Classic Friday: Books, Books, Books (September, 2022)

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.

Weather, Power Outages, and the Tuesday Morning Setup

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. It�s a Tuesday. You know what that means? Why are we sighing? Why am I sighing?

Because it means rain.

Seriously. I think it rained a lot in the night. As a matter of fact, my clock and power and everything went off this morning. We lost power just for maybe one second. Now one second makes me reset everything.

This is the great reset, Steve.

Yeah.

I think stuff should be smarter than that.

You know Gavin Newsom, I think, in California is saying they�re cutting back on electricity so you�re not supposed to charge your cars up like you used to.

It�s so awesome.

Oh, this is unbelievable.

Well, I don�t know if you�re tracking what�s going on in Europe right now. I have a friend who lives in the UK and he was because he basically analyzes data for a living and he�s going on and on about how expensive things are getting and he�s like,.

�Essentially, by the time the year�s over, roughly 25 of your income is going to be for heating your house.

I�m afraid to get that oil delivery to the house. I think instead of �64 in the winter, I think it�s going to be like �62 this year.

It�s going to be brisk in the Cooley household, for sure.

Ecclesiastes, Many Books, and Why Study Is Wearisome

Well, today on No Compromise Radio, to start the show, how about some Bible, Steve? You like the Bible, don�t you?

Well, I�m kind of I favor the message, if you don�t mind.

Well, that�s right here, too. I just don�t have Ecclesiastes in the message. Now, this is very interesting. It talks about stuff in verse 12 of chapter 12. �My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books.

There is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. See, it should be you and the Bible, nothing else. Why do you have all those books in your office?

That�s a good sermon. Man, preach it. All I need is just me, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit.

I think quite a few cults have tried that. How did it work out for them?

Not too well. A lot of fundamentalist, snake handling, fiddling fools do that, too.

Once in a while, I�ll pull up the snake handler deals recorded inside those churches in the Appalachian Mountains or wherever, and I think, �This is uncomfortable. I get very uncomfortable watching because I�m ready for the bite to happen.

I watched one. How long ago did we watch that? It was, I don�t know, six, seven months ago. Just watching, I don�t even know if there were handless snakes. I don�t remember that part, but the music was so repetitive, and there was just a lot of shenanigans.

We put a net over our blueberry bushes at home. We have three blueberry bushes. They�re finally starting to bear fruit, and put the net over, and a snake got caught in the net. It probably slid through 16 sections of the net trying to escape, so I�ve got 16 things I�ve got to cut to get the snake out, and I thought, �Nah, Joe, I just leave it.

I can�t extract it. Finally, I thought, �Okay, be nice to the snake. I had to grab the snake by the neck so it wouldn�t bite me because it�s trying to bite me, and then I�m trying to use these umbilical cord scissors to cut the thing out and hurting it a little bit because it�s so tight.

The snake is actually bigger than the net itself, and so it�s clamping down. I�m thinking, �Shouldn�t there be something like I�m a mouse, and I�m trying to get the thorn out of the lion�s paw? Why are you trying to bite me.

The point is, I didn�t even like a mad snake that didn�t have teeth trying to bite me.

Snakes act according to their nature, right?

That�s right.

Reading Books to Understand the Lord Jesus and His Word

Well, today on No Compromise Radio, since Steve here is in the proverbial house, I think I�m going to steal an idea that Pat Ebenroth had on the pactum, and he went around, and he picked a bunch of books from my personal library, and then pulled them out, and we talked about them.

I just went. I�m stealing the idea, Pat. That, I went over to Steve's office, it's pretty far away, and it used to be my office.

Did you get winded, lad?

It used to be my office, and I picked one, two, three, four, five, six books, and I'm gonna pull them out. Steve saw a couple of them, and I'm gonna pull them out, and we're just gonna talk about those books because our desire at No Compromise Radio is to get you to read your Bible, that's true, sit underneath gospel preaching, that's true, but also read books that help you understand.

To understand the Lord Jesus and His word. Is that fair enough?

Okay, that's fair.

Okay.

We're not going against Ecclesiastes 12 now, I don't think. Maybe we're going after, I don't know.

You know, was that Solomon's grouchy old man, you know, conclusion? You know, one thing I just want to get off my chest.

I'm looking at the ESV study Bible notes for some help, I can't see any help, but there is a context to what he said.

Well, you're gonna be preaching there eventually, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, you'll have to redeem it.

I mean, he does say the very next verse, the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. And so my guess is, it's probably tied to that somehow that, okay, when all is said and done, we need to fear God and keep His commandments, and so make sure you probably know those better than you know all these other books or something.

I'm gonna take a guess that you're just gonna elide right over that. You know, we're gonna go, yeah, yeah, he did something. So I don't remember what he did with that, you know. Nobody's gonna remember what he did, because it's gonna be buried.

Of making many books, there's no end. Okay, we got that part down, and then it says, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Well, that doesn't mean it's bad or good if you study.

It just wears you out.

Uh-huh, it's true.

Welcome to seminary.

Simon Kistemacher on the Parables

Book number one, The Parables, Simon Kistemacher. Any thoughts?

Here's what I do with, because I have a lot of books on parables, and what I do with them is when I'm teaching them, or like when I had Jerry, my son-in-law, recently taught in the parables, and I will just pull out books like that, and I will read the parable, you know, what he writes about it, and I'll just sort of sift out different nuggets from the different authors and synthesize it into a sermon or into a lesson or something like.

That.

That's typically what I do. You know, I just kind of, I make sure I understand the parable rightly. You know, let me just say this. You know, Kistemacher wrote some of the Hendrickson-Kistemacher commentary series, which is my absolute favorite.

So as soon as I see Kistemacher's name on there, I'm already, you know, I'm already drawn to it. I mean, not quite as much as, to be honest, Hendrickson, but I like it, right? I mean, it's just, I know it's going to help me understand the Gospels.

I've had that parables book for a long time, Steve, and for a while, as I would study the parables, I'd think, okay, this is the right interpretation, and okay, this, that, and the other, and sometimes there's one main point, sometimes there's a bunch of things, I'm kind of, it's kind of allegorical, Luke, I mean, Matthew 13, he nails every one.

I almost think he's right on every parable that's in that book, and Kistemacher is also beloved in my book, because when I went to ETS here in Boston in 1999, you'd go to these seminars where these big shots were, and they'd talk about their papers, and mostly just get up and talk about their paper, the one man who said, you know, why don't we pray before we start, Simon Kistemacher.

But if you are studying the parables, it's important, since it's a certain genre, a certain kind of teaching that our Lord used, many don't understand parables properly, you want to get the book by Simon Kistemacher on Baker book house printing.

Well, you know, just to kind of amplify what you're saying there, when people, typically when people go to the parables, they try to, what they try to do is decode them, right? And when I say decode, they're looking for a one-for-one analogy to everything that's in the parable, and that's not what, you know, parable usually has one point, might have two, but generally speaking, doesn't have a lot of points.

And people will try to get six, eight, 10, 12 points out of them, and if you do that, you're just going to wind up in wrongsville. But I love these, the commentaries, I love, you know, I just love what Kistemacher and Hendrickson do.

I wish I would have kept the hardbacks. I can't believe I sold them.

Well, I... That was dumb.

Yeah, I did that too, you know, in the interest of space. You know, you wind up...

Yeah, but since it's the best, I'm listening to you, like, this is the best set on the.

New Testament.

It is the best. I mean, and I tell people that all the time, I go, if you're just going to get one series on the New Testament, that's the one to get. And, you know, again, when I'm reading Hendrickson, sorry to stray from Kistemacher here, but when I'm reading Hendrickson in the Gospel of John, I'm just like, I just feel like he was there, you know?

I mean, it's just like, I'm going, I don't know how he does it, but he just makes me feel like at ease and comfortable and, you know, like I'm really walking through this with Jesus, guided by John, but also by Hendrickson, so.

You think this series, the Hendrickson-Kistemacher series is better than Calvin, if you had to pick one?

Well, I'm not smart enough to, you know, erudite enough on Calvin to say that, because I've spent more time in the Kistemacher and Hendrickson series.

Well, we don't have to choose, because I read both. If I was going to pick a passage, I would read both Hendrickson-Kistemacher and Calvin. All right, next on No Compromise Radio, this is a commentary.

I didn't pick only commentaries, but this is the second one I picked. Second Peter and Jude, an expositional commentary by David Edmund Hebert. What goes through your mind? What are your thoughts when you hear Hebert and look at a commentary like that?

I like Hebert. Right, I mean, I know he's going to give me some good insights into the text, and I generally.

Always like...

And, you know, right away, because I don't know if I... Let me think. I did teach through... I was trying to think if I did go through Second Peter, and I did. So I'm sure that this was one of my favorites, you know, my favorite commentaries on that.

Also have preached probably just one sermon in Jude, which I guess my daughter liked enough to name a son after, you know, so I was like, well, that was fun to know. You know, it's nice when your kids actually like one of your messages.

You never hear... I mean, seriously, do your kids ever say, Dad, I really... I mean, maybe they do with you. They don't with me. So, you know, but when I hear that, I'm like, oh, that was nice to hear, you know.

And you know what, if they said, oh, Dad, I like your sermons better than Steve's or your kids said I like yours better than Mike's or whatever, I'm just like, perfect. I just... I'm just glad you like preaching.

Yeah.

What do I care?

Yeah.

Who's up there?

I mean, although I may have said this before, but, you know, I think early on in my ministry, I pretty much told Janet, my wife, you know, please don't critique my sermons, you know,.

Because...

Well, what happens is I'm the dumb one that I ask for. Kim, what do you think? And what I really wanted was her praise, right? She thought it was a real question, honey, what do you think? I was ready for a backslap, and she gives me the shakedown.

Yeah, so it was kind of a passive-aggressive question, you know, just kind of a...

So true. Well, Hebert, it's interesting. I think he went to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for his MDiv and his THM. Then he went to teach at the Mennonite Seminary in Fresno, which became very, very liberal.

And I think the commentaries that he did in the New Testament, first, second Peter, Jude, first and second Thessalonians, or at least first, Mark, James, and maybe there was something else, but I... Maybe Ephesians, I'm not...

No, I don't think so. But I loved it because he dealt with the text. He was strong on, here's the flow, the grammar. He wasn't good at really the big picture, at synthesis, but the detailed look at things, he was excellent.

For a while, he was my go-to, go-to guy, so much so that I wrote a letter to him at the Fresno Seminary.

Did you?

And I said, thank you, you know, Dr. Hebert, for everything that you've done. I have all your commentaries. I even have the Mark commentary that I think Moody Press put out. It was discontinued. And this Unusual Publications from Bob Jones, South Carolina, they redid it.

Thank you very much. And within three to four days turnaround, Steve, I received back from Fresno to North Hollywood, California, where I lived at the time, a typed out letter with kind of like the E's would be a little higher than the old broken typewriter.

And he just said, thank you, I appreciate it. And what happened to Dr. Hebert is he lost his hearing early on in his life. And he thought, you know, what a shame that is. And you know, if you lost your hearing, that's a big deal.

And later he said, the Lord is very good to me. And he always has done right. And even when I lost my hearing, that was a blessing because I never had to answer the phone. I could just study Greek and teach.

I knew how to talk. I could understand, you know, I know what a sound sounds like. So if I say something, it's not something weird coming out. And so I praise God for even the trials in my life, like losing my hearing.

And so I kept the letter, Dr. Hebert.

Hmm.

I mean, that's a, that's just kind of cool. I mean, that's a, and you know, the way you described the type too, you would only know that if you had like one of those manual typewriters where everything kind of.

Can you believe I could have, I could have owned S. Lewis Johnson's typewriter. Oh, I was there. Never got it. But that's another story. Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley on No Compromise Radio. Stealing idea from Pat the Pactom Abendroth.

What's in Steve's library? I pulled out six books out of Steve's library, and we're just talking about those books because we want to encourage you to read, right? Next book, Studies in Theology by, how do you do?

My name is Sue Bettner.

Yeah, it's really Lorraine Bettner, and it's really kind of unfortunate, right? The boy named Lorraine, but he's a man among theologians.

When you look at how his picture, I can't find it in this edition, but there's pictures of him. He's really, he's a manly guy too, and he's named Lorraine. Steve, I'm opening your book, Studies in Theology.

And of course, he's got other books. I think his Millennium book isn't that good. Roman Catholicism, probably not that good. Predestination, awesome. And here on the inside, it says, handwritten with black ink, Steve, happy birthday.

Study to show yourself approved, 1996, Mike Abendroth, Jude 24 to 25.

Now, let's just kind of put that in context for a minute. 1996, where were you?

Where was I? I was in North Hollywood.

North Hollywood. And I'd been coming to your, I don't know, your study for maybe a year or so. And here's how dumb I was, because I'm just looking, and this is quite a while ago, but this is how dumb I was.

I was highlighting in neon green back then. And I'm looking at what I'm highlighting. I mean, I know I read it. I just don't remember much of what I read, because what is that? 26 years ago. So I'm like, yep, that was me.

I can't even remember the great big, you know, felt.

We were so dumb.

Well, and I think you even said to me at one point, I don't know if this was when we were getting together or whatever. You just go, yeah, I wouldn't use that felt highlighter if I were you. And I was like, why not?

You know?

It's interesting. You go to archives, that old bookstore that's since closed down, and they would beg people, please only write in pencil. You can resell your books that way too, right? And of course, now a lot of the books we're trying to get rid of, and we can't get rid of them because there's neon green.

Here, let's see what that, I gave it an amen. I wrote the amen and the neon green thing. Let it be remembered.

This is in the Trinity. This is a good section.

Let it be remembered that we are under no obligation to explain all the mysteries connected with this doctrine. We are only under obligation to set forth what the teachers, what the scriptures teach concerning it and to vindicate the teaching as far as possible from the objections that are alleged against it.

It is a doctrine which should never be presented to an unbeliever as a subject for argumentative proof.

Hmm.

Well, I don't know about that. Would you ever talk to an unbeliever about the Trinity? You know, like, how can it be three in one?

I don't know.

I don't know what his point was there. I probably shouldn't have closed the book so soon. Um, but it's just interesting. The kind of things that, you know, I, that I, I highlighted way back then.

Oh, okay.

Comma. For it can be accepted, the doctrine of the Trinity only by faith. And that only after a person is convinced that God has spoken and that he has revealed this as truth concerning himself.

And you know what? I think now, even just having you read that kind of gives me a little goose bumpy feeling. And the reason for that is because I was only a couple of years removed from Mormonism, you know, when I'm reading this.

And so anything to do with the Trinity, just kind of like it, it was, it was so important to me, you know, to just kind of understand and, and, and grapple with it. I mean, I wish I'd really kind of dove into that, you know, that particular topic much better, you know, earlier.

So that would have been helpful.

Well, looking at the Trinity section, of course, that's a big debate these days and eternal functional subordination, that heresy and a lot of other stuff. It does say the terms, father, son, and Holy Spirit designate distinct persons who are objective to each other.

And then it says, A, they mutually use the pronouns I, thou, he, and him when speaking to or of each other. B, the father loves the son and the son loves the father. C, the son prays to the father. D, the father sends his son, et cetera.

So this would be, I think this would be good for people to read even today.

Yeah.

Lorraine Bettner. And I like at the very beginning, he says, take whatever you want. You don't have to give me any, any credit. Anyone is at liberty to use material from this book with or without credit.

It's like, whatever. This is, this is the common faith.

As opposed to copyright, do not use without permission, send all checks.

Uh-huh.

And the new book on gospel assurance, it's all public domain stuff. So it says on the front, the preface and the introduction are copyrighted, but the rest is public domain.

Feel free.

Okay.

Michael Horton's Doctrine of Grace and the Problem of Self-Righteousness

Next book is Michael Horton, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace. Who Does What in Salvation, Baker Press. Five points of Calvinism.

Again, I know I read this a long time ago. I don't even know. I didn't even highlight stuff in this. I think I was just blowing through it. It might've been like during summer, you know, just kind of a, uh, and, and I think, you know, part of me, I probably appreciate it.

I probably should go back and read it again because I'm sure I'd appreciate it a lot more now.

Right.

I think then I was just like, yeah, I don't know if I really go for this.

Well, there was that, there was that, let's see. Oh, it says to Steve, Mike Horton, it's signed.

Oh, well, or maybe I signed it myself.

Well, what I liked about Horton in this book, he talked about the doctrines of grace, which are hard to stomach sometimes, especially we as prideful people, and we have backgrounds of Arminianism and everything, but he, he writes in just a lively way in a very identical, identifiable way.

Chapter six, climbing Jacob's ladder. I remember the Sunday school stories about Jacob's ladder. In fact, there was a song, I'm climbing, climbing, climbing Jacob's ladder, ladder, ladder. He said we had other songs.

Jesus loves me when I'm good. When I do the things I should.

See, see, now I find this hysterical.

Uh-huh.

Jesus feels so sorry when we're doing wrong. If we're good, he's happy all the day long. G-double-O-D good. G-double-O-D good. We will try to be like Jesus. D-G-double-O-D good. Anyway, he goes on to say, we're not climbing, climbing Jacob's ladder.

He's the one descending John chapter one. Anyway, it's just, it's just written in a kind of a, oh, he grew up with pop culture evangelicalism too.

Yeah, and you know what part of that maybe, you know, when I'm, now that I'm thinking back to it, I think I was like starting it and then skipping through it and going, you know, I wanted something more serious.

I think that was kind of my attitude.

There's like a little larger print here, page 170. Even when we have a quiet time, we feel proud of ourselves for doing so.

Well, I mean, isn't that amazing? I mean, people will say, you know, I'm, well, I'm doing my quiet time. I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And, you know, I'm still not, like sometimes, like you say, that the doing is all there is to Christianity, you know.

So true. There's only one victorious Christian life. Only one surrendered, completely consecrated servant of the Lord. Okay, we're only, we've got two more, but we're only going to do with one. Steve's library, Things Unseen, a Systematic Introduction for the Christian Faith and Reform Theology by J. G. Machen.

J. G. Machen on the Spiritual Man and the Gospel

Steve, you're the resident Machen expert around here.

Yeah, I wouldn't say expert. I just, I just like the guy. I mean, you know, it's, he does a great job of explaining complex things in a really simple way. And I just remember when we started reading this in, or reading it for a Saturday morning class, and just reading about how he was describing the world, and it fit perfectly.

You know, you just had to change a few names and places, and it fit perfectly into today. But when he was talking about men, sin, you know, God, and all these things, and he's doing so very plainly. I mean, here he is, this magnificent scholar, but he's putting it in ways that, you know, everybody can understand.

And he just, he just does a great job of preaching the gospel to people. Let me just read this part. He says, the spiritual man is the man who has been transformed by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the third person, the Trinity.

And the soul man is the man who merely has, or who has merely, who has merely his human soul not so transformed. And his point here was, the spiritual man is the one in whom God is fully working, and the soul man, he was making this difference between the tripartite and the duo version.

Of, help me out.

Body, soul, spirit.

Body, soul, spirit, yeah. And so, he was just explaining all that, but he just does things in a way that are very, very helpful. And he preaches the gospel extremely well, Christ, his life, burial, and resurrection.

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