Denny Burk Interview

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.

Show Intro, Music References, and the New Order Bit

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, I�m Mike Abendroth, and today for me, this is show numero cuatro. How many languages do you know of the number four? I am not sure. I�m just listening to the new New Order album, I think I need a New Order intro for Welcome to No Compromise Radio, I mean, it�s free, this is New Order.

Somebody said, you know, it�s pagan music, how can you be saying your show is No Compromise when you�ve got pagan music on the front? I don�t know, that�s a good question, probably for the same reason I�ve got the skull on the desk and the Predicta pen.

Alright, should we use New Order for the new intro, because I need a new intro, I�m just lazy, I haven�t got around to do it. So do we want New Order for the new intro for No Compromise Radio? Predicta pen says, it�s a no-brainer, we already used that with Fred, let�s get another one.

Dude, no way. So I guess that�s it. I saw New Order in Anaheim, California in 1984 -85-ish at Billy Barty�s skating rink. Like a 40-minute show and then they just left. See ya. Bye. Somebody said, well, we like your show because of the music references and pop culture.

Well, number one, then what does that say about you? Number two, what does that say about me? Yikes. Went on a bicycle ride today and my legs are burning, burning. Bro, you got me burning. Major, the wonder word for the day card, Joel Steen�s special magical mystery tour, best life now game, I�m shuffling.

Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. The word is �dream. Here in Worcester, there�s a Dream Center. It was purchased by Charismatic Church and they had something called the Reef Center downtown.

I guess the dream is over, it�s up for sale and maybe just purchased. We need a new building, maybe we need to look at the Dream Center. Maybe. You can get the new book, �Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise on our website, nocompromiseradio .com.

There should be a link there. I don�t know if there�s a NoCoMedia site yet, we�re trying to get one, but you never know. We�ve been talking a little bit about the Gilligan�s Island of Righteousness known as free will.

Free Will, Free Grace, and the Corruption of Human Nature

Hey, buddy, little buddy, people love free will and they don�t even think through it. They just think it�s a default. God doesn�t make anybody robotically worship Him. What love is this if it�s ordained, preordained, foreknown, pre-known, forgot all the other words.

So what do you do when you forget the words, you just go back to new order. When you think of the will, for those of you that weren�t listening last week, just think of it this way. To what extent, to what degree did Adam�s sin corrupt all those in Adam?

Remember first sin of Adam, not his later sins, but the first sin of Adam was credited to our account and consequently we have sin nature. I don�t deny that we have a sin nature, but we have to back up prior to that so we could do Romans 5 and Imputation if we needed to.

Federal representation, covenant headship, but we don�t even need to go there. You can just think about by nature are we children of wrath, Ephesians 2. To what degree, to what extent did the fall affect the mind of the person?

Well, we don�t think right. What about the body? Well, the wages of sin is death. We see ourselves getting older and decaying and people die. What about our emotions, are your emotions all lined up? And what about your will?

So if you say I have free will because I choose things freely based on my nature, I�ve got no argument with you. Because if you�re an unbeliever, you freely choose based from your nature and you choose things always against God and you choose one sin versus another.

And you say, well, I�m going to read my Bible today and not pornography. Both are sins, one�s a bigger sin than the other sin. In the flesh, it�s impossible to please God. If you�re a Christian and you say I have a nature and I make decisions based on my nature, okay, I get that, but you are a slave to righteousness or you�re a slave to sin, Romans 6.

Unbelievers are slaves to do Satan�s will. So how free is your will if you�re a pawn of Satan and you�re a slave to your own sin and you have a will that�s affected by the fall? Yeah, but I don�t like robot talk.

Or if you�re English and you want to have a controversy, robot, it�s a robot. Well, they don�t have many shows with robots in them anymore. They used to, but not too many anymore. We used to watch Lost in Space growing up.

I didn�t care for it that much. I think I actually did like Gilligan better. I haven�t watched many Gilligan�s Islands. I have watched a documentary this summer, believe it or not. Summers for me are reserved.

I try to read plenty of the Old Testament. And then in my free time, I usually read biographies, nonfiction, historical things. And you just get to see the wonder of how God makes the mind and creativity in the life of a human, the providence of God.

There�s still theological intersections and trajectory. We love the word �trajectory. Well, maybe we don�t, but the liberal theologians who are hermeneutically designed, maybe they like that �trajectory.

But it�s a fine word, isn�t it? Why let them steal the word? Why? Why? What was I talking about again? Who can tell me? I�ve forgotten. Probably something to do with free will, correct? Correct. I am after this.

Who knows what I was talking about, but I�m after you thinking about free grace instead of free will. Someone has to save you. You can�t save yourself freely. Robot talk. There we go. I knew I would remember the robot talk, right?

That would be for certain. And the robot talk needs to submit itself to scripture. What does the scripture teach? How are people saved? Free grace? Sovereign grace? Distinguishing grace? All synonyms.

Or free will. At the end of the day, extrapolate out. Use your trajectories. Figure that out. And you will say, hmm, it�s either one or the other. You can�t have both. I prefer to submit to scripture and then to give the ultimate praise to God that God freely chose me.

He gave me a new nature, John 3, John 1, Titus 3. He saved us. And then we freely responded. This is not caveman stuff. Cavewoman. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Although that is the topic of one of my Sunday night IBS classes here, Embracing the Differences.

Me Tarzan, you Jane. Actually, that�s my title because I�m the teacher, but Mrs. A. Kimberly Abendroth gave me that title. She�s going to be on No Compromise Radio. Did you know that? I�m going to make her pick a wonder word.

Let�s see. Will Kimberly be on No Compromise Radio? Not for a million dollars. That�s basically what she said. I�m going to have to order her. Once in a blue moon, she says, are you ordering me? Because I don�t want to order her.

That�s not the point. So last time we looked at a lot of verses, a lot, a lot of verses for God�s sovereign grace. I�m trying to get that out of your mind. I don�t want you to be foggy. I don�t want you to have a foggy notion, as Velvet Underground used to say, regarding the will.

Sovereign grace is what we�re after. No man can come to me, Jesus said, except the Father which hath sent to me draw him and I will raise him up on that last day. Yeah, but what about whatsoever? What about whosoever?

What about whichsoever? What about whithersoether? Was there actually one? King James, yes. The king�s heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever he will. So see?

You thought I was misspeaking. You thought it was different, interesting, milk, etc. You didn�t know I was talking for real, for reals, for King James reals. He turneth it, God does, the king�s heart.

God turneth the king�s heart whithersoever he will. Put that in your trajectory and smoke it. How about that? We quoted Luther, we quoted Calvin, we looked at some confessions, trying to get you to say, okay, uncle, man from uncle, I give, I will no longer believe in Gilligan�s Island of Righteousness any longer.

How many other pop references can we put into a show? Could we ask the wonder words? We don�t want to do that. Belgic Confession, 14. I love Heidelberg and I love Belgic. Good waffles, too. By the way, when we did go to Belgium, I took the kids to the center square, I think it was Brussels.

Brussels is the home of the Erasmus Museum. They�ve got the skull there, Satanist. They said it�s Erasmus�s, but I think they�re really Satanist there. I was after the New Testaments, looking at Erasmus�s New Testaments, that�s what I was after.

They let us in free. I told them I was a doctoral student. Belgic Confession, we reject all that is taught repugnant to this concerning the free will of man. I think so. You want to just put the cards on the table right now?

Free will, as defined by most, is repugnant. How about that? I�ll see how far that gets me on certain shows. Why? No, why, regarding Belgic Confession, I�ve read about it on shows. Since man is but a slave to sin, and has nothing of himself unless it is given from heaven.

For who may presume to boast that he of himself can do any good, since Christ saith, No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me, draw him. Who, Belgic Confession number 14, will glory in his own will, who understands that to be carnally minded is enmity against God.

Who can speak of his knowledge, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God? In short, who dare suggest any thought, since he knows that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but that our sufficiency is of God.

And therefore, what the apostle saith ought justly to be held sure and firm, that God worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. For there is no will, nor understanding, conformable to the divine will and understanding, but what Christ hath brought in man, which he teaches us when he saith, Without me ye can do nothing,.

The Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession on Free Will

Canons of Dort 3, slash 4, colon 3, I don't know how to say that title. We need a theological Turabian plug in. Therefore, all men are conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit.

They are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, nor to dispose themselves to reformation. How's that for freedom? It doesn't sound too free to me. It sounds enslaving.

Will somebody get me out of this quicksand of my own sin and my own muck and my own mire? The answer is Jesus to the rescue, John 3, God the Son comes to save people. Aren't you glad for that? God loves sinners.

What does the Westminster Confession say? 9. Of free will. Oh, this is good. And you say, yes, but all these quotes of these people, I can just get rid of every one of them by saying, whosoever will. Okay, then I suggest you go to one place and find a different show.

I've already gave you the verses last show. This is a two-parter. Read Romans 9, figure that out. Number one, number two, both in John 3 and Romans 10, you won't find the word whosoever in the original.

You'll find those believing. That's what you'll find. You've got to know your Greek language there. Just type it in on the online thing for Interlinear. You'll soon find it. Even the Byzantine texts. Westminster Confession.

10. Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God, but yet mutably it is to change, so that he might fall from it. 11. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

So as a natural man, being altogether adverse from that good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto. 12. When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good.

Yet so as that, by reasoning of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. 13. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.

Say what? Okay, here's what I can say to make it simple for the no-co folks in heaven. Talk to me about your free will, your vaunted free will, your idolized free will, your Gilligan's Island of Righteousness free will.

Talk to me. In heaven, are you free to sin if you want? Okay, come on, come on, Polar Seminary, Pray, Build, March, Racial Reconciliation. You will not be free to sin in heaven. Now it sounds kind of robotic to me, robotic, robots.

Of course not. Heaven's going to be wonderful because you can't sin, you won't want to sin, your nature's going to be changed. See, the will and the nature always cable-tied together, always riveted together, always welded together, always soldered together.

How do you spell solder? People just don't think. It's just this, you know, I got to have my free will or else, you know, I'm a robot. Okay, well tell me about heaven then. Let's trajectory up to heaven and tell me about it.

See these hobgoblins of inconsistency for the little minds. I'm not saying you got a little mind, I'm saying it's a pea-brained mind. No, I'm just kidding. Of course, when you first get saved, you start to study, you hold on to free will for a while and then you mature a little bit and you go, Uncle, okay, I guess I'm as bad as the scripture says and it had to be God's free grace to save me.

Free grace trumps free will. If you're playing Stratego and you both come up to the same thing and you've got the, you know, certain thing and there's a bomb or whatever, who loses? What about the king?

What about, I don't even know what these things are, I played Risk, I didn't play that so much. Who wins? Which one trumps? You're playing chess. Which one, which one trumps the other? No, that's the wrong illustration.

A pawn can kill a king for that matter. Who's got the small mind now, Mike? Free grace or free will? You can only choose one. Hmm? I'm listening. I'm listening. William Tyndale. They go and set up free will with the heathen philosophers and say that a man's free will is the cause why God chooses and not another, contrary to all scriptures.

So at the end of the day, it's not predestination, predestiny, determining people's destiny beforehand. It's really what? If free will's your bag, then it's not predestination you believe in, it's what?

Post-destination. Determining people's destination later. You dig? You dig? Predestination, post-destination. John Knox. The general consent of all that sect is that God, by his foreknowledge, counsel, and wisdom, has no assured election, neither yet any certain reprobation, but that every man may elect or reprobate himself by his own free will, which he has, say they, to do good or evil.

All these things are forged by their own brains, and polished by the finest of their wits, when yet in very deed they are but the rotten heresies of Pelagius, long ago confuted by Augustine. I think John Knox was the original no-co-man, right?

Like the Marlboro Man. Oh, forget that little detail that the Marlboro Man, first four of them, died of cancer. I believe that Marlboro first came out in 1924 as a woman's cigarette. They began to realize in the 50s, I think the 50s, maybe late 40s, probably 50s, that smoking was bad for you and was going to kill you, so you need filters.

But only girls, ladies, the finer sex, the fairer sex, would have filters, they thought. So, what'd they do? They hired some cowboys, and they had some other ideas for tough men, masculine men, steeler kind of guys, Pittsburgh Steelers, steel mill.

But the cowboy one took off so fast, they went up to number four, and then eventually took first place, Marlboro. And then four of them died. That's why they call them the Marlboro Killers or Marlboro Reds.

That's everything you wanted to know about Marlboro, but were afraid to ask. Marlboro. John Knox. Marlboro. Strike that. No kill man. John Knox. That was so good, let's have another John Knox quote. Ye Anabaptists be proud contenders of the free grace of God offered to man in Christ Jesus.

Contenders, I have no idea what that means. I'm from Nebraska. But that's what it said. And for with the Pelagians and Papists ye are become, that's what it says, ye are become teachers of free will and defenders of your own righteousness.

That was written in his little tract called An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavalations, written by an Anabaptist and adversary to God's eternal predestination. I think I can give you a quote today.

Jerome Zanchius. Z-A-N-C-H-I-U-S. Z-A-N-C-H-I-U-S. No free will of the creature can resist the will of God. Quoting Augustine. Si? Si? Para tu? Let's see, how do you do it? Credo? Credes?

Crede? Credemos? Credes? Creden? I don't know. Is credo even it? It's credo Latin. How would I know? I'm a radio show host. What would I know? Henry Ainsworth. We grant evil free will, or free will to evil, is remaining in all natural men.

We believe that free will to good is from grace and regeneration. Okay, that helps us as we think through the issue. You are free to do evil all you want, but if you were ever free to do good, who gives you the ability knowing you're dead in trespasses and sins?

All this stuff is falling down. Who gives you the ability to do good? Who would be the one who gets credit for that? Who gets praise for that? Who gets the glory for that? Who's the one? It has to be from God's grace and His regeneration.

That is the issue. We, with Henry Ainsworth, believe you grant evil free will, or free will to evil, either way, is remaining in all natural men. Unbelievers have all that, but if you want to do something good, like I'm going to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, where does that come from?

Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Notice, Jill, I didn't say so very many times today, just a few. When I say it, I now hear it, but I try not to say it anymore. I just kind of plow on. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

You can tell your friends about the show. We'd love it if you would. What else? I think I'm out. This is four shows today. It makes me tired. It's rainy. I'm going to go home and join my wife and children tonight.

God bless.

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 6. 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.