Heresy For One Hundred

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 is here, and one thing I admire about Pastor Steve is when we do radio shows, he doesn�t know the topic, but he sounds smart when he talks about it.

Well, thank you for that impactful analysis, Mike.

I don�t know why it just flashed through my mind, but as you were talking, I was thinking about Fremont, Nebraska, comedian Johnny Carson. Were you? Yeah. Oh. You ever watch Johnny Carson?

Yeah. The Tonight Show? Yeah, a time or two or, you know, a thousand.

Yeah, sure. When my mom would come and visit, sometimes I would get the free tickets, Burbank Studios, and we would stand outside, and then we would go in, and they�d have a guy come out and tell you what to do.

When the show started, then Ed McMahon would come out and kind of get the audience all fired up so that when Johnny came out for that monologue, everyone would clap really.

Loud. See, I could never believe that that was Ed McMahon�s job because I just thought, �This is like� I mean, it seemed to me like his only skill was that horrible guffaw, you know,.

That. Well, you better be careful because it�s going to lead into, if I�m Johnny Carson,.

You are Doc Severinsen. Oh, that was good. Now that was good. That was good.

I appreciate that. Thank you, Roger. So a while ago, in the news, Lifeway and Ligonier teamed up, right? So you got the Southern Baptists and the Independent Presbyterians. It�s formidable. You know what?

So what would that make? Independent, fundamental, Baptist Presbyterians? Paedo-baptizing Baptists. Who do you think has got more money, Lifeway or Ligonier? I got to vote for Lifeway.

I think that would be true, too. Who has more theological chops?

Are those related, the money and the theological acumen? Apparently not. So what happened is they had this big survey that examined theological awareness, or lack thereof, as some might say, with things that people believe are they should believe, but don�t, or don�t believe and should.

And we don�t have the original document. I just have this page, Steve, from Christianity Today, the latest at issue, page 21. And they�ve got here, and it�s under �Our Favorite Heresies. So today we can talk about Lifeway, Ligonier, favorite heresies, and, you know, it�s hard to have a heresy these days.

Ask Rob Bell.

I�m not really in favor, generally. I don�t think I have a list of favorite heresies. But anyway, this first one is a good one.

Now, before you read that, though, let�s just put this in context. Meditator and Rob Bell. �Jude 3, contend earnestly for the once-delivered faith. Faith. Now� I didn�t even know! You sound like Philip DeCourcy.

I did not know there were two syllables in �faith. You know, he�s talking about this faith that could be summarized with the gospel about our Lord Jesus coming to be a sin-bearer, died, raised from the dead, right, of first importance, 1 Corinthians 15.

Are we to contend for, even when it comes to, you know, baptism mode, eschatological ideas, I think what Jude is trying to say, there�s this faith. This is the core soteriological issues that we have to contend for.

One might even call it the gospel. There you go. There you go.

So, when it comes to heresies, I�m hoping all these things are listed are going to be regarding the nature of God and salvation. Okay. Okay? So, if they�re not, I don�t know how we would call them heresies, but we�ll find out.

Okay. First one.

73 of the respondents say that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. They strongly agree with that.

Wow. Firstborn of all creation, so therefore that firstborn must be in time. And then he�s born. I watched the Mormon cartoon the other day and that�s what it said. 73%. So, what do you think?

73%. I mean, are these Americans? Let�s see. I�m going to examine the theology of the Lord. No, these are professing believers.

Okay. So, let�s talk a little bit about that. You�re reading the Bible firstborn. And if you studied a little bit, you can look at Protodocus and preeminent one, or is it firstborn in time? Are people just that naive, that ignorant?

I mean, if you explain to those 73 people what this heresy that they�re believing actually would imply, do you think they�d change it? What percent would they change? I don�t know.

That�s a good question. I think a number of people probably would, you know, but some of them would not. I mean, you know, who knows when they even ask, when they�re asking for professing believers, you know, I mean, they could have Mormons and others mixed into that too.

But I do think that it is, it�s not surprising that we get these kind of answers because churches, pastors, preachers typically do not, and I�m going to say this, this doesn�t apply across the board, but I think in 98 of the churches that you go to, you will not hear theology taught from the pulpit.

You know, you might even hear the gospel and that kind of thing, but you�re not going to hear about the, an entire sermon, say, about the eternality of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You�re not going to hear that. So, when it talks here about the first and greatest being created by God, do you think sometimes, Steve, I just can�t hardly get that through my mind. I�m looking at Revelation chapter 1 now, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead.

Okay, so out of all the people that have ever died and have been resurrected, Jesus is the first, firstborn, first chronologically. That can�t be because there are people before Him that died and that were raised.

Even in the Lord�s ministry, forget anybody in the Old Testament with Elijah and Elisha. How about Jesus raises Lazarus, right, and there are other people too. How can it be firstborn? You�re talking about first is time?

No, it�s talking about how preeminent, and so when you use this kind of language of firstborn or first, you know, only begotten, I just think people have lost their minds. They don�t care.

They must not care. Well, and I�ve talked about this before, but if you do a careful study of, say, John 1, what you�re going to wind up determining for yourself is that Jesus Christ always existed. There�s no way around it.

The different verbs that are used of Jesus and John the Baptist, a variety of things, you�re going to conclude that ultimately Jesus always existed with the Father, and there just simply is no other explanation for the wording of John 1.

So this idea that, you know, 73 say that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God, well, that just shows the theological illiteracy of those who profess Christ.

You know how I love Creed's Confessions, and there�s that cheap, i .e., free confession app that you can get for your phone. Athonation Creed. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. And also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible. And here�s what it says. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.

Preach. And how about even the Apostles� Creed, where it says, �Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son. And they�re like, �See? He�s begotten.

Yeah. And by the way, you know, it�s not just the Creed�s and Confessions that say this. It�s the Bible. The Bible, or the Creed�s and Confessions, are based on Scripture, and they�re based on a right understanding of Scripture, and the fact that some people are not understanding this has to do with two things.

One is a failure to study the Creed, but also a failure to theologically teach the Bible. And most churches don�t do that. They�re too busy telling you, you know, how to take the stress out of your life or how to lift others up or whatever they�re trying to moralize you about.

Steve, I think you�ve really distilled everything, because the first part about our conversation, why is this happening? It is theological laziness, and then it�s also pastoral malfeasance, where they are going to give the people a pietistic, moralistic, how-to, practical, let�s-get-them-through-the-week-with-another-eight-part-series-around-some-catchy-title-and-cool-graphics, and it�s the pastor�s fault.

If you�re a brand-new Christian and you go, �Oh, firstborn from the dead, begotten. And you go, �Well, I never heard the Nicene Creed that He�s begotten, not made. Right? And so, what would that mean?

They don�t know. They might read Colossians 1 or John 1 and how Christ is eternal, so therefore how could He be created? But it�s the pastor who needs to be able to tell the people, behind the scenes in discipleship and Sunday school, in the pulpit, we have to think precisely about who God is.

What you think about God matters. And the problem is, too many churches have adopted the Ray Davies model. Ray Davies of the Kinks, �Give the people what they want.

Well, if you�ve got to fill the seats, right, and you�ve got attendance, buildings, and cash, and you�ve got a, you know, what are you going to do? Don�t you have to appeal to the people, Steve? Well, no.

I�m talking about this in Sunday school, probably this Sunday. Listen, why do we gather together? We gather together to worship, you know, and it�s not like God has not given us instructions on how to worship.

He�s told us how He wants to be worshiped. So we�re not free to do whatever we want because when we do whatever we want, what do we call that? That�s idolatry. I mean, if you worship whatever you, whichever way you want and however you want and whatever feels good to you, you�re going to go straight into idolatry.

Steve, I think the same way you do in many different ways. �Here you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I am the Lord Yahweh your God, and I am a jealous God. It�s so easy for us to create a God after our own likeness. And since we�re created, maybe Jesus has created, right?

And we don�t know. One of the things that pastors need to do is to be precise about this so you can worship Him properly because if you think something about God that�s not true, it�s called idolatry.

That�s exactly right. So when we�re thinking about pastoral malfeasance, as we brought up before, I�m just happy to say that word, didn�t know what it means. I think it means �wear Genevan gowns. Oh, that was last show, sorry.

Let�s think about it. When you enter a church service, listener, what are you expecting the pastor to do? I think that�s good. I know we�re not going to get through this list today. What are you expecting?

Life coach. I know. It is virtue. How to be more virtuous. This is medieval Roman Catholicism. In so many ways, I think the modern church is Romish, and I don�t mean Jim Rome, allegedly. It is Romish.

I just need to be better. I need to be more moral. I need to be more virtuous. I need to get through my life a little bit better. That is a lot different than the message of the New Testament.

How to feel better about yourself, how to handle your finances better, yadda yadda yadda yadda. I mean, some of the things that these guys talk about are good things, right? But they ought to flow out of the gospel rather than replace the gospel.

Well, if Tony Robbins can talk about the same thing that your pastor does. That�s bad. Our Oprah, our Dr. Phil. That�s really bad. Right? And then you just throw in a couple words, you know, in Jesus� name, amen, and now let�s just talk about how to do these things.

This is awful. Yes. I wonder, Steve, if we looked at the entire Bible to find the percentage of imperatives versus the percentage of indicatives and just, you know, here�s just a narrative, right? It doesn�t tell you to do anything.

I�m guessing that that percentage will not be reflecting most church pulpits. He�s not guessing.

Well, that�s true. And I mean, the whole idea, I mean, I don�t want to out anybody here, but I mean, I listened to a message not so long ago, you know, about Joshua, and what the guy was talking about, I hate to say preaching because it wasn�t a sermon, what he was talking about was the idea of, you know, Joshua lifted Moses up, and therefore we should, you know, work on lifting others up.

And, you know, who are you going to lift up this week?

That�s funny because lifted up, and as you know, because you�re preaching through it, and John�s gospel is lifting him up on a cross. That�s the lifted up three times. He must be lifted up. Well, that�s just, let�s go back to this thing here.

It is a capital offense to think about Jesus as a created being. It couldn�t get any worse, right? Capital offense, executable.

Theologically. Yes. And so, you know, to say capital offense, that makes it sound very serious. Well, it is serious. If you believe that Jesus Christ is a created being, then you don�t believe in the Jesus.

Christ of the Bible. And you have no hope of a Savior because you need the eternal Son to add humanity, to be truly God and truly human. You can�t have this created being. You have to have someone that�s not less than God and not created by God, who is equal with God.

He has to be God. And so, this is that important. Then why do these pastors, and some of you, I think you probably do it, I don�t know why, but you sit through these week by week sermonettes, moral platitudes, be virtuous when these issues, when I say Jesus, what comes through your mind?

And it better be more than He loves me because the Bible tells me so, unless you�re a day one Christian.

But I have no choice but to go to this church that does sermonettes. It�s the only one in my town.

Well, that could happen, and it also could be that you�re married. If you�re a woman, you�re married to a man who wants these kind of watered down things. What are you going to do, right? You want to submit to your husband and go because it�s not an apostate church, but they�re not protecting you from apostasy like Jesus is uncreated, like He�s a created being.

And I think also sometimes we have to be willing to, you know, travel, move, you know, I mean there are all kinds of things that could be on the chopping block, so to speak, things that you have to be willing to do.

I mean, what is more important to you than spiritual growth? What is more important to you than your sanctification? And here�s a hint, you�re not going to get sanctified if you�re going to a church that will not teach you correct theology from the pulpit.

If you�re not going to get it from the pulpit, where are you going to get it? I guess you could look around on the internet if you know what sites to get. But I think we need to be reminded every single week about the person and work of Christ, and when it says in Colossians 1, He is the image, talking about Jesus, of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, you�ve got to get that right, and it can�t just be, well, the English word is �firstborn.

That means, you know, oh, you�re the firstborn child, that describes your life, and you know, the psychologist. What does �firstborn� mean, and what are the implications if you make Jesus a created being?

Here�s what the ESV Study Bible says, we�re going to read this and see if they�ve got it right.

Okay. It�s going to be much better than the message.

It would be wrong to think in physical terms here as if Paul were asserting that the Son had a physical origin or somehow created the classic Arian heresy, rather than existing eternally as the Son with the Father and with the Holy Spirit in the Godhead.

What Paul had in mind was the rights and privileges of a firstborn son, especially the son of a monarch who would inherit ruling sovereignty. This is how the expression is used of David, �I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth Psalm 89.

Funny how the Old Testament can help you understand that. Yeah, and that�s good.

The note there is, I mean, it even gives you a little historical theology, the Arian heresy from Arius, you know, who denied, well, who actually said that Jesus was a created being, which is the heresy that all these folks are falling into.

Seventy-three percent of them are Arians. They�ve learned nothing. You know, they should go back to Athanasius� school. I mean, they don�t know a whole lot.

Well, but I get my theology from people that have pigment that looks like mine. Can you imagine? This is what we�ve devolved to? It�s pretty sad. Actually, for those people, Athanasius, I don�t think he was white.

How about that? And I think you�re right. I think there�s probably a few Africans who aren�t white, but I think he was an African that wasn�t white.

I think you�re right. And I�m just, I�m pretty much tired of the whole woke thing.

How about any of these others? Favorite heresies? We only looked at one. Okay. Let�s see. Anything else that thrills your discernment soul?

This is good, because I�m going to be talking about this one eventually, too. God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Steve, you know what you should do for your Sunday school sometime? You should just give a little test. And put those all out and have them fill them out and hand them in, and we could see what our own congregation, what�s your class, would know.

Scary monsters. I remember back in the old days, write down the gospel, hand it in, and what people would say.

Well, the gospel�s about being good. The gospel�s good news that I can live a changed life. The gospel�s, you know, yeah.

God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I mean, after all, Abraham, you know, there�s a link with Abraham, Abrahim, Abrahim. Yeah. So, what percentage said they like that?

Thirty-eight.

Well, it was, yeah, 38 percent, and let�s see, it says it�s only, and 14 percent somewhat agreed with it, so that�s 52 percent. And only, and then let�s see, a smaller percentage there weren�t sure, and then there�s a group that disagreed with it.

But I mean, come on. That�s just, if, that�s pluralism, you know, the idea that God is open to a variety, that there are multiple ways of pleasing Him, multiple ways of worshiping Him, and ultimately all paths lead to God.

And as we like to say at No Compromise Radio, all paths do lead to God, to His judgment. But the one path leads to His acceptance and to His favor and kindness, and that is through a mediator. You can never approach God without a mediator.

Selah. That�s right. And I think as some theologians have discussed, Steve, and there�s merit to this, I believe, that heaven is heaven because you�re in the Father�s presence with a mediator, and hell is hell because you�re in the Father�s presence without a mediator.

That would be hell. That would be hell. That would be hell, because there�s nothing to protect you, right? There�s no one to mediate for you. You�re just stuck for all eternity with the presence and the wrath of an Almighty God.

Yeah.

Well, we don�t make these things up. We have to believe what�s written and the life of Christ, and certainly back into Moses Day, this is what God says about what�s acceptable to Him. And it�s through Christ alone.

What else am I going to do?

That�s what the Bible teaches. Yeah. I mean, Jesus said, you know, �I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me. He talked about how John 10, you know, all the other shepherds were false, you know, spurious.

They were actually thieves and robbers. And ultimately, there�s nothing in the Bible that would teach us the idea that Judaism is okay. Otherwise, I mean, most of the New Testament, you�d have to throw it out.

Think about Hebrews and this old system, this old Got to go away.

And Acts and Galatians, and I mean, you just go on and on and on. And as for Islam, anybody who knows anything about Islam, Jesus is not the son of God in Islam. So because they say God, I mean, literally, they say God has no son.

So when you listen to that, then you ask yourself, well, how can God accept the worship of a Muslim? And all that is is political correctness. And if your theology is shaped by your political views, shame on you.

That�s offensive, Steve, to me. Well, you know, the message of the cross is an offense.

When you think about what Jesus did, and let�s just take it from a perspective of somebody that doesn�t know anything about Christianity. That is as crazy as you get some Jew dying on a cross, by the hands of the Romans, and a bunch of other Jews were crucified on a cross too.

You mean if I just believe that this one is the eternal Son of God, born of a virgin, raised from the dead, that I have my sins forgiven?

Well, you know what Paul said, he said, it�s foolishness to those who are perishing, right? It�s going to be foolishness to the pagans. What�s the word I�m looking for here?

Well, certainly the Jews, they want a sign, and the Greeks want wisdom, but it is folly.

To both. Yes, and exactly. And so the whole idea that this sounds stupid, well, exactly. Of course it does, because God defeats the wisdom of the world with the folly of the gospel. I mean, this is, that�s 1 Corinthians 1.

This is the whole message of the gospel, is it seems stupid to our, I want to say complicated, but our sophisticated minds, right? This is just too simple. There have to be a bunch of steps and everything else.

No, the truth is, you believe in Jesus Christ, his person, his work, his death, and his resurrection, and that�s how you are saved.

Amen. 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 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.