Calvary Chapel (Part 1)

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. I can�t believe we�re back in the saddle again today, Hoss.

And I�m not singing either one of those songs.

Who was Hoss? Was he on Ponderosa or Bonanza?

Hoss Cartwright, the biggest man ever. Yeah, that was the Beverly Hillbillies. No, it was the Ponderosa, the Cartwrights. Bonanza.

Yeah, Bonanza. Yeah, what�s the difference between Bonanza and Ponderosa?

That Ponderosa was the name of their ranch.

Oh, well, see, I just was in Amarillo, and I had some� Sarsaparilla? Yeah, I had some sarsaparilla. This show, you know, from now on, we�re going to start dedicating shows to people. So this show is dedicated to John Dawson out in Idaho.

All right. Because he writes, and he says sometimes that the Mike and Steve half-hour needs some elder oversight.

And so we thought this one�s for you. And we brought in the old guys, you know, with the mute buttons so they can zap us.

Steve is 52, and I�m almost 52. One hundred and four years of wisdom today on No Compromise Radio.

One hundred and four years of something, I don�t know, wisdom.

Oh, by the way, on Sunday night you�re preaching here, why is it called the 300? Well. Like the rated R movie you�re going to show here?

No, yeah, yeah, because I just want to be edgy. No, you know what? Actually, short story, I guess. I was getting on an airplane here recently, and somebody� I ran into a Christian, and he was saying� just talking about Gideon and his 300 men, and what a great story that was.

And I thought, oh, yeah, the 300 Valiant Men of Gideon, only they�re really not the stars. I don�t even know why I call it the 300. I like the title. I said to my son� Other than to make people, you know, wonder what it�s all about.

Yeah. I said it either has to be a sermon on how many concubines Solomon had, which would have been interesting. I would have come for that, 300 porcupines. Was it. Did he have 700 wives and 300 porcupines, or was it 300, 700?

It�s flipped around.

I think it was. You know, I think it is. I can�t remember. Okay.

Well, somebody can correct us, of course. Somebody will. And then I said, no, it�s got to be about Gideon. So I was happy. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it�s Gideon. So today, Steve, let�s talk about Calvary Chapel.

I have in front of me, and you do too, April 7th, 2012, a reformed-free Calvary Chapel. That�s not evangelical free and reformed Calvary Chapel. This is a reformed free.

Kind of like sugar-free. Yeah, they want to get the reformed out.

Drive them out. And so at the very beginning, it says, �During the 2011 CCSPC� I would assume that was the Calvary Chapel Special Pastor Conference. What do you think the �s� stands for?

I don�t know, but, you know, it�s not salvific. Okay.

�Pastor Chuck said that there is no room in the Calvary Chapel movement for Calvinist pastors. This is both reasonable and right. It is not an attack on Calvinism or Calvinists, as some might choose to believe.

And so it starts from the very get-go. Calvary Chapel is no news, doesn�t like Calvinism.

They don�t like it at all. I mean, this is written by a man named George Peebo Bryson.

Sometime you should just YouTube search �George Bryson getting smoked by James White� and it will pull up the internet debate and George doesn�t really know what to say. He�s kind of speechless. Now before we start, Steve, here�s what I want to say.

I like Calvary Chapels. Yes, you do. At least I like some parts of them. Raul Reis was my first pastor. I learned how to study the Bible chapter by chapter at Calvary Chapel. I learned Maranatha songs at Calvary Chapel.

Wow. Yeah, some of those were really good. Large. I was baptized while I was well, they don�t have members at Calvary Chapel but while I was attending, I was an adherent. And so I like Calvary Chapels a lot better than I like vineyards or most AOG churches.

Because they do pretty much demand that you bring a Bible.

Right. And so the Lord has certainly used Calvary Chapel. See how politically correct we are? This is all getting ready to just wallop the Calvary Chapels. So overall, we�re happy that it�s a Christian group.

I don�t like it that there�s no church membership, there�s no church discipline, etc. But they�ve got this push to get rid of all Calvinist pastors. Steve, what does this document say? How do you read this with your lawyer-like mind?

Hmm. Lawyer-like mind. I don�t know.

I think I have a mind like a sieve. But moving right along. Let me just give you some of the highlights here, and we�ll just kind of respond to that. Low lights. Low lights. He says here,. �That does not suggest that these men, like Alistair Begg and Wayne Grudem, are not sincere, godly, and devout believers.

Even though he says, and he will say, that they hold to an unbiblical view of salvation, and yet they�re sincere, godly, and devout believers. I don�t know how that goes. I mean, we would say, what would we say about Arminians?

We would say that they have some I wouldn�t say they�re unbiblical ideas. I would say they have non-biblical ideas about salvation. In other words, they presuppose free will, but they can�t prove it.

And so that�s not unbiblical, it�s non-biblical. It�s nowhere shown. In fact, quite the contrary.

Steve, it doesn�t have this in the article, but if you consider the Pelagian view of the will, what is oops, that was actually a mistake. I hit this button by accident, I kid you not. Who is that? Name that.

I already saw who it was. It�s Johnny Cash. Vailendal. Honestly, I hit that button by mistake. But the Pelagians say that man has the fall of Adam didn�t corrupt man�s will, and so everyone has free will, including today.

My question to you, Steve, is, as we get into this Calvary Chapel critique, why is it that every single person who�s ever been born, they had the free will not to sin, but every single one of them did?

It�s a coincidence of epic proportion. I mean, the Bible would say that we all came into sin and were introduced into death via Adam in Romans 5, but that�s not what they say. But here, let�s just continue moving on here.

Okay, hold on just a second.

Let me just interrupt you for a second. On this paper, it�s got the doctrines of grace by the reformers, reformed people, MacArthur, Sproul, et cetera. And on the first page, it�s got the biblical doctrines of grace.

So once you get done with your preliminary comments, then let�s go through their biblical doctrines of grace, their five, and then we�ll go over the real five.

And it�s interesting to see that the words biblical and then reformed are italicized. You know, okay, here�s what the Bible says and then here�s what these reformed people say. So I found this interesting too that he says Calvinists and non-Calvinists have a serious difference of opinion.

Yeah, we all know that. But here�s what he says. �An accurate and fair comparison and contrast of what we, Calvary Chapel pastors, believe and teach or claim to believe and teach with what neo-Calvinists believe and teach proves to the biblically literate that it is really impossible to believe and teach neo-Calvinism or Calvinism of any kind and be a Calvary Baptist pastor� or Calvary Chapel, I can speak pastor at the same time.

And then he goes into this. He lists the men that he wants to call Calvary Chapel pastors Chuck Smith, obviously, Skip Heitzig, Bob Coy, Greg Laurie, Damon Kyle, Sandy Adams, David Gussig, Raoul Reese, Joe Foch, Wayne Taylor, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay. So here are the biblical doctrines of grace according to them.

Okay. I think they should have done it a lot earlier, because in my library, in the room that we�re seated in right now, I have Calvary Chapel previously owned books by Calvary Chapel in their Bible college department, and they got rid of them at a discount price because they were Calvinistic.

So I�ve personally benefited from Calvary Chapel�s school jettisoning all their Reformed stuff. So I think this is kind of cruel to do, because I�ve benefited. Steve just looking at me. Okay. All right.

So you want to read it, and then I�ll analyze, and then you chime in? Yes. That would be lovely.

All right. Let�s try that. All right. Number one, saving faith in Christ always and immediately results in regeneration, and any and all lost sinners can believe in Christ and be born again. And then they cite as evidence John 1, 10 to 13, and John 20, verses 30 and 31.

That's their evidence. All right. Saving faith. I like that first part. That's good.

Saving faith is excellent. Saving faith. We're in favor of that. In Christ. I like that so far. In Christ is outstanding. Always and immediately results in regeneration. There's a problem. Well, we were taught, Steve, at seminary, weren't we?

And we had been taught by the scripture that it's kind of hard for a dead man to believe. What does a dead man do? Rots. Yeah, rots. Rots. When God makes you born again, that's a similar term to regeneration, you're born from above.

He gives you new nature. I sound like Lars Larson earlier today, nature. And then he, the person, responds with saving faith. Faith, Steve, last time I checked the Bible, it is an instrument, a non-saving instrument.

It is non-meritorious. It is the instrument of means, if you'd like to say it in particular. But it doesn't cause one to be born again. Does any scripture say that when you exercise saving faith, then after that you become regenerate?

Even if it's a millimeter of, a millisecond of time.

Well, let's look at the two, quickly look at the two passages that they refer to here. John 1, verses 10 to 13, and I'm somewhat familiar with this passage. It says, he, talking about Jesus, was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And that, they say, proves that saving faith immediately results in regeneration. What would you say to that? Well, here's what I would say.

Forget you. Steve, I didn't know we were going to talk about this passage today, but in this world of one-upsmanship, I know you've recently preached from John chapter 1, and you probably know it better than I do, but this morning I read John 1, 1 to 14, in my Nestle-Aland Greek text.

Whoa, that is one up. That is one up. Some body slammage. And so when the passage talks about receiving Christ, first of all, we believe that you must receive Christ. Nobody is saved without receiving Christ.

If you want to use believe as a synonym, that'd be fine. You must believe. Who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but, if you'd like to be more interpretive in your translation, but of God's will.

Nobody's born unless it's God's will. So what does this have to do with regeneration, post-seeding faith? How do they get that?

Well, because they say, look, you have to receive him. Look at verse 12. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name. So you have to believe first, and then you regenerate.

Oh, because it's earlier in the sentence. Yes, exactly. Oh, it's a prioratory sentence structure. That's something I didn't learn in seminary, but I guess I would have been a Calvary Chapel pastor then.

I wouldn't have learned that in seminary either, because they don't believe in seminary. It's called cemetery. Steve, when I had my home Bible study, of which you were a part, I was told by the Calvary Chapel folks, you know what?

You don't need to go to cemetery. Just start a Bible study, and once it gets big enough, you turn it into a Calvary Chapel. Woo-hoo! So all that money we wasted, we wasted $50 ,000 between the two of us on seminary.

Yeah, my wife thinks it was like millions. She keeps inflating the number every time we talk about it. She's getting older.

That's what old people do. They sit around and talk about those things. So when it says, Steve, tell me what it should say. Not the second part of the sentence. Let's stop at the regeneration. How should, phrase this in a proper way.

Well, I think the first part here, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, that part? No, no. The saving faith in Christ. Oh, okay. Saving faith in Christ. Oh, from the statement itself.

Saving faith in Christ always and immediately is the result of regeneration. Bravo. That would be correct. Bravo. Well, because you cannot believe apart from being born again. It says that over and over and over again.

1 Peter says that God caused us to be born again. John 3 talks about Jesus interacting with Nicodemus. The wind blows where it will, and he's talking about the Holy Spirit, and he says, basically, we don't understand it.

We can't corral it. We can't, this mystery that is, not talking about the Holy Spirit as an it, but we can't understand how he works and that he is sovereign in regenerating people.

Last time I checked, Titus 3, verse 5 talks about he saved us. God is the actor. We are passively acted upon by God. We are acted upon. We are passive. God actively regenerates us. He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, including faith, but according to his mercy.

By his mercy, he saves us. And so, at the end of the day, you have to quicken a dead man so that he can believe.

Dead men don't believe. The last time I checked, is that something akin to, well, in my Bible, or my Bible says?

Did you know the men at work saxophonists died today?

I was not aware. Well, you know, they say the greats die in three. First, it was Lee Van Helm, then Dick Clark, and now the guy from Men at Work. Icons. I mean, we're talking about, you know, they should all have their faces in granite.

The saxophonists from Men at Work.

Well, thank you for that. The second part here, and any and all lost sinners can believe in Jesus and be born again.

I was, before we went on the air, I was saying, I just had this discussion with someone. John 6, 44, Jesus is pretty unequivocal about this. He says, no one can come to me except the Father who sent me draws him.

And you just go, what does that mean? No one can, no one can? Let me think about that. I'll ponder it. I'll, you know, construct the sentence diagram.

No one can. Steve, I just listened to the interview, and George Bryson, you see, you almost made me say Peebo, but I wouldn't do that, because I don't do ad hominem.

It's not an ad hominem. I'm just doing, you know, some ESPN stuff. ESP stuff.

That he, George Bryson, when he was debating, quote unquote, debating James White. Yes. He said the can implies that you can't. Right, yeah. Well, I mean, it's kind of like

It's a can-can. It's kind of like the Dave Hunt. I mean, Dave Hunt wrote a book with James White debating Calvinism, and he basically turned no one can into everyone can, and that takes some work. You know, why did Jesus use that construction, no one can?

Well, he must have meant everyone can. Hmm. Well, he could have said everyone can.

Everyone can come to me. It's so funny. John 6, 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Well, no one can. That means can. If Jesus has to say no one can, that means you can.

Well, it's like, well, let's just talk about that for a second. When you used to ask your teacher, can I go to the bathroom, and what did she say? Can you or may you? Right, exactly. May you. Dr. May who?

And so, you know, may is, you know, that means permission, but can means ability. So Jesus says no one has the ability, and they want to turn that into everyone has the ability. That's a pretty tall mountain.

Steve, I think we better move on because this is getting pretty bad. Yeah, it's getting pretty bad.

Okay, number two. God desires all men to be saved. I wholeheartedly agree with that, and has determined that all can and will be saved on condition they believe in Jesus Christ. Salvation upon condition.

Conditional salvation.

Conditional salvation. Mm-hmm. Acts 3, 1 Timothy 2, Acts 16. I guess if you put enough references at the end, it makes it look credible. Hut, hut, hut. Joel 3, 15. Well, if God desired all men to be saved, I wonder why there are people in hell today.

Well, we know that He desires all men to be saved, because that's what it says in 1 Timothy 2, but is that what it means?

Yeah, well, 1 Timothy 2, Paul is talking about different men that you should be praying for, all kinds of men, and then he says, why should you pray for them? Because God desires all kinds of men to be saved, and so all can either be all without distinction or all without exception.

God desires all men without exception to be saved? Well, we're not universalists. Are God desires all men without distinction? Jew, Gentile. In 1 Timothy 2, the particular case there, it would be talking about kings and those who are in authority.

So when you see the word all, you have to ask the question, if all of Jerusalem came out to see John the Baptist, does that mean everybody? Nope, it does not. Okay, so all without distinction or all without exception.

Or if you like, Steve, I know you're smart when it comes to grandma, and if you'd like to say a relative all or inclusive all. But I like all without distinction or all without exception. You can like whatever you like.

This is a postmodern world.

You know, there's another one, though. John 3 .15—I'm not even going to focus on what I normally focus on in this passage. He cites John 3 .15 to 18, and we're all familiar with John 3 .16, and I'm not even going to read that.

But let me read verses 17 and 18, which he also cites. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Now, listen to verse 18.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. Well, wait a minute. How can they be condemned when they're not dead yet?

They still have the free will and the capacity to choose at any point. So why would God condemn them?

All can and will be saved on condition they believe. What kind of condition? If God were to save us on a condition, don't you think we'd all fail?

Yeah. I mean, what condition could possibly be set that we have to believe? Well, if we look at Ephesians 2, we discover that we're dead in sins and trespasses. We look at John 6 and see that we cannot come to Christ unless the Father draws us.

If we look at John 3 and we see that it's the work of the Holy Spirit, if we look at 1 Peter chapter 1 and we see that it's God who causes us to be born again, we would realize that that one condition would disqualify all of us.

Steve, what I think they're trying to get around is unconditional election. Because once you take the focus and the spotlight off of God saving by election in eternity past, then you've got to put the focus and the spotlight goes upon man.

And so this is, you know what I call this kind of, this is a switcheroo, but it's a modern day switcheroo. I'm going to call it the blue man group switcheroo. Have you ever seen the blue man group? No, I never have.

Yeah, it's a switcheroo they do. Okay. I believe you. Well, if you're all blue, it's pretty easy to switch things around, you know.

Don't it make my brown eyes blue.

But you know what? To just kind of, to skip, and we'll get back to these other points that they make.

Skip one of those people that actually did this thing, Skip Hysack? Yeah, I think so.

But he, in their description, in George's description of the reformed doctrines of grace, he says only the elect are inwardly, effectively, efficaciously, or irresistibly called to saving faith in Christ.

Now, he says to the non-elect, a gospel proclamation is necessarily water on a duck's back or totally ineffective. And this gets back to election. Because here's what this document never discusses. The Bible talks about election.

It talks about God's choice. It talks about predestination. This document never even tries to explain that in any sense. According to this document, we would just have free will and God just kind of goes along with our free will.

He is subject to us. Isn't that the God of the universe these days in people's minds? A special God that they've got? It's almost, Steve, it reminds me of those little icons that you buy overseas and it's a little mini God.

I don't buy them. A little votive, Steve. And a votive God is nice because if you can't get to the temple regularly, then you just put this little God in your pocket and then you can just kind of rub that little votive God once in a while and be reminded about how nice this little Baal God is.

And so to me, this is like a votive God.

I'm going to have to reexamine my relationship with Chapstick because I keep Chapstick in my pocket.

Here's the issue. Once you have a high view of man and you don't subscribe to total inability, that is spiritual corruption, that is total depravity, that is a view of man that is so corrupt to the core it is impossible to please God because you are unable.

Once you abandon that, then you turn into a Calvary chapel. I think they're afraid of Calvinism. Steve, don't you think it's a good idea to say, well, I used to be not as Calvinistic, but over time I'm more convinced and what I used to teach was wrong?

You know, the truth is we don't even care about Calvin or Calvinism. I mean, we do care about them somewhat, but the label in and of itself means nothing. What does the Bible teach? And it's notable that he makes references and I want to keep talking about this.

He makes references and statements that just cannot be supported by anything other than because I say so, because that's what I believe. Don't try to tell me anything else. I mean, this is just opinion masquerading as biblical teaching.

Well, my name is Mike Abendroth and today we're talking to Steve Cooley about Calvary chapels. Maybe some of you go to Calvary chapels. You can always write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Let's do another part on this, Steve, so we can talk about it more.

I think so. Exclusively.

More particularly. Yeah. 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.

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