Confessions And The 1689

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.

The Value of Guest Hospitality and Ministerial Servanthood

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I am your host. Since you don�t hear me introduce Steve, aka the Tuesday Guy, you know it�s either Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.

Mondays we have the sermon preached at Bethlehem Bible Church, Tuesday I talk with Steve about church issues, ecclesiastical issues, issues of ecclesiology, and then we talk about other issues on Thursday, positively, negatively on Friday, and then an interview usually on Wednesday.

I have some great guests coming up on our Wednesday show. We have Abner Chow from the Master�s College. We have R. Scott Clark from Westminster Seminary West, and there�s somebody else I�m just forgetting, because those two guys are the big guns.

Who else? Oh, Daniel Block from Wheaton College. I think that�s going to happen. I just sent Dr. Block a picture of him outside my front yard gardening with my children ten years ago. The story with Dr. Block, I�m not saying Darryl Bach of Dallas Seminary, although he�s probably a fine man, I�m talking about Daniel Block of, he was, I think he�s Canadian, and then he went to Southern Seminary, and then probably ten years ago, eight years ago moved to Wheaton, the graduate school there, and my church invited him to come speak about the Old Testament and some other things.

He came over to my house for lunch, and I was so sick I had to excuse myself and go lay down. I mean, that�s how sick I was, Branson, like food poisoning sick a couple weeks ago. I looked outside, and he�s out there gardening with my family.

I just thought, what a servant, what a neat guy. The night before I think he came over to the house, and I said, �Dr. Block, would you mind telling my children a little devotional, a story from the Bible

And Dr. Block said, �Yes. And he kind of paused for a minute, and then he looked at my son, Luke, who was eight at the time, and he said, �How old are you And Luke said, �Dr. Block, I�m eight.

He said, �Let me tell you a story about an eight-year-old boy named Josiah. Man, that was good. I mean, here�s what happens in evangelicalism these days. You have people who say, �Yes, I�ll come and speak and then there�s a conjunction, there�s a connecting particle, but, and, I mean, and again, I�m a nobody, so if you ask me to speak, still I have enough sense, I�ll either say yes or no.

If I say yes, I assume you�ll get me there and give me a place to stay, I mean, otherwise I�m just going to stay at Terminal B. But who on earth says, �I require $10 ,000 to speak, and I require you to fly my assistant, and I get to fly first class.

I mean, I probably should tell you who it is, but right now I�m just still biting my tongue because I just think it is appalling. Well, back in the day, you would have people stay at your homes and think about the interaction.

Yes, for the speaker, it�s probably easier to stay at a hotel because then people don�t bug you with questions about the Lord. I mean, see where that goes? I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson, probably a sermon back in the late 70s, early 80s, and he said he was in Boston visiting a family, and they were sitting around the dinner table talking about the Lord�s goodness and His soon return, and then he talked about a story.

And I thought, you know, isn�t that neat? So I�ve stayed at many people�s homes when I travel. One town, Eric Mason put me up at his house, and it was wonderful. I don�t think there was a hotel, at least the hotel in the town there.

Kansas, you wouldn�t want to stay in, by his admission, not mine. I didn�t even know the place. So, it�s just amazing what we do and how we�ve gotten to where we are in evangelicalism. Just a heads up to all of you conference planners in churches, if you ask someone to speak or a band wants to come to town and they have a fee, then you can just close the books.

Close the chapter. I remember I wanted someone to come speak about the topic of depression from a biblical perspective. This was years ago. Fifteen years ago. Oh, I require $2 ,000. Well, I require godly servants.

That�s what I require. And so, the Simony stuff, I�m not going to go for. So that�s what we require. Have a good day. So, that�s how we do things here at No Compromise Radio. I have in front of me the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

Why the 1689 Baptist Confession Helps Christians Read Scripture

By the way, if you have not read it, of course if you�re a Presbyterian, you could still learn from it. So, you can read the Westminster Confession of Faith, there�s lots of similarities there. But if you read the Baptist Confession, the London Baptist Confession of 1689, there�s an earlier one, I want to say 1644, but I think you�ll be encouraged.

And so, if I read to you something like this, Chapter 3 of God�s Decree, �God hath decreed in himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever comes to pass.

Yet so, as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.

And then it gives you the verses underneath for every one of those sections, from Isaiah 46 .10 to Ephesians 1 .11. Now, here�s the thing. Lots of you write in to No Compromise Radio, and I�m glad. Keep those big checks coming.

Just kidding. And often you ask me about free will, sovereignty, Calvinism, Reformed faith, that type of thing. I do not put Westminster Confession of Faith, 1689, any kind of New Hampshire deal, Heidelberg Catechism.

Of course, we�re not saying these things are equal to Scripture. But these are good summaries of what the Scripture does teach. And I think if you�re struggling with issues like, how can responsibility of man be real if God�s sovereign over everything?

How can it be true, duty slash responsibility and the sovereignty of God? How can both of these things be true? I think you would be helped if, of course, you read the Scriptures, because you�ll see they�re just side-by-side, they�re friends.

They don�t need to be reconciled, as Spurgeon would say. But additionally, you will see and be helped the truth of God in confessions like this. They stood the test of time. I think Kuyper is probably right.

The only problem with confessions is we don�t keep updating them or revising them. They are things in time. And so time does go on. Of course, the Word of God doesn�t change. I understand that. I get it all.

I know. See, here�s my problem on No Compromise Radio. Some of you listen and you don�t know what a Calvinist is, Reformed Faith, the Five Solas. You don�t know what a Hyper-Calvinist is. You just want Bible teaching, straight talk, the straight dope.

And I�m glad you�re listening. Others of you who are listening are OPC pastors. And so, you want the straight dope, too, but you want it maybe a little higher level. So see, where do I shoot in terms of knowledge?

So if you�re an OPC pastor, sometimes you just have to say, �Well, he explained it in such a way that maybe I could use it that way when I explained it to the people that I have been entrusted with for gospel ministry.

So read The Confession. It�s online for free. If you�re getting this show, you can get it online because we�re now only online. So number two of God�s decree in chapter 3, �Although God knoweth whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.

And then it has the verses, Acts 15, 18, Romans 9, verses 11, 13, 16, 18. So when you�ve got questions about these theological issues I just got one the other day, an emailer, and she said she didn�t really know much about Calvinism until a few years ago.

She�s trying to study, she�s trying to work through these issues. Of course, read the scriptures and deal with that. But the scriptures are referred to in this confession. And so whether it�s Westminster Confession of Faith, I might even like that better, even though I�m Baptistic when it comes to baptism.

You just read those, and then you reflect, you look up the verses, and it�d be a good study. If you�re trying to teach your children something, you don�t know what to do, this would be a good way to go about it, too, because you have to look up the verses.

Have the kids look up the verses, say the verses, and tell them, �Please explain to me what it means to you allegedly. No, of course I�m kidding. That would be a good way for interaction. Sometimes I think dads are just paralyzed by, �What do I teach, or what do I read, in a family worship setting or devotion

So I�d suggest just going through Exodus chapter by chapter, but this can also be helpful as you mix things up and change things. So I regularly recommend the James Boyce and Philip Ryken book. I think it�s called The Doctrines of Grace.

It�s written in a very pastoral way, but I also recommend 1689. �By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace, others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.

I mean, just that there with the Jude, Romans, Ephesians, Matthew, and 1 Timothy references, just to chew on that for a while. That�ll take you all night just to kind of work through that. I mean, it�ll take you longer.

But �to the praise of His glorious grace, to the praise of His glorious justice, they are left. Right? They�re passed over. They�re left. So, anyway, Mike Abendroth, just thought I would mention that once in a while here on the show.

I�m going to read a little bit from the 1689. I am not saying that it is above Scripture or equal to Scripture. I�m not saying that at all, but it is a good representation of what the Scripture teaches.

I would say that, like my brother�s church, Noma Bible Church, I don�t know the fine print there, this is what we generally teach, the 1689, that kind of thing, London Baptist Confession. Okay. In front of me, I have a little anecdote from S. Lewis Johnson.

I don�t know if you know S. Lewis Johnson or not, but it�s the man, he was the man that MacArthur said he listened to his preaching more than anybody else. And that really spurred me on to go track down the sljinstitute .net or for the podcast, you can get the app.

By the way, since we�re not on the radio anymore, we have more money for other social media things. I heard there�s a No Compromise No Co-Radio app, possibly in our future. So I don�t know if that would be good.

If you think that�s good, let me know. If you don�t think that�s good, I don�t know what to tell you. It�s popular today, S. Lewis Johnson said, to be really, definitely not sure of anything. That�s interesting because that�s probably 20 years ago when he wrote it, 30, 35 years ago I think.

Lewis said, S. Lewis Johnson, �I�m always reminded of the old story of a professing believer who was asked by a friend who was not a believer what he believed. So what do you believe? �I believe what my church believes.

�Well, what does your church believe? �Well, the church believes what I believe. Exasperated he said, �Well, what do you both believe And he said, �The same thing. So this relates to the church statements of faith or the statement of faith in a local church.

Why Every Church Needs a Clear Statement of Faith

Now, I would assume, if you�re listening, you go to a local church, right? If you don�t go to a local church and you�re a Christian, Sunday is the day, right? You can�t say, �I was burned by church members, I was dogged by churches, there�s hypocrites in all these churches.

Friends, if I could speak to you directly in a no-compromise fashion, those are all excuses. Jesus has ordained praise to Him, the Father has so orchestrated it that it�s through a local church comprised of sinful people, yes justified, but still who struggle with sin and so this canard, this false little throwaway, �Well, I�ve just been burned by too many churches.

Well, I could say lots of things. Number one, don�t be a pragmatist. Number two, that kind of attitude is probably showing me that the common denominator in all these burned churches is you for that kind of attitude.

Now, at the risk of being the star of my own show, I think at Bethlehem Bible Church I�ve been burned by more people than anybody else here. And you say, �Well, you probably stick your nose out and lead with your chin kind of thing.

Can you do your nose and your chin at the same time? Head and shoulders, knees and toes. So anyway, but that�s not the point. The point is to serve the Lord�s people, the flock, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.

And so what you do at a local church, if you attend one, you�re a Christian, you should be attending one. That means even if you have to move, change jobs, you need to be in a good local church, right?

Oh no, we don�t really have a church. We do home church with a video feed of Grace to You or David Platt or something like that. Okay, if you�re snowed in, if you�re in communist China and you can�t meet or something, maybe there�s an excuse here or there, but this whole home church thing, or Dad does the service.

And again, there are some exceptions in terms of you�re in between churches and you need to do X, Y, and Z, the snow, the tundra, the Siberian peninsula. I understand all that. I�m talking about day-to-day.

You know where I�m coming from. But I think you should have a good statement of faith. And so I ask you the question, do you even know what your church�s statement of faith is? When you check out other churches, if you�re visiting on vacation, travel, visitation, or if you�re going to have to change churches, you ought to know.

I always go to the church website and I see what the pastor�s preaching through verse by verse, because if he�s not preaching verse by verse, I want to know why. So I always go to sermons first, then I go to leadership and see where the man was trained.

Or if it�s a woman trained somewhere, or an untrained woman, then I know right where they�re coming from. And then I go to the statement of faith. Now sometimes churches will have, these are the 10 essential bullet points, literal resurrection, bodily resurrection, substitutionary atonement, man�s a sinner, Jesus is going to come back soon.

And then they say, if you�d like further elucidation, read the 1689 or something like that. Maybe the London, excuse me, the abstract of principles, maybe that�s for the Southern Baptist folks. See, I don�t hate Southern Baptists.

So you need to have a good statement of faith. And bigger is better, in my opinion. That is to say, longer, more words, because there are some precise things when it comes to theology that differentiate us from other denominations in evangelicalism and from other people who call themselves Christians, who in the large swath of history of the world would be deemed Christians.

I don�t mean in the strictest sense, in the narrowest sense, but if you�re not a Muslim or a Jew, and you say you worship Jesus, you�re probably going to get labeled with the Christian label, like the Roman Catholics.

I�m not saying if the Roman Catholic person believes what Rome teaches, they�re a Christian. I�m not saying that. But I�m saying we need to have some differentiators in our statements of faith. So to use the Catholic-Protestant issue, are you made righteous or are you declared righteous?

Is there an impartation of righteousness? Is there an imputation of righteousness? Is there an infusion of righteousness? Those words matter. And so in the statement of faith, how are you right with God?

What did Jesus accomplish? Did He even accomplish anything? Did He make salvation possible? Did He actually accomplish anything? That�s all laid out in the statement of faith, and so that�s why it�s important for you to know.

It also gives your leaders at the local church boundaries. And so immature believers shouldn�t be teaching anyone anything, I mean short of their kids kind of thing, but not in the public setting of a local church.

But sometimes they�re allowed to teach because we just don�t know they�re immature yet, we think they�re mature, and they begin to teach something that the church doesn�t teach. So let�s say you�re a millennial, and you get some person who�s in the church, they believe everything that you do except they are post-mill, and then they�re giving teaching opportunities, and before you know it, Lorraine Bettner books on post-millennialism are showing up in people�s hands.

But see with a statement of faith, what you do is you say, �Do you agree with the statement of faith and church membership Yes, I do. If you check no, please explain where you differ. And you don�t have to line up.

I think problems happen in some Reformed Baptist churches that I know of, where if you�re not down with a 1689, you�re kind of ostracized. Now I�m exaggerating. But I want seeker-sensitive people who want the Bible to come here, even though they�ve got some baggage.

I want charismatics who maybe think the music is not very spirit-filled, but they like the Bible preaching. I want them to come. And I don�t tell them, �You have to be a cessationist to attend here. No, I just say, �Do you agree with our statement of faith

Yes. Okay, fine. If you say no, what do you disagree with? And then I know, even to help and pastor and shepherd them, I mean, I wouldn�t teach something unless I thought it was right, and so if I am right, eventually they�ll probably come around as well because they have the same teacher, not me, the Holy Spirit, through the Word.

And then you can tell the leaders, you know, just stay within our statement of faith. There's 900 things to teach in the statement of faith. It's only pride. It's only immaturity to say, �Well, I�ve got to teach on a different view of the millennium that the church teaches.

We�ve had many people here at Bethlehem Bible Church who have excelled, who have disagreed with certain nuances where evangelicals can really differ, and nobody knows that. I�m the only one that knows it, and I commend them because they are acting in a godly fashion, therefore the church.

They understand we believe the gospel correctly, and we believe in bibliology correctly, and pneumatology correctly, but there�s a difference on eschatology, and so we just leave that alone. Even in eschatology, we believe in, you know, the doctrine of hell, and the doctrine of Christ�s return literally, and there�s a lot that we do agree with, and so it always strikes me, if you�re the person, everybody at the church knows where you disagree with the elders in the statement of faith, it�s just a sign of immaturity because you want to make sure everybody knows that�s not what you believe, that�s not where you�re coming from.

The elders are wrong when it comes to X, Y, and Z. May I caution you, you just don�t want to be that person. You don�t want to be that person. So when it comes to statements of faith, a variety of different things that come out of the Reformation, and even after that, helpful things, the New Hampshire, what�s it called?

New Hampshire Confession? I don�t even know. Some New Hampshire Baptist thing, whatever it�s called. Oh man, alright, I haven�t finished reading this section from the 1689 on decree. I mean, these are great chapters, by the way.

I mean, awesome chapters. Confession of faith put forth by the elders and brethren of many congregations of Christians baptized upon profession of their faith in London and the country. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation Romans 10.

10. Of the Holy Scriptures, of God and the Trinity, of God�s decree, of creation, of divine providence, of the fall of man, of sin and of the punishment thereof, of God�s covenant, of Christ the mediator, of free will, of effectual calling, of justification, of adoption, of sanctification, of saving faith.

And we work our way down, of marriage, of the last judgment. And so you�ve got the 1630s and 40s and you�ve got some Calvinistic churches there and they get together and they have a great creed. This is what we believe.

This is what we profess. This is what we confess. 3. Of God�s decree, these angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite that it cannot be increased or diminished.

5. Those of mankind that are predestined to life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto.

6. And God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so He hath by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto, wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit, working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation.

Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, are effectually called, justified, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. I mean, that is just so good because the verses underneath it, 1 Peter 1, 2, 2 Thess 2, 13, 1 Thess 5, 9, 10, Romans 8, 30, London Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith.

Confessions, Church Membership, and Pastoral Boundaries

I hope you check to see if your church has a statement of faith. It's important that they do. What do we believe? What do we confess? Confess means in the Greek, to agree with. What do we all agree with?

And especially important that the leaders agree and then teach the people.

Mike Abendroth, 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 10 .15 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.