Smoking Out Calvinist Past (Part 2)

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.

The Book, the Website, and the Day’s Topic

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It is about 4 .30 and it's dark out. Welcome to New England. Welcome to New England. Oh, kind of a shock for a California guy like me, but 14 years in a place still makes you want to be in California.

Oh man, but the good thing is I don't run my life and this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. And so we are No Compromise Radio ministry and we have my new book on the website. If you want to go to nocompromiseradio .com, the guys do a great job with the website, updating it a few times a week.

So you can pull up some of your old favorite shows, the oldies, but goodies. And my book is called The Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus. And it talks about God the son as King and the implications.

I wrote to the summer, my third book, and I'm still shopping around to other publishers. And typically the response is nobody knows you, so nobody will buy it. I guess that's fair enough because you have to make money.

Why publish a book if you can't make money? So I even picked a topic that was pretty spicy and still can't get anybody to publish it. But we are holding our breath. Girl, probably holding her nose. But you can pick up this book, Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus.

It's got a little No Compromise edge, but this next book that I'm shopping around, it's definitely got the noco style. That's how I wrote it. 30 short, 1 ,000 word chapters, noco style. Noco a day keeps the confusion away, that kind of stuff.

Just win, baby. Today is part two regarding Tom Askall's blog, where he listed a Tennessee Southern Baptist, we don't know who it was, who had a reformed red flag list. And this reformed red flag list was supposed to be used for churches in the Tennessee area.

So you could figure out if your pastor or someone on staff was a Calvinist, and then you could fire him. So I said at the end of the last show regarding this topic, probably the best thing you could do is you could say, pastor, I have a question, can we meet?

Sure, set up a time. What is Calvinism? So I can understand it properly, so I'm not influenced by wingnuts like this guy. And are you one? And I think the pastor should answer both questions. This is what Calvinism is, and this is what I am.

This is who I am. This is what I believe. I actually had one guy come to me. He's in glory now, but he came to me and he said, here's how he phrased it. He said, and this is him speaking, this is Tom speaking, not me.

Tom said to me, Mike, am I a Calvinist? He wasn't asking me if I was, he was asking me if he was. And so I described what Calvinism was. And then he said, okay, I just wanted to know. And actually he was a Southern Baptist from the South, spent some time in Atlanta, family down there.

And so that's a bad thing. He's at a church now, it's a Baptistic church and they're Calvinistic, watch out. It's crazy. So we're going to keep going through this red flag because I personally have nothing else to talk about.

Just kidding. I actually have a stack. Let me look at my stack, hold on. The stack is about a foot tall, if looked at from the side, of different topics to talk about on No Compromise Radio. Some people write in and say, could you talk about that?

But if I haven't studied it, I don't really want to talk about it. But if I have studied it, it's probably in that stack. And then I just pull something off the stack, do a little No Compromise-ization on it, and we're set.

I don't know if any of you have listened to some of the wretched radio shows that I've done, but I have listened to them either. Reformed red flags. They will call other Calvinists to join them on their church staff as they reform the church.

Ooh, wow. Somebody might hire a like-minded person. You know, the day and age we live in now is, well, we've got to be balanced, got to have the right proportions. And so pastors got to, you know, if you're a Calvinist, you better hire an Arminian.

If you're an Arminian, do you dare hire a Calvinist? I don't think they'd like that. There's nothing, if the church believes something, then you should probably hire people who could sign the Statement of Faith.

Don't you think? Don't you think that would be right? That's, this is a no-brainer. I don't think it's a no-brainer at all. All right. They will methodically employ a strategy of, quote, converting, end quote, members to the doctrines of sovereign graces.

A reformed doctrine. Remember, this was from the guy who wrote Moving the Church to Become Under Elder Rule. Maybe that's the way they speak in the South. I don't know. Maybe that's the way they talk in Missouri or Mississippi or someplace.

Are there any other states that start with M besides Minnesota, Maine, Massachusetts, and Maryland? Montana? Remember that in Hunt for Red October? That one guy wanted to go to Montana. He wanted to, I think he wanted to raise sheep there or something, I don't know.

That was before he got killed. All right. As the circle enlarges, the movement grows bolder within the fellowship. Well, here's my strategy. I'll admit, I am a card-carrying Calvinist. Red flag. And I've, people have tried to fire me from the church.

Red flag. And here's the thing. I never, with maybe two exceptions, have said Calvinism from the pulpit. Now, I quote John Calvin, I quote reformed people, I use the ESV study Bible, I don't do altercals.

Some of the other things that we talked about on the show from last time in this red flag alert, I just preach the Bible verse by verse by verse. And since the Bible is Calvinistic, and you say, Mike, why don't you just describe what Calvinism is?

That would be a good start. Well, succinctly, Calvinism means God is sovereign over everything, including who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. That's a good definition. God is sovereign over everything.

And if you want to say, well, what are the doctrines of grace? Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace. I don't know if I want to say perseverance of the saint, preservation by God, which one I want to tell you.

But that's typically tulip right there. So I don't say, you know, we're going to do a series on tulip, I guess I could do that on a Sunday night, five years in, 10 years in, 15 years in. I just keep preaching through the Bible.

You preach through the book of John and you realize God is sovereign over salvation and you can't come to God unless God draws you. So I don't have any, I want people to embrace the doctrines of grace, but I don't have any strategy to teach those.

My strategy is teach the Bible and the Bible will win them over without a doubt. Why are so many people becoming Calvinist these days? Well, maybe it's popular, maybe it's a fad, and maybe there's just more sequential exposition.

Logic, Scripture, and the Reformed System

All right, looking today on more red flags. A tendency toward a highly logical systematic theology where all the questions about life and God have answers and fit neatly and nicely in a theological box.

Well, first of all, the enlightenment of putting reason over scripture, I don't go for that. You know, we hold these truths to be self-evident. That's just talking about reason and rational thinking over revelation.

I don't go for that. But logic that is submissive to scripture, there's nothing wrong with that. I think what they're after is they'd like to have some free will on one side, sovereignty of God on the other side.

How do they mix and match? We'll never know. And the Reformed Calvinist would say, God is sovereign over everything, and man's will is bound, yet he still has duty, and there are certain mysteries we can't get around.

I don't think the Calvinist is trying to say things that we can't understand. This is how we should understand them. Now, maybe some attempt to, or say, well, this is a way we think about it, but this is just a canad.

Can we say that in New England? Turn off the radio and say with me really loudly, canad. That just doesn't fly. What would, I'm trying to think of Stanley Tussine. He has some slogan for this. That dog won't hunt.

That weasel won't wheeze. Did they say that somewhere? Oh man, so anyway, I wish this guy would have had an editor, but then that would have not made good radio, would it? They love to write and blog about their reform theology.

See, he needs an editor. They should say their reform theology, and can form a theological swarm on the internet blogging against anyone who speaks or write against their reform theology. It's the swarm, swarm.

They're swarming us. I don't really see too much swarming going on. I like a shwarma right about now, but I don't see any swarms going on. What does that have to do with anything? It has to do with nothing.

So far, what have I noticed that's not on this red flag deal? Any exegetical data, not one Bible verse. Can you imagine not a one Bible verse? They probably say, well, because there ain't no Bible verses in Calvinism that are true, just misusing them all.

All right, there's a lot of people and there's only a few more left. I have to put ourselves out of this misery here. This is misery. I thought it was gonna be kind of a cool show, but maybe not, I don't know.

Tendency to use their pastoral authority against any member that questions their reform theology or their direction. I have no authority outside of the scripture's authority of being a pastor slash elder, pastor, teacher.

I don't have any extra authority. I can't put people underneath my binding power, ex cathedra type of thing. I can't do that. I stand behind the scripture. So someone says, I'm an Arminian, you're a Calvinist, talk to me.

And so we go through things like Acts 13, 48, and the people who are appointed to eternal life believe. We look at Jonah chapter two, salvation is of or from the Lord. That's the paradigm, salvation is from God.

We go to Ephesians chapter one and talk about how God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless and how in love he predestined us. We go to Romans chapter eight, when God foreknows people, he foreloves them, he predestines them.

We go to Romans chapter nine, Esau, God loves? No, Esau, God didn't love. Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have hated. Yeah, but you see, that just means love less, that word hate, there's love less. Okay, that's what I heard when I got here to Bethlehem Bible Church.

That just means love less, that's a love less. So what we do is we need to go to scripture, that's the issue. So when people ask me questions about the doctrines of grace, then I should be able to tell them, do you know what?

When it comes to total depravity, I should be able to take them to Ephesians chapter two, I should be able to take them to passages that talk about depravity, inability, Romans three, kinds of passages, shouldn't I?

Shouldn't I be able to take them to, for you, for unconditional election? The passages I was just talking about in Ephesians chapter one, and second Timothy chapter one, being chose before the foundation of the world, shouldn't I be able to do that?

Limited atonement, talking about the same sum that the father chose before he determined to be passed, the same sum that Jesus died for, he died for his people, us, not the whole world, we don't believe in universalism, irresistible grace, and if God calls you, he's going to draw you, and perseverance of the saints, our eternal security, or however you want to term it, preservation by God, you are going to endure till the end.

So I don't hide behind anything, I don't have any kind of system. If that were the case, then everything about Reformed theology from the Reformers, I would embrace. I would embrace amillennialism, but I don't embrace amillennialism because I don't think they had it right there.

I think they were so concerned about soteriology, they never made it to this portion of eschatology, so they kept Augustine's amillennialism. So it's not like I have to just take the whole system. Yes, Calvinism is logical because you say, if everyone's depraved, then no one can choose, God must elect.

If he elects some and not all, then the son would only die for the some and not the all, the spirit would only regenerate the some, not the all. And if God gives you faith that you'll hang in there all the way to the end, well, there's certainly some logic.

Logic isn't bad, Christianity is not illogical, but I'm not trying to put together a packet of reason that supersedes any scripture, that's not what I'm doing. So I don't use my pastoral authority. I use the word of God.

And if it's just because I'm six foot one, I think I was six foot one and three quarters, and now I'm about six foot. I do that hanging upside down deal every night to try to stretch my back out, but I don't think it's working.

Or maybe it is, but maybe I would have be five foot 10 now, but I definitely am not as tall as I used to be. I used to be able to dunk a basketball, I no longer can probably even touch the net. But I actually, I think I weigh less after no aspartame since February and pretty much juice for breakfast and juice for lunch.

I think I could probably, maybe I can jump higher. I don't know, maybe if I had some flubber in my bottom of my shoe. You ever watch that show, Absent-Minded Professor? And maybe Son of Flubber, that old Disney movie.

We watched that the other night with the kids, The Absent-Minded Professor. And he had that stuff that he could put on the bottom of sneakers. They look like Converse sneakers actually, Chuck Taylors.

You could jump. So today on No Compromise Radio, we're looking at reformed red flags and talking about Disney. Last but not least, okay, okay, okay. Tendency to be evasive about their theology during the pastoral search process.

That is such a lie. Now, I'm sure there are some people that do that, shame on them. I put together a big form, filled out everything, added extra questions. Everyone knew at Bethlehem Bible Church, everyone that bothered to read what I said and read and listen to what I would say, either with my mouth or with my typewriter keys, that I was a Calvinist, that I believed in the sovereignty of God, that I was a five-point Calvinist, that I believe God was sovereign over who went to heaven.

That I did not believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine of free will. The will is in slavery to sin, and we are free to sin all we want, but we have no freedom and ability to choose God in and of ourselves.

Everyone knew that. And so that just doesn't count. This guy goes on to say, they will say things like, I believe and preach the historic doctrines of Southern Baptist, just like many of the great Baptist preachers of the past.

Many laymen will be satisfied in hearing the statement, I believe and preach the Bible. Without more intense questioning, the committee will not be fulfilling the sacred duty their church entrusted to them.

Yeah, and I might say that that Southern Baptist Church with probably congregational rule and a bunch of unqualified people and they're trying to pick their pastor, they probably won't know the difference.

Well, yeah, that's probably right. But anybody who's gonna hold back what they believe so they can get the job, I think that's pretty lame. I think especially it'd be lame if you're a Calvinist to do that, because if you're a Calvinist, don't you believe that God's sovereign over everything, including which pastorate you should go take?

Why am I going to lie for that? Why am I gonna hide that? Hey, this is what I believe. I know I'm not infallible until I can be shown otherwise. This is what I believe about God, Christ, the Spirit, Bible, et cetera.

And this is what I'm going to teach. I think it's pretty naive of a pastoral search committee to say, well, you know what? This is what you believe, but we don't want you to harp on it. Well, if I believe something, woe to me if I don't preach it.

This is kind of Romans 1 Corinthians 9, rather. Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. If I believe it, then I'm gonna preach it. I am a preacher and I preach what I believe. So we've got this reformed red flag deal on how to smoke out a Calvinist and then how to fire him.

What would I say to these things? Well, I'd just say that if you want to know if your pastor's a Calvinist, ask him. And if he flits around, he says, well, I believe in historic documents. Pastor, I would like to know how many point Calvinist you are.

Zero to five. Those are your, you have six choices. Zero, one, two, three, four, five. You have, if you want to have a say four and a half, you can say four and a half or Amaraldine, whatever you want to say.

But that's what we got. We want to know. Ask him the question. Ask him when he's candidating. But what I'd tell you to do first is to study a little bit of historical theology so you're not naively believing what some crazy guy from Tennessee, I'm not saying all people from Tennessee are crazy, but some crazy guy from Tennessee came up with.

I'm telling you, Southern Baptist Convention is going to rip in half because of this issue, Calvinism. It's already played around with it some. Of course, Paige Patterson and Moeller, those guys are friends, and so they can discuss these issues.

But these two systems don't go very well together. They both can say, we want to evangelize the lost, the scriptures inerrant, substitutionary atonement. They can say a lot of those things, but this is a different deal.

And it's going to rear its head eventually because Southern Seminary is training so many Calvinists that pretty soon the pool of candidates where the local Southern Baptist churches can draw from, they're going to just end up getting them from Southeastern, kind of a four-point school following Aiken or a five-point school following Moeller like Southern Seminary.

You're just going to have to end up getting one. And then once the seminaries change, then the pastors change, then the church has changed too. I find great comfort. I find great satisfaction meeting Arminian people, meeting Pentecostal Arminians.

There are not many Pentecostal Calvinists short of C .J. Mahaney, Piper, Grudem, those kind of folks. But I love, maybe Matt Chandler, would he fall in that category? But I love to just start preaching the scriptures and people change.

People here at Bethlehem Bible Church are not the same people that used to be here. Oh, they look the same, maybe they have the same DNA, but they think differently about God. They think differently about salvation.

They think differently about altar calls, all these other things, because they now see scripture in context. And it is wonderful. It is liberating. It is exciting to watch them. I have no, my goal is not to make this church Calvinistic.

You say, well, it already is. Well, that's true. But when I got here, my goal wasn't that. My goal was to teach the scriptures, Christ-centered, expository preaching, exalting God preaching, week after week after week after week.

And you know what? After 14 years, this is not the same place. Nothing about it is the same. From congregation rule, that's right, we did go to Elder Rubel. Why? Because of Calvinism? No, because the Bible teaches elder rule.

That's exactly what it teaches. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Really? Well, Jesus Christ had absolute power. Was he corrupt? And if he owns the church and he tells us to appoint elders in every city, then I think that's what we should do.

Well, are you going to lord it over people? 1 Peter 5 says, don't lord it over people. And so everything's different. The music's different. The hymns are different. The preaching, I'm sure I've gotten better over the years.

Hopefully I have. Preaching's different. Everything about it is different. Why? Because the word of God performs its work in those who believe. That's what Paul said to the Thessalonians. That's a powerful word.

So unleash it. Steve Lawson is right. You should be able to parachute behind enemy lines to any city in the world and have just your Bible and energized by the spirit of God as you proclaim that text, you will change that church.

And it won't be you changing it, but God will, through you, change the church. So on No Compromise Radio, I don't think it's a bad thing to be a Calvinist. I think it matches up with scripture. But when people hear that word, boy, they shudder.

One of the reasons why I don't say the word very often, at least at church, maybe I say it on the radio, but at church, because people have a bad connotation because they believe naively and ignorantly like this dude from Mississippi or wherever he's from, Tennessee on the reformed red herring flag list, whatever it's called, the yellow canard canary list.

This is not even difficult. You might not like Calvinism, but you should study a historical theology book and find out what it is, and you'll quickly realize that five-point Calvinism is not hyper-Calvinism.

Hyper-Calvinism is you don't pray for the lost, you don't evangelize the lost, and you don't think there's any love of God for the non-elect. So on No Compromise Radio today, we looked at the reformed red flags, how to spot a Calvinistic pastor, and they didn't really talk about how to fire them.

I guess you pass this along and do a bunch of slander and call people and have little meetings and prayer meetings and do it that way. Write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com,.

Especially if you're Southern Baptist. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth 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 bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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