Karl Barth and Such

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.

Sunday Night Services and the Lord’s Day

No Compromise Radio ministry. Pastor Steve is here in the studio, and Steve, you just asked me a question. What was that question again? What are we talking about? We just had kind of a little meeting.

We�re talking about Sunday night services and who�s going to preach the Sunday night services. Do we have Sunday night services? I think that�s a good lead-in. Is it proper and right to have a Sunday night service?

What are good options? Is it really the Lord�s Day? What�s the Sabbatarian view of Sunday nights? I would say, Steve, that it�s a thing of the past for most churches that don�t use the authorized 1611 version.

Well, it�s the Lord�s Day, but what about the evening? Uh-oh.

I do think that there is a special quality to Sunday in terms of Christ�s resurrection, His ascension, the apostles� meeting, and revelation with the Lord�s Day, John saw, the unveiling of Christ. What if you want to have a Saturday night instead?

What if somebody said, �I�d like to go Saturday night. You know, we got those soccer games and stuff on Sunday morning, like to sleep in, and they�ve got maybe kind of a Catholic hangover. What would you say if somebody said, �I�m going to go on Saturday night and not Sunday.

If they want to go Saturday night and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday, you can go every day of the week, couldn�t you?

What�s the philosophy? I think a lot of churches, though, you know, they�ll have the same. They even advertise it this way. You know, you can have the same service Saturday night as you do on Sunday morning, and, you know, that way you just kind of get your Get out of the way, man.

Yeah, get your religious duty out of the way so that you can have a little fun on Sunday, you know. That�s what I love about Sundays, that�s my fun day, my I-don�t-have-to-run day.

That�s Bangles, but I think actually Prince wrote that. Yes, he did.

And then you have your manic Monday, but, you know, Sunday�s for kicking back, and that�s why Saturday night is the time to do church, clearly. Saturday night�s all right for fighting? Well, you know, if you go to that kind of church, but then if you go to a fighting fundie church, you�re probably not there on Saturday night.

We should just change the fighting fundie churches to, like, MMA or something like that. MMA, KJV.

Cage matches every Saturday night.

King James Onlyism, Erasmus, and the Textus Receptus

Okay, Steve, I didn�t tell you this, but you�re going to find this fascinating and funny at the same time. All right, you tell me and I�ll tell you. Okay. I told a story on the radio show, maybe with you here on a Tuesday, that I was preaching a message about hell in Branson, Missouri, two years ago, and a guy confronted me because I wasn�t using the King James Bible.

I was with a large group of people, and I was trying to minister to them, some people concerned about the doctrine of hell and loved ones. And now he�s trying to ask me about Texas Receptus and stuff, and I looked at him and I said, in front of the group, I said, �Sir, if you can tell me one place that I taught an unbiblical truth by using the NAS, I will listen to your argument.

Otherwise, we are finished. We are done. And he just looked at me, and, you know, I shouldn�t care how people look, but he looked like he was King James only. White shirt, tie? Kind of slick back hair, real cream.

Nothing wrong with real cream. A little of that would do you. You�re going to say that. Well, I had to beat you to the punch. Anyway, I said, �I don�t argue about that. And on the radio, if somebody wanted to call in or emails, I�m not arguing with myopic King James only people.

If you love the King James, I�m with you. I�d go to your church and hear you preach. Scripture reading King James, pretty nice, isn�t it? Yeah. Yeah. So, I get an email from a guy, and he wants to argue about the King James.

He said, �I know you don�t want to argue, but basically, I�m not going to argue. And then he said in there, now here�s my comment, Steve, that I would like a response to. He said, �Was Erasmus wrong

Like, Erasmus was like at the top of the food chain. When Erasmus was working on his, the Greek text in 1516, 1517, like, how could Erasmus be wrong?

Well, a discipleship relationship that he had with Paul certainly would put Erasmus in good stead. Listen, Erasmus is a product of the Enlightenment. He is an unbeliever who, very smart guy, no question about that, but not a believer, not inspired, you know, the Holy Spirit was not working through Erasmus to re-inspire the King James, you know, the Textus Receptus.

And in fact, you know, he didn�t have all the Book of Revelations, so he took a copy of the Latin and put it in the Greek and, you know, then translated it back. And so, there you have, you know, the Textus Receptus.

Is it inspired or re-inspired? And the answer is no. Only the original manuscripts are inspired.

Pete. Also, talk about inspired, re-inspired, perspired. Makes me tired. Well, Steve, what I found interesting was the sticky hobgoblin of consistency when he was anything but. In other words, those guys, the King James-only people, they rightly dislike Rome.

Yes. That�s correct. I mean, they attack, you know, it�s kind of, did you know Jack Chick died this week? Yes, I did see that. In real time this week, Jack Chick died. Did you ever like any of his tracks?

I don�t remember. I mean, it�s been a while since I�ve handed them out, certainly.

Well, it is Halloween in a couple days.

Jack Chick probably should be grateful there is no such thing as, what�s the Catholic holding place? Purgatory. He should be happy because I think he�d have to read a lot of his tracks while he was in purgatory.

Well, when I first got saved, I didn�t really know what a track was. I mean, reading Luther�s bio and understanding how he could use printing presses and small little booklets, small little tracks, you know, there�s quite a history to that.

But people were saying things like, �Tracks, okay. It�s almost Christian-y. �You got some tracks You know, I�m looking at my elbow, you know, do I have any tracks? No. And then, Steve, it was complicated with the additional moniker, �Chick tracks

Got some chick tracks? I mean� Like things for girls, right?

I�m thinking� Why are they talking about women like that, right? Chick tracks. Jack Chick wrote these little tracks and, you know, a lot of them had cartoonish elements to them, you know? A lot of them, I think.

Yeah, all of them did. And, you know, and it was always like so legalistic, you know?

The one that I like the best, and maybe if I reread it today, I would like it less than I thought I do, did, have done, but it was called �This Is Your Life. Yes. Okay? So it�s a guy. I think he�s out partying.

He does the James Dean, you know, Porsche-hit-the-tree deal. He dies. He goes to the judgment and his whole life is brought before him in front of the eyes of God. God knows everything he did. And it was something like, you know, lying January 12th, you know, coveting.

And� January 12th. Yeah. Murder January 12th. January 13th. Repeat. N plus one. And then at the end, it had a call to the people who are reading the track, you know, this is going to happen to you too because God�s omniscient and he judges, you know, it�s Romans 2.

You�re justified by deeds of the law. And of course, if you can�t keep the deeds of the law, you need somebody who can. And then it gave a little what I didn�t like at the end though, I know I still wouldn�t like an altar call-ish, you know, just put this down, write your name in the book, you know, whatever.

Something like that. An Arminian response to the gospel. Yeah.

In fact, I was trying to think. I just heard one of those altar calls here recently and, I mean, every time I do, I just get I�m just kind of queasy, you know, because it�s very unsettling. But in any event, Jack Chick passed and there will never be another.

Not like him.

Preaching the Gospel Without Manipulative Altar Calls

Steve, I know Paul did not say it just in passing, but it says in 1 Corinthians 15, 11, �Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. It�s interesting. We preach the gospel and then people believe.

There are times in the book of Acts where Peter didn�t even say, �Now, by the way, this is the response. I have good news for you. Jesus the God-man dies a substitutionary death, is raised on the third day and you need to trust in him.

You need to repent. You need to follow. You need to, you know, forsake your sin. Peter would preach and he would give no response and the people would then respond with, �What do we do Or they respond with repentance.

It�s fascinating. Pete. Without any kind of motivating challenge, you know, preacher�s challenge is to challenge the congregation.

Mark� Well, I, the preacher, I�d like to know if my message was effective.

Pete. And you can�t tell unless people are raising their hands or nodding their heads or rolling in the aisle or doing whatever they�re doing.

Mark� So, while Steve and I might bust the chops of people who would say, �You know, I don�t know if my sermon worked or not until, you know, people had to come up for altar call. Then they didn�t. Then it was rededication.

Then they didn�t. Then it was anybody want to go to the mission field? Then they didn�t. Does anybody want to be nice to their spouse? A few men went up to the front because their wives made them, right?

Pete� Would anybody like to leave today? Mark� Yeah. I know. Please. Somebody come up to the front so we can get this thing over with. But evangelicals that run in our circles, we do the same thing. We want to know if our sermon works, but we don�t have people come up to the front, Steve.

Here�s what we do instead. Are you ready? Pete� Mm-hmm. Mark� Hey, honey. What did you think of the sermon? Pete� I never do that. Mark� Well, I had to learn the hard way.

Pete. Not unless I�m really, really, you know, unless I�m really thinking,. �Boy, that was pretty good. You know? Then maybe I ask her just to check my ego, you know?

Mark� I�m sorry to say because, you know, back to the whole jacked chick thing and, you know, my pride and arrogance even today. There are times when I preach a sermon and when I think it�s by the grace of God and the training that I�ve been given, I think they�re biblical, right?

Most of the sermons I preach, I think, �You know what? That was a biblical truth. I�m not ashamed of that biblical truth that I told the people. So I�m thinking about it�s the delivery. It�s the style.

It�s the art of it. And so when I think the art, the homiletician part of me says, �You know what? That was pretty good. I�m waiting for my wife to go. You know what? Not bad, hon. And then nothing at lunch, right?

Then nothing at 3 o�clock, might as well go on a bike ride.

Pete� I mean, you know, I think I may have said this before. I basically just have told my wife, Janet, that I don�t want to know what she thinks unless it was, you know, so good she can�t contain herself.

You know, if you think it was that great, then go ahead and tell me otherwise because I� and people are probably listening going, �Boy, that Steve is really full of himself. No, it�s because every time I, you know, get down, I�m just like, �Boy, I could have done this better or that better.

I�m super critical. So no, it�s not, it wouldn�t be that at all.

Steve, you know, I have that shtick where I ask people at the beginning of a class, you know, who�s their favorite preacher and, you know, tell me your name and your favorite preacher. I can get to know you a little bit better and, �Hi, my name is Jim Smith, Martin Lloyd Jones.

You know, around the deal we go. And I�m thankful that occasionally you�ll have someone say, �Hi, my name is Jim Smith and my favorite pastor is, you know, favorite preacher is, you don�t know his name, but he�s my pastor in some country bumpkin church.

Jim Smith said that? Jim�s a good guy. Yeah. But anyway, then I� the punchline is, �Oh, your favorite preacher isn�t Jesus, you know. And so I was, there were ladies there, spouses of pastors. And the spouses said, �My husband�s my favorite preacher, in front of him.

I just thought he�s either an excellent preacher, or lady, or really na�ve. Or maybe you have the gift of encouragement. She�s just a wonderful woman. Wonderful, encouraging wife. I just thought, and you know what?

And maybe I laugh at that because I am jealous and I want a wife like that.

Preaching, Spousal Feedback, and Repeating Sermons

Well, I mean, you know what, it's like you said to me many years ago, you know, before I came out here, wise words, Steve, you better like to listen to me preach because you're going to hear a lot of it, you know?

And so it's true like with the wife, right? She better like the husband's preaching because she's going to hear a lot of it.

And when we travel someplace or you have a pulpit supply and your wife goes along with you, I don't preach brand new sermons very often at places that I, you know, at other places unless it's been, you know, a special request or something like that.

I usually preach something I've already preached here.

So she's already heard it. Yeah. I mean, some of the sermons I've preached, I bet my wife's heard, you know, seven, eight, ten times or whatever. And so sometimes she'll even say, you know, that's probably the best I've heard you do that one.

And I'm like, well, I should be pretty good at it now. I've done it eight times, you know.

When I'm gone in the summer, I usually preach at a particular church in Santa Cruz and I try to write down what sermons I preach there. So then the next summer rolls around. I think, well, what am I going to preach there this year?

And my wife will usually say, oh, honey, what's your kind of summer sermon? And then I tell her, she's like, no, don't do that one. She gives me the Dwayne Wade, you know, I'm going to cut your throat kind of thing.

Ixnay.

By the way, pro tip, what I do is I keep all the ones that I've taught at all the churches in different folders. So I can look and I can see everyone that I've preached there because some of the churches I've been to a number of times.

And that way I don't ever repeat because, you know, it'll be like, are you sure you want to replace? I'm like, oh, I guess I already did that one.

Thank you for that. And I also, I'll save as, and it goes into a kind of a preached conference file, so I will know, oh, I preached that and then I put a date at the end of it. Normally I don't have the dates at the end of the sermons, but I do that.

Celebrity Culture in Evangelical Publishing and Christian Thought

Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley here on No Compromise Radio. If you'd like to ask a question, info at nocompromiseradio .com. We're talking a little bit today about a variety of things. Steve said, do we have a latest Christianity Today?

I do have a Christianity Today in front of me, Steve, but it's got the special CT Pastors. The state of the church. This is, what would you call this? It's smaller than the regular magazine size.

It's a kind of a zet, you know, magazine.

And it says, CT Pastors, wisdom and tools for your calling. And it says the state of the church in church ministry in America. Does that say America or America? 2017. And it has a variety of things, including nice little ads.

Any guesses on what the ads might contain?

Well, books on how to blow up your church. The one that I opened to randomly.

No, this is, I'm not kidding. This is not a setup. You know, you can't see what we're doing, but this is not a setup. News and pews. Okay. And I want to say snooze. How to get people to snooze in the pews.

Big news and big deals on the biggest names in Christian thought. Now, even that Steve, the biggest names in Christian thought, what about the industry? What about the gospel coalition machine and the crossway arm of publishing?

And you get these names, you know, if you're not associated with the Southern Baptist movement or Mark Dever or gospel coalition or something like that, it's, I think it's probably harder to get published even.

Well, I just saw that they just removed, was it Jen Hatmaker from Lifeway stores, you know, because of some of the things she said, but, you know, just looking at this ad, the biggest names in Christian thought, wouldn't you like it to be, you know, authors, you know, or the clearest thinkers or the best expositors or, you know, whatever, you'd like something more than the biggest names, celebrity, you know?

That's what it means, right? Basically, we have the celebrities. When I was chasing book contracts years ago, the potential publishers would say to me, how many Facebook followers do you have? What's your Twitter number, followers?

What size wattage does the station, No Compromise Radio, what's the size of that station? And the whole list.

When you're a celebrity, it's adios reality.

I could not believe it. I mean, I know they want to sell books and everything, but that was bad. Anyway, this happens to be the day the revolution began. That's the name of the book that they're promoting.

And anytime you have kind of a subtitle like this, even if this book is great, there's no way I would say you should order it. Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion, N .T. Wright, author of an awful book called Simply Christian.

Well, I added the awful part, but I actually have read, that's the book that I read, Simply Christian.

Anyway, newsandpews .com. If N .T. Wright wants to send us a free copy of this book, we'd be happy to shred it on the air.

Hebrews 2:9 and the Meaning of Christ’s Death

This Sunday, I was preaching from Hebrews 2, 9, and it said that Jesus tasted death for everyone. It's the first time explicitly the death of Christ is brought up in the book of Hebrews. And angels, they can't get anywhere close to death.

They don't die. And so Jesus, and it's an idiom that's used, he tasted death. Everything that death had to offer, negatively, of course, Jesus experienced. It wasn't like just a little sip of death. He experienced it.

And the metaphor is he tasted death. Anyway, he tasted death for, huper, everyone. It's the language of substitution. So I couldn't say, Steve, on the air, Karl Barth said that the one word in the New Testament that summarizes Christianity is huper, because it talks about substitutionary atonement, because he goes on to basically deny penalty substitution.

And I'm not going to promote Barth. Whenever I hear somebody say, Karl Barth said, I'm thinking, should I be getting that book? So tell me a little bit, what's your philosophy? Because I think our philosophies mirror one another.

I'm not going to say N .T. Wright said, even if what he said was true, because I'm a pastor.

So when I preach, I'm not going to mention N .T. Wright. Well, because as soon as you mention somebody, then everybody presumes that that's somebody they should be reading or that is reliable, you know.

So they get a Karl Barth book given to them, and they think, oh, this is good. And, you know, next thing you know, you're answering bizarre questions, you know. So, yeah. No, I'm with you. We don't want we're not going to recommend Jen Hatmaker.

We're not going to recommend Karl Barth. And we're not going to recommend even somebody as hallowed.

Uh-oh, uh-oh. This is going to make the ratings go up right here. As well as N .T.

Wright, right? I mean, there are people who just rave about him, the smartest man in evangelicalism, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But as I've often said, I think he's the most dangerous man in evangelicalism.

That's a good show title right there.

The most dangerous man. When we quote people, don't we quote people because they say something well, or we want to lend credibility, or we want to tell our congregation or the people we're talking to, oh, you should be reading that, right?

Or all those, or all the above.

That's right. So if I'm quoting John Owen, I mean, maybe I'm just naive, but when I would listen to John MacArthur preach when I first became a Christian, and the one that always comes to my mind, Steve, is when he said, I read this book about how awful sin is every year just so I'm reminded about my need for the Savior.

Ralph Venning wrote the book, the Puritan paperback, the little classic one, Banner of Truth, The Sinfulness of Sin. I wrote that down. Then I had to go to the library. No internet back in those days, early 90s.

And I thought he said Ralph Venning with a V, you know, I've got the, no, I thought he said with an F. And it was V, Venning, with a Victor, not a Frank. And it took me a long time to find that book. But I thought MacArthur says he's doing that.

I'm going to look up that book.

You could have switched to the title or ask the librarian. Of course, the one thing you never want to do is ask for help, right? That'd be terrible.

Well, that's why Siri is my friendly guide. That's your go-to. Anyway, this book, oh, you know, the haymaker thing, the Mrs. Haymaker, throw a hat maker into the hen-o maker. Hen-o? I will confess gladly that Life Way did the right thing by removing her books as she began to endorse LGBTQRS lifestyles as righteous.

Hmm. New letters. Okay. Well, I was thinking about the Ouija board. I think RS is in the Ouija board too. And you can move that thing around.

Well, I mean, she's been off the rails for a long time, but now it's just become more obvious. But in today's evangelicalism, even people that are off the rails seem like they're just perfectly fine.

Steve, I clicked on her website yesterday and looked at her books that she endorses in terms of, you know, this is what's on my shelf. And I was looking at the books that she's saying, this is what you should read, right?

So if we say No Compromise Radio, what should you read? Oh, you need to read Imputation of Adam's Sin by John Murray. You need to read Attributes of God by Pink. You need to read Systematic Theology by Burkoff.

I mean, whatever it might be. Her list, it was the worst list I've ever seen. I was looking for some type of even 40 Days of Purpose or Knowing God by Jay Packer. Some, give me some bone on one side or the other.

40 Days of Purpose. Wasn't even that.

I was longing for the purpose-driven life, you know. Yeah.

I would have been thinking there's a shining star on the book list. And instead it was, I don't know, Zepeto's, you know, shoes. And it just was crazy. Evangelicalism is crazy right now.

Well, it's, I would just say it's becoming kind of unchristian, which is sad.

Prayer Resources and Closing Sign-Off

Well, next time when Steve and I are here, we're going to talk a little bit more. If we didn't have enough lists on what to do in prayer, we've got some key questions answered in this booklet to help you meet God.

Oh, some key. Just give me some more to-do list on how to pray. That'll make me pray.

That'll guilt me into it. How to pray. 101. You're fired.

We're glad you listen. Tell your friends if you do. Mike Avendroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Tuesday guy, the Tuesday guy is your Twitter handle. Yes.

And I can be reached at Heno at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth 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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.