Centrality of the Word

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.'"

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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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.

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth, and I have here a backup generator, and I also have

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Steve Cooley. Oh, man. Yeah, this is take two. You know, I wonder if we could put together all of our outtakes and somehow use that as a show.

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Well, they have the bloopers, you know, blooper reels for special feature presentations in your

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DVD. Maybe we could have the blooper reel. The blooper. We were talking about the centrality of the word of God in this episode, and then we were abruptly shut down, a sign from God when the power went down.

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It was definitely a sign. Either that or the government was listening. It took us about one second to realize what was happening.

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It was called dead air. Funny thing was, Steve just kept talking, though, because once you get him preaching, you cannot stop him.

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Once I'm in that mode, I'm like a machine. It's downhill, Steve Downhill Cooley.

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He puts his head down and he's racing, preaching the word. I think that'd be a good show, by the way.

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What, downhill racing? Downhill racing. How about the centrality of the word of God in a local church?

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I think that'd be a great show. Steve, let's think big concept, and then work our way into the particulars.

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Big concept, preaching, the word of God, centrality. What do you think?

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Well, in 2 Timothy chapter four, verses one and two, I mean, he really lays it out,

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Paul does to Timothy, and tells him, this is, when he says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of, how exactly does it go?

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I don't have my Bible open to it. Solemnly charge you in the presence of God, even Christ Jesus, who's gonna be coming to judge the quick and the dead.

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And so it's a pretty serious charge. I mean, it's basically the most serious. It basically is the language of a courtroom, where he's calling

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God as his witness. It doesn't get any bigger than that. And so the centrality of preaching the word, preaching

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Christ, preaching scripture, that has to be the major emphasis of any church.

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And if it's not, then guess what? As Pastor Mike likes to say, it's not a church. Steve, I would say that almost every denomination in America, both

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Protestant and Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, I think everyone from the

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Methodist, to the Lutherans, to the Episcopalians, to the Baptist, I think they all would say, and I think you'd find in the church, a

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Bible, wouldn't you? Oh, absolutely. So it's more than just having a Bible. It's more than reading the gospel account.

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It's more than having a Bible verse about David killing Goliath in the coloring book pages for the fifth graders.

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Churches have the Bible, don't they? So where's the disconnect? Isn't that enough just to have a Bible there, chained to the pulpit?

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Well, I mean, for a lot of churches, yeah, chained to the pulpit. For a lot of the churches, it's interesting, because I got an email,

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I won't say from whom, but I got an email this week, and it was kind of like, this person was saying that they wanted their child to know the stories of the

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Bible, not the truth of the Bible, but the stories of the Bible. And I think for a lot of churches, that's what it is.

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We study Daniel, not because we wanna think about God or anything like that, but because we think it's really neat that somebody was so faithful that they got put in an oven.

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I mean, it's focused on the persons and almost the mythology of scripture, and you know what

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I mean here, not that the Bible is a myth, but most churches teach it as if it is a myth.

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Steve, and I always wonder to myself, when I go to a store and I go to the baby section, and you've got the strollers there and the car seats and nice little, the bedding for the crib and stuff, and the things that you can hang over the crib, these little mobiles, mobiles, mobiles,

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I think that's what they're called, and they hang. Toys. Yeah, toys. And you, well, I think they're called the mobile, a child's mobile.

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And then they have the Noah's Ark theme. And even unbelievers love the Noah's Ark theme because there are little giraffes and little donkeys and little pigs and stuff like that.

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And I'm thinking to myself, you know, they like the rainbow. I'm thinking to myself, could there be a more widespread direct judgment from God on the millions of millions of people's heads, including mothers, including babies, including teenagers, every single person on earth,

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Genesis 6, 7, and 8, was killed except those eight in the ark. And it's like they're celebrating the judgment of God as an unbeliever.

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Yeah, no, there couldn't be a more broad, sweeping judgment of mankind, and there won't be until the absolute end of time.

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I used to hear a preacher and he would say, yes, God will flood the world one more time. The second time, though, he'll flood the world with fire.

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So the centrality of the word of God, Steve, I will read 1 Timothy 4, verse 13, and I regularly read this at Bethlehem Bible Church before Scripture reading to let the congregation know that we want to follow the word of God and do what the

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Bible says. Until I come, Paul says to Timothy, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.

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Let's stop there. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture. How do we flesh that out in a local church service?

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Well, by getting up, by having a godly man at this church, it's usually the elders, although not so much maybe in the evening service, but having a man get up and read the word of God and the whole congregation follow along with him.

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I mean, what could be more basic than that? That's public reading of Scripture. Now, this is not the reason to do it, but this is a blessing that comes from the obedience and from doing it.

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Steve, I remember J .C. Ryle's story that he was converted by listening to Ephesians 2, 1 -10 being read from the pulpit.

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Well, I mean, if we believe that the word is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword, and we believe that it's the word of God that indeed convicts people and causes them to believe, then we have to believe stories like that.

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I mean, how did anyone come to faith? It wasn't by hearing somebody rationalize or whatever.

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It's by hearing the word proclaimed, by hearing the word explained, or maybe sometimes by just hearing it read.

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Steve, if you're reading the text or one of the other elders, Scott or Pradeep, I like to just close my eyes during Scripture reading.

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I mean, I can follow along, and I'm glad the congregation does, and they can see it and hear it, but I just like to hear the word of God being read, especially on a

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Sunday morning worship service from the pulpit, thus saith the Lord, let's hear from God. So often we're singing to God, singing about God, singing with others to the

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Lord, and hear God speaks. More purely than a sermon, yet God still wants sinful people to get up and preach the word.

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Why doesn't the Bible say, just only read the Scripture? But pastors are supposed to get up and kind of talk about it, because the text goes on to say, to exhortation, to teaching.

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So not just reading, but teaching. If I was God, I would have just said, get up and only read the Bible. That's all you do, read it for 45 minutes.

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Right, and I think, though, we need to be taught. We need to be exhorted.

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We need to be, just have our thinking focused, not just on the words, but on what they mean, and how they apply to our lives.

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And that's what preaching is, when we get up there and we've studied, and we've worked through it, and we go, okay, not just what does this mean, but how does it preach?

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How can I change someone's life through the power of the word of God, not by my own power, but how do

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I explain this in a way that people will go, wow. I mean, there are truths here that I need to grapple with.

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I need to look at myself. I need to change the way I think, the way I live. That's what preaching is.

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And God gives gifts to the local church, and those gifts come in the form of men gifted with the gift of teaching.

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And then those men can see, can't they, Steve, how the texts go together. That is the

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Old Testament, the New Testament, how Christ is the theme of the Bible, how the gospel saves unbelievers, and how the gospel sanctifies believers, kind of seeing things systematically, biblically, syntactically.

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And even in, you and I have been talking about this, when you work your way through a book, I don't want to claim to have some kind of Gnostic inside knowledge or whatever, but when you work, yeah, when you work your way through a book, you can follow the author's train of thought, and you get to, in some respect, in some kind of reflective way, kind of understand where he's taking things.

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And it's exciting to do that. I mean, there's absolutely no substitute for it as a pastor, because it really does keep you sharp and thinking like they were, instead of,

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I could always just kind of hopscotch my way through scripture and do little topical things that really kind of,

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I could ride my hobby horse. You know, but that's really shortchanging the people, and it's shortchanging the pastor too.

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So I think, you know, if you have a high view of scripture, if you believe that all of the

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Bible is God -breathed, then you ought to be able to, or you ought to be willing to teach the entire Bible.

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And when you think about what the Bible does in its sufficiency and in its authority, it changes people's lives, and it changes their lives forever.

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And if a pastor is left to himself, how do I change these people? How can I get some of these,

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I'm going to use a technical term here, Steve, from the Greek, how do I get some of these blockheads like myself and like the sheep?

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I mean, when we just act foolishly and ignorantly and dumb, we'd like to live up to our position in Christ Jesus and practically look more like Christ on the earth.

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That is to say, to be more sanctified, honor God that for what he's done.

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How do we do it? Steve, what if you didn't have the Bible? Let's approach it that way. If you didn't have the

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Bible, how do you affect change in people's minds and then their lives? Well, I am blockheadus maximus.

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And that's Latin. I didn't even say amen.

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That would have been an ease. That was low hanging fruit right there. How do you change people's lives apart from the gospel?

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Well, I guess you show Oprah. I mean, I don't, you'd have to do things to affect their image or whatever.

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I, it would be, I mean, ultimately the truth is I wouldn't know how, you know, how was my life changed?

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Well, it wasn't changed by, I went through psychology. I went through a number of things, but it wasn't transformed until I started learning scripture.

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Well, when it comes to honoring God, pastors and elders in the local church are supposed to preach the word, read the word.

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When it comes to having people who need to have their lives changed and transformed and more sanctified practically, then it comes to the word.

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And so here, 1 Thessalonians 2, 1, 13, no, 2, 13. And we also thank

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God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God.

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And then here's what I love, which is at work in you believers. I think the NAS says, which powerfully performs its work in those who believe.

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And that's all we have. I mean, you know, you say this all the time, but if we don't have the Bible, if the

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Bible isn't enough for you, then what else do we have? You know, I was even thinking about Titus 1. There's this one little phrase that I always like to quote, but let me go before Titus 1, 9, talking about elders.

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He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. Okay, well, what is the trustworthy?

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In other words, he has to believe the Bible, he has to, and the way it's been taught by faithful men.

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And then listen, he says, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it.

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The Bible has to be central in our minds, in our lives, in our teaching, and in the way we conduct church.

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Anything, you know what? There are so many aspects of churches that if we were to go around and do some kind of audit, we would probably be shocked.

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I mean, how many children's ministries are probably based on something other than the Bible? How many youth ministries are probably based on something other than the

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Bible? Singles ministries, marriage ministries, you know, on and on it goes. Divided.

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And I mean, we get phone calls here all the time. Oh, we've got this wonderful study. It's available on redfishredwhalewhatever .com

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and, you know, the Parakeet, Dr. and Mrs. Parakeet, and they'll lead you through all this stuff.

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Is that the Paraclete? I think we've got a new ministry. The Parakeet Paraclete. I'm changing the names to protect the guilty, but it's, we get these kinds of things all the time.

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These sort of offers, and what's notably lacking is the Bible. We hear about how anointed things are, how, you know, they've helped millions of lives, but we never hear about how they're

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Christ -saturated, scripture -focused. We'd never hear those things. Well, what happens is they're the annual

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Mother's Day, except they're every day of the week as well, full of sentiment, full of emotion, and void of the gospel.

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And even when it comes to sanctification, our teaching kids dare to be a Daniel, act like Caleb, stand, you know, run from sin like Joseph.

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Stand like Samson. Push the walls like Samson. Build like Nehemiah.

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When we need to remind our kids, and by the way, if you teach the Bible, you will be proclaiming

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Christ Jesus. When you look at the macro form in Luke 24 and John 5, the scriptures speak of Christ Jesus.

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Now, I'm not saying I think every word and every verse at the atomistic level does, but overall the scriptures teach about Christ Jesus.

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And so I think that would be important for us to teach our kids in Sunday school and junior church or at home, not just good manners, although I like kids with good manners, but teaching them the gospel.

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And if you teach the word, all the word, then you're going to be teaching them specifically about Christ Jesus. Well, and the greatness of Christ.

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And you know what? I mean, I run into people all the time that just don't want to be bothered with doctrine and doctrine divides and doctrine's sterile.

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And you make all this too, it's too analytical. It's too scholarly. Can't you just water it down a little bit?

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And you know what? I've got a group of men meeting on Saturday morning and we're talking about the imputed righteousness of Christ imputed to us, his active obedience imputed to us.

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And these guys are blown away. Not at all the things that they didn't know, but in how much

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Christ sacrificed, how much more valuable their salvation is in light of what

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God has done for them than they ever thought before. The more you know, the more you are in awe of God.

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And that's the truth. The world can offer all kinds of things. If you want good music, great music, sometimes it's found in a church, but you can always go to the tweeter center or you could go to the

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Hollywood Bowl if we're in Los Angeles. If you want good drama, you can go to Broadway or you can go to the

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Wang Theater in Boston. And if you want good Bible preaching, then you can go to Harvard University.

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You've got to go to the local church. We teach the Bible. It's like the guy that came here 14 years ago and he stupidly said, well,

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I'm gonna let my kids pick whatever religion they want. I kind of like that stupidity because it's used against them in the court of God's law because sometimes their kids actually pick

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Christianity. But this guy said, Steve, actually he said it in your office, which was at the time my office.

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His kid was a spark and a wanna all workmen, approved workmen are not ashamed.

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And so sparks stood for something as well. And I think the S was sinner. And he was all mad.

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I can't believe this church teaches that my kid's a sinner and that I'm a sinner. I said, sir, we're called

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Bethlehem Bible Church for a reason because we're gonna teach the Bible. By the way, that's what the shingle is at Bethlehem Bible Church, expository preaching of our great

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Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. We don't have other shingles. That shingle is not elder rule. That shingle is not reformed.

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We are reformed. No, that shingle is we are a Bible teaching church. And does the

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Bible say that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God or not? You know, I mean, it's not so confusing.

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I can't believe that this Bible or this church would teach that we're all sinners. Okay, well, what would you have us teach, sir, that we're all perfectly good?

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I don't know if it was C .S. Lewis or not, but it was probably him. And I hate to quote him sometimes because I certainly don't endorse a lot of things that he would have written.

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But he said something like, the only doctrine that you can prove without a shadow of a doubt in the

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Bible is original sin. You can prove it based on the results of people's sin. That's right, just look around.

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I mean, it's funny, you know, I don't want to get political or anything, but when you look at all these protests that are going on right now, and it's interesting as they go on, how eventually the people who say they're anti -authoritarian start accruing power to themselves, you know, and ruling over these victims.

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Why? Because sinners want power. That's what they want. You know, we're all about those kinds of things apart from the grace of the

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Lord. And yeah, you don't have to go very far to prove original sin. In fact, look at your little children.

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You know, what's the first thing they learn how to do is to be selfish. Well, Steve, when it comes to Occupy Boston and Occupy New York and Occupy Worcester and all these things, when

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I was in Virginia and then there was a huge storm and their tents were flying everywhere and caving in with the snow,

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I thought that was quite apropos until I got home to know electricity and it was Occupy Lancaster.

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So I'm basically doing the exact same thing those guys are doing except I'm at home. No showers, eating out of a campfire.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about the centrality of the word of God in the church.

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And so if the word of God isn't central in the church, there's no way it's going to be central in someone's home.

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If it's not central at the church, it's not going to be central in the university. And it doesn't take very long to see how that works itself out.

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You go to Gordon College now in north of Boston, it's basically, it's fig leaf university where it's the religion of human works, cloaking themselves to try to seem pious.

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And I would say that the people there who were in leadership, I bet you they're at churches that do the exact same thing.

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It would be better if they didn't even call themselves a Christian college. Man was telling me that he got a fundraising call and the guy who was making it for Gordon said that he went to a

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Unitarian Universalist church. And I'm just like, okay, you can't really work for a

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Christian college, a genuine Christian college and go to a UU church. That just, that doesn't add up.

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You know, the one thing about Unitarian Universalist churches their football teams are never really good.

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When they feed a college, those college teams, you know, first of all, they're never called the lions or the bullets or the bears or the grizzlies.

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They're usually called what like the pansies or the daisies or the roses. Yeah, I mean, and then they get mowed over.

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Listen to Psalm 19, talking about the word of God. Why wouldn't we not want this central in the local church?

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The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

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The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

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And the list goes on. Can you imagine the word of God saves people? It makes them wise. It sanctifies, it grants assurance.

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And we want to be a Bible teaching church. And I can say this, Steve, over my dead body, will this church ever fade away from being a

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Bible teaching church? But Mike, that thing's like 2000 plus years old. I mean, some of those things are like maybe 4 ,000 years old.

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They don't apply today. Yeah, well, I would think that maybe forgiveness applies today, death applies today, forgiveness applies today.

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You said forgiveness, right? Forgiveness applies today, death applies today. I do, when people say that, here's what they're saying.

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Their mouth is saying, this is a book written by men. And the cloud that I see above their head is,

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I am a stupid, unregenerate person who is saying all these things so I can send my brains out at night and hope that the

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God that I know exists doesn't really see through my stupidity. So what are you saying, they're sitting in the seat of the scoffer?

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You're exactly right, Psalm 1, that's exactly right. And so today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about the centrality of the word.

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And so if you're a Sunday school teacher, teach the Bible. If you are an evangelist, teach the

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Bible. If you're a dad sitting around the kitchen table, I think maybe you should read the newspaper.

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Or teach the Bible. Or wait, you could read the newspaper and see if any of the headlines are in the Bible. And maybe it's the end times, future snoopers.

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So that grasshoppers are helicopters. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.

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I walked into the local grocery store, Hannaford's, and I got my camera out, my nice new

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Mac camera, Mac daddy. And Steve, in the produce section, there was nothing.

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And I just started filming it. And I thought, this is like the tribulation. If pre -trib rapture is correct, this is the tribulation.

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Wait, you mean all the produce goes first? The dead in Christ are right first.

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It was spooky, but I could get some canned stewed tomatoes. Was there still spam on the shelf?

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As long as there's spam, you've got it all. Well, now that I want to do this juicing bit, and I'm trying to juice for breakfast and lunch with fresh produce, it's hard to juice when there's no produce.

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You can get vegetarian spam. You can? Is that called tofu? Yeah, but it comes in a can and it's really yummy.

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Now, if you were Seventh -day Adventist and you ran out of all food except spam, would you eat it? Yes. Secretly, hoping

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LNG isn't finding out. Well, actually, it's the father, the son, and LNG White. Really?

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That's their trinity? Yeah. That's sad. Listen to what Martin Luther says about the word of God, and I think -

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I thought it was going to be about spam. Very encouraged. In short, I will preach it, the word of God, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for the faith must come freely without compulsion.

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Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force.

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I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's word. Otherwise, I did nothing, and while I slept or drank

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Wittenberg beer with my friends, Philip and Amsdorf, the word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it.

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I did nothing. The word did everything. Had I desired to foment trouble, I could have brought great bloodshed upon Germany.

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Indeed, I could have started such a game that even the emperor would not have been safe. But what would have it been? Mere fool's play.

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I did nothing. I let the word do its work. Amen. Amen, that Luther was a pretty smart guy.

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Was he a Lutheran? He wouldn't be today, I'll promise you that. So pray for your pastors that they would preach the word, sing the word, preach the word, and all that stuff.

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And you know what, I would just say again, getting back to the local church, everybody should examine everything that they do there and make sure it's within the constraints of the

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

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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.

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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.

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

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