The Threat of Moralism (Part 2)

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.

Moralism as a Threat to the Gospel

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I think I say many times, I'm glad to be your host. If you would have told me the opportunities for ministry and the blessings that have come along by the grace of God through No Compromise Radio ministry to the church family, to my family, to me personally, I could have never imagined.

I'm thankful to have you listen, I'm thankful to have you learn about the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is a testimony to what the Lord can do through a sinful and frail and fallible man. So, I'm happy to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, which leads me into threats to the gospel, part five, which is really technically part 4B.

I can't remember all these things. I need staff people, that's what I need. Give me a large staff. Now, I've been at this church here going into my 17th year now, and we have just a, it's a crack staff, but it's a small staff of the church, small, no-compromise staff, and that's just the way we do things here in New England, in the pastor's graveyard, they call it.

I remember Chuck Swindoll, when I talked to him once, just to drop some names, I had to be interrupted for my conversation with Sinclair Ferguson, and I talked to Chuck Swindoll. And Swindoll was originally a pastor in Boston, and I think for about three years, and then he went down to Fullerton for the E .V. Free Church there, that he was there for years before he's at, I think he's at Stonybriar now, in Texas.

Anyway, he said those three years in Boston were the longest two decades of his life. And then he went on to say, because I told him I was a pastor outside of Boston, and he said, well, the problem wasn't Boston, the problem was Chuck Swindoll.

I don't know what he meant by that, but I think it was he was young, and he was a brand new pastor. My guess is he was influenced by Bob Thieme a lot. But anyway, that's just a little tidbit there for you.

We are talking about threats to the gospel, and the gospel threat that we're talking about today, which is a continuation of last week, is moralism. Telling people to do good, telling people to, for that matter, Bible things like obey God, love God, trust Him, praise Him, telling people to do things, but not telling them why, how, and not telling them about Christ.

Apart from Christ, you can't do any of those things, and you need Him as a sin bearer for when you don't do those things. You need Him, His righteousness, to be credited to your account as if you did do those things, and you need the power of obedience through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Romans chapter eight, applying the great work of Christ in your life.

We have a problem in evangelicalism, and it's moralism. Most unbelievers think that that's the message. It's nice to be nice. It's good to be good. Let me teach you about friendship with David and Jonathan.

Let me tell you about leadership from Nehemiah. You know, the Old Testament is a scary thing when it's used wrongly by people, especially when it comes to this. If I go to any church and sit down, and the guy says, turn the Bible to the Old Testament.

Now sometimes I'm very pleasantly surprised, and they give me authorial intent, yet they still preach Christ Jesus, they show me the theme of redemption, they talk about the individual passage and how it fits, and I'm just blown away by the greatness of God, and even thankful for the gifted men that he has fill pulpits.

But most of the time when I hear somebody say, let's turn our Bible to the Old Testament, I pretty much have it nailed. I'm sorry to say this, I'm not proud of the fact, but it's going to be Christless, and it's going to be moralistic.

And moralistic is Christless. Just morals. Moralism doesn't do any good. Like I said last time with Jerry Bridges, it damns people. I've told you before on No Compromise Radio that when I had to go door-to-door and preach the gospel when I was a seminary student for our missions and evangelism class, the people that answered the door who were the grandmas and who had nice manicured yards, they were the meanest.

They didn't want to talk about who Jesus was. They had their religion, but it was the people that opened the door and had ZZ Top-looking beards. They didn't have any guitars that spun completely around, but maybe they had them in the back.

They were the ones who were the nicest. Because religion damns, moralism damns. When you become self-righteous, self-sufficient, self-dependent, prideful, religious, who needs a Savior? But when you realize that you're undone and you have no righteousness and you don't seek after God, you don't need to be told, be good, because how good do you need to be?

And you realize you're not good, so if you're not good, you can't be good. So we're talking about moralistic preaching. John Owen discussed moralism hundreds of years ago, and so he was concerned then and he would have been even more concerned today.

People want to just be told what to do. I don't want to hear about Jesus again today. I already got that, did that, said that, done that, accept it in my heart, now let's move on to other things. I've got a life to live because Monday's calling.

John Owen said, Many who have more light and knowledge of the gospel also insist on and prescribe the same false teachings about mortification. They have their outside endeavors, bodily exercises, self-performances, and mere legal duties without the least mention of Christ or His Spirit.

In their swelling words of vanity, they pass over the only means for the true mortification of sin. They show their deep-rooted blindness to the power of God and the mystery of the gospel. This is one of the most important reasons for this discourse.

Can sin be truly killed without an interest in the death of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit? If such directions should prevail to change men's lives, as seldom they do, they never will reach to the change of their hearts.

They just make men self-justified or hypocrites and not Christians. Mortification of Sin, Banner of Truth Trust, page 47 and page 15. Moralism is dangerous. Here's what moralism does. It conveys the message that you can sanctify yourself, that you can make yourself better, that you can say yes to righteousness and no to sin on your own.

One man said we start looking at sanctification as something that we must master instead of looking to the master for the completion of the work. See, the law commands, imperatives don't give you any power.

You understand that? They don't give you any power for life, for growth, for sanctification. Michael Horton writes, if the law itself is rendered powerless by human sinfulness, how on earth could we possibly believe that humanly devised schemes and principles for victory and spiritual power could achieve success?

That is so true. Auto-sanctification is what it ends up being, self-sanctification. John Owen goes on to write, when men are troubled with the guilt of a sin that has prevailed over them, they promise themselves and God that they will sin thus no more, but they seek to accomplish their own victory.

They watch over themselves and pray for a short season until the pain of conviction waxes cold, and the sense of sin wears off. Mortification then also goes out the door, and sin returns to its former dominion.

Friends, if you're a Sunday school teacher, if you're a WANA teacher, Pioneer Boy teacher, or some of the other programs they have at church, VBS, Vacation Bible School, if you are a junior church leader, if you're a dad, if you're a mom teaching your children the Bible, of course you can give them commands that are found in Scripture, but you can't divorce them from the indicatives.

What God has joined together, let no man join and put asunder. Oh wait, is that right? Where did that come from? What is the corrective demoralism? What do we do? Remember, man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus.

My friend Phil Johnson, by the way, I asked him to do a NoCo 90. Truman said he'd do it, Friel said he'd do it. I asked Phil Johnson, and so he hasn't gotten back to me. That's usually not a good sign.

90 seconds, 90 degree sharp angles, biblical, provocative, in that order, and then I upload it and see my NoCo 90s, they get like 500 views. Okay, the Beth Moore maybe is at 4 ,000, but so far no advertising people have come to me.

You don't have to skip ads yet, because we are basically unwatched, it's the unwatchable. We're in the lowest cast system in the YouTube domain, but if Friel and Truman and Johnson started doing some little guest appearances, probably get like 900 views.

See if I hitch my wagon to a Matt Chandler or Francis Chan or somebody like that, maybe that'd be better. Maybe I'd have them do one. All right, Phil Johnson, the only remedy, and I believe the best recipe for revival in the church, is a powerful wave of biblical preaching and biblical theology in which we recognize and proclaim Christ as the center and focus everything God's Word has, and the focus of everything God's Word has to say.

See, if we start having Jesus proclaimed as prophet, priest, and king in our sermons, then in light of who he is, of course, we can give a variety of commands. It is so true. Some people want to have Jesus as a therapist, as an example, WWJD, he problem solves.

But we need Christ-centered preaching. We need gospel-centered preaching. When Jesus talked to people, when he was around prostitutes and sinners, criminals, tax collectors, he was kind. He didn't use harsh words, did he?

Oh, the Pharisees accused him of being a glutton and a wine-bibber, friend of tax collectors and sinners, Luke 7. But when you want to find the harshest, the most caustic, of course, all in a holy way, it was Jesus preaching against moralistic leaders, the most obsessive moral people that you could find, and Jesus lays them out.

What chapter in the Bible do you see the biggest slam against moralism? It's in Luke, excuse me, Matthew 23. The discourse, harsh. The discourse, direct. The discourse, condemning. Seven woes to the scribes and Pharisees.

I just pick it up in verse 13. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. I mean, think about that. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Woe to you, blind guides, who say, if anyone swears by the temple, it's nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath. You blind fools. For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

And you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it's nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. You blind men. For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it, and whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

Jesus said in Matthew 23, verse 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Justice and mercy and faithfulness, these you ought to have done without neglecting the others.

You blind guides straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. Jesus goes on with more woes, but those were to moralistic people. Moralism, when you think about it, it makes us think that enemies of the church, enemies of Christians, are immoral people.

They aren't our enemies. Now let's think about it. How do you divide up the world? In classes of people, rich or poor, male, female, Jew, Gentile, slave, free, I guess that would be an approach. Soteriologically, redemptively though, we know you're either a saint or you're an ain't.

You're either a believer or an unbeliever. It's like back in the bulletin days, I was castigated for bringing your unbelieving friends to such-and-such an outreach concert, easy for me to say, but that was deemed poor taste because what if an unbeliever was there that day at the church and read the bulletin?

What was I supposed to call the person? A pre-Christian? Bring your pre-Christian friends. So Christian or non-Christian, justified or condemned, saved or lost. There's a variety of ways we can do it, but at the end of the day, you're either a Christian or you're not.

Those are the two categories of people, soteriologically. It's not moral-immoral. You've got moral people, immoral people. And see, there's a blinding false deception, self-deception where you think you're good.

Who needs the gospel because there's a lot of immoral people? They need the gospel maybe, but I don't. That's why when you think about evangelism, it is wrong to go to people and say, well, believe in Jesus and he'll give you a good marriage, and he'll give you a success at work, and he'll give you a fulfillment.

Maybe those things could be true, but there are moral people that have success at work, have good relationships with their wife, they're still married, they have a good relationship with their kids. And so what does Jesus offer?

But if the greatest need someone has is to give glory to the God who made them by believing in the Son's redemptive life, death, resurrection, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, without faith it's impossible to please God, right?

So if that's really what's needed, then it doesn't matter if your marriage is good or not. And by the way, if you do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you might have a bad marriage because maybe your unbelieving spouse will reject the gospel and then reject you.

You might have the sword of division come into your very address. So if the biggest problem that you have is relationships, then the gospel might not be what you think is the solution, because your relationships might be fine and dandy and moral and upright and good and civilly applaudable.

But if the biggest problem you have is you need forgiveness, you've offended a thrice holy God and you've got to pay for your sins unless someone else will, then you look to another, the Lord Jesus Christ, prophet, priest, and king.

There's a study Jesus .com said, the Ninevites were indeed wretched people. They slaughtered their enemies and built pyramids out of the skulls of their victims. They loved torture and bloodshed and violence.

In terms of earthly measurements of wickedness, they were far worse sinners than those we think of as enemies today in America. But God displayed his love and mercy to them, and he rebuked Jonah for not having compassion toward them.

See, the immoral people, they're not our enemies. Oh, they're enemies of the gospel, they're enemies of God. How does God reconcile enemies? But as this article says, the politics of moralism makes those we are supposed to reach with the gospel into enemies.

Unbelievers, immoral people, pornographers, homosexuals, and abortionists have become vilified and hated among many Christians. What's the commission? The greatest commission is, of course, the Father sending the Son to go redeem the elect.

That's the Great Commission, all capitals. But capital G, Great Commission, is Matthew 28, right? It's to go make disciples, baptizing, teaching, going. We go out and preach the gospel to people. That's what we're supposed to be.

That's our commission. Our commission isn't to make moral people. That's exactly what Jesus was preaching against in Matthew 23. Plus, if you tell people the moralistic message, do good and be good, friends, you never can do it.

It's frustrating because it can't be done. Oh, short-term, oh, externally, oh, for a little while, oh, compared to other people. But it is impossible. You can't get there. How do you improve society without changing people on the inside?

Answer, you really don't. Unreformed people putting up a variety of moralistic laws can never solve the problem. I like what one article said, the only Bible example of moralism found in the pages of the scriptures, the Pharisees.

The Pharisees, and unless you're off on some kind of weird N .T. Wright planet, thinking some Pharisees had some good things about them, well, we want you to be gospel-centered in your ministry. We want you to have both indicatives and imperatives.

We want you to both have the gospel and the law. Here's what we want. We want Christ Jesus proclaimed. J. Adams said, if you preach a sermon that would be acceptable to the members of a Jewish synagogue or a Unitarian congregation, there is something radically wrong with it.

Preaching when truly Christian is distinctive, and what makes it distinctive is the all-pervading presence of a saving and sanctifying Christ. Jesus must be at the heart of every sermon you preach. That is just as true of edificational preaching—see, he makes up words, too—as it is of evangelistic preaching.

I think I'm going to keep reading. Edificational preaching must always be evangelical. What—excuse me, that it—see, I can't talk. Somebody's talking in the background, that's who is bugging me. That is what makes it moral rather than moralistic.

And what causes it to be unacceptable in a synagogue, mosque, or to a Unitarian congregation? By evangelical, I mean that the import of Christ's death and resurrection, his substitutionary penal death and bodily resurrection, on the subject under consideration is made clear in the sermon.

You must not exhort your congregation to do whatever the Bible requires of them as though they could fulfill those requirements on their own, but only as a consequence of the saving power of the cross and the indwelling sanctifying power and presence of Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit.

All edificational preaching to be Christian must fully take into consideration God's grace in salvation and sanctification. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so I now say again, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, let him be accursed. People grew up on moralistic preaching, but that doesn't mean we have to still keep doing it.

It's never too late to say, I am going to start preaching Christ Jesus because the law cannot give the believer any spiritual power to obey its commands. Actually, the second Helvetic Confession says the gospel is opposed to the law, for the law works wrath and announces a curse, whereas the gospel preaches grace and blessing.

Friends, here we are today in America, and we can't go backwards, oh, we can repent of what's in the past, but let's start preaching Christian sermons, that is, preaching sermons with Jesus in them. Christ is the king of your studies, and so make sure you proclaim him in Sunday school, at VBS.

We switched our VBS this year to, I think it's an OPC, Orthodox Presbyterian curriculum, because it's Jesus the first day, Jesus the second, Jesus the third, Jesus Thursday, Jesus Friday, to talk about the Lord Jesus, not be honest, be mannered, be moral, be good, do right.

No, Dudley, do right's not going to make it. Let's talk about who Jesus Christ is. He saves, and he sanctifies, and he is the message of the Christian church.

NoCompromiseRadio .com. 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.

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