Sifted Silver (Part 1)

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. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

Current Church Controversies and Why the Gospel Is Not Social Justice

Mike Abendroth here. You know, this is the last week of new shows, current shows. You know, they used to be recorded a month in advance, right, Fred? But now, they�re only recorded about a week in advance, maybe two.

And so, what we�re gonna do today is record a show, I�ll record two more after this, and then I�ll have a few weeks of reruns, since I need a vacation. What�s at the top of the list here today? Well, the Southern Baptist Convention, they had their big meeting, their big conclave, the white smoke came out.

And what do you know? You have a liberal pastor who is the Southern Baptist Convention president. Well, J .D. Greer was fairly liberal in my mind, in my opinion, and now the new guy is as well. I don�t see how people who are pastors, who are conservative, can stay in the Southern single, solitary dime.

The place in my mind is corrupt from top to bottom, although that�s just, I know that�s not true, but it seems like it. And it�s sad. North American Mission Board and, you know, Randy Stone at least was wanting all the transparency so we could know what was going on there.

I just don�t know how you in good conscience can stay. And then the PCA, General Assembly, might be on by the time this is aired. They�ve got the whole issue with revoice and side A, side B, gay Christianity, celibate, but not acting upon it, all that other stuff.

Once the door is cracked open, you know, it�s the old proverbial, the camel has its nose in the tent, and once the nose is in the tent, everything else is. And I just think of Paul in Romans chapter 1, verse 16.

He said, �I�m not ashamed of the gospel. He�s using a figure of speech there to tell everybody that he is confident of the gospel, proud of the gospel, not embarrassed, courageous. You�ve got people who can�t even keep their church open during COVID, people meaning pastors and elder boards.

And, you know, Paul, he�s the one who is jeered at, mocked, scorned, jailed, stoned. And he said, �I�m not ashamed of the gospel. And you say, �Well, these are gospel issues that the social gospel talks about, and critical race theory, and systemic injustices.

This is all, they�re all gospel issues. Well, you would be wrong, categorically wrong. If you�re not talking about Jesus Christ, the historical God-man, and who he is and what he�s done, you�re not talking about the gospel.

You say, �Well, kind of a general thing. No, strictly speaking, that has nothing to do with the gospel. And once you add modifiers like black liberation, feminist, social, the gospel�s gone. And if you want to go back a ways and say, �Well, how did we get here

I think you can look at influences of men. And from my perspective, in my opinion, Tim Keller�s at the head of the list, Richard Mao, Jim Wallace. But the guy who had evangelicalism that I think we have to thank that�s sarcastic is Tim Keller.

Anyway, that�s just what I think, but who am I? I have 30 listeners. And maybe after this show today, maybe 29. What are we going to do today for a show? In the past, I�ve done this for fun when I was really�oh, I have a pencil here, a pen.

Saddleback Church, saddleback .com. How did I get such a pen? They just ordained some women pastors. By the way, there�s no such thing as a woman pastor. You can call them pastors all you want. Pastorinas, elderettes, but there�s no such thing.

You can look at 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, you�re not going to see an overseer, a bishop, or an elder that�s female. You�re just not going to do that. And by the way, as it�s been said here and by many other people, once you cave to, well, 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 12, regarding women speaking, and created the man first, and then Eve sinned, and Adam wasn�t deceived, and that�s all just kind of like, you know, I think Gordon Fee said in his Ephesians commentary, or his 1 Timothy commentary, that was just in Ephesus.

So 1 Timothy was just really for Ephesus, nobody else, especially 2 ,000 years later. Think how much we know. Think how much more enlightened we are, and less patriarchal, and we don�t suppress women.

And what do you mean they can�t do things? You know, they�re not smart, they�re not godly, they�re not spiritual. Galatians chapter 3, verse 28, and you just hear the ongoing just bane of all that stuff.

But I�ll tell you what�s going to happen to Saddleback. Saddleback has ordained women, and it will then inevitably be soft on the sin of homosexuality. There�ll be homosexual clergy. That�s just what happens.

Because if you start with, �Well, you know what? These don�t really mean these. If you can say the text that says, �I do not allow a woman to speak or exercise authority it now means, �I do allow a woman to speak and exercise authority.

Then you can make the Bible say whatever you want. So in the old days, and this whole Saddleback thing just popped in my mind, I would take a book of quotes. Like, I used to have a lot of quote books.

I�m looking over right now where I kept them all. Illustrations, quotes, or you could go digitally to bible .org, you could still go there and type in Ephesians 5, 25, and look for the quotes that they have there, illustrations to illustrate a Bible point that everybody else in the world also uses.

And when you get older, then you think, �I don�t really need illustration books because I know the world. I don�t mean completely, but I know I�ve been living in the world and I see things, and I�ve been around church people, and I have seen a lot of different things.

And just to have an illustration pop into your mind as a pastor, that�s not too hard if you just sit and think for a few minutes. So here�s what we�re going to do today, and we�re going to see if it�s going to be any fun.

John Blanchard, Sifted Silver, and the Problem of Self-Forgiveness

John Blanchard went home to be with the Lord earlier this year. John Blanchard is known for, of course, he was a kind man, and everybody that I talked to that had met him would echo that. He is most known for his little booklet called �Ultimate Questions which is an evangelistic tract, but it�s not minimal, it�s pretty hefty in its word count.

And then he also wrote, in my opinion, the best thing he wrote, not his James Commentary, although that was pretty good, and he wrote a couple other intro books to Christianity, but the one I thought he did the best job on was �Whatever Happened to Hell

And that was a really important read for me. And what I have here is a John Blanchard compilation, not of John Blanchard stuff, but of quotes for Christians. It�s called �Sifted Silver a treasury of quotes for Christians.

And John Blanchard put these together, it�s an evangelical press book. And so what we do, this is harking back to like nine years ago when I didn�t know what to do for a show, I thought, �Well, let�s just try this, a little potpourri, so in case you don�t like the topic, then I�ll be off to the next quote.

So I�m going to, you�re going to have to trust me because you can�t see me, about 335 pages of this book. I�m going to open it up to a random page, read you the quote, and then I�m going to talk about the quote.

You�re like, �Why did I tune in today Well, I don�t want you to judge me yet because we could come into some good stuff here. We don�t know how this barely ends. It�s either that or the other option was I have an end times chart on the pre-tribulational rapture.

I keep getting more and more people want me to talk about eschatology, so I guess we�re eventually going to get there, but not today, unless I open up the John Blanchard compilation of quotes and find an eschatology one.

We will see. Let�s try to avoid the E section. Okay, just open it up. Number one, �Forgiveness from others is charity. From God, grace. From oneself, wisdom. I cannot believe. I like John Blanchard, but out of all the books, I mean, there�s Calvin quotes, Martin Lloyd-Jones quotes, there�s Augustine quotes, there are Sinclair Ferguson quotes all on this page, and the one I look at is a bogus quote, so this will be important for us to talk about on No Compromise Radio.

Of course, we forgive other people. That�s one of the signs of being a Christian, and you can look at, I think it�s Matthew 6 .12. Matter of fact, I�m going to pull it up because we would like some Bible in this show.

Always biblical. Let�s see if I�m right. The Lord taught His disciples to pray, and then He said regarding �Forgive us our debts. Verse 12, �As we have forgiven our debtors, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil or the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And sadly, we sin against each other, and it�s a fallen world, and we do the opposite of loving our neighbor, which we should have done.

Of course, Jesus never prayed this prayer called the Lord�s Prayer because He never had to ask anyone for forgiveness, which if you just stop and think about that for a second, that�s amazing. But the problem here, and of course we ask the Lord for forgiveness, and that�s based on a sacrifice, right?

The Lord Jesus�s sacrifice. But here, you ask forgiveness from yourself. That�s wise. No, no. That is stupid. That�s unbiblical. That�s called psychology. That�s called just doofus world. If you can see how many times I�ve typed the word doofus on my text lately, with all kinds of these theological discussions these days, and even some heartbreaking news that I got today about an old friend, it just, oh, brother, sin will find you out.

I�ll say that. I can talk about it. It�s public knowledge, but I don�t even want to shame people. But it�s just tragic. But we don�t ask forgiveness for ourselves. We can do things to hurt our bodies, sexual sin particularly.

We�re sinning against our own bodies. There�s an effect of sexual sin that is, to a greater degree, against us than just regular sin, talking about the horizontal level. But that has nothing to do with forgiving ourselves.

There are not, you know, three great commandments, love God, love your neighbor, and then in order to love your neighbor, you have to love yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself, somehow thinking that the words as yourself means you have to love yourself.

Don�t let psychology tell you that, you know what, your dad�s been dead for a long time. Like mine, he died in 1989, and he did some bad things, and he wasn�t a good dad, and you just have to forgive him now.

And listen, we don�t forgive dead people. We could say, well, if he was alive, I�d be willing to forgive him. You can say those kind of things, but we don�t ask ourselves to forgive ourselves. That�s like one of the dumbest things.

I cannot believe I got that quote on the first one. So we�re going to try another one here on No Compromise Radio. Ian Murray, �The Word of God never yet prospered in the world without opposition. Okay, so far we have redemption.

You can sin against God, you can sin against others, you can�t sin against yourself, you could sin against the No Code listeners if it�s a dumb show, question mark. Hashtag, �The Word of God never yet prospered in the world without opposition.

Well, what I love about the book of Acts is you�ll see regularly, of course, the Acts of the Holy Spirit through Peter, through Paul, great chapter 7 and 8, and you think about Stephen and God�s faithfulness in the life of Stephen.

But you�re going to see regularly a little phrase, and the phrase, just off the top of my head, is something like, �The Word of God prospered and went forward. Here �And they continued to speak the word with boldness.

Chapter 4, verse 31. Let�s see if there�s another section here that I could find after the persecution happens in the church, what goes on after that. �We will see, and when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritan.

Let�s see what else we find here. There�s going to be little sections just like that. So the church throughout, chapter 9, �Throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

And you see the persecution, you see the trials, you see the difficulties, and then you see the Word of God doing its work. You see the Word of God not being restricted in any way, shape, or form. As a matter of fact, you can throw Paul into prison, and that�s just a way that God has ordained that those jailers would hear the Word of God and be saved.

Here�s one in particular that I was thinking about, Acts chapter 12, you�ve got Herod who�s angry and breathes his last after he thought he was some kind of God, and it says here, �But the Word of God increased and multiplied.

Herod can get very mad at people, and then God does His work, and then the Word of God multiplies. That�s really the key. And if you think about the power of God�s Word and the power of people and the power of oppressors, we know who�s going to win.

One more, let�s just go to Acts 13, I think there�s one there as well, Acts 13, 39. Is that right? �13, 39, �Let it be known to you, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

But that�s not the verse I�m looking for. Oh, there it is. �And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed, and the Word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.

Isn�t that great? Well, let�s think about what�s happening today then. Persecution, government persecution, they�ve figured out a way, how can you control churches through COVID and COVID restrictions, and does that mean some of the elect aren�t going to come to faith?

Of course, we know that the Word of God, when it does its work, it is attacked, right? The world system, you know, driven by Satan doesn�t like that. But on the flip side, the Word of God has never fallen short of its purposes.

That�s true. That�s Ian Murray on page 217. �My name is Mike Ebenroth, this is No Compromise Radio. That�s quote two, here we go. Quote number three, random quotes compiled by John Blanchard, put by my random finger generator here, and I just read the quote without seeing what it ever is.

Law and Gospel, Gratitude, and the Ordinary Duties of a Christian

Alexander McLaren, �There are no great principles for great duties, and little ones for little duties. All right, what�s he trying to say there? When it comes to obeying God, right, first of all, we need to understand, and of course, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, written by Edward Fisher, is a book that can really help us.

Instead of having the law coming from a judge, if we�re unbelievers, that�s what�s happening. We have a law from a judge, and we�re to love God and love neighbor, and if you don�t do it, there�s punishment.

Now the Lord Jesus has fulfilled that law, and he has been judged for those laws that we have broken, and now we have a law from God that�s the same law, but it�s given by the hand of Christ, and it�s given by the Savior�s hand, so that we might honor God, glorify Him, and it�s the best for us as well.

We�re not lawless people, but it�s the difference between the first use of the law, �mirror� for the unbeliever, and �guide� for the believer. And here he�s saying, Alexander McLaren, �There are no great principles for great duties and little ones for little duties, so no matter what you need to do for the Lord in response to your salvation out of gratitude, motivated by the love of God, the triune God.

You don�t say to yourself, �Well, I�ve got two operating principles, and here�s how you do big things for God, and there�s different rules for small things. So no matter what you do, don�t read books like Radical or Crazy Love by Platt or Chan.

You just watch those guys go off the deep end further and further, spiraling out. I don�t want it to happen, but you just watch it. And then you say to yourself, �Hmm. If I get up and wash the dishes and change diapers, and for the 98th day in a row, without a break, you know, give the kids lunch and breakfast and feed my husband dinner and all these other things, just behind the scenes, it�s still, how do you do that?

Why do you do it? And you do it because it�s the love of God that He has for you, and you respond out of gratitude. Okay. Next, let�s pick another one. �To become like Christ is the only thing in the world worth caring for.

The thing, therefore, which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain. John Drummond. Now, the bad news about these quotes, I don�t have any context, because they don�t even tell me the context.

They just give me a quote, it�s under a heading, �Christlikeness. John Drummond. There�s nothing wrong with saying, �What would Jesus do And Christ is an example, and I need to follow that example.

In most cases, there are sometimes things that Jesus has done alone, and we haven�t been told to do them. We�ve been told to do something else. What has Jesus said and done so that we might believe those things?

What did Jesus tell us to do as Christians in response to His salvation? Those are certain questions. You say, �Well, what about 1 Peter chapter 2 Well, what about 1 Peter chapter 2? Let�s go there, because it�s true, obviously, I believe those verses.

�For to this you have been called, 1 Peter 2 .21, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. Even there, okay, Christ as example, it�s important.

How do we suffer? Well, we want to suffer in a God-honoring way. There are times when we can look to the life of Christ and say, �That�s how you do it. That�s how we�re to live. I mean, there�s some things, right?

Talking to Satan in the wilderness, et cetera, we can�t do it. We can�t say, �Pick up your bed and walk to lame people. I mean, well, you could say it. You can�t say, �I forgive sins, are the example of Jesus.

What would Jesus do �Forgive their sins. �Well, how about you I�m talking about before God. You say, �Well, I just forgive, you know, forgive, they�ve hurt me, so I forgive them. It�s not the same.

But here, it�s fascinating to me that we never seem to read the next verse, and that�s an easy way to solve this problem. It says, �Jesus, or Christ rather, suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. For when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed, for you were strained like sheep, but now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

What�s my point? Well, my point is, there�s a moment when you do see Jesus as example, and then you realize you failed, and therefore you need him as substitute. S. Lewis Johnson would talk about it all the time.

If somebody comes and says to me, and they�re an unbeliever, �I like Jesus as example, but I don�t want anything to do with that bloody atonement on Calvary then I�ll say, �Well, how you doing for Jesus as an example

And if you haven�t perfectly lived like Jesus as example, then that�s called sin, and you need a sin bearer, therefore you need Jesus as an atoning sin bearer, which requires blood and death. Jesus as example, we have to be careful, because he can�t be an example in everything.

I mean, he was certainly a true man, and he did everything rightly, but Jesus did things that we�re not allowed to do, we can�t do, we shouldn�t do, but certainly Jesus never sinned. And if we look to Jesus as an example, even when it comes to suffering, and not suffering sinfully and reviling back, it says here, �There�s no sin or deceit found in his mouth.

So he didn�t sin, he didn�t talk about anything that he shouldn�t have talked about, and therefore even Jesus as an example is someone who is going to be perfect, and so our example of perfection, we know we�re never going to match that up.

My name is Mike Abenroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. We are still planning on going to Israel, although these days I�m not that sure we�re going to make it, because you�re going to have to have a vaccination passport, and I know a lot of the people on the trip aren�t going to go, including me, if I�m forced to get a vaccination, so there�s that.

You can listen to my brother Pat Abenroth, his new podcast that is enjoyable, called The Pactum, thepactum .org, and we�ll see you tomorrow, but I�m going to see you in about 10 seconds as we do the next show, maybe from Sifted Silver, John Blanchard.

Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. Or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.