David Platt’s Radical and the Glawspel (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.

Podcast Banter and Speed Settings

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. We�re slowing things down today. Hi Steve, how are you? I�m doing well. Do you listen to podcasts at 1 .5 speed, 1 .25, 1, or 0 .5?

I�m going to sound like I�m just being a dope, but I think mine�s at like 1 .3 something or other. It�s like whatever the thing I use.

Because I just use the iTunes one, so that doesn�t allow me anything but 1 and 1 .5. I�m trying to, let�s see, what is it? It�s called Overcast.

Oh, I don�t know that. And let me see what my speed is. I�ll just look it up now. Okay. Because I have some weird setting that I haven�t set up.

While you�re looking at that, I just want people to know I�ve always planned on going to Israel, but it probably is not going to happen, so stop sending in your deposits. Oh, well.

Oh, here we go. Here�s the settings. And they have some like optimum speed thing or whatever, because I�ve been listening to a particular podcast, and it�s interesting, because it makes the guy sound like he has a normal voice instead of his deep kind of baritone scary voice.

Oh, okay. I wonder how many listeners on No Compromise Radio listen at 1 .5 speed. Nobody can handle it at that speed. I always listen at 1 .5. I always listen to other podcasts at 1 .5, except when my wife�s in the car.

We were listening to that Jocko Dakota-Meyer interview, and she can�t do the 1 .5, so we have to do the 1 .0.

Well, you know what? Here�s a tagline that you never want associated with your podcast, unsafe at any speed.

Always biblical, always provocative, always unsafe at that speed, always in that order. How do they do it? Does anybody ever email you? Is it thetuesdayguyatnocompromisedradio .com? Spam. Spam. Oh, okay.

Good. Hey, Steve, want to join my multi-level marketing?

Did you know your car is out of warranty, and we�ve been trying to get a hold of you for some time?

Steve, unable to bill your Netflix account.

Just click here. So, Steve, you know, we often, on the radio show together, we like to talk about the message translation.

And I�ve been saying, how many years have I been saying we need special message moment music? Uh-huh. This message moment.

Do-do-do-do-do. Well, I think the author of the message is Gene U. Peterson.

Who�s now in eternity, whatever that means. That�s true.

Mm-hmm. And so, there�s a section in James 5 where James is just excoriating. That�s a word, right?

Yes, it is. Castigating. Yes, I�m just, I can�t even imagine what he�s going to do here.

Denouncing rich. And those rich people, I guess, could be unbelievers who are sitting in on church, or they could just be as a class, James is going to rebuke them so that the believers would realize, you know what? They�re going to get their own.

We just need to live in light of the Lord�s return and be patient anyway. Was he actually a preacher? Did he preach? Oh, I think he taught preachers how to preach. He had a lot of those kind of pastoral wisdom books.

Well, I mean, I can�t even imagine what he was like to listen to.

So for the record, Steve, I�ve never looked at the message James 5, 1 to 6 until right now.

This is live radio. This is going to be absolutely horrifying. Okay.

Okay. Do we dare look at the real text first? Which one do you want to do first? Message or the real? Oh, message. Okay. And a final word to you, arrogant rich. Take some lessons in lament. You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you.

I think he was talking about the market crash, right?

You'll need buckets. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you've piled up is judgment.

That's actually It's not terrible. That part isn't too bad. The gut part and the cancer and all that, I don't know if that was like a

I'm very sensitive to cancer as you might be. Texas receptus.

Yeah. Texas receptus. When I was at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute a few weeks ago, you have to check in and they give you this thing that you put on your person and then they know where you are in the hospital in case they have to track you down or whatever.

Why don't they just give you an iPhone? And then they'll say, could I see your bracelet, your ID thing? And then do you have a port? Because a lot of them have ports. I'm just like, wow, I shouldn't feel too bad.

I don't have a port.

Well, I mean, having been down there, it's just kind of, it's sad not in the sense, and you know this, it's just sad to see so many sick people. I know. And the young ones.

Yes. I felt kind of bad because I look healthy and I pretty much feel healthy, right? I feel old, but anyway. All the workers you've exploited, Peterson goes on to say, James 5, The Message, and cheated, cry out for the judgment.

The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. Capital M, capital A.

He'll be joining the next Marvel movie, the Master Avenger.

You've looted the earth and lived it up, but all you have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you've done is condemned and murder perfectly good persons who stand there and take it.

Okay. You know, a lot of that, I thought, well, that's not so bad. That last one, I think kind of.

Law and Gospel in The Message and James 5

Well, Steve, what if we, what if, what if, what if you talk about like, you know, you've taken away the living wage of the poor? Minimum wage increases, surveys. So people ask, you know, what's the show about?

And so Steve said to me today before the show, can we please have a topic? As he knows my penchant for just making it up as we go.

We call those the Seinfeld issues. That's right. Episodes. That's right.

So I said, you know what? Why don't we pull up that modern reformation article that talks about the blurring of law gospel written by our friend, John Fonville, or at least my friend, and he reviews the David Platt radical book because some of this stuff with hoarding and riches and you shouldn't save.

Remember years ago was Piper asked the question, is it a sin to buy a new car?

No, but it doesn't surprise me. I mean, I, and he said, yes, I mean the, the best, the peak experience I ever had with John Piper was reading the, the, the preaching book he wrote was that, you know, people are.

Starving for the supremacy of God and preaching.

Yes. And, and that book I actually liked.

Well, you know, I pretty much got rid of my Piper books except I kept future grace because there's a lot of bad quotes in there that I need for future reference. And I kept those, the swans are not silent because they were, I think the biographies, but I don't, I don't have any, but you know, Piper books for kind of like edification, they're all for just research.

When you, when you say, you know, you're not saved, you're saved by faith alone, but you don't get to heaven by faith alone. What's that mean?

It sounds like a conflation of things.

Stephen, by the way, as you and I regularly say, Paul uses theological shorthand. A lot of writers do in the New Testament. When I say faith in the saving way, I'm saying you're saved by faith in the perfect work of the Lord Jesus, both his living for us and dying for us.

Right. Right. And so if you say you get to, you're saved, you know, you're, you're justified by faith alone, but you don't get to heaven by the living and doing of Jesus alone. If you just add that in, isn't that kind of dangerous?

It kind of sounds like, I don't know, Roman Catholicism. I mean, you know, it's, it's backing away from the Reformation.

I was reading Carl Truman's book on John Owen last night called Renaissance Man or something like that. The three groups of people that Truman said, Owen regularly goes after, and I've been reading a lot of Owen and I concur, Arminians, Roman Catholics, and Socinians.

And you are going to get whacked. So James 5 has talked a little bit about this, you know, riches. And I think some churches have, have kind of gone after rich believers to make them feel bad that they have money, college tuition for their kids, summer homes, some clothes.

What, why are, why are pastors talking that way? To increase giving?

He's laughing, but I'm like, okay. I mean, is that too, too much right on the money?

I mean, well, that was just the no compromise blunt Cooley talking there. Right. So I'm just like, it didn't even dawn on me because I was thinking theological, you were.

Thinking pragmatically. Well, isn't that in Sunday morning's sermon, aren't you going to be excoriating people for having, if you have a Cape home, give it up, give your money to the church. If you have a mobile home in Santa Cruz, give it up, give your money to the church.

That's like a Kennedy Hyannis port accent.

Ask not what your church can do for you, but what you can do for your church.

So if you type in, um, Platt radical review, John Fonville, he's going to, uh, show you in this old modern reformation article, how law and gospels blurred. Let's start with this. Can you live the gospel, Steve?

Because Platt says that in his book.

Can I live the gospel or can people typically, you know, can other people do it?

Page 20, page 94, 109, 136, 198, 202, 12 live the gospel. What's going on with that?

Well, why do people talk? I mean, in a nutshell, what's going on with that is they're, you know, they're mixing together law and gospel. I can obey the commandments. Can I obey the gospel? Well, the gospel isn't a commandment.

So how do I obey it? How do I live it when it's not a series of rules, right?

So if somebody says law, gospel, and then they describe law would be something that's to be done, gospel is a glad announcement of what has been done, right? In the person of the Lord Jesus, uh, then how can I live a glad announcement of the Lord Jesus?

I could live in light of that, right? I could live because of that. I could adorn, uh, gospel qualities that is, you know, Jesus changes me and therefore I live in light of that, but I can't live the gospel.

Didn't one person who lived the gospel, Jesus tell people don't live the gospel because you can't, but preach the gospel?

I mean, what, why didn't Jesus say, you know, follow me, right? What do you mean by that? I mean, it's follow me, not, not, uh, I mean, it's interesting. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ, right?

He doesn't say follow me, be like me. But did Jesus say follow me? What's that mean? Well, it doesn't mean be like me or does it mean follow me? Right? Do what I say.

You believe the gospel. You obey the law, right? How can you, if I tell people live the gospel, that's another law. What kind of law is that? I already got enough laws I break. Yeah. It's the impossible law.

Yeah. That's good. Live the gospel, colon, the impossible law. It is.

I mean, who could, uh, one, one person could live the gospel period. One person could be that he is the gospel, right? He is the good news apart from him. There's no hope. So, when someone says, live the gospel, what he's basically saying is do something other than rely on Christ.

Yeah, that's right. What about these people that, you know, if you think about the old, um, news announcers, right? And our heralds back in, in Old Testament days, I have news for you, right? Hear ye, hear ye, right?

Newsflash. It's news. The gospel is good news. It's not something you do. I have news for you. Be the gospel. What? Okay. So, that could be news in one sense, but it's not good news. No, it's not. That's bad news because I'm never going to do it.

Extremely bad news. Theodore Beza, who took over for Calvin, said, we must pay great attention to these things. For with good reason, we can say that the ignorance of this distinction between law and gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity.

And 400 years later, he's still right. People can't get enough of it.

You often say, you know, I'm not going to give you a bunch of rules today, or I'm not going to give you some, um, how do you frame it? You know, if I give you some new rules to obey, some new ways to, you know, think through the implications of this text, what I'm really doing is giving you new ways to fail, right?

New sins to commit.

Seven more promises to break. Yep. So, okay, Steve, um, there with Plat and Radical, and I still think it's got a hangover today and it fleshes itself out today in social justice in a lot of Christian circles.

You kind of feel bad that you've got a lot. You feel bad that other people don't have as much. And then you start talking about living the gospel. Is it, in fact, not a blurring between even the great commandment of love God and love neighbor?

It's the great commission has turned into love your neighbor. I don't think that's a great commission.

It's a preach the gospel. Right. I mean, we're to make disciples. We're literally to disciple people, right? So, if the goal is to get people to follow Jesus, which is what it means to be a disciple, how does that have anything to do directly with our stuff?

And how does it, you know, loving your neighbor is not akin, at least the way it's explained, it's not akin to making disciples. The most loving thing you can do is to make a disciple. And that starts with preaching the gospel.

But instead, what, you know, has become kind of the new understanding of loving your neighbor means to accommodate their sinfulness, means to give them stuff. It's everything that the gospel doesn't contain, right, is the new understanding of love your neighbor.

Steve, what do you think has happened at the church that Platt was at, and now he's since moved on to whatever the, it starts with an M someplace, I think outside of DC. How many people do you think heard the message, felt convicted, right, heard the blurred, commingled law gospel message, felt really bad, sold a bunch of stuff, and then now they don't hardly have any of that stuff.

I mean, I think I heard that someone said that Piper, when he was back at his church, talked about, well, let's sell our homes in suburbia because it's too white and let's move into downtown Minneapolis.

And someone told me 400 people did that. I bet a ton did.

You know, why? Because you have somebody who is charismatic in a good way, right? I mean, in other words, somebody that people want to listen to and follow, and they love their teaching and everything else, like a Piper, like a Platt, that kind of person.

He tells you to do something, for the most part, if you think, well, it's not sinful, right? I mean, it's not sinful to sell your house and move into central Minneapolis or whatever, so I'm going to do it.

Now, it may not be sinful, but it may not be biblical either, right? I mean, where does a pastor have that kind of authority? In the same way, I'm willing to say that probably a large number of people did what Platt said, even beyond the borders of his church, and here's the question.

When they sold everything and gave it to whatever they gave it to, whether it was the poor or whether it was to missions or, you know, whatever they did, was the, you know, and it will echo down for eternity, you know, that's kind of the promise.

Was the result, are we feeling the result of that now, right? I mean, if you look out at the work of David Platt, could you then say, well, we can see the eternal ramifications of what he did. Millions have come to Christ as a result, or, you know, or did people just kind of basically.

Throw their money away? And if they did it under the Lord, there will be eternal rewards, but still, it's bad preaching because it's essentially the social gospel, which isn't good news at all. It brings law into the gospel, and that's why Christianity and liberalism by Machen is so excellent because it keeps those categories clear.

We want to help the poor. We want to do those things. But, you know, what if somebody came to you, Steve, and they were an older widow here at the church, and they said, you know what, I've got a couple kids, and I'm in good standing with the kids, but, you know, I've been listening to Radical by Platt and other people and Hoarding, and I've got too much, and I just want to give it all to the church.

I would recommend that she does not do that. I don't want all her money because she has to take care of herself. It is a godly thing to pass down money to your grandkids. Even the Proverbs talks about that.

So, I…. Pete. Well, I'm against all this kind of, you know, don't plan for tomorrow, right? I mean, I think, and we're not ready with an exposition or anything, but I think if we went through the Proverbs, we would find plenty of places where it talks about money, and it doesn't say give it all away.

It doesn't say don't give a thought about tomorrow. I mean, certainly we would understand Matthew 5 and say, or Matthew 6, and say, we don't need to worry because God will meet our needs, but the point isn't to live, like, so in the moment where we're just like, you know, I have $100 ,000 right now.

Well, I'm going to give 900, you know, I'm going to give it all away except for $1, and then trust that the Lord will just replenish that tomorrow, or that he'll give me, you know, we don't live foolishly, in other words.

Right. Mike Avendroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. Steve, Platt says in his book, Radical, Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, is a subtitle. He says, the biblical gospel says you are an enemy of God, dead in your sins, and in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life.

This is the beauty of the gospel, Platt says. Tell me about the good news. How good is that news right there? You're an enemy of God. Is that good news? No. Dead in sins. Bad news. And of course, it's news that needs to be proclaimed.

Right.

But that's not the good news. Right. I mean, and we say, like what you said there, we give the bad news in order that people might understand the good news, right? If they don't understand that they're condemned, that they're sinners before holy God, then they would never understand why they need a Savior.

Right. And to go back to categories, and the bad news is because of the law. Right. You've broken the law, therefore you're an enemy of God. You've broken the law, you're dead in sins. You've broken the law, you're in rebellion.

Not even talking about even Adam's imputed sin, but your own sins. That's all bad news because you're a lawbreaker. Now we have good news. God could have left you in your sins because He did that with the angels that fell, but He's merciful and compassionate and gracious.

And let me tell you about Jesus incarnate. Jesus dead, Jesus risen, Jesus ascended.

And that's the good news, right? That is the good news. We don't... You know, when I go to preach the good news, I don't say, well, the good news is you're dead in your sins and trespasses.

Now we're now dismissed. Now, you know what I try to do because for so long, I don't think I did it. I was too serious or whatever my excuse was. I try to tell people, you, me, preachers, when you have good news, make sure you write a little smiley face right in your notes if you're not prone to smile.

So when you have good news for people, smile. So that's kind of a good little litmus test. Can you smile when you say you're dead in your sins?

Oh, you, you, you're just... You're in rebellion. Yeah, I just want to pinch you in the cheek. You're dead in your sins and trespasses. I think it'd be...

If it's wrong not to smile with good news, it's wrong to smile when you're giving the bad news. You know what, Steve or Dana Farber, and I know you've come in here for your wife, but we tested you while you were here as well.

And huge grin and smile. You have a lymphoma.

That is just, come on. Your smile is incongruent with my status. It does not comport. Yeah, I'm with you. But this whole, you know, plaid thing and the getting rid of your riches and all that. I mean, it's just some kind of like, really, I would say it's neo-gnosticism, which is to say it's a new kind of inner knowledge, secret knowledge, you know, a new way of living.

But it's not new. It's kind of a rehash thing, right? It's liberalism repackaged. And it's this idea that money in and of itself is evil. The accumulation of it is evil. And the good news is you can get rid of your evilness by jettisoning your goods.

Yeah. Kind of a white guilt assuaging, you know, or if you're not white and you got money, you need to have your guilt assuaged too. So give your money away.

This is, again, you know, I hate to frame it this way, but this, again, just another form of kind of Catholic thinking, like sex is evil. Money is evil. All these things, you know, and the answer is no, they're not evil in and of themselves.

It's what you do. It's your motivation. Those are the issues, the hard issues, the sin issues. And it's not the stuff itself. It's not the goal itself.

And then a good flip side to all this is Horton's book, Ordinary, because if you're a mom and you're doing dishes and you've got four kids running around, how can you be radical for the Lord? Answer, you don't have to be.

You can just be faithful and walk by faith in the Lord Jesus.

Give it all away and go hunting bear the next day for those kids to eat. That's what you do.

Mike Gabendroth, Steve Cooley. If you just type in John Fonville, a radical review, you'll find this. I'm trying to be strong for my wife, but I'm just hurting. You would have the gall to come up to me and say, I don't know if you're a Christian or not because you're not handling this trial right.

But that's what we have now in evangelicalism. It's crazy. Oh, the show's already over. My name is Mike Gabendroth. God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Gabendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text. Please come and join us.

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.