Bakers Dozen Of Legalisms (Part 3)

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.

Legalism in the Local Church and the Need to Denounce Error

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I�m your host today, along with my faithful co-host, Steve Cooley. Welcome.

Thank you for welcoming me into your faithfulness. You�re welcome.

Steve, today what we�re going to do is continue along with our theme, �Legalism in the Local Church. But just a little background, we�ll pull back just a moment. No Compromise Radio ministry is dedicated to proclaiming the truth, which includes, sadly to some, but thankfully, biblically to most, the proclamation of truth and the denunciation of error.

If there�s something that�s threatening your health, then certainly the doctor, in a good way, in a loving way, would deal with your health. And so if the spiritual health of the body of Christ is rotting away from the inside, or from those that want to be on the inside, we need to stand against that error.

And so some think that�s a ministry against something that�s a what do they say, Steve? �You should be known for what you�re for, not what you�re against. What�s wrong with that?

Well, that�s what they say. Okay, but I mean, if we look at what Paul wrote, Titus, in Chapter 1 of Titus, he said that elders must be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.

So we have to be able to both say what we are for and what we�re against. That�s right.

The critique should be probably a gracious critique, a non-self-righteous critique, but a critique nonetheless, critically thinking what is biblical, what is not biblical. We keep what is biblical, we throw overboard what isn�t, and we make sure we tie about a thousand-ton anchor to that unbiblical corpse and toss her over, heave ho!

Give it the heave. Ho! Yes, we want to cling to that which is good, and anything that is spurious, that is false, that is other than biblical, we want to jettison. We want to throw it overboard, get rid of it.

And so, speaking of getting rid of things, Baker�s Dozen of Legalism in the local church Tuesdays at No Compromise Radio, we like to talk about things that go on in the local church. Soon, by the way, radio audience will be able to take phone calls here at Bethlehem Bible Church for our radio show, but right now we won�t do that because we can�t, I guess we could just make them up.

Hi, this is caller line number one, is it wrong to study politics in the church?

They could be the best calls in the history of Christian radio. Let�s just make them up as we go. That would be fun. No compromise.

Fiction compromise. All right, so what do we have here, Steve? Give us a quick review too, please.

Okay, we�ve been talking about a Baker�s Dozen of Legalisms. We�ve talked about alcohol, whether it�s a sin to just drink, not to be, we talked about it being a sin to be drunk, but whether it�s a sin to even participate, to even take any alcohol.

We talked about whether it�s a sin to go to the movies, whether it�s a sin to get a tattoo, and the primary issue again and again is it�s a matter of the heart. Jesus said it�s not what comes out or what goes into your mouth that defiles you, what comes out.

It is always an issue of the heart. So when we look at any of these things, that�s what we want to be concerned with. We talked about tobacco products, a little smoker�s hack over there. We talked about cable TV, talked about sending your kids to public schools, the debate between public school, private school, homeschool, all those things, and whether or not any of those are more holy.

Some people set a standard, and again, this is the other issue. Whether legalism, to put it simply, is a matter of putting up a standard as the right standard that God never does, exceeding what the Bible says, exceeding what God commands, and making that as if it were the law, going above God�s righteous and just law.

But we like to do that. That�s kind of easy to do.

It�s very easy to do. It�s attractive, it�s seductive, it�s romantic. Even along with the promise keepers years ago, Steve, remember, here�s seven extra rules. Let�s toss the Bible rules out. We don�t have enough rules to obey.

Let�s get some extra biblical rules, jettison the gospel, and it just puts on more weight for people, and they can�t obey. They become disgusted with their disobedience, and they�re disobeying even unbiblical things.

I digress. Yes, you do. Okay, and after school. Can you believe he just said that? He�s my co-host. I still yet today am the co-host. Thus saith the Lord of hosts.

That was our number. Seven was to say that. Oh, yes.

Adding scripture. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are co-hosting with you. They�re leading you into futility. They speak a vision of their own imagination.

Number seven was we talked about using birth control and whether or not that was inherently sinful. So we�ve covered all those issues so far. Good.

Let�s start with the rest of the show with the next one.

Voting for a Democrat, Politics, and Christian Disappointment

Okay. The next one is it is a sin to vote for a Democrat. For a Democrat.

I thought that�s the only people I could vote for here in Massachusetts.

Well, they�re usually the only ones on the ballot. Oh, that�s right.

Okay. Well, let�s talk about politics for just a moment then, or maybe the rest of the show. Who knows? We�ve got another 19 minutes to talk about things. People love politics. People love rooting for their guy against the other guy.

The one thing I have against politics, Steve, at the core or at the root is that politics and their political base is built on the premise of compromise. Because if you�d like a larger platform, you have to say, �Well, what�s important to me, I�ll give up because this is not important to you or it is important to you and so vice versa.

And so politics are built, it�s built on compromise.

Politics is the art of compromise, one man has said. Who said that?

I don�t know, but he was a really good politician. He really was. It�s the science and art of compromise, politics. Herman Vodick�s. Listen, we don�t care if you�re a politician or not. Yes, I do. If you�re a Christian and you want to be in politics, that�s one thing.

But if you�re a Christian and you�re obsessed with politics and for you, you can�t sleep the day after President Obama gets elected or President Bush gets elected, I think there�s a real issue. What are some of the things that people are confused by, Steve, when politics is their end-all and be-all regarding their identification?

Well, first of all, I think we have to really set the biblical basis up and we need to understand that it is God, Daniel tells us, it is God who sets up the rulers. Romans 13 would say that as well, that it is God who establishes the kings, it�s God who establishes the governments, it�s God who establishes everything.

There is no authority except that which is from God. And so when we spend all our time being consumed by that, what we�re really saying is, �I don�t trust that God is doing the right thing. I mean, is it wrong to be concerned?

Is it wrong to be interested? No. But it is wrong as a Christian to be so consumed with it that we just lose our way. And the idea, the very idea that it might be a sin to vote for one particular party or another, again, is extra-biblical.

Well, some people�s consciences would say, �Well, so-and-so is pro-abortion, pro-killing of a child, therefore my conscience won�t let me vote for that person, one-issue voter. And I�m not even saying I disagree with that because, frankly, for me, I can�t vote for anyone who thinks that for votes, for a political platform, that they would say the destruction, the literal blending up of a child and her brain or his brain is so important to them that they want more votes.

I think that person is a coward, and that person would never get my vote.

Oh, it�s horrendous. And anyone who doubts the ramifications of abortion should actually study it. And anyone who does, you cannot say that abortion is simply choice or, you know, all these other euphemisms that they use for it.

That is a living child, a living human being created by God and then destroyed, ironically, by a doctor whose first charge is, of course, do no harm.

That�s correct. When it comes to voting, and if you�d like to vote for a Democrat or for a Republican, there are some pro-choice, excuse me, pro-life Democrats, not many these days, President Kennedy was interesting.

I think Robert Kennedy was as well. But that�s not the real issue. If you�d like to vote, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, you vote even for the glory of God. But now, Steve, let�s talk about what happens after the voting�s done.

If you want to say, I�d like so-and-so to be a president because he�s pro-life and you do all your prayer walks and your prayer talks and everything else, your prayer box, then your guy�s not in or your guy is in, then what does the Christian do after that?

Prayer box. It is baseball season after all.

Well, at least when the Red Sox lost, there�s one more false idol not to worship.

What does a Christian do after the election? He prepares to be, he or she, prepares to be disappointed because, I mean, that�s my initial response because no matter who you vote for, you know, are the laws going to see, for example, Roe v. Wade, I almost said terminated, are we going to see it overturned, you know, immediately upon the election of a pro-life president, a pro-life Congress?

And the answer is no. If we put our hope in any elected official, we are always going to be disappointed.

It�s inevitably built up for failure when you place your trust in horses, wisdom, knowledge, our politicians. It sounds like a scripture. It does. That sounds like Jeremiah 9, verse 23. That�s our theme for the day.

Cultural morality, including politics, will set you up, as John MacArthur says, for an inevitable failure. People want to come to church and talk about politics and, you know, as long as you�re voting Republican, you�re a good guy and everything�s fine.

I say all the time because it�s been drilled into my brain, Steve, if you�re a Republican or a Democrat and you die without being born again, what happens? You go to hell. And if you�re a prostitute or a policeman and you die without Christ?

You go to hell. And if you�re pro-choice or pro-life and you die without Christ? You go to hell. And so we want to major on what�s major. And so certainly a child�s life is major. But after the people have been voted in by God, then what do we do?

Then we submit to them, whether they�re Herod, Nero, Pontius Pilate, if you don�t like the president today and you think that he�s, you know, got the letters of the Antichrist built in his name or something like that and we can�t find his birth certificate and he�s a Muslim name, it matters not.

We ought to speak respectfully of our president. We ought to pray for our president. And we ought to say, God, thank you for giving us a president who at least does not promote chaos and anarchy.

And we also have one who at least seems to be interested in religion, which may or may not be a good thing, but at least he proclaims to be interested in those things. And, you know, that�s all really beside the point.

The ultimate issue is who�s in charge? Who is in charge? God is. And all these efforts to change the culture through politics are bound to fail.

Moralism Versus Legalism and the Gospel That Changes the Heart

I would say, Stephen, I�m trying to tie this back to legalism because it�s almost turning into a moralism show, which is fine. But if you have these ideas and you say, if I do this, if I do these external unbiblical things, then there�ll be a good result.

I think that�s probably more legalism. But I see there�s a melding in today�s show between moralism and legalism. Is there a difference? And if so, what is that difference?

Well, I think there�s certainly a relationship between the two. Legalism is, you know, basically the idea that I�m going to add onto the Word of God and therefore either be more pleasing or at least in my own mind, I�m going to be less guilty, less sinful before God.

And moralism is simply an attempt to change the outside, maybe even of unbelievers. In other words, their appearance, their actions, or something like that, and not being concerned with their spiritual condition, which is always wrong.

Moralism, I mean, you could apply moralism to a lot of these things that we�re talking about. I mean, like prohibition was basically moralism. It wasn�t trying to change the culture by imposing some kind of standard of behavior on everyone.

It just doesn�t work. That�s an excellent definition.

I just saw this, Steve, in the internet. One man wrote that moralism is, one, a focus on external behavior. Lots of these things in our legalism series are talking about that exact same thing. Number two, a sense of moral superiority toward those who don�t meet their standards.

That�s what we�re really getting after if you say, well, I homeschool and you don�t, and you look down your nose at people or vice versa. I don�t have tattoos. I don�t go see those movies. When we react wrongly to legalism, we can turn into moral majority superiority types, and we don�t want that.

Number three, a corresponding agenda of moral reformation in the lives of society and individuals. Finally, number five, a separatist mentality. The world, as the moralist or Pharisee sees it, is a source of corruption and defilement, which they must avoid.

The world is a defiling agent, but the world is also something made by God. I�ll never forget when Michael Horton would say, I kind of was schizophrenic when I was a kid growing up in church singing hymns.

This is my father�s world. We�d sing on one Sunday, and then the next Sunday we�d sing, the world�s not my home. I�m just passing through. So what does a poor kid do? So we don�t want to focus on external behavior.

It would be so much easier if he would just say, we vote for Republicans. We�re good to go. We don�t have tattoos. We�re good to go. But we don�t want to be moralists. Daryl Johnson, who was a professor in Los Angeles, said he went to Southern California churches for six months, and he described the message from the pulpit in those six months visiting all kinds of churches with this slogan, which I�ve adopted as my own.

And I think Steve already knows it. I�ll let him fill in the blank. It is good to be good. And it is nice. Nice to be nice. That�s right. I say that to my dog now. You know, the dog�s biting me, and she shouldn�t be.

It�s good to be good, Jetty.

And it�s nice to be nice, Jetty says back.

Well, dogs don�t have souls, Steve, except my dog. My dog has a soul. Absolutely. Maybe she has a spirit, too, the kind of trifurcation body-soul-spirit. That�s another whole story for us, as we don�t believe it.

All right. So, focusing on external behavior and focusing on who we might vote for has nothing to do with godliness at all. Moralism. Be good. You�re an ex-Mormon, Steve. Lots of things that Christians talk about today in this area of legalism and moralism, Mormons would amen, affirm, and subscribe to.

Sure.

Drinking. I mean, a lot of the things, yeah, I mean, try to go to Utah and get a drink. You have to go to a state liquor store. Hey, wait a minute. It�s like that in Massachusetts. And, you know, there will be fewer places open on Sunday.

Why? You know, because it�s a sin to go out and do things on Sunday. And, you know, cigarettes are going to be, you know, if you�re smoking a cigarette in Utah, you�re persona non grata. You know, how could you possibly do that?

So, there�s certainly a great effort to influence behavior. You know, changing what somebody does doesn�t change them, doesn�t change their heart. And that�s what�s wrong with moralism, with legalism.

Well, we want our children to be behaved. We want them to have good manners. We want them to, as Moeller talks about it in his article on the internet, be raised right. We want raised right kids. Raised rightly is how it should be pronounced, but Moeller, to his credit, has it in quotation marks.

To be raised right. Who wants unruly children at the dinner table? No one does. But you can have good manners and subscribe to Emily Barnes� etiquette books and still be very, very defiled on the inside.

So, what is missing in moralism and legalism?

Well, the heart. Obedience from the heart, which is what Christ calls for over and over again. You know, I have to give you this little story. When I was over in Jerusalem, I was talking to, in 2000, I was talking to a taxi cab driver, and he was just going on and on about how he didn�t like the more orthodox Jews.

And he said, you know, what I really don�t like is before the Sabbath, they go out and they park their cars around Jerusalem, and they�ll do it in such a way to stop other people from driving their cars on the Sabbath.

In other words, they were bound and determined to stop other people from breaking the Sabbath. And I thought, that is a perfect illustration of moralism in action. They are just going to impose their own standard on everyone, even though it does no one any good spiritually.

It wastes all kinds of time.

It�s an excellent illustration. It wastes time. It doesn�t convert people. What also is missing when it comes to legalism and moralism, besides, as Pastor Steve said, heart motivation, the main thing that�s missing is the gospel.

The gospel is missing. Legalism and cultural morality, they do not understand the saving nature of the gospel and how God alone saves, how we are passive in regeneration, how God alone declares righteous based on the work of another, that we have to go outside of our sinful, depraved self, and you can have good manners and go to hell, or you can be the thief on the cross and still have probably bad etiquette manners, probably vote for the wrong guy, probably still willing to go get a tattoo and drink a bunch of alcohol, but you will not miss that Jesus Christ is Lord and you will defend him to your dying breath.

So wait, the Great Commission isn�t go and make Republicans of all the nations?

Go and make sure no one has tattoos, and it hurts so bad while you�re getting a tattoo, you have to have a glass of wine. This is a failure. You have people from focus on this family on down, and I many times say, good job, focus on the family when the gospel is presented clearly, because many times they do.

But I would say to Dr. Dobson, and who am I, but I would say, Dr. Dobson, let�s make sure we include that gospel presentation and the gospel up front every time we go about trying to change society. We change it by making people aware of the gospel so God saves them and we change them ultimately from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, one soul at a time.

Well, and it�s so key, because what would transform a society? Electing would transform it more, electing more Republicans or seeing more and more people come to Christ. If we had, if there were all these surveys that show 70, 80, whatever percent say that they�re born again in this country, and then you look at our laws and you say those two things don�t go together.

So what would actually change the country is seeing more and more people become obedient from the heart to the gospel, obeying Christ. We would not see the sort of political chicanery and the compromise that we see in our society today.

Here�s what happens when we get a vast number of people to convert to republicanism. We wind up with Republicans who are pro-abortion, who are pro-gay rights, who are pro-homosexual marriage, who are pro-everything that the Bible is against, and you wind up with no kind of party at all.

When you have people that are Christians, what you have is more people to preach the gospel to the unsaved world, which is the most important thing we do is, you said earlier, Mike, if someone is a Republican or a Democrat and they die, where do they go?

If they don�t know Christ, they go to hell.

Our great commission is not to go out and make people Republicans or Democrats or work through Acorn to turn people upside down or right side up. Our danger is we would fall into that because we want our country, we love our country and want our country to do well, but we�ve forgotten what the commission is.

Can you imagine Jesus proclaims to his apostles in the apostolic writings, he wasn�t even concerned if people were slaves or not, whether they were whatever kind of job they had, even up into slavery, not like we would think of in the South, but slavery in the Roman system.

Just be a good Christian, submit to your master. It was not some kind of liberation of societal structures, it was liberation of your soul from going to hell, being enslaved by Satan and sin, and now we have this great commission to preach the gospel so people�s souls might be reconciled.

Quit wasting your time and money and human energy on something that does not matter.

It�s going to all burn up. You can elect as many allegedly conservative officials as you want, they will compromise, and in the end, what�s going to happen? This whole world and its system are all going to burn.

Where are all the Christians, Steve?

Let�s flip on the flip side. I appreciated President Reagan. Where were all the new Christians that came out of that system, that kind of conservative system? I don�t see them. They�re not there. Ephesians 5 .16 says, �Make the most of your time, because the days are evil.

And so since the days are evil, let�s not try to give people who have some kind of leopard spots, here�s the way to change your spots. You can�t change your spots.

No, you can�t. Even thinking back to that time frame, talking about the moral majority, the problem was the majority wasn�t moral. And even if they were, it was never going to work. You cannot transform society.

You cannot transform anything by imposing morality, by imposing a set of standards on the behavior of people. Why? Because the heart rebels against that.

That�s right. Just like in psychology, the number one goal to remember, people are wicked, and if people are wicked, how should that influence our methodology? It should make us say the gospel is the only thing that changes them.

With politics and society and civil government, people are wicked. Actually, our founding forefathers knew that when they said executive branch, judicial branch, and legislative branch, because one branch is going to be so corrupt, the other two, they�ll need to be there.

Steve, we�ve got about 15 seconds. Last shot across the bow.

That�s exactly right. Checks and balances. They knew the man was inherently evil, something that most people do not get. NoCompromiseRadio .com. NoCompromiseRadio .com. Tune in. God bless.