How not to Choose a Church (Part 2)

The Gospel Commitment and the Program’s Purpose

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.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. This is Mike Abendroth. It is Tuesday. This is actually week two for No Compromise Radio ministry.

We survived last week. We're still on the radio. WVNE management team is very generous and gracious, and we're still on. Week two, one week down, 51 to go. So hang on, buckle your seatbelts, get the WD -40 ready for the spines of your Bible.

We want to talk about the Lord, His Word, and standing for the truth, which sadly, I guess for some, means that you have to point out error. Listen, here's what we do at No Compromise Radio ministry. On Mondays, we have a taped sermon from the pulpit of Bethlehem Bible Church.

Then on Tuesdays, it's call in with church issues. Pastor Steve Cooley will be here. He's here right now talking about issues in the local church, counseling. It's dealing with the church and the issues that come up in the church on Tuesdays.

Wednesdays, we're dealing with books. Tomorrow you want to tune in. We're going to look at more of the books that should be on your must burn list, get rid of list, kindling list. I know oil is going to be expensive this winter, so forget your oil contracts, just get those bad books out.

You'll be set. Thursday, we'll have current issues in evangelicalism, and then Friday is basically whatever we want. Pastor Steve's in the studio today. Pastor Steve Cooley, how are you today?

I'm doing quite well, thanks for asking.

Good. Well, let's get your mouth up a little closer to that microphone. Okay. Oh, that's much better.

You have a good radio voice, by the way. That's not what I've been told.

Well, thankfully, Steve Cooley is a man of many talents, and he has lots of experience in life at the church, ministry, but also he's an ex-sheriff from Los Angeles, and so I like to have my personal bodyguard wherever we go.

When Steve and I drive around town, I like it when he drives because he's got the badge and I don't. And so you want to be very respectful when you call in today, 508 -831 -9863. I don't know if Steve has his taser or not, but maybe he's got a spiritual taser.

Reviewing Last Week’s Church-Selection Mistakes

Today we're going to look at part two from last Tuesday, what to look for in a local church, but with the typical no-compromise style. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, and so our style is going to be what not to look for, teaching with a negative example.

By the way, you'll find those kind of illustrations in the Bible as well, and so it's not an unknown way to teach, by contrast. I think it's an effective way, and as we go through the list today, if you'd like to call in with a reason why someone should not pick a church, you call in to 508 -831 -9863.

We'll take live calls today, and then you can contribute. Pastor Steve, give us a quick overview of what we learned last week on how not to choose a church.

Okay, a few of the things we talked about. We're choosing a church based on the pastor, that he's nice, that he's cool, hip. That is not something we want. We talked about the spiritual qualifications for a pastor and a shepherd.

We also talked about a church not wasting my time. You know, people are so concerned with getting something out of church, and they've completely inverted things. You know, you go there to worship and to serve, not to just have your practical felt needs met.

I have to interrupt you just for a second. Yes, you do. Talking to somebody yesterday, and they said one of their friends could not believe they drove such a long ways to get to church. And they said, well, you know, you're going to drive 40 miles to get to church.

Kind of wastes your day, doesn't it? If you drive 40 miles, go to Sunday school, go to service, hear an hour-long sermon, have fellowship for an hour afterwards, enjoy one another's company, and then drive all the way home, that wastes your day.

And we laughed about it because Sunday, I think maybe the Bible even says, according to John in the book of Revelation, it's called the what? The Lord's Day. The Lord's Day. And so I don't think when we do things for Him, it doesn't mean you have to drive 80 kilos to work, to church.

I mean, to me, work and church is the same thing. I say to the kids, I'm driving to church, I'm driving to work, and they know it's equal. But it's the Lord's Day, and so we're wasting whose time and who gave us the time, and I thought that would be of interest to the listeners.

All right, keep going, please.

All right. We also talked about choosing a church based on the worship band. You know, we love the rock music. Sounds like an Abba song. But anyway, we talked about that a little bit.

Speaking of that, I just got an email just moments ago, and it was from a friend, and he said, in the building that I'm at, Striper is now in the studio's recording, and if I want to come by and see Striper recording here in Massachusetts, I was able to do that.

Now if they were doing covers of Abba songs, that would really be something. We also talked about the schedule, how they like one that just kind of works for them, just kind of doesn't conflict with what they really want to do, whether that be water skiing or watching NFL games or whatever, and again, that gets back to the idea of whose day is it?

And the final thing we talked about, we talked about the King James. We were just talking about Bible translations. People call up, what Bible translation do you use? Well, I don't care if it's the King James, the ESV, the New King James, the New American Standard, it just needs to be a literal translation.

Excellent. Well, James White listened to the show last week, and he wanted to know why I didn't promote his book about the King James Holy Controversy, and I'd like to know why he didn't promote my book on his radio show on AOMN .org about the Prince of Preachers, Jesus Christ.

And so, James, if you're listening, I expect a plug.

I would just say that his book—and I'll go ahead and plug it, because it is really excellent in terms of that particular topic. But we have some more.

Talk about my book, right? Everything in the universe revolves around me. You hear somebody over there talking in the room, you go, oh, they must be talking about me. We're talking about James White's The King James Only Controversy.

The Church Should Not Be Chosen for Politics

All right, let's pick a new one. As the callers are maybe out there, 508 -831 -9863. Don't be afraid. We're nicer in person. Why don't you call and tell us what you should not look for in a local church?

Steve, what's next?

Well, I chose this one because I thought—we've actually heard this one before, but I like a church that is politically active, decisive on the issues, and on the candidates.

Well, that would be good. Where were we last year in all that stuff? How about if we said, I like a church that gives me one of those little cookie-cutter forms and just tells me who to vote for and how, and it's got on the R's, Republicans, check yes, all the way down the column, and on the D's are the L's, are the Green Party, or anything, any candidate name that starts with Ralph and ends with Nader, we vote no on.

I think I might want somebody like that. What is wrong, Pastor Steve, when someone says, the church needs to be very involved at a church level, not individual level. Individual Christians can't run for political office.

We want Christians in office. But as a church level, what is the church's mission, and does that mission include, as a body, political involvement? It's to evangelize the lost.

We're to preach the gospel. If we could transform somehow this entire country to our way of thinking, without transforming their hearts, we would be spinning our wheels, we'd be wasting our time, we wouldn't be faithful to what God has called us to, which is to proclaim Christ and Him crucified.

Excellent. The church has a soteriological function. That is to save, to preach. Of course, we don't save. God uses us to preach the gospel, and He saves through that preaching. But Republicans and Democrats who are not born again have something in common, and that would be that they will spend forever in eternal hell.

If you're pro-life or pro-choice and you're not born again, the same thing. As John MacArthur says, if you're a prostitute or a policeman, if you're not born again, you don't enter God's holy heaven while you're sin-tainted.

And so, it doesn't do us any good to go around and try to change social platform issues, even though we would be very much for the life of a baby. We would be anti-abortion. That is not our goal, is to go around and have signs and tax-free status issues.

We would never do that, would we? No, because the issue isn't changing the law so that the society is more moral. The issue for us as a church is to change hearts through the preaching of God's Word. You know, I mean, if God wills it and a majority of people in a state got saved, then we would see the laws changed that way.

And these days, and I think Tom Krause talked about it on Engage in Your World last week, there's that man in the Southwest who talks about he wants President Obama to die, and I'm reading 1 Peter 2 right now, verse 17, from God Himself, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.

Who is the king during this time?

Well, the king would be, in that time, would be a despot. It probably was Nero. We think it was Nero.

That's exactly right. So how do we give the king honor? We like chaos. No, we don't like chaos. We like government, even if it's bad government, because God's sovereign over that government that he has.

And Romans chapter 13 is clear. The government's a minister of God. So we want to make sure we're thankful for our leaders. We may pray for the salvation of our leaders, but the issue for the church, you should never ever pick a church because they are political.

You should pick a church because they are apolitical. You say to yourself, I'm a Democrat, but I'm picking a church because they're Republican or Democrat or something else? No, pick it because they're a Bible-teaching church.

That's right.

I'm a Christian, and I'm going to choose a Bible-teaching church.

And by the way, as time goes on, your mind will probably change on political issues based on the Bible informing your mind. That's right. Well, we have our first phone call, Pastor Steve, ever in the history of No Compromise Radio Ministry.

And it says Bruce, and I think I know which Bruce this is. Bruce, you are live. Who are you? Well, it says air. It's flashing. Let's see. Is he on? Bruce? I'm on. Oh, you're on. Bruce, welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry.

You have the first call ever, and I'll tell you this. It better be good. Yeah. No pressure. Tom Krause's show, I can hit this little drop button very—I do it patiently. But since it's No Compromise, I think I can hit it pretty quickly.

You guys should have, like, one of those things, a ticking bomb that blows people up or something.

One of the—Josh asked me, would you like some sounds, and would you like some things that you could put in the show to make it a little funnier or spice things up or just to have a reservoir of these kind of different sounds or clips or Benny Hinn music or something?

I said, perfect.

Make it happen. Yeah, like what a Steve Cooley taser gun can do. That's right.

Spiritual tasing for the Lord. Yeah. All right. If you had to say, Bruce, a reason not to pick a church formed in the negative, what would you say?

I would say not to pick a church that has one man as its focus. In other words, where one man is the leader and everyone else seems to be following. So if the one man goes, then the church falls apart.

Okay, that's excellent.

Stay on the line, Bruce. What I was thinking about when you were talking is I was thinking about Titus. Paul writes to Titus, and he gives Titus information on how to run a local church. And he says in Titus chapter one, verse five, for this reason, I left you in Crete.

That would have been a very crazy place that you would set in order what remains. There's some things out of order. There's some puzzle pieces that are all discombobulated. How do I get things back in proper order?

He says, and appoint elders, plural, in every city as I have directed you. And then he gives a qualification for elders. Bruce, why would a plurality of elders be important in regards to your comment and statement about the church?

Well, because plurality of elders would mean that there's other teachers that take the main pastor or elders' place if anything ever happened to them, either physically or spiritually. And also, I think it's good for the health of the body, so that everyone's not just relying on one man, going to one man.

It tires them out. So, in other words, like, I mean, you can use it, it's not a church example, but look at the Old Testament example of Moses, where Jethro went to Moses, that appoint other judges so that you don't get tired out.

Well, I think that's excellent. And so we would agree, Pastor Steve and you, Bruce, and myself, we want to have a one-man show, some kind of one-man band. I think if you have one elder and that's the pastor, and then maybe some deacon board, that kind of church government may lend itself a little bit more to what the pastor would say, would go.

Now, with all fairness, I've been at the church for 12 years, and if I get some idea that's not sinful or it's not unrighteous, I might have a little more sway with people because I've been there the longest and maybe buried more of their children or done more of the marriages or whoever's behind the pulpit carries maybe a little more weight.

But in terms of elder leadership, every elder, one vote. They're all equal. You have to be unanimous in your voting. And I don't, even though the pride in me wants to make myself exalted, I know it's not right.

And I know we are not at the church because of me. I didn't die for anyone's sins. I didn't raise myself from the dead. I don't give spiritual gifts. I don't sanctify people. I am a sinner along with everyone else, except a couple hours per week I stand up and I proclaim the truth, but I then sit down and I'm just like everyone else, a sinner who's in need of God's continuous grace.

And so we don't want one man chose. Frankly, Bruce, you're an excellent example of a man who loves to serve and evangelize. And sometimes when you have issues and troubles, you don't call me first, you call Pastor Steve first.

Yeah, yeah. He's a good brother. Yeah.

I really appreciate him a lot. Has he ever tased you, Bruce? You know what? I deserved every tasing I ever got.

Sometimes he'll look at me, put you on hold, and say, this guy deserves a good tasing. I believe that. That's not true. Thanks for your call, Bruce. God bless you. All right, bye-bye. All right, see ya.

Plurality of Elders and Expository Preaching

Well, Pastor Steve, comments about what Bruce said?

Well, I think it's just incredibly important in terms of no one man ever has everything right. And sometimes he can't even think he's right. But it's that plurality of elders that kind of can bring him back to, you know, give him another perspective and say, wait a minute, I'm not approaching this the right way.

I'm not looking at it rightly. I need to rethink this. And so, yeah, I think it just lends itself to balance and a good biblical basis for a church.

I think it's kind of sad, don't you, when we would be at Grace Church back in Los Angeles, both having John MacArthur as a pastor, and when John wasn't in town, even though another elder or pastor would faithfully exposit the Word of God, attendance did what?

Oh, it went down. In fact, I would be out in the parking lot sometimes and be approached by people who would say, is John MacArthur preaching today? And if I said no, they would go, okay, well, we'll come back next week.

If they would say, is there preaching today? Well, no. Then do leave. It's like the time I, 12 years ago, met a pastor who thankfully is no longer a pastor anymore if he'd continue with this kind of thinking.

I said, I gave him my diagnostic question to pastors. What book of the Bible are you preaching through now, verse by verse? That's the diagnostic question. You can find out everything you need to know.

If they do preach expositionally but are in a topical series, they'll say, well, I'm in a topical message series, but I'll be back in another book soon. You know, you make an excuse for it. And he said, well, sometimes God leads me not to preach.

I don't know what God that is, but there's not a capital G. God never leads a pastor elder not to preach on a Sunday when the saints are gathered. That's right. He's driving people to preach. And once God says, preach the word, in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction, we never again have to feel led to preach, have a good feeling to preach, have a burning in the bosom to preach.

We need to obey the command and preach the word.

You don't have to have a piece about it. You just have to know what the word says and go.

That is so good. So many Sunday mornings I'm sitting there, I have no piece about preaching because I'm thinking I have to now stand up and say, thus saith the Lord. I'm nervous. I'm sinful. Who am I?

And I'm to preach. And I don't feel a piece, but I know I'm commanded to do it. That's right. And if I could sing an Eagle song, I got a peaceful, easy feeling, I wouldn't sing it.

I mean, my prayer pretty much every Sunday that I preach is, Lord, I know I'm weak. I know I should have studied more. Lord, help me to proclaim your word to these people. Good. What's next on the list?

Children, Church, and Parental Responsibility

Well, I have a... Time goes by pretty fast, doesn't it? Yes, it does. I put my kids first, this person might say. I put my kids first. If the church has good programs for my kids, then they will be happy and I will be happy.

Now, that's an excellent... Steve came up with this list. So two things I should say. One, if you don't like it, blame him. Two, if it's really good, it's my show. No, he told me what to do. He did a great job putting this list together.

I don't know why we do it. Of course, it's okay if your kids say, oh, I like to go. Who wants to pull a kid's teeth to get them to go to church? There's nothing wrong with kids liking church. But I don't know how many of those same people, Steve, let their children pick the mutual funds for their 401k.

I don't think they do. They're decisions for the parents and the parents alone, God gave them a responsibility and they have to do it. And who has a responsibility specifically in a family to decide spiritual matters?

The father does. Absolutely. He will consult the mother. They will make choices as a team. But at the end of the day, they might both contribute, but the man is 100 responsible, like the captain of a ship, even though he's not guilty of different things that go on or maybe doesn't even get the credit of everything that goes on.

He is responsible. So why give the responsibility to the children? When you ask a child, when you take them out to eat, the menu's got 5 ,000 things on it. Okay, what do you want? They're paralyzed. I'm paralyzed when I go out.

I like In-N-Out Burger. You get cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, or that's it. We don't have In-N-Out Burgers here. That's why I can see it. That's right. So actually, when we give the kids that kind of choice, they will pick things like this.

Just like they'll pick what they could eat. When my mother used to come over, she'd give them ice cream sandwiches for breakfast. Grandma Carla's over, ice cream sandwiches. It was hilarious. I'll do the same thing.

But they would do that every single morning. And kids will pick fluff. Kids will pick ice cream, Reese's peanut butter cups. The list goes on and on and on. None of those are our sponsors, but they probably should be.

And so, they would do the same thing. We want fun. We want excitement. We want some kind of dull, boring Bible. We don't want some kind of, oh, some, these kind of songs.

Well, people even call and say, you know, how big is your high school group? And if it's not big enough, they're not coming. And I'm just like, well, how many high school kids do you have? Because if you have two, it'll be two bigger.

You've got the nail hit on the head. What you should do if you're a parent, you should say, mommy and daddy have decided that we're going to go to this Bible teaching church. Now, they might not have bongos.

They might not have wine for communion. Whatever your different preferences might be. And they don't even have a youth group. By the way, there was no youth groups back in the New Testament day. There's no youth groups 100 years ago, 500 years ago.

The old Puritan churches, no room for the youth. It's not wrong to have a youth group. I think if you've got a young person and you want to learn the Bible and be discipled, I'd love to have you come to Bethlehem Bible Church youth group.

Get on our website and check out the youth ministry. Simon does a great job with his team there with the youth. But you need to tell your kids, but this is good for you. Mom and dad know and we love you and we've had your best interest in mind all the time.

And whether you like it or not, the sooner you decide to go, the better. And so, I don't think you ask. I think you encourage. Make it happy. Make it fun. In terms of excitement, you don't have to say, oh, we're going to church today.

You're going to hate it.

The Church Is Not About My Preferences

I'm with you 100%. Well, let me give you an easy one to kind of wind things down with. It doesn't get any easier than this one. I like the fact that I can have my say at a church. Any church that won't listen to my concerns and address my needs won't work for me.

That's excellent. We talked about the me monster a little bit last week. When you were talking about my say, I was going to say in Spanish, no say. Hey, how say can you see? Well, it goes back to worship again.

Worship is ascribing worth to another. And God, the transcendent God, has weight, and since he has weight and he has kavod, the same Hebrew word for weight and glory, it's kavod, there's a heaviness and a transcendence and a holiness to God.

And so I'm quite sure when Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he wasn't using the personal pronoun mine. I'm confident. I'm sure when Ananias and Sapphira were both killed because they lied to the Holy Spirit, nobody was kind of felt needin' it, were they?

Not at all. Is that a verb, felt needin' it? No, but you just made it. I like that. No compromise radio. We can do things like that. So what we're doing is we're trying to say, you should pick a church for the reasons God says are good.

So we'd encourage you here at No Compromise Radio Ministry to read 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus to find out what a church should look like. God has told us, and the interesting thing is it's a transcultural description, transchronological description.

Indians, North Africans, South Africans, Americans, American Indians, we can all have a local church service that has a little bit of the culture because the people are there, but it's not going to do anything that's going to be anti-biblical.

So at No Compromise Radio Ministry, we'd like you to pick a church because it's biblical. Type in on the internet, how to pick a church by John MacArthur. Can you think of another article, Steve, that might be good for them, or a book that teaches somebody about a church, what a church should look like that the people could read?

Well, the Nine Marks of an Effective Church by Mark Dever is an excellent book. You need to get that book.

Nine Marks would be a great place, ninemarks .com or .org would be excellent with Dever. Well, this is No Radio, No Compromise Radio. There's no radio? Of course there's radio. I'm thankful to WVNE that we have local radio, local preachers on like Tom Krause, myself, so you can get an idea of what's going on here in Worcester.

As Tom Petty would say, we won't back down, we don't want to back down from the truth. This is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio, known as No Neville Chamberlain Radio as well. God bless you. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow, we'll have another book-burning show. God bless you. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.