Yancy at Gay Christian Conference (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 back to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Mike Abendroth here. It is Tuesday. I have Tuesday Guy with me. Tuesday Guy. Tuesday Guy. Didn't you meet somebody the other day,

Steve, at church on a Sunday night service and somebody wanted to know about the Tuesday Guy? Hey, he's the Tuesday Guy.

It's the Tuesday Guy over there. It's me. And what'd you say? I said, I am Mr. Tuesday. Thank you very much.

We get the snorting going, you know it's big trouble. One of these days, Steve, what I'll do is

I'll start recording before you think we're recording because that stuff is usually the funniest stuff that's in your repertoire.

That could be big trouble. That could be, but we can always edit it. We could put it through this special knob over here, this theological orthodoxy knob.

Tuesdays, I talk to Steve about issues in the church, and basically that's a large enough banner for us to be able to do whatever we want.

Some people might call it a smoke screen even. I mean, it is a massive banner, isn't it?

It is. His banner over me is love, Steve. He brought me to his banqueting table.

His banner over me is love. You know what I like? In churches, we sing that song, so we have our kids sing that song, right?

Those songs? Brought me to his banqueting table. His banner over me is love. You know, sadly,

I've never heard that song. Well, the kids are supposed to sing it, and they've got these hand motions and everything, and it's true, especially for God's creation.

He has a wonderful banner of love over his creation, and I'm sure God especially loves children and all that kind of jazz, right?

Is that the appropriate politically correct thing to say? All that kind of jazz. It's from the

Song of Solomon. He brought me to his house of wine is the literal Hebrew, and so I always found it fascinating that kids would be in a church, usually fundamentalist, legalistic churches where Jesus only drank grape juice, and they're singing, he brought me to his house of wine.

But it was the very best grape juice. Oh, it was Welch's special, what do they call it when it's

Christmas edition? Christmas edition. Well, we are going to, from the depths of Welch's grape juice to the heights of something called the mountaintop experience.

Steve, have you ever had a mountaintop experience? Well, you know, much like Moses. Well, actually, no.

Well, soon enough, Steve and I will be standing near the ridge, the Sinai Ridge in Israel slash

Egypt. That will be a mountaintop experience. Looking to avoid sniper fire. Yeah, that's right.

Well, we believe in the sovereignty of God. So if we're going to die overseas, it might as well be close to the Holy Land. I believe in the sovereignty of God, and I believe that he taught me how to dodge.

Well, you're the leader, so you have to take the first bullet. I have to make sure everybody else gets home.

Wait a minute. That's not right. The mountaintop experience was something that happened last week.

By the way, Steve and I taped this show a long time ago, but it was inhabited and infected by some demon of a race because it never got taped and it never got aired.

So I hope this show is better than the first one. Well, and so it would be a spurious book not added to the canon or spurious show not added to the canon of no compromise lore, right?

That's correct. And so this is our second attempt, and I'll call this the pseudepigraphal attempt of mountaintop experience.

This is actually, you know, we joke around a lot, and we can have fun. By the way, Steve and I have a sub -theme to Tuesday, and that sub -theme is this, that Calvinists, those that believe in the sovereignty of God, the doctrines of grace, the

Reformed doctrines, Pauline theology, Jesus' teaching in John 6, they should be the happiest and the most joy -filled.

Don't you think, Steve? Well, I absolutely do think that. I'm a little tongue -tied at the moment, but absolutely.

And you know what? If people listen to this show and they're able to get a few laughs along the way while they're learning something or while they're being exposed to the truth or while they're seeing certain aspects of Christianity that they haven't noticed for whatever reason, then that's great.

That's exactly what we want. Maybe we'll have a new show, and the show will be at four o 'clock on WVNE. It'll be

Calvinism is Fun, Calvin and Hobbes. And then we'll do one that's called

Arminianism is No Fun. If you'd like to write us, it's info at nocompromiseradio .com,

or you can pick up the podcast on iTunes. Just type in No Compromise Radio, or you can go to our website, and we'd love to have you listen to some of the old shows as well.

I don't think there's a search engine, though, that says Tuesday -only downloads. Why not? I don't know, but that's your job.

That's your job to figure that out. I'm going to insist on that. Mountaintop Experience, taken from the

Transfiguration passage, was a conference this year, January 6 -9, in Denver, Colorado, apropos so far, don't you think?

So far, so good. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to have a mountaintop experience, Denver is a pretty good place to have it. And I'm going to read from the website of the

Mountaintop Experience, gaychristian .net slash conference, so you already probably know what's going on.

Meet awesome people, worship God together, learn from Christian leaders, recommit your heart to Christ, and have an amazing time doing it.

Are these happy Christians, is that what you mean? Happy peppy people holding hands.

The annual Gay Christian Network Conference brings hundreds of brothers and sisters in Christ together for fellowship, worship, support,

Bible study, and more. Whether you're gay, know someone who is, or just want to learn more, this is an awesome opportunity to seek

God together with special guest speaker Philip Yancey.

Well, I mean, this is really, pardon this, the pinnacle of foolishness.

First of all, I mean, just the whole idea, gay Christians, I mean, you know you're heading down the wrong road when you put those ...

I mean, if you mean that to be happy Christians, I'm with you. Yeah, I think they mean homosexual, they've just hijacked the term gay like they've hijacked the rainbow that signifies

God's great promise. I wonder if there are other websites or other groups like Drunk Christians, Lying Christians, Thieving Christians, yeah.

Thievingchristians .com. That would not be the mountaintop experience if it was a ...

Taxfraudchristians .com. Friends, it is very, very simple, and somehow we get lost in its complexity.

We are to love sinful people. Jesus loved sinful people. It was the

Pharisees whom Jesus condemned for not loving sinful people. But love does not mean celebrate.

Love does not mean affirm. Love does not mean everything that you're doing is right.

Love, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, speaks the truth in love. And we want to love our gay friends.

I almost said our gay Christian friends, but that would have been bad. I'm sitting here looking at this piece of paper. We want to love our friends who say they're gay and they say they're

Christians because it's kindness and gentleness. We're never supposed to say, well, you know, around homosexuals, let's not walk by the fruit of the spirit.

Let's not have self -control. They don't deserve it. Let's not have love, joy, and peace and all these other things. Of course, we're supposed to be kind towards gay

Christians, but we're not supposed to celebrate their sinful activity. Steve, what other sinful activity out of all the realms of sin from A to Z sins, to Zed sins, does the

Bible say celebrate, applaud, and forget about repentance? None.

None. And you know what this is, because I happen to know somebody who is a homosexual and claims to be a

Christian, and I think I've known him for a long time, long before I was saved.

And I think what this is, is just an extension of this kind of therapeutic moralism where you can adopt the name

Christian and put it on any kind of lifestyle you want, because the word Christian really has no particular meaning.

That's right. If you say, well, I'm a Christian, according to Paul's definition or Jesus's, well, that's one thing.

If I'm a Christian because I believe that Jesus died on the cross and you need to be good to get to heaven and Christmas is nice and Easter is nice and it's good to be nice and it's nice to be good and all that stuff, it's just the wrong definition.

Steve, my problem with this conference, people can get together all they want. That's fine. I think it confirms their behavior.

Oh, other people are like me, too. I'm not the oddball at some Bible teaching church. There are many more of us, so we get together.

There's strength in numbers. And my problem, though, is more the speaker,

Philip Yancey. Now, Philip Yancey is no raving lunatic Robert Tilton, is he?

No, no. I mean, certainly no false teacher who has been discredited on a number of occasions for allegedly taking money from people or, you know, he's not seeking to rob the widows and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Not the typical false teacher. No. Up until this point, seemingly having sound doctrine, while we might not agree on every point, that's, you know, the stupid disclaimer you always have to give.

But seriously, Orthodox, evangelical, Trinitarian has sold 15 million books.

Can you imagine that? Well, if he sold 15 million, he has to be right. Yes. I actually read one that he wrote with Paul Brand, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.

Just talked about how great the body is in terms of corpuscles and antibodies and just how

God would design this miraculous thing almost. And so I like that. I just don't like that that he's going there to speak.

Now, what if someone says, Steve, yes, but maybe he's going there to tell people to repent. I wonder how that would go.

You know, talk about the the torches and pitchforks. I don't think that would go so well. I don't think that would go so well for lots of reasons.

One, we have some of his other interview information. And two, he has a he has a he has a co -speaker.

Did you know that, Steve? Oh, really? Here's a picture right there. Oh, what's his name? His name is

Ann Phillips. Steve is just taking his face away from the microphone. Here's from their website, gatechristian .net,

regarding this conference. Native of North Carolina. Steve is about ready to throw up.

He's laughing so hard. I'm trying to be serious. I'm trying to, you know, really reach out. I have no idea what you're talking about.

It says, after discerning a call to vocational ministry, Ann became involved in the ex -gay movement. So, you know, how do you help people who were homosexual and now don't want to live that lifestyle?

During that time, she launched kindred spirits ministry, etc. And now here's the kicker,

Steve. In seminary, she found a safe harbor to ask questions about her faith and explore her understanding of who

God is. I thought seminary was supposed to teach you who God was. Wasn't that great at Master's Seminary and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary?

This isn't some debate and let's find God, reimagining God. This is who God is. Absolutely.

Seminary is to be a deepening of our understanding of God's word, of who he is, so that you can instruct others.

And, you know, when I read that first little part there, after discerning a call to vocational ministry, certainly she didn't discern that anywhere in the

Bible. Where would it say that a homosexual woman should be called to vocational ministry?

Where would that passage be? I know. I don't think she was until she went to seminary and then she did a couple of the degrees and she was on a sacred journey at life's end, gave her a new beginning that would radically transform her relationship with God and others.

Now, here's the last paragraph. Anne has been married for four years to her soulmate, Heather.

Now, unless I am wrong and, you know, Lorraine Bettner, who wrote a great book,

The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. She was a great gal. She, that's my favorite female author.

No, Lorraine Bettner was a man. Maybe Heather is a man. Heather has four beautiful and talented daughters at home, one dog and two cats provide all their pet therapy needs.

And a little known bit of trivia, Anne was once a licensed peanut inspector for the state of North Carolina.

Yeah, that is a little known bit of trivia, I'll have to give you that. So we have a conference where Philip Yancey is speaking to those who think it's fine to live in a state of unrighteousness.

And then we have another lady who is living in a state of unrighteousness. And we're supposed to go have some mountaintop experience.

And then this group has the gall, the audacity, the sinful rebellion, brandishing this stuff in the face of God, saying, let's use

Mark 9 and the transfiguration of Jesus to put a stamp on that.

The greatest experience any human being ever had was witnessing that. And yet in 1 Peter 1,

Peter said that that experience was not to be clung to in comparison to Scripture.

He said, turn your attention to Scripture, not to any experience, not even that experience.

And so, I mean, it's a it's a horrible idea in the first place. But think about this.

We're gathering together as a group of sinners who all have one particular sin in common.

And we're coming together in the name of that sin to worship the holy God. Does that make any sense at all?

No, but here's the problem, Steve, to exacerbate the whole issue. They don't think it's a sin, right?

So if you say, well, a bunch of guys in our church struggle with pornography, let's all get together, let them all get together and they can, you know, help each other in kind of this lust therapy.

We think that's bad. But at least those men say pornography and having my eyes wander and committing adultery in my heart is blatant sin.

These people all get together and their theme is, their unifying theme is that this is righteous behavior.

It goes, it flies in the face of everything. And how can you sit there? I mean, imagine singing songs like Holy, Holy, Holy while you're sitting there, you know,

I don't know, you know, looking at each other and all thinking, oh, isn't this great that we're here together worshiping

God? Well, you may be worshiping a God, but it isn't the God of the Bible. Yeah, it's a sad thing.

And so Steve had it right when he talked about the Bible and its ultimate authority, its supreme authority.

So if we say to ourselves, I have a gay friend, they seem nice. They call themselves a

Christian. They seem morally equal to those in the neighborhood. And therefore I have to reinterpret the

Bible through the lens of my gay friend. That's where you're going to get in trouble. If you say to yourself, you know, the world always says that gay people are equal.

This is the new kind of Rosa Parks issue. Black people were oppressed.

Now gay people are oppressed. And we need to open up our lives, hearts and church to every area. If you view them, that is homosexuals, through the lens of the world, you are going to be wrong because you have to look at everything, including your view of things, through the lens of the scripture.

Yeah. And, you know, some people will say things like they'll equate, exactly as you said, race with homosexuality.

And my question is, when is being of any race either condemned or, you know, exalted?

The fact that some people historically took the name of Christ and used their authority and their place of position to abuse people of other racial minorities or other ethnic strains does not justify it at all and does not condemn the

Bible. But on the other hand, to say to equate a sinful activity with race is absurd.

If I was black, if I was brown, if I was any other color, I would find that as a

Christian man appalling. It's offensive. There have been horrible crimes committed against in our own country, not that long ago, in our own country, whites against blacks.

And so while I condemn that, by the way, Steve, as you know, 1 Timothy 1 talks about kidnappers and how that's sinful.

So we don't have to go too far to say what people did to the American blacks was sinful and wrong.

To equate that to homosexual celebration and homosexual sin,

I think they get, I think they make it happen because it's so emotional. There's an emotional appeal, but people don't think.

They're stupid. They just, you know, what's the next sporting event? What's the next magazine article? When I fly,

Steve, and I'll fly next week and I think you're going to fly in a day. What do people read on airplanes? People magazine, us,

National Lampoon. And these are people with money, right? You have to have money to fly these days.

I think you mean National Enquirer. I don't even know. Sorry, National Lampoon. That's so funny. I don't even think it exists anymore.

National Enquirer. Yeah. Whatever those kind of, you know, TMZs or whatever they are. National Lampoon. What was that guy, Alfred E.

Newman? Alfred E. Newman. That was Mad Magazine. Remember Mad Libs? Yeah.

You're taking me back about 37 years, though. I don't know. Totally. And so people are just dumb and they don't make the logical connection.

That wouldn't stand up in a logic class in a million years. There's one race, the human race, and it's sad that there's discrimination and prejudice, and it goes both ways, frankly.

But this has nothing to do with that. Here's what we want at No Compromise Radio Ministry. We want you, that if you are struggling with homosexual desires, we want you to know that the answer is not found in going to Colorado to hang out with other homosexuals.

The answer is found right in your backyard at a local church. A local church that, by definition, preaches the good news to you.

Here's the good news. Those sins that you've committed with your body and with your mind can be forgiven because Christ's death was so spectacular.

Remember 1 Corinthians 6? These kind of people like effeminate and homosexuals, of course, adulterers, of course, idolaters.

But the topic today is homosexuals. They will not inherit the kingdom of God. But what does God do?

How great is the washing, cleansing power of the Lamb of God?

It says that such were some of you. That's what we want to offer. Forgiveness of sins, not affirmation of your sinfulness.

Yeah. I mean, what kind of a church, what kind of a gospel call would include? Just stay as you are.

God loves you just the way you are. Don't put off your sin. Keep it. I mean, what

I'd like to know is what's Yancey's motivation for this? Well, we're going to get to that. I think it's going to have to wait till next week,

Steve, because there's so much stuff here. But if I met a drunk, I would say, do you know what?

That's sinful. And you can have forgiveness of sins because drunkards can be forgiven.

If I met somebody and I've met many people who live together with their girlfriend and who fornicate regularly,

I don't tell them, you know what? Why don't you go to the fornicating Christian conference down at Death Valley in California with 350 other people and well -known speakers to somehow including a fornicating

Christian, quote unquote, speak to you. I tell them there's forgiveness for you. Stop that.

Repent. Here's what the gospel offers. This is so crazy. And yet, you know what we are in people's eyes?

We're homophobic. I'm not afraid of homosexuals. You know, I have friends who are homosexuals.

Oh, you know, you hate people. Steve, do you hate homosexuals? Not at all. They say things like this.

Well, you know what? Adultery is really bad too. And I don't hear you saying bad things about adultery.

What's your response to that? We call adulterers to repentance the same as we do homosexual.

I mean, there is no—in the eyes of God, these sins are all equal. Not one is better than the other, but we certainly wouldn't have a celebrate adultery conference.

Steve, you just hit the nail on the head. Compare yourself to God and his righteousness and his holiness and his transcendence and his otherness, his alienness, as it were.

He's not an alien, but compared to us, he is so different. Luther would say Christ has an alien righteousness.

But compare yourself to God and you're not going to celebrate your sins. You're not going to celebrate things that are not like God.

In other words, agodly, ungodly. You're not going to celebrate those things.

But when you look at other people, you'll say, you know what? They struggle too. They're worse than I am.

They're a little bit better. We need to help each other. And then you run into trouble. So you're right.

People have taken their eyes off the thrice holy God. And the lie is that God, you know, somehow made these people homosexual.

If we look at Adam and Eve, Eve was specifically designed to be a helpmate for Adam.

And every man and woman afterwards were specifically designed, you know, for that marital union.

There was no design for men to be with men and women to be with women. In fact, over and over again in the

New Testament and in the Old Testament, it is specifically condemned. And we are, thankfully, by the grace of God showing us in the scripture, not saying, let's go to Leviticus and show you these verses.

Well, we could go. And for Israel, that moral abomination wasn't a moral, it was a moral abomination.

But other things were too, like fabrics that were put together, like eating pork, like some of those things, tattoos for idolatrous worship and cutting yourself.

And you say, well, see, you don't go for those, but you go for the homosexual one. Friends, I'm not going there.

We're purposely not doing that. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and Romans chapter 1 and ask the question, does the

Bible teach for the person who's living after the resurrection of Christ that homosexual sex and desire to have sex is sinful?

That's my only question. And if the answer is yes, which it clearly is, then we want to offer you repentance and hope.

And here's the good news, that Jesus saves people like you. And what would you say, though, to the argument that I've often heard?

Well, Jesus never condemned homosexuality. Well, Philip Yancey makes that very statement.

Jesus condemned all unrighteous behavior. And Jesus's words, whether they're his own words, whether they're through Moses, the prophets,

Solomon, David, or any other place in the canon, including Paul, are just as valid because the

Holy Spirit has inspired those very words. Jesus didn't need to say homosexuality is sinful for God to say it.

Well, and I think, too, that there's almost like an anachronistic view of things that somehow the homosexual community in Jesus's day in Israel was just maybe as vibrant as it is in West Hollywood or San Francisco, you know, that there were gays all over the place.

So why didn't Jesus address that? Do you think that was probably true? Well, they certainly had gays everywhere.

I don't think it was the same kind of community that is in West Hollywood or North Hampton or P -Town.

For those of you who are listening in Australia, P -Town is Provincetown here in Massachusetts. But those kind of questions make the recipient scramble for no reason.

I don't need to answer those kind of questions. I know Steve's being nice to me, but if Steve was not being nice to me, I'd say, Steve, forget you.

I'd say, Steve, I don't need to answer that question. What the culture was like is irrelevant. Here's the trans -chronological, trans -cultural word that says forgiveness of sins can be found for the homosexual when he repents from those sins and believes in the gospel.

Yeah, I mean, Jesus met with sinners, but he never affirmed their sinfulness. What he was doing was challenging them to repent.

Let's talk next time, Steve, next week about Phil Yancey and the Mountaintop Experience. NoCompromise .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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