Top Ten Books Forgotten (rerun)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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

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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.'"

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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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.

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Avendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

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Mike Avendroth, and I think I have a frog in my throat. The other day,

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I had a tick on my leg, but today I have a frog in my throat.

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Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. We are No Compromise Radio ministry. We, meaning there's a whole team of people involved.

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We have Tuesday guy, Steve Cooley, he's involved. We have executive director,

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Josh McDonald, he's involved. We have other people who do things with the audio, like Mario Escobar.

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We have people who work with answering emails,

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Ray Johnson and Tim Boslin. We have folks who work on the website and keeping up with the website and some of the technical issues there.

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Who do we have? Jim Caruso, Jonathan Newton. Boslin helps with that too.

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Who else? There's somebody else that I'm forgetting now. See, once you start naming names, then people get bugged if you don't name them.

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Is that what they do? They get bugged? Anyway, we have a variety of people at No Compromise Radio ministry, including other folks.

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The lowly hoi polloi, the people, the many. I don't know who else we have.

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It should come to me, but I don't exactly know. So No Compromise Radio ministry, today we're back to top 10 books that have changed my life early on, especially in my ministry and in my early

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Christian life. So at No Compromise Radio, we want to get you to read books. And so if you want to go get my new book, you can do that.

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Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus. I'm looking at the stack here. I don't know.

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We've got about 30 left with author's discount, $10, which includes shipping. And we will send that to you.

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You can order online at nocompromiseradio .com. If you get iTunes, you probably never go to that site, but if not, you can go there and check out some of the updated interviews, et cetera.

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I haven't done very many interviews lately on Wednesdays, probably just because I've been busy speaking at a lot of conferences across the country.

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And I'm done with the conferences at the moment, trying to put some finishing touches on book three.

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That's done. And now there's a couple other books that I'm working on, but staying close to home,

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I think maybe the next trip I'm going to go on is maybe the Shepherds Conference. So if you're going to be out at the Shepherds Conference and you'd like to buy me a coffee.

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No, just kidding. Just kidding. It's free coffee there. I pretty much, if I had my way,

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I mean, I've got this coffee here from Pete's and I'm nursing that. I would drink espresso. That's pretty much it. You go overseas, you go to Europe, just give me a

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Doppio espresso Campana. That's all we need. We don't need all the fufu. We don't need all the syrups and sugars and all that stuff.

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Just give me some espresso. Let me have some Italian standing next to me at the bar, the espresso bar, smoking a cigarette, blowing it in my face and I'll feel like I'm in Italy, Roma.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, books. And I want you to read. That's my point. I want you to read.

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When I want to kick back and I watch some show on TV, I don't know, The Apprentice or something.

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We don't really get TV, but I mean, through the internet. It's interesting. I enjoy it.

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It's just nice to relax a little bit, but I would much rather have the feeling of accomplishing something through reading.

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And so we want you to read, especially about the Bible. Don't fall prey to this semi -pietistic secret.

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That is, well, you know what? I have the Bible. That's all I need. The people that I know who only study the

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Bible, can we just talk between friends just privately and don't let anybody else hear this if they're in the car.

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You might want to turn it down so they can't hear it. But they're always the weird ones. They're the weird ones.

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And here's why they're weird. Because they come up with all their own interpretations. And they, 99 % of the time, don't have it in themselves to figure out what's happening with context, with language, with flow, with authorial intent, all kinds of issues.

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How to understand figures of speech. What technically is a parable? What's a lie to tease?

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What's a metaphor, simile? They don't get it. And so they only study the Bible. And I'm not saying they're not

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Christians. I'm not saying that the Spirit of God can't illumine their mind to understand sin and redemption and the cross.

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But what I am saying is, that same Spirit that illuminates, He also says in Ephesians chapter four, that God gives gifts to people in the form of human teachers.

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That is, He gives gifted men to the church. And Christ Jesus has redeemed the enemy, brought them back as captives, and given those captives to the church to instruct her, to teach her.

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And so you go back to Jewish days, you go to New Testament times, the office of teacher, the person of the teacher, helps.

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And so they are not more reliable than the text. They are servants of the text.

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They are under the text. But God has used those teachers to help the church, whether that person is

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Ambrose or Augustine, or who's another one that starts with A?

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We can't use Arminius. We can't use Arius. So we have to use somebody else that starts with an

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A. Archibald Alexander, how about that for the double A? No matter who the people are.

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Oh, Abendroth, hey, that was, where's Cooley when I need him? God uses people that have gifts.

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And so when you listen to WVNE and you listen to Alistair Begg or John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, you think gifted people.

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They've helped me understand the Bible. And so what's the difference between listening to someone and reading someone?

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There's really no difference, except one you can do in the car legally and the other one you can't. You can run and work out with one and the other you can't.

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And so I want you to read books. And this is a book that is in my top 10 list of affecting me early on in my ministry.

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And still, if I read it today, it would affect me. I probably need to reread it. There's so many new books I get.

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The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray. The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray, Banner of Truth, Trust, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray. So what we're going to do today is

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I'm going to try to promote this book because it promotes Christ. See, that's the deal here. We don't want to promote ourselves.

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We don't want to promote our church. We don't want to promote the radio ministry. We don't want to promote our new books.

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We don't want to promote this book. If the end is simple promotion, self -promotion, oh, we promote these things.

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No, the right way to think about it is if you go to a church that's a Bible teaching Christ -centered church and you're excited about that church and you want to promote that church,

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I think that's a good thing because you're promoting Christ Jesus. Come to this place, come to this group of people where Christ is exalted.

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And we talk a lot about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I love it when people at the church come up to me and say, do you know, my kid was counting today how many times you said

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Jesus, and you said Jesus 150 times. I think, well, and then I say, it's my common response.

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What was the sermon about then? Jesus, that's right. So we want to promote this book because it promotes

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Jesus Christ, our Lord. That's why I wrote the book Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus.

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Bowing to the gracious despot because it promotes Jesus Christ.

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Oh, on a side note, I like Gary Gilley and his ministry. He's not probably exactly where we are in the

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Calvinistic scheme, but pretty close. And Gary Gilley wrote a review of my book and it was mostly positive.

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He got a little jab there at the end, but hey, he read it. Hmm. As one man said in the music business and music industry, bad press is still press.

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So Ian Murray, the forgotten Spurgeon. I've met Ian Murray. He's a kind man.

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He's a humble man. He's a man who wants to exalt Christ Jesus. And here in the forgotten

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Spurgeon, he gives us a side of Spurgeon that people overlook. Hence the term forgotten

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Spurgeon. But here's why, big picture, this book was so important to me.

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Not only does Ian Murray discuss the historical events in Spurgeon's life that were very, very difficult, the downgrade controversy.

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You can get some of the downgrade controversy in MacArthur's book called Ashamed of the Gospel as well. That's probably gonna be on my top 10 list as well.

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Let's see. I think this is the book four. The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray chronicles this debate that was going on in England and things were getting worse, like they always do.

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The spiritual second law of thermodynamics and how things go from order to disorder, that kind of thing.

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And so I liked listening to and watching with my eye, Murray chronicle this very thing, this event that happens in evangelicalism as well, kind of the antithesis of what's just happened at Southern Seminary where things have gotten better.

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But for the most time, things get worse. And here is a man that God used, Charles Spurgeon, to stand up, no matter what he would lose, including his brother, he would stand up for truth, valiant for truth,

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Charles Spurgeon. But what he does in the midst of that is he talks about what he stood up for.

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It's not just a courageous man, but standing up for grace, sovereign grace, election, distinguishing grace, what we would call reform theology or some might even be so bold to call

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Calvinism. Calvin didn't make it up. Augustine didn't make it up.

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Paul didn't make it up. Read the Gospel of John sometime and just look at John chapter one,

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John chapter six, John chapter 10, and a lot of other chapters in John. And you'll say to yourself,

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God is sovereign. We are not. The sovereignty of God in salvation is clear in the

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Gospel of John. And so this is just going back to the nature of our eternal God. He is sovereign.

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And we even emulate, poorly by the way, but we emulate his sovereignty because we're image bearers.

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And so today, The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray. And what it does is it teaches you what

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Calvinism really is. And this is the book that sent me over the edge.

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If people ask, why did you become a Calvinist? Well, because I think it's the most biblical.

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Why, what did God use to make you into a Calvinist?

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The Bible. What else did God make you use as you learned through gifted men about the

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Bible? This book right here. This is it. If you read this book and you're an Arminian, you are no longer gonna be an

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Arminian. It is decisive. It is inclusive.

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It is tolerant. It is emergent. But it is a killer when it comes to reading an event, chronicling an issue, but teaching you what the issue is about.

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Ian Murray is a master of that. So let me just give you some quotes from The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray.

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And if you're struggling with Calvinism, this is a good book to read. And if you are enjoying

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Calvinism, this is a good book to read, because this is just talking about the exaltation of the triune

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God, the eternal ineffable God being exalted. And I don't think you can exalt

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God properly unless you are Calvinistic. Now you can exalt him, and I'm not saying

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Arminians aren't saved, but I am saying this puts

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God where he is in his right place as the sovereign king, the supreme king.

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That sounds like that'd be a good name for a book. Page 60.

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I have known men bite their lip and grind their teeth and range when I have been preaching the sovereignty of God.

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The doctrinaires of today will allow a God, but he must not be a king. That is to say, they choose a

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God who is no God, and rather the servant than the ruler of men. The fact that conversion and salvation are of God is a humbling truth.

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It is because of its humbling character that men do not like it. To be told that God must save me if I am saved, and that I am in his hand as clay is in the hands of the potter.

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I do not like it, saith one. Well, I thought you would not. Whoever dreamed you would.

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So here we have Spurgeon talking about the exaltation of Christ. Now this book is either poorly glued, which

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I think it probably was, and or old, which I probably think it is, but it's used so much that the spine is broken and it is literally falling apart.

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No Compromise Radio Ministry talking today about a book that extols a verse like this in Romans.

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It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

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Here's a footnote in Ian Murray's book. The error of Arminianism is not that it holds the biblical doctrine of responsibility, but that it equates this doctrine with an unbiblical doctrine of free will and preaches the two things as though they were synonymous.

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See how excellent that is? You will learn theology. If you want to take a theology class, but your church doesn't really offer it, you're not ready to go to seminary yet, but you want to study the word, this is a good book because it's set in history and then it makes it

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A, more fascinating, and B, it helps you memorize it or understand it better because it's not just some ethereal hypothesis.

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This is something that really happens and it's happening today. And of course we believe in the sovereignty of God as Calvinists, but we don't think sovereignty means free will unless you mean like Edwards that the free will is you're free to do what your nature will allow.

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And if you're an unbeliever, your nature won't allow you to say I love God because your nature hate, your nature is a depraved nature, and therefore your will says

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I hate God. We are not free as same as God is free and Murray does a great job of talking about that.

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He asks questions. Is there an eternal plan of redemption by which God has determined to save through Christ certain persons whom he has chosen?

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Answer is yes. Does this plan provide for the free bestowal of all things necessary for its fulfillment or is it fulfillment conditioned by man's acceptance?

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The prior, not the latter, former, not the latter. Did Christ in dying infallibly secure the redemption of all whom he presented as a substitute?

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Yes. Does the Holy Spirit in regenerating sinners fully carry out the purpose of the Father and unfailingly apply the redemptive work of Christ?

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Yes. Can the regenerating work of the Spirit be resisted? No. Do we become regenerate or reborn because of our faith and repentance or is the faith the effect and result of regeneration?

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It is the effect and result. So this kind of book is perfect for you to read if you're trying to work through these issues.

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Listen to what Ian Murray says as he quotes, well, Ian Murray didn't say, he just quoted

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Spurgeon in the Forgotten Spurgeon, one of my top 10 books of all time, especially early on in my ministry.

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Here's what Spurgeon said. When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself. And though I sought the

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Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me. I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.

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I can recall the very day and hour when I first received those truths in my own soul. When they were, as John Bunyan says, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron.

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And I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man, that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge through having found once for all the clue to the truth of God.

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End quote, Charles Spurgeon. See, that's why this book is so great. That's why this book chronicles a man who says,

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I'm not going to go by experience, but I'm going to go by objective truth. Here's classic things that are funny.

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If you like humor, if you like wit, if you like sarcasm, well, then you'll like No Compromise Radio.

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Well, maybe that's true somewhat, but I'm not as witty as Spurgeon for sure, nor am I as witty and insightful as Ian Murray.

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Here's what Ian Murray says on page 69. They could not spell the word grace.

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They began with a G, but they very soon went on with an

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F, till it's spelt very like free will before they were done with it.

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Actually, that is Spurgeon as I'm looking at the quotation marks, rightly. How do you spell grace?

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F -R -E -E -C -K -E -R. W -I -L -L. Oh man.

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So, No Compromise Radio ministry. What's the difference between Calvinism, Arminianism? This would be excellent.

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And as you learn and grow, you're going to have to deal with this sooner or later. You're going to have to deal with it sooner or later.

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Here's what Spurgeon said when it pleased God. The foundation of salvation is not laid in the will of man.

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And isn't that good? God's the savior. He did it all. We can't earn it. We can't merit it. We can't do anything to get it.

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God grants it instead. Here's what Spurgeon said regarding man's will,

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God's will, and understanding God is free and man is bound. It is almost impossible to make a man a theologian unless you begin with this.

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Once let him get an idea that salvation is by grace. Let him discover the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

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Let him clearly understand the meaning of election as showing the purpose of God and its bearing upon other doctrines which show the accomplishment of that person.

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And from that moment, he is on the high road to become an instructive believer.

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How would you like to learn and grow in your faith? This would be a great book that points to Christ Jesus, that points to the savior as he died particularly to save you.

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That's a pretty good truth. If you're a Christian, Jesus didn't die generally for you. He died specifically for you.

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All right, what else do we have here? Spurgeon said on page 80 of this great little book that you need,

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I could not preach like an Arminian. What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity.

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What we want to do is to kill it once and for all, to show him that he is lost and ruined and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion, that he must look upward.

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They seek, meaning Arminians, to make the man stand up. We seek to bring him down and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God and that his business is to submit himself to God and cry aloud,

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Lord, save, or we perish. We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all.

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When he says, I can pray, I can believe, I can do this and I can do the other, marks of self -sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow.

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Ooh, it makes me want to reread this book. It makes me want to say, God elected me.

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I didn't elect him. Arminianism, Murray says, obscures the glory which belongs solely to the grace of God.

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I have underlined so many things in here. They are classic. How about on page 102?

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Spurgeon regarding altar calls, inquiry rooms, prayer rooms, how do you get saved?

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Go home alone, trusting in Jesus. I should like to go into the inquiry room.

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I dare say you would, but we are not willing to pander to popular superstition. We fear that in those rooms, men are warmed into a fictitious confidence.

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Very few of the supposed converts of inquiry rooms turn out well. Go to your

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God at once, even where you are now. Cast yourself on Christ now at once, ere you stir an inch.

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And that was way before our modern finistic altar calls.

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God has not appointed salvation by inquiry rooms. And by the way, if you're listening today and you're not a Christian, you don't need to go home and find a church.

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You don't need to go home and look up someplace Billy Graham Crusade. You could just cry out now,

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Lord save lest I perish. I've come to the point in my life where I realize I'm a sinner and I cannot save myself.

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And I've heard of an historical event that accomplished a theological verity, and that is Jesus Christ, a real man, the real

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God. Really lived in Palestine, a perfect life underneath the mosaic legal system.

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And that he was my representative and substitute. And God, I'll never be saved without him.

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And so I'm looking to him, the risen savior, who did your will and pleased you always as a substitute, because I need to do your will and please you always, but I've fallen way short.

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God, save me. God, grant me faith. God, grant me repentance. God, help me to think rightly about you.

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You don't need an inquiry room for that. How great is that? Spurgeon, November 23rd, 1887.

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I regard full -grown modern thought as a totally new cult, having no more relation to Christianity than the mist of the evening to the everlasting hills.

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So you learn about liberalism and modernism, supernaturalism, you learn about Calvinism and Arminianism, all kinds of isms.

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You say, I don't know about these isms. Well, you probably should figure it out. You need to understand the gospel and this will help you do that.

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So today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, we've talked about the forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray. And this book will be very, very helpful for you to understand history,

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Spurgeon, the downgrade controversy, baptismal regeneration debate, and what was going on in London in the late 1800s as Spurgeon, a very gifted man, was teaching free grace.

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Spurgeon said, I am aware that my preaching repels many, that I cannot help. That is so refreshing.

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We have a ministry to do, and that ministry is not to get people to like us.

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The ministry is to preach Christ Jesus, to herald him, to proclaim the good news. We have good news.

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And the good news is not, this is your good life today. This is your good life now. The good news is

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Jesus lived a life you could never live, and Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead. That's the good news.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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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.

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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.

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

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.