Are You A Secret Hindu (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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Yesterday, my troubles seem so far away.

Well, it's not raining today, but it's rained for about a week straight, so hallelujah, but I got a cold in the middle of the 48 degrees in middle

May, rain, New England. I was asked the other day something about retirement.

I don't know why. I guess they're trying to put me out to pasture before the time, but when I retire,

I don't know, 15, 20 years, I said, I'm going to retire in California. Are you kidding me?

I'm going to retire in New England? You got to be crazy. The person looked at me like, what do you mean? You're not going to retire in New England.

So the good news is I'm bought with a price and I don't necessarily have to know what

I'm doing in 15 years because it might not even happen. We might have the end of the world, right?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. Actually, I'm taping this the day before the rapture is happening, according to Harold Camping.

I thought camping was interesting, man. No elders, no church, no baptism, no

Lord's supper. Send me your money. And people do, and people do.

How sad is that? Very, very sad. Well, today, before we get into the show, this topic,

I did have in front of me the Common English Bible. And you can go to commish, comma, comma, comma, chameleon.

You can go to commonenglishbible .com and snoop around a little bit.

And if you first look at the publisher, second, look at the endorsements, third, look at the translators and board of editors, you will say,

I don't think this is a Bible for me. Now, I don't know if they did this for money.

It's okay if you do some things for money. Money isn't always bad. You can have a motivation for money, and it's not defaulting to, well, then therefore it's bad.

But I wouldn't spend my money on this Bible. This is a Bible for liberal folks.

I guess if you're a liberal and you like it, then that's fine.

But when I look at this, I'm looking at 1 John 2, and I like to look at 1 John.

So if I find a new Bible and I don't know anything about it, I don't know the publisher and I don't know anything else, I don't know who the editors are,

I like to look up a few different passages to see how they would translate a passage that liberals would like to talk in a certain way.

So of course you can go to Isaiah 7, 14 and to see if that would be a virgin or a young woman, depending on how they translate it.

Or you could look at 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture which is inspired of God.

That was in the original RSV, the Revised Standard Perversion at the time.

Then of course they updated that. You can look at passages to figure out where people are coming from.

And so I like to look at 1 John because 1 John 2 is insightful.

My little children, Common English Bible, I am writing these things to you so that you don't sin.

But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the

Righteous One. He is God's way of dealing with our sins, not only ours, but the sins of the whole world.

And so while I'm not going to talk about the atonement there, that's not my point. They translated that just fine.

Finely? They translated it finely? No, they translated it just fine. I think that is Common English.

That's Common English. Where is you at? Where is you at? That one is fine.

By the way, that passage even, that passage is even used in theological circles to talk about, well, is it limited or unlimited atonement?

That doesn't teach either limited or unlimited atonement. That passage either teaches limited atonement or universalism, right?

God's way of dealing with our sins, not only ours, but the sins of the whole world. And so if God has dealt with the sins of the whole world in the sense of the atonement, then we are universalists.

But since we're not universalists, is there another way we could translate that? And of course, or interpret that, it's not just for our sins as Jews, but also for Gentiles.

But that's not my point this morning. That's not my point this afternoon. That's not my point tonight. Let me read the

ESV and let's see how we do with this one. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is a propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Propitiation for our sins in the ESV and then in the common English Bible, the

CEB. And then if you go to the other league, the CBA, and then the NBA translates it differently.

No, common English Bible, God's way of dealing with our sins. 1 John 2, 2,

ESV, propitiation for our sins. So why is that a liberal issue? I can tell by reading the common

English Bible that it's a liberal Bible. That's the way of God's dealing with our sins. Because liberals, while they want to talk about forgiveness, while they want to talk about our sins being dealt with, while they want to talk about expiation, men and women forgiven, they don't like to talk about propitiation.

They don't like to talk about God is not just a God of love, but God is holy, holy, holy, and that God is just,

God is righteous. God has a holy anger and hatred, and he is too pure to look upon evil, and he hates the wicked every day.

He hates sin and sinners. And therefore, his anger, righteous anger, just anger, holy anger must be assuaged in order for there to be forgiveness.

And so here we see they're bent. They don't want to talk about propitiation.

This is back to the mule controversy, M -O -U -L -E, where expiation would be fine for the liberal, but propitiation, they don't like it.

That God is a God of wrath, and it's even popped up these days with some in the emergent church and in those circles where here we have

God is angry, and he takes out his anger on his son, and it's like divine child abuse, and silly and sad and sacrilegious comments like that.

But the text is what the text is. We have Bible received. We don't have the Bible made up by men.

And so we have a God who propitiates. He assuages his wrath.

He makes satisfaction. He does the work.

And so this is a God -ward action that God himself is pleased by the sacrifice because he's poured out his wrath in a just way.

And according to his wisdom, there can be a substitute, Jesus Christ, the righteous. We weren't righteous, but he was.

So he didn't pay for his own sins. He assuaged the wrath of God, not for his own transgressions, because he had none, but for ours.

And so if you go to 1 John 2 -2, and you look these up in the Bible, verses like this in some

Bible translation that you don't know anything about, that would be an interesting way to go about it. I do have the

Common English Bible in front of me as well. I might as well do this one too. Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting and training character.

That's, I don't like that, but that's more messagey than it is theological bad translation.

Although it is bad translation. So that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good.

Well, this is a pastoral epistle. And when you read man of God in the Old Testament, we're talking about the prophet. We're talking about the spokesperson for God, spokesman of God.

That's who we're talking about. See, even I have been politically torqued so much.

In my mind, I have to say spokesperson, the spokesman of God. The man of God was a man of God who was the preacher, who was the prophet, who was the spokesman for God.

So if the original is, so the man of God can be equipped to do everything good, equipped for every good work, why do they change it to, so that the person who belongs to God?

Well, they do that because they want to be gender neutral. But when they do that, now you don't, when you see the man of God in the

Old Testament, you don't make the connection. Paul says to Timothy, Timothy, you're a preacher.

You're a prophet. You proclaim the truth of God. Just like the Old Testament proclaimers, you too have everything you need when it comes to the word of God.

You've got your tool chest. God just didn't say, here's Ephesus, Timothy, and here's a crescent wrench and a bandaid.

Just go to work. You have a complete toolkit. Not one thing missing. I've had lots of tools in my life, but one thing

I like is when I go buy a new ratchet set and I have every ratchet and you think, where's my 716ths? Well, it's right there.

You've got everything you need. And when it comes to the word of God, God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the

Spirit, they have rigged out the toolbox for preachers. And so I know

I have everything I need and I can get parachuted behind enemy lines here in New England and have the spirit of God and the word of God.

And I've got everything I need to be a pastor, every possible thing. And so when the common

English Bible says, the person who belongs to God, I say, I don't want to get that translation.

It says a, I'm actually yawning on radio. How about that? A fresh translation to touch the heart and mind.

Well, they don't even know how heart and mind are used in the Hebrew and the Greek, but that's a whole other subject.

I'd like to have my heart and mind touched, the person of God. Now, by implication, what is good for the pastor, can a

Christian person, a girl, a woman, a lady, can she have her toolkit full when it comes to the sufficiency of the word of God?

Absolutely. But the author's intention, God's intention, Paul's intention, pastors, elders, you have everything you need in the word of God.

Why go to pragmatics? Why go to politics? Why to go to business practices? Why go to Barna? Why go to surveys?

You've got everything you need. But then you read it and you think, hmm, so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped.

Sadly, I don't think it's the Bible. We'll have to move on. The C -E -B. How about the C -B version?

One Adam, not one Adam 12, that would be, that would be a dragnet version.

What's a C -B version? A C .W. McCall. That's a 10 -4 good buddy.

Something like that. Remember that in the seventies? I think that's right. C .W. McCall. I am a product of my background, my culture.

Well, last time I was talking a little bit about Hinduism in the evangelical church. This Hinduism that basically says this, along with the

New Agers, there's no external source of authority. There's only an internal one.

And basically that is Hinduism. That is the God within. That is New Age theology. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

And now that we are in the age of Aquarius, no evil, no good, no mores, no absolutism, no absolute truth.

It's gone in every area. Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I think without Jung. Love the one you're with.

Hinduism says the God within. The standard of truth comes from the inside.

There's no external source of objective truth. There's no standard of truth, no yardstick of truth.

It's back to Shirley MacLaine. Remember when she was big with all this stuff? But now this spiritual and this spirituality has gone deeply into the heart and soul of modern evangelicalism.

And I hear it all the time. That's why I'm always talking about it because I want you to be led by the Bible. You need to get the decision -making book by Gary Friesen, Decision -Making in the

Will of God. Kevin DeYoung even has, I think, a more updated, better decision -making book.

And I wish I knew the title. It has a really long subtitle about visions, dreams, and gizzards or something.

But if you type in Kevin DeYoung Decision -Making, you're gonna find that book. That's what we need.

We need external truth. And I quoted David Wells last week.

It's true this week as well in No Place for Truth, 1993. The heretics of old, one suspects, would be sick with envy if they knew of the easy pickings that can now be had in the church.

We need to test the spirits. That's what 1 John 4 talks about. To toss out discernment is to toss out our moorings, our buoys, our way of thinking, scripturally, biblically.

We need discernment. You need discernment. And if postmodernism has come along and swept you up as it has swept up many,

I don't think it is a good thing. Os Guinness talks about postmodernism and its assault on truth.

He said, objective experimental scientific data has been replaced with personal anecdotal experience as the source of truth in society.

That's exactly right. All views are not equal. All views are not equal.

Your view is just as valid as mine. No, it's not. Not if your view is unbiblical and my view is biblical.

Now, you are able to talk about things and that's why we have all the chat rooms and that's why you can weigh in, call in radio.

Oh, I guess I don't take calls, do I? You know, let me just talk about that for a second. I was going to take calls. People at the station said take calls, but I only have 24 and a half minutes.

And if my show is going to be bad, I want it to be bad because of me. I don't want it to be bad because I'm listening to some caller ramble on, ramble on, ramble on, ramble on, really a mini sermon without a question.

Excuse me, do you have a question? And then if I'd interrupt, and then if I'd critique, and then if I'd correct no compromise style, then

I would look bad. And of course we don't want the host to look bad. But in all seriousness,

I don't like to have callers because the callers sometimes don't know what they're saying and plus my studio here doesn't have a good screen system, screener system for these callers.

And I only have 24 minutes. And so that's why I don't take calls. But this whole idea of there's no absolute truth, your view is just as valid as mine.

There is absolute truth and all views are not as valid. The input that you give and the input that I give, we're humans and we should be able to interact.

But if one is talking about biblical issues and the other is not, those truths are not equal.

Listen to what Vieth said. Instead of preaching that leads to the conviction of sin and salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ, the churches preach feel -good messages designed to cheer people up.

Some have described post -modernistic culture as the therapeutic culture in which a sense of psychological wellbeing, not truth, is the controlling value.

The contemporary church likewise faces the temptation to replace theology with therapy. Evangelism, according to this model, does not involve proclaiming

God's judgment against sinners and His gracious offer of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Rather, evangelicalism simply educates people as to how much God loves them. God really does want to not punish anyone.

He wants all to feel good about themselves, to enjoy a full life, to be happy. Those who turn away from God will miss out on this abundant life, though the

Holy Spirit may well bring them to heaven even though they never knew Christ," end quote.

That's what we've got going on out there. That is what is happening today. And it spills over into all kinds of areas because it can't be compartmentalized.

It can't be just sequestered to one little area of your noggin. I like it when

S. Lewis Johnson talks about people who get charley horses in their brains. Yeah.

If you don't listen to S. Lewis Johnson, you ought to. S. Lewis Johnson. Type in S. Lewis Johnson Institute.

I think you can get the HTML printed out, deals, but you can go to Believer's Chapel and you can go to, type in S.

Lewis Johnson, S. period L -E -W -I -S, Johnson, and you can find all kinds of messages and listen to them.

They are great. But it's not compartmentalized. And so this charley horse in the brain type of deal is seen when people evangelize now by saying, well,

Jesus is the one who can clean up your marriage and fix your relationship with your kids.

You're not going to be lonely anymore. You're going to be happy and have the American dream. That is so wrong.

D .A. Carson said, God is portrayed that way primarily because in our efforts to make Jesus appear relevant, we have cast the human dilemma in merely contemporary categories, taking our cues from the perceived needs of the day.

But if we follow scriptures and understand that the fundamental needs of the race are irrefragably tied to the fall, that is typical,

Carson, we will follow the Bible as it sets out

God's gracious solution to that fundamental need. And when the gospel we preach will be less skewed by the contemporary agenda, then that will happen.

If you begin with perceived needs, you will always distort the gospel. If you begin with the

Bible's definition of our need, relating perceived needs to that central grim reality, you are more likely to remain or retain rather intact the gospel of God.

D .A. Carson. That is so true. In our society, no one is ever wrong.

It's your truth, that's my truth. Everybody wants to encourage and uplift. If you believe wrongly about God and don't believe about Him biblically, you are wrong.

Why? Because God is to be thought of the way He tells us to think. We are to stand up for this truth.

We are not people who say faith bypasses the mind. Faith isn't rational.

Well, faith is more than knowledge. Faith is more than a scent. Faith does contain a clinging and a trusting and an embracing and a submitting.

That is true. But you don't validate truth by your personal experience.

You don't confirm truth by authenticity. You are not

Barth, Brunner, Tillich, and Niebuhr who are neo -Orthodox, and if the

Bible becomes God's word to you, it's God's word. No, you're not that.

You are believing in objective truth outside of yourself, so much so that if you're dead,

Christianity is the exact same, right? What would this verse mean to you? Is that the right way to ask the question?

What does this verse mean? How about this way? I've learned this from a certain, I can't remember who used to say it, but I've learned it from them.

What would this verse mean if you were dead? What would this verse mean if you were dead?

Meaning, it's authorial intent and it's truth is not dependent upon me.

I like what Gordon Clark said, the philosopher. "'Since God is truth, "'a contempt for truth is equally a contempt for God.'"

And so now when you have everybody saying, there's no truth, there's no truth, there's no truth, then ultimately it's an attack on God because if you can get rid of absolute truth, then you've gotten rid of God, at least in your mind.

Today, dogmatic people, those who believe in absolute truth, they don't have a good reputation in our culture, in our society.

We like pastors who share. We like pastors who don't come across in some kind of uncompromising stance.

I mean, uncompromising, that's what I meant. We want loving. We want kind.

But I want truth, don't you? Of course I want it lovingly delivered, compassionately delivered, but I want truth.

Henry David Thoreau, I'm not that far from Walden Pond. You can drive over there, it's not too far and you can just check it out.

Here's what Thoreau said, even though he was no evangelical. "'Rather than love, than money, than fame, "'give me truth.'"

Give me truth, give me truth. All I want is some truth,

John Lennon said. So today, I wanted to know if you think like a

Hindu, if you act like a Hindu. Maybe you say to yourself, well, I believe in the gospel, but I also believe there's other ways to get to heaven.

Do you know that's Hinduism? Do you know that's New Age theology? The, I can't even say it now,

Bhagavad Gita, there are many paths up the mountain. That's amazing, isn't it?

Everybody's a worshiper. Everybody's a worshiper and Jesus is too harsh. Jesus is too strict.

Jesus is too narrow. So let's have a pagan view of the earth and it's just all roads lead to heaven.

That is New Age thinking. That's not biblical Christianity. Syncretistic thinking is not biblical

Christianity. That's Hinduism. And you go to India and they have 330 million different kinds of gods.

I think they're all saying a lot of them are getting to heaven. Add Jesus to some gods, fine.

Jesus and every other god's a demon -possessed liar. You've got a problem. Bob Dylan said, you got to serve somebody.

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you've got to serve somebody. And what do we do today? Forget you,

Bob Dylan. We want to serve both. We want to serve both idols and Jesus because Jesus said he's the only way, but we don't really like that.

That's going to be bad. If we live in Manhattan and have to come across well to unbelievers, then we've got to be kind.

We've got to do things a little bit better. Gruthius, the author of Unmasking the

New Age and Confronting the New Age said there's six distinctives of New Age thinking. All is one, all is

God, humanity is God, a change in consciousness, all religions are one, and cosmic evolutionary optimism.

So on No Compromise Radio today, we've talked a little bit about the contemporary

English Bible, and then we talked about Hinduistic, pantheistic, humanism,

New Age theology, and then we tried to quote as many pop songs as we could. So I don't know if there's any other pop songs that I'd like to quote right now, but I can't think of any.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me. If you had known me, you would have known my

Father also, and now you know Him and have seen Him. Lord, show us a Father, and it is enough for us.

And then we see what Jesus said right after that. God bless you, No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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