering chant from believers. This is my

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Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. But there are legions of dead, now confined by definition, it's true, in the hated past, who come bearing the testimony that the

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Bible is not actually about you. Chris Lehman, Joe Osteen, worships himself.

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Salon .com, Monday, April 30th. The Bible isn't about you.

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Friends, that's good advice. For all I know, Chris Lehman isn't a

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Christian. For all I know, he is a Christian. He knows Calvin and Edwards at least enough to quote something from them.

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The Bible isn't about you. That's why this whole Sinclair -Ferguson -Where's

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Waldo critique is so valid. Where am

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I in the gospel of Mark? Nowhere. Because Mark 1 -1 talks about, this is the

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Son of God. And this is going to be a description of the Son of God. And where John tells us explicitly, 7

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IMs showing Jesus is the eternal Son of God. Yahweh himself. Mark doesn't use words so much as actions.

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Only God could walk on the water. Only God could still the wind and the waves.

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Only God could rebuke the water like it was a demon and say, peace, be still.

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Only God could do these things. So when we turn from this gospel and we somehow think that the good news is what we get now, as John MacArthur said, if your best life is now, that means you're going to hell.

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Our best life isn't now. It's a wonderful life. I'm so blessed.

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I think about everything that I have. The opportunity I have to preach, the opportunity for this radio show. I have an awesome wife, four great kids, friends.

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I have a mind, a right mind. I have a lot. I enjoy all kinds of things on this earth.

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But as Edwards would say, compared to what I'll get in heaven, what I get now is like a veritable hell.

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Because by comparison, heaven's going to be so much greater. And that's why, too, if people are on earth today and they're not

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Christians and they're going through something super bad, if they die without Christ and go to hell, what they're going through now on earth will be like a veritable heaven in comparison to what hell is actually like.

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So repent of your sins. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen

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Savior who offered himself as a substitute for sinners like you. Cast yourself on the mercy of God.

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Cry for forgiveness and ask God to grant you saving faith so that you can enter into heaven.

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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .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.