Are You Sure You Really Like Spurgeon?

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.

Weather, Snow, and a Memory of Reading Spurgeon in 1992

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and we are still snowbound. When you�re in New England and you walk around anywhere, that�s pretty much what you talk about. It�s just snow.

I feel like I�m kind of like my grandfather now. You know how, I don�t know, maybe grandparents, maybe it�s just my own stereotypes or my own general statements or observations, but, you know, always talking about the weather and something to worry about.

I think my grandmother had a little weather state transistor type of, it�s a box, it�s like three inches by three inches, and it had an antenna that it would go up. The antenna seemed too large for the box itself.

And then you just push this button down, you would get the weather reports. So I always laugh at that and love my grandmother. This is not Heno Erna, this is not Heno Nona, this is Erna. And this is the other grandma, Grandma Abendroth.

And she would always worry about the weather. And what do I do? How often do I, how often do you check the weather? I mean, for me, it is, you know, a couple of different sites, kind of take the average.

What about the wind? Especially if you�re a bicyclist, you�re always looking at the wind, where the wind�s coming from. Years ago, I think it was 1992 to be exact, I read an article that was really, it was impactful.

I mean, think about how many short articles you�ve read in your life that you remember, that you remember with fondness, that you gladly reread, and that you think, you know what, this would make good radio.

Why did I do those things back in 1992? Well, because I didn�t know there was going to be a radio show, but probably some people did know there was going to be a radio show. I�ve come a long way from punk rock disc jockey to no-compromise radio.

And for some of you, it�s the exact same thing, isn�t it? I have to make a note to myself. Note to self. All right, I just wrote it down. See how you can do that? Why isn�t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

That was just a diversion, of course. You default to Stephen Wright diversions, right? So, all right. The article was entitled, �Are You Sure You Like Spurgeon Alan Maben, M-A-B-E-N, copyright 1992, comma 1999, Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Spurgeon, Calvinism, and the Doctrines of Grace

And so, basically the article addresses people who love to quote Spurgeon, but they forget what he said, in particular, about the doctrines of grace. That is, Calvinism. And so, most everyone, I would even imagine unbelievers back in the day, would quote Spurgeon because he was such a wordsmith.

He had a command of the English language. Maybe like no one since Shakespeare, since Snakespeare, I need a nap. He really was eloquent. He really commanded the language, and every other trite cliche that you can think of.

And so, what Alan Maben did is he put together some quotes from Spurgeon, and you can pull this up online as well, with some tough quotes that Arminians basically wouldn�t like, that would be appalling to Arminians, that would make them, is aghast a word?

I know it�s a word, but does it fit? Who was the guy who just made up words? He was a comedian back in the 60s and 70s. It wasn�t Bill Cosby, it was Norm Crosby, and I think Norm Crosby just made up words to suit situations.

He wouldn�t take words and use them wrongly, like I do on No Compromise Radio, but he would make them up, and it�s a skill, it�s a skill making those things up. Are you sure you like Spurgeon? So I ask you the question today, Spurgeon, Baptist preacher, quoted by many, quoted by Calvinist, Arminian, quoted by Baptist, by Presbyterian, quoted by Methodist, quoted by maybe some Episcopalians, said to my daughter the other day, �What does Episcopal mean

And she�s like, �How would I know I said, �Root words, root words, I always think of the root word, what�s the, what�s the root word? Epis? No, scope. Scope. What does scope mean? To look at, to see.

And so they are the above-seers, the above-scopers, they�re going to scope you out. So I do give credit to the Episcopalians in the sense that they know the bishop, like over-elders, isn�t a biblical concept, but they like the way it works, so at least we give them that.

Yes, of course, I know bishop is a word in the Bible, but as they see the structure. So it starts off with, this article does, �Are you sure you like Spurgeon The doctrine of justification itself, as preached by an Arminian, is nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works.

Before Alan does anything regarding his own comments, stating his own opinions, giving an introduction, securing interest, getting attention, that�s how it starts. And it doesn�t get any easier than that.

It says here, many Christian leaders, for instance, this is Alan speaking, �I�d like to point out Spurgeon as one who also had no formal college training. They ignore the fact that he had a personal library containing more than 10 ,000 books.

It is further argued that the success of his ministry in the mid-to-late 19th century was due to his anti-intellectual piety, his �yieldedness to the flesh� to the flesh, I�m sorry, spirit, and his Arminianism.

And so, is that actually true? So, I�m just going to give you some quotes from Spurgeon, and ask you the question, �Are you sure you like Spurgeon If this was a major radio station, maybe I�d have Alan Mabin on.

I don�t even know where Alan Mabin is, but I commend him for the article that was rocking my world years ago, in �92, and in �99, and now. Spurgeon, there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism.

It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing less. Nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel if we do not preach justification by faith without works, nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace, nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah, nor do I think we can preach the gospel unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people, which Christ wrought out upon the cross.

Nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation. And so, Charles Spurgeon, he was a Bible teacher, and he would say the word Calvinism.

Now, of course, if you've been listening to the show for some time, you probably hear me say the word Calvinism on occasion, because it's radio, and it's a shorthand for God's sovereignty and salvation, essentially.

I usually don't say Calvinism on Sunday morning because we have all kinds of people who are walking through the doors, and usually they have a wrong definition of Calvinism. They have been taught, at least many people have been taught, when the word Calvinism comes up, they should think of people being burnt at the stakes, or beat us.

They should think of babies being damned. They should think of people who are begging God for salvation and forgiveness, and God saying you're not one of the elect, and a variety of caricatures about this.

And so, if I just teach verse by verse and explain things, and maybe that's why the doctrines of grace, it just has a, it's more palatable, because it just goes down smoother when we talk about grace.

I mean, you know, hey, this is a doctrine of grace. And of course, we mean sovereign grace. We mean sovereign, distinguishing grace, to use the S. Lewis Johnson moniker. Spurgeon. Are you sure you like Spurgeon?

When you say, can God make me become a Christian, I tell you, yes. For herein rests the power of the gospel. It does not ask your consent, but it gets it. It does not say, will you have it? But it makes you willing in the day of God's power.

The gospel wants not your consent, it gets it. It knocks the enmity out of your heart. You say, I do not want to be saved. Christ says, you shall be. He makes our will turn around, and then you cry, Lord, save, or I perish.

So notice what Spurgeon does there with the doctrine of depravity, or corruption, or spiritual inability, or total depravity. We have a regeneration, it's affected upon us by the sovereign spirit, and then we respond.

We respond now out of our corrupt nature. Now I mean we, as an unbeliever, that's a better way to put it. As unbelievers we respond to our nature, and now when given a new nature, Christians respond to that.

They respond with faith and repentance. Are you sure you like Spurgeon? I do not hesitate to say that next to the doctrine of the crucifixion and resurrection of our blessed Lord, no doctrine had such prominence in the early Christian church as the doctrine of the election of grace.

And it goes on to say, when someone didn't like the idea of unconditional election, I do not like it, saith one Spurgeon. Well I thought you would not, whoever dreamed you would. Are you sure you like Spurgeon?

All right, Spurgeon, if it was Christ's intention to save all men, how deplorably has he been disappointed? For we have his own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with his blood.

I mean, Jesus is going to die for you and you're still going to go to hell? What kind of death is that? Deplorably disappointed, to use Spurgeon's terms. Spurgeon goes on, he has punished Christ. Why should he punish twice for one offense?

Christ has died for all his people's sins, and if thou art in the covenant, thou art one of Christ's people. Damned thou canst not be. Suffer for thy sins thou canst not. Until God can be unjust and demand two payments for one debt, he cannot destroy the soul for whom Jesus died.

So we go back and forth when people are saying Jesus died for each and every person. Whoever lived, Jesus died for Goliath. Jesus died for Cain. Jesus died for Judas. Jesus died for Jezebel. What does that mean?

Well, their sins would be covered, taken care of. Well, yeah, but they didn't believe. Isn't unbelief a sin as well? Spurgeon. Today, this is Mike Abendroth. Well, every day it's Mike Abendroth on Uncompromised Radio, sometimes with Steve Cooley.

Are you sure you like Spurgeon? I'm Alan Mabin. If you'd like to pull up this article, I think you can still find it. It's an ACE article, and it is timeless, I think. Spurgeon. I do not know how some people who believe that a Christian can fall from grace manage to be happy.

It must be a very commendable thing in them to be able to get through a day without despair. If I did not believe in the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men most miserable because I should lack any ground of comfort.

And so, if you think you can lose your salvation, Spurgeon would say, how do you get through life without despair, without any comfort? I could be lost at any moment. What does that engender in a person?

Spurgeon. The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, is the truth that I must preach today or else be false to my conscience and to God. I cannot shape the truth. I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine.

I cannot find in scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. Tell me anything contrary to this truth and it will be heresy. And if you don't preach this, Spurgeon said, we are reckoned the scum of creation.

Spurgeon. Scarcely a minister looks on us or speaks favorable of us because we hold strong views upon the divine sovereignty of God and his divine electings and special love towards his own people. Are you sure you like Spurgeon?

It is often said that the doctrines we believe have a tendency to lead us to sin. I asked the man who dares to say that Calvinism is a licentious religion, what he thinks of the character of Augustine or Calvin or Whitefield, who in successive ages were the great exponents of the systems of grace?

Or what will he say of the Puritans, whose works are full of them? Had a man been an Arminian in those days, he would have been accounted the vilest heretic breathing. But now we are looked upon as heretics and they as Orthodox.

We've gone back to the old school. We can trace our descent from the apostles. We run a golden line up to Jesus Christ himself through a holy succession of mighty fathers who all held these glorious truths.

And we can ask concerning them, where will you find holier and better men in the world? You sure you like Spurgeon? Now there are other Bible teachers that are not Calvinistic and I like some of their writings.

And so without pushing this too far, if you show me a John Wesley quote, a Charles Wesley lyric in a hymn, an Amy Carmichael sentence, I'm sure there are things that Arminians say that are wonderful. And my background is Calvary Chapel Church when I first got saved.

And there are, of course, many differences I would have with the Calvary Chapel, like it or not, denomination, but I have a fondness for those who taught me the Bible. Isn't that what Hebrews 13 talks about?

I have a fondness for people who taught me the Bible. And certainly they as a denomination, allegedly, they are Arminian. I'm looking at some of my systematic theology books now and there, are there any Arminians?

Well there's one. There is James Boyce, there is Turretin, there is Bavinck, there's Millard Erickson. I think Millard Erickson is more Arminian than he is Calvinistic. I think he probably thinks you cannot lose your salvation.

So anyway, you get my point. Of course, if you're an Arminian, can you love Spurgeon? Are you sure you like Spurgeon? And your response would be, yes, some of it when he's biblical. Okay, fair. I'm just throwing that out there so you don't think I'm living in some hayseed Nebraska.

Oh yeah, I used to live in Nebraska. That's true. But Nebraska is different. There is no place like Nebraska. You expect me to start singing the song now, right? I actually can root for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team again this year after their coach was let go.

Now the new coach, I don't even know the guy's name. Miller? Is that his name? A Nebraska Cornhuskers coach came from, what was, where was he? Oregon State. Oregon. Oregon State. Origami. The state of origami.

It's a bad state these days. Papers at a premium. My name is Mike Gabenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. We've got a little slogan around here. Always biblical. Always provocative. Always in that order.

Why Believe the Bible: Parental Influence, Inerrancy, and the Berean Test

And I just want you to think biblically. I want you to consider truths of the Bible and ask yourself what I had to ask myself years ago. This is serious now. Why do I believe what I believe? Do I believe it because I've been told?

My pope said it. My pastor said it. My bishop said it. My elder said it. My mom said it. My dad said it. My, did I say pastor already? Pastor said it. Mike Gabenroth said it, right? Radio hosts say it.

It is fascinating to think that just because you're on a, you have a radio show, somehow people, some people give you more credibility than you probably deserve. Well, I, strike that, than certainly you deserve.

So why do you believe what you believe? And here's, here's why I think this is a serious point. What I had to do and what I want you to do, short of you having some, you know, wonderful a mom and a grandma like Timothy and second Timothy had, I want you to believe what you believe because the Bible teaches it and you know that.

So it's not enough to just say, well, you know, my mom taught me this. I love it. By the way, Ligon Duncan's Shepherds Conference message on inerrancy in 2015. I love the fact that, you know, you teach your children the Bible to be true and authoritative and inerrant and reliable, infallible.

And when they go off to college or some other place where the Bible's attacked, they're going to have to work through, I love my mom. I love my dad. They're godly people and they trust the Bible. And that has an effect on people.

And I think that's a, that's got more of an effect on people than what we might imagine. And so parents make sure you read the Bible, revere the word of God, exalt God's word for what it is as Psalm 138 would talk about.

So I had to go through and say to myself, the dominant teaching I've received about the Bible, my mom didn't get saved until later, was not from my mother, was not from my father, was not from my own Bible reading, was not from listening to Martin Lloyd Jones sermons.

I didn't know who he was. It was not the Jimmy Swigert sermons that I listened to sometimes in the car with my mother or Chuck Swindoll. I was more concerned about Tarzan and Batman in those days. What would happen to Tarzan?

The cliffhanger left him not on the cliff, but in the quicksand, some bad alligator or something after him, he dropped his knife. What would he do? It was the Lutheran church. And I think at the time it was pre-ELCA.

So it wasn't a conservative church theologically. And I would have to go through and say, why do I think I'm going to heaven? Well, I think I'm going to heaven because I'm baptized, but that's not what the Bible says.

Who is Jesus? He's God. He was raised from the dead in a real body. Huh? Yeah, that's true. I learned that at the Lutheran church, and I've seen that with my own eyes in the Bible. What they taught me there was true.

A God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Learned that from a song sung in the Lutheran church. And here, matter of fact, as I go to Matthew 28 and other passages, there is a singular name. A God not manifest in three persons, but subsisting in three persons.

Okay. I learned that. So how do we process this? Well, we need to have our Bibles open and we need to check everything and be good discerning Bereans and examine everything carefully like the Church of Thessalonica did.

And so just because Spurgeon said it doesn't mean anything, but why do I believe what I believe? Because I've come to my own conclusions. Spurgeon, no doctrine is so calculated to preserve a man from sin as the doctrine of the grace of God.

Those who have called it a licentious doctrine did not know anything at all about it. Poor ignorant things, they little knew that their own vile stuff was the most licentious doctrine under heaven. The tendency of Arminianism is toward legality.

It is nothing but legality, which lays at the root of Arminianism. Do you not see at once that this is legality, that this is hanging our salvation upon our work, that this is making our eternal life to depend upon something we do?

Nay, the doctrine of justification itself as preached by an Arminian is nothing but the doctrine of salvation by works. A fuller quote of how his article started. If you believe that everything turns upon the free will of man, you will naturally have man as its principal figure in your landscape.

Sure you like Spurgeon? I believe that the very much of the current Arminianism is simply ignorance of the gospel doctrine. Gulp. I do not serve the God of Arminians at all. I have nothing to do with him and I do not bow down before the bale they have set up.

He is not my God, nor shall he ever be. I fear him not, nor tremble at his presence. The God that saith today and denieth tomorrow, that justifieth today and condemns the next, is no relation to my God in the least degree.

He may be a relation to Ashtaroth or Baal, but Jehovah never was or can be his name. Are you sure you like Spurgeon? And finally, I conclude with Spurgeon's quote in the Allen Mabin article. This may seem to you to be a little consequence of little consequence, but it really is a matter of life and death.

I would plead with every Christian, think it over my dear brother. When some of us preach Calvinism and some Arminianism, we cannot both be right. It is of no use trying to think we can be yes and no.

It cannot be both true. Truth does not vacillate like a pendulum which shakes backwards and forwards. One must be right, the other wrong. I also suggest you read the book lit by Spurgeon, you can get it online for free, A Defense of Calvinism, C .H. Spurgeon.

I think you would be encouraged, even if you're Arminian, I think you'd be encouraged and you could read The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray, a book that shaped my view of this very thing. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio, info at No Compromise Radio.

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 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. 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.

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