February 17, 2017 Show with Mike Abendroth on “Evangelical White Lies”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnson.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet Earth listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 17th day of February 2017, and I'm welcoming back my co-host, Reverend Buzz Taylor.

It's great to see you, Buzz. Hello once again. And we have as our guest today, for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Mike Ebendroth. He is pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church of West Boylston, Massachusetts, adjunct professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

He's the author of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers, and the Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus. Bowing to the gracious despot, we are going to be addressing Evangelical White Lies, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time, Pastor Mike Ebendroth.

Oh yes, I can hear you, brother.

Even last week, I believe, a Tuesday guy was on talking about Mormonism.

Yes, your co-pastor.

That's correct.

And yeah, well that was a delight to have Steve on the program, also my first interview with him, and I look forward to having him back. And from the list of books that you have written, I'm sure, God willing, that you will be back on the program a number of times, if not many times in the future, and I look forward to that as well.

Steve Cooley has been raving about what an excellent guest you will be, and I'm very confident he will be correct. First of all, tell our listeners something about Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Sure, Chris, I'd love to. Central Massachusetts, just north of a city called Worcester. It looks like Worchester, but it's Worcester.

Wow, you pronounce it in a different way than I've heard people from that area pronounce it.

You say Worcester, in Worcester you say Worcester.

Oh, okay.

I celebrated my 20th anniversary, moved from Los Angeles out here to Central Mass. The church, 20 years ago, was a Baptist General Conference church. We're just now non-affiliations, teaching the Bible verse by verse.

We're in the Book of Hebrews now, and just week after week we even shepherd the church, a congregation that loves to hear Bible teaching. And I tell the congregation, if you love Jesus, you'll love this church, because if you love, you know, wonderful, we'll probably let you down, but when you talk about the Lord Jesus, He'll never let you down.

And I understand that you are a theologically reformed church and dispensationalist.

The first one is see the world covenantally with the covenant of redemption.

Well I gotta tell you, I'm very familiar with your neighborhood. I used to go to Shrewsbury and Worcester every day for about five years in a row. I used to live in Maine, and I drove a truck up there, and I went to your rail yard, and so we had a yard in Shrewsbury.

So I've been through those streets a lot.

Yeah, I have a friend who's a pastor not far from Boston, and I can still remember him saying to me, hey brother, when you were a kid, did you used to potty? And I'm thinking to myself, does he mean, was I potty trained?

What is he talking about? Oh, you mean, did I party? Did I use recreational drugs or something? Oh, okay, I understand.

Bob.

Bob, how are you? And of course, remember to cook the lobster slowly, because you can't hairy a lobster.

Well, we have Dunkin' Donuts on every corner, so...

Could you just repeat for me, I have family up your way, so...

Just stepped on his Dunkin' Donuts comment. What was that? What was that, brother, if you were saying something about Dunkin' Donuts?

Oh, there's just a Dunkin' Donuts on every single corner, and of course, so...

Yes, I do have family, so could you just repeat the name of the church once again for me? I was writing it down, I didn't get it all down.

Sure, it's called Bethlehem Bible Church. It's in West Boylston, right by the reservoir.

You're the co-host, and you asked him for this information? Have it right in front of.

Me.

Well, yeah, you weren't giving it to me.

Well, I'm going to be repeating it quite often during the two-hour program. You don't need to get any more information now, Buzz, I will give it to you after he throws it out. Let's hear something about what you teach there at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I've had Al Mohler as a guest on my program. I've had one of the retired faculty, Tom Nettles, on my program many times. Dr. Michael Haken has been on this program, and several others that escape my memory right now, but I've had quite a number of the faculty at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Tell us about what specifically you teach there. Great. And before we go into the book at hand, Evangelical White Lies, tell us about the other books that you've written, Jesus, the Prince of Preachers, and the Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus Bowing to the Gracious Despot.

...Claire Ferguson, not to drop any names or anything. And I was telling him about how I would like to write something, and he said, well, don't write anything.

I'm hoping he was, I mean, I'm not saying he was joking about the fact that they don't sell, but I was hoping he was joking about trying to discourage you from writing a book on that subject.

Yeah, that's correct. Well, I wrote my first two books, I've written six. ...vernacular, this, that, or the other, and I thought, you know what, there's a lot we can learn. ...book was, if you understand, in America, you think every four years you vote him out, or every eight years you vote him in.

...book about Jesus.

Oh, yeah. In fact, I had the privilege in the 1990s, when Brother Johnson was still with us, I was at a Bible conference in New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, and he was one of the speakers, and I had the privilege of having him ask me to sit down and have lunch with him, which I did, and at that time I had not even been hosting a radio program, and had a really wonderful time together with that dear brother, who is now in eternity with Christ.

But what a remarkable man he was, and what a gift to the body of Christ.

...my ministry, and so I...

Great, and tell us about No Compromise Radio, and how our listeners can hear that, and when.

Sure, we used to be a local radio station here in Worcester, but... ...compromiseradio .com... ...Monday to Friday... ...Monday to Friday... ...Tuesday, I have Steve on... ...Pastor...

Great, well, I want to announce our email address for those of you who would like to submit questions for our guests, Pastor Mike Ebendroff, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA, and please only remain anonymous if it is for a compelling reason. For instance, if you disagree with your own pastor on something we're addressing, something like that, I understand that we would want you to remain anonymous.

In fact, if you were doing such a thing, making a comment about something like that, I wouldn't mention your name anyway, but we look forward to hearing from you with whatever question that you might have at chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

And as I said, we are addressing your book, Evangelical White Lies. Very fascinating title, definitely grabbed my attention. Tell us about the genesis of this book, why you, in fact, wrote it, and what is the premise of it.

Yeah, thanks Chris. In my life, but why do they believe them? And maybe you say...

And how did you choose what to include?

Well, there probably could be...

I'm sure of that.

And so I chose 12 of them, and that was basically, you know, 50, 60 ,000 words worth.

By the way, I think, Buzz, what he told me privately earlier is that he came up with this idea after receiving your tape library from when you were a pastor. Your sermon tapes. Just kidding.

Well, back then, that might have been true.

That's right, you've been through quite an evolution, for lack of a better term. But anyway...

For many years, I thought to myself, you know, they forgot to record one of my sermons, and they didn't put it on. What are they thinking?

By the way, I just want to, quick, I have to, since you brought up Sinclair Ferguson, on a car ride, no less, I have to tell you a very brief, funny story about Sinclair Ferguson. He preached at the church where I was a member, on Long Island, New York, back in the 1990s, and then asked a deacon and I to drive him to Connecticut, where his next speaking engagement was.

And this was quite a long trip to Connecticut with Dr. Ferguson, who, one of my modern-day heroes. And I noticed why he does not like radio interviews, because every time I asked him a question, he would pause and think for five minutes before answering it.

And he was in the back seat, and I was in the front, and I kept thinking, did he hear me? Because I didn't hear any response. But then eventually he would answer. And one of my questions was, Dr. Ferguson, what do you think about theonomy?

And I hear this long pause of silence, and then from the back seat I hear, I don't have a problem with theonomy, it's theonomists I have a problem with. And then our car broke down, and the driver, the deacon that was driving, got out of the car, and he came back in, stuck his head back in the car, and he says, I can't believe it, the front driver's side tire is nearly completely broken off the axle.

Four of the five bolts are broken, and it's only held on by one bolt. And Sinclair Ferguson said, only one of the five bolts is holding on the tire? Could the Lord be telling us that only one of the five points of Calvinism is true?

But anyway, sorry about that, I just had to tell you that since you actually had a story about Sinclair Ferguson in a car, so I had to say that.

And I said to Dr. Ferguson, what's the Lord doing right now?

That's the story, and he's sticking with it.

Quite a humble man as well. Well, you start off your book, Evangelical White Lies, with, you can live the gospel. Please explain.

For Zondervan and the Romans commentary, it had to be very technical. You know, lots of Hebrew and Greek, kind of. I just see, live the gospel, something that's pro-the Greek word, and it's like you stand on your tiptoe.

It's the volume of what you're going to say. That's quite different than saying, you know what, I'm going to lie. My son was born. I called people and said, you know, it's a boy. Or you might say, when your daughter's born, live the gospel, because it's something that needs to be proclaimed.

And so I was trying to deconstruct that a little bit. When Paul was talking about, I delivered to you as a first, that Christ died in 15, that he was buried, that as Michael Horton brings things out, they deliver the news, and that's what the gospel is.

It's good news.

Yeah, in fact, if that were true, that you could live out the gospel, there would probably be very few, if any, martyrs that ever lived, because the reason that they were being put to death, and still are in some parts of the world, is because they proclaim the gospel.

If they are just being wonderful members of their community, and even obedient citizens, they are very often, or most often, not going to be persecuted in any way. It's because of what they're telling people.

And I'm sure that this was somehow motivated by friendship evangelism, or lifestyle evangelism.

Well, that's exactly right, and I address that. If you mean by that, you know, be kind and be nice and live a life and, you know, preach the gospel to your friends. But friendship evangelism is afraid to say to someone, Christ the God-man, it's like that book, you know, maybe the only gospel people will ever read, not Matthew, not Mark, not Luke, not John, but maybe you.

And if that's true, kind of lifestyle, but the message isn't going to fail. And just like Machen, to do lifestyle evangelism, and not say anything but just live a godly life, the kingdom of God is at hand to preach city after city after city.

In Mark chapter 1, they wanted him to just keep healing, and the disciples were hunting for him. Peter was looking for him, and he said, everyone's looking for you. And Jesus said, I'm here, basically, not on a healing offering, servant of Isaiah.

He went to other gospel, it must be preached.

Yeah, in fact, we brought this up even yesterday, I believe, on our discussion with Ken Samples, that the Jews never would have cried out for Christ's death if they did not know that he was claiming to be God.

And so, even Jesus Christ himself, it is not just simply that he did, in fact, of course, this is a cardinal truth of the gospel itself, it's a part of the gospel, that he lived a completely obedient and sinless life, but he did more than that.

He taught. He proclaimed truth. He proclaimed the gospel. He identified who he was. And so, therefore, that is the reason the Jews took such great offense to him.

Absolutely. I'm going over to Germany next couple of months for Reformation 500. I think Steve Lawson will be there, and Phil Johnson. I'm doing a breakout session. And think about it this way. Calvin and Luther, when they preached, they preached the resurrection.

Now comes, we talk about individual appropriation, how I accepted Jesus and what's happened to me since I did. Now, I'm writing in 1 Corinthians talking about Jesus. If you talk about him, I tell people, when you're giving your testimony, how do you give your testimony?

This is how I let Jesus save me. This is what happened to me. This is why he came. So I think that needs to be the focus in evangelicalism.

And, obviously, we learn in the Epistle of James that it is true that our Christian life is not to be word only. We do have to live out our faith. We do have to bear good fruit in order to be considered a genuine member of the body of Christ, not only by our fellow Christians, but especially by God.

In order for us to have any faith or hope and peace that we will enter into eternal life, we have to know that we are bearing fruit that is a natural product of a good tree, which is a regenerate person.

Correct?

No, you know this for the sake of the listeners. God regenerates us, and we're new creatures in Christ Jesus, and we now love what we used to hate. We hate what we used to love. And Paul says in Romans that we're justified by faith alone, and yet, thinking of the Reformation, since I know I'm going to Germany soon, you are going to have a faith that works.

Can you imagine the God of the universe works in you and there's nothing to show for it? Well, when it comes to salvation, that's true, there's nothing to show for it. But God will affect you and there will be fruit, even if you think of the thief on the cross.

Not that it saved him, but he bore witness to the Jesus who did save him, even there on that tree.

And thank God that Luther, in some aspects, was inconsistent because he did want to throw Jimmy in the stove, meaning the book, the Epistle of James, because he had great problems with it, at least initially.

Yeah, well, what happens with Luther's world of all kinds of law and the law-gospel distinction and the bifurcation with law and gospel, he had a great hate. So whether it was the Jews or the Muslims, he was very much in the gospel light.

He went after with a vengeance. And so then he stumbled in 104 verses in James, and the only time Jesus is spoken and his redemptive work isn't even discussed is in James chapter 2. And so that's where he's living in a law world and he's wanting the gospel.

I mean, I obviously think, and I think if we, the listeners, think about it this way, maybe the first one, and you think about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are bearing witness to Jesus. Jesus is off the scene now.

He's ascended into heaven. And the first thing about progressives is off the scene. And then now these are the exhortations.

We're going to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Thanks to those of you who are already waiting patiently for your questions to be asked and answered.

And as the Reverend Buzz has told me before, how do you know they're waiting patiently? I don't know that, but thank you for waiting anyway. Not much you can do about it, I guess. But we will get to as many of you as we can when we come back from the break.

And before I forget, I do want to ask you, or I should say, I want to reemphasize a clarification about the Epistle of James when we return, but then we'll move on to the other chapters in your book. Don't go away.

We are going to be back with White Lies. No, not from us. I'm talking about we're going to be discussing Evangelical White Lies, the book by Mike Abendroth when we return. And again, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages, God willing. I am Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a Christian perspective.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the full two hours today is Pastor Mike Ebenroth. And we are discussing his book, Evangelical White Lies. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com if you have a question for Pastor Ebenroth. And as I said before the break, I wanted to have you clarify something that is very important. It is no trivial matter that some people who profess to be Christian, like our friends and neighbors in the Church of Rome, it is no trivial matter that they believe that the good fruit that is born in a Christian's life is actually co-meritus in regarding his entering into eternal life.

That these things are not only evidences and fruits, that they are in fact co-agents of redemption, are they not? And is that not a heretical and damnable lie?

Yes, and I have some Catholic friends who insist that.

They are basically saying the same thing, that we're just saying that good works are a necessary evidence. And that is not what the Church of Rome teaches as a part of its dogma at all. In fact, if you take the time after the program is over, if you look up the anathemas of the Council of Trent, look it up on a Roman Catholic website to make sure you're getting an accurate list there, one of the anathemas is specifically against those who believe that works are only a necessary evidence or fruit of genuine justification.

So the Church of Rome has cursed to hell that in their anathemas people who have the historic Reformation understanding of good works as being necessary evidence of genuine justification. And no matter what a liberal Catholic or moderate Catholic and ecumenical Catholic may say in the 21st century, and even no matter how liberal their Pope is, the dogmas that have been pronounced ex cathedra that are binding for Catholics are going to be forever on this earth, a part of their system, until it collapses.

Because once they admit that they've infallibly declared anything that is later to be proven wrong, they cannot even exist as a religion. Am I right?

Yeah, that's exactly right. I try, I mean, I have relatives who are Roman Catholic and a dear grandmother who is Roman Catholic. I want to try to be nice and not make this some kind of personal issue or anything like that, but I...

Listen, you're believing in a false... Well, then it turns into the Council of Trent. If you think of justification by faith, and that's why it's such evangelicals and belligerents, and they get together and say, we don't like Paul, how to get to heaven are completely different.

You're alone in terms of salvation and who God is, and so I don't think we can...

And, of course, the opposite heresy is equally damning, the heresy that many evangelicals today in the 21st century and even prior to the 21st century have adopted that all you need to do to have assurance of your salvation is recite a prayer and, quote, quote, invite Jesus in your heart, and then it's really inconsequential how you live the rest of your life.

You could live like the devil himself for decades and then still have the assurance of heaven. That is also a damnable lie.

Yeah, absolutely. Modern evangelicalism, the reformers and reformed believers, they dealt with these things. You know, sixicals between licentiousness and no law or antinomianism and back and forth, and even today...

And let me take a listener question. We have Joe in Slovenia who says, Dear Brother Chris, please ask Pastor Mike to advise us on how to address issues involving exacting discernment in our world of overemphasized subjective emotionalism.

Say that ten times fast. World of overemphasized subjective emotionalism. I often get blank stares, apathy, and outright rejection of objective biblical truth when addressing false teaching in the church.

One recent example involved trying to express caution in using St. Valentine as a model for love. Oh, yeah, great. Mess up my birthday, which is on Valentine's Day, Joe. In light of the fact that almost nothing about the man can be historically verified, it's embellished myth contained in fabricated wishfulness.

The response I got was, I believe that he lived and did things said about him, and that's enough for me. What should be said and done about these types of things while remaining committed to one another in brotherly love?

Thank you for helping us in this important area. I don't know if I have to repeat anything, Pastor Mike, but I read quite a lot there.

Are we talking about St. Valentine, or who are we talking about?

Well, I think basically he was just using that as an example. His basic thing is really when people get caught up in emotionalism and sentimentalism, and for instance, obviously this person has some kind of a tradition in their life regarding St. Valentine, which is probably an unusual thing, because now it's just a matter of roses and cards and chocolate, and perhaps jewelry if you're rich enough, and dinner in a romantic restaurant.

But the whole thing that very often in our day, whether you are Roman Catholic or Evangelical or otherwise, emotion and sentiment rules over fact, over subjective truth, over objective truth, I'm sorry.

Absolutely. Well, when I get asked at a conference, what do I think the bigot in primus scripture? They have other sources. In the modern day, they love the Bible, but they've also got this mysticism experience, just like the Catholic.

Pietism on steroids pushes, and if I never exist, how many other books lie number 11 outside his revealed words? Schaefer, 1972, he is there and he is not silent, but these secret messages.

And just out of curiosity, forgive me if I miss this in your describing your church. Joe in Slovenia has another question on the Southern Baptist Convention, which I don't know if it even applies to your church, so I don't even know if I should ask it.

Is your congregation Southern Baptist?

No, we're not Southern Baptist, although I teach at Southern Baptist School,.

Oh, that's right. That's where the connection is. It's a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. All right. Well, since we are talking about deceptions in the church, I'm sure that Dr. Moeller and many of the faculty members at the Southern Baptist Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, would agree with this critique, so I might as well read this.

He says, this is Joe in Slovenia again, Pastor Mike, what is the historical and theological context in which the majority of churches in the Southern Baptist Convention have adopted semi-Pelagian soteriology?

Why have those who claim to be people of the book adopted the white lie of man's ability to choose Christ before he is regenerated in new birth by the Holy Spirit? Very good question, because Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is actually a minority in the denomination of the Southern Baptist Convention because most of the faculty, including its president, L. Moeller, are theologically reformed, and the majority of the Southern Baptist Convention today are indeed Arminian and some might say semi-Pelagian, which is very ironic, because the Southern Baptist Convention began in the 19th century exclusively as a thoroughly Calvinistic denomination.

If you think of Southern Baptist life, you might think of Lifeway, Brodman, Holman, we get that somewhere, you know, four, but they had a high work in salvation, and then like everything else, you know, compromise leads to something else, whether the Frankie or son teaching something different, it's just the way things, you know, Charles Fuller's son teaching something different, watered down, and I guess it could have turned into hyper-Calvinism or in this particular case, more of an Arminianism.

I think at 33 years old, into what, onto pornography? Professor, A, do you believe these, and B, will you teach them? And if you don't, you're fired. His ground, and he had the trustees on board, and really has changed everything around.

It's kind of a modern-day, strange thing to happen because here I live in New England, look for ministry, look after another, yet in the province of God, look at the churches. So now if you want to come from southern or southeast, have a high view of God's word, and it will eventually change the church.

Yes, and I guess at the root of his question, why this is so, well, a lot of it has to do with the fact that every denomination, nearly, has been, in fact, we could probably say every denomination to some level has been affected by modernism, and post-modernism, and so on, but you have some that have been more radically affected than others.

The Southern Baptist Convention even went through decades of abject liberalism, that they thankfully have shed the vast majority of that mindset, but the man-centeredness of Christendom is something that is very global and unfortunately, tragically, nearly universal in the Christian church, and there are Reformed congregations and fellowships and denominations that are bulwarks for the truth, some of which have developed in more recent history, but we all have to fight against those tendencies, don't we?

Well, it's so true, I think of Machen, he's at Princeton, he sees where Princeton is going, and so he leaves, he goes to Philadelphia to start Westminster. Why does someone go liberal? You know, because I don't want to go liberal, but why does it happen?

Smart men go liberal, godly men go liberal, those things, and in my mind, and I only have anecdotal evidence, we have friends and relatives, maybe we get them forever, and then once that starts happening, where I think, you know, I need to re-read things in light of the plan, you know what?

I have a Bible, again, and doctrines like hell, and we have loved ones, and we just have to create new categories, turn away from the Bible.

We have to go to our break right now, if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, don't go away, we will be right back after these messages, god willing.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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