The Spicy John Gerstner

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.

Mike Gendron, Free Grace, and a Paid Announcement

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth at the helm. If you do not know Mike Gendron, proclaimingthegospel .org, you should. Mike�s a friend of mine, and this is a paid announcement.

Mike got gloriously saved out of the Roman Catholic Church and her clutches. He has devoted his life to then telling people about free and sovereign grace, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, the scriptures alone for the glory of God alone.

And so, I have in front of me, �Preparing for Eternity�, �Should We Trust God�s Word or Religious Traditions reminding me that I should promote Mike and his ministry. Free, lots of cool, informative Roman Catholic tracts that you can get on the website, some free things, some things you can pay for at a reasonable price, �Preparing for Eternity.

MacArthur says of this book, �Carefully and convincingly, this book demonstrates that the gospel taught in the Roman Catholic Church is not the true gospel found in the Bible. I heartily recommend Mike�s work.

That is evangelist Mike Gendron, equipping and encouraging Christians to be faithful witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ over the last 20 years. And I probably see Mike, I don�t know if I see him twice a year, once a year, something like that.

In front of me, I also have on this miscellaneous day, is this a miscellaneous Wednesday? I try to interview people on Wednesdays, but it takes more time to set all that stuff up and I don�t have the time.

This is an afterthought, No Compromise Radio. Can you tell? You think? I am a, I don�t think I�ve told the audience this yet, the ever-increasing audience of No Compromise Radio. I teach a Masters of Divinity class at Southern Seminary, preaching class.

I�ve done that a couple of times, three different classes. I teach at the European Biblical Training Center, EBTC, in Berlin, the preaching class there. And I was asked just a short time ago to review and to help and to critique and to mentor some Masters Seminary students in the DMIN program.

That is not a demon program. That is a doctorate of ministry. You have Ph .D .s and T .H .D .s and DPhils. Those are the terminal doctorate degrees. You have a DD, Doctor of Divinity. You know what DD stands for, don�t you?

Didn�t do it. It�s just granted. And of course, some people with DDs are way smart, wicked smart. And you have a DMIN. A DMIN is a doctorate of ministry where you do not have to go move to the school.

You can, you know, take the class. It�s usually, in this particular case, it�s in preaching to help you with your preaching. So you have to read about 50 books on preaching. It takes about three years to get through.

I don�t know how much the Masters Seminary DMIN is. It�s a hostile takeover by Steve Lawson and Bruce Mann. Just kidding. MacArthur wanted that to happen. So I am a DMIN mentor. So if I do have any extra time, I�m watching some videos at night and I don�t have time to interview pastors.

But we will again start. You can rest assured of that. One of my favorite things to do, and I�m not kidding now on No Compromise Radio, not only interview the big dogs of the world, theologically, the Carl Trumans and the James Whites and Bill Johnsons and those folks, but I love to interview pastors, local pastors.

I think of Nate up in New Hampshire. I think of Jason in Chicago, wherever he lives. There are certain people around the... Jimmy in Pittsburgh. Who else? I don�t know. There�s a variety of different people that I�ve interviewed who are faithful, behind the scenes, preaching.

Probably don�t know about them, but now you do on No Compromise Radio. Would I want to have somebody know about me? I don�t know. How can I answer the question? John Gershner was the mentor of R .C. Sproul.

I don�t know if it�s because they both smoked cigarettes or cigars, or they both just had raspy, gravelly voices. I don�t know if that�s something they just picked up at Pittsburgh Theological School.

John Gershner died, and of course R .C. Sproul is still alive. I don�t know how long R .C. Sproul has, but it�s going to be a sad day when I open up the Twitter and find out R .C. Sproul has gone to glory.

John Gerstner's Seeker's Prayer and His View of Depravity

I want to read to you an old school Seeker�s Prayer written by John Gershner, who was heavily influenced by Jonathan Edwards, by the way. My thoughts on Edwards, anybody that studies Edwards 24 -7, and that�s their go-to guy, they usually have some quirks.

And I guess there are exceptions. Maybe Gershner was an exception, except now here�s the rule that proves the exception. I�m going to read this old school Seeker�s Prayer to you, and you tell me what you think about it.

Old school Seeker�s Prayer, John Gershner. Dear God, whom I hate with all my being, precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell. I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you.

For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this, and even more because I have to ask this. I�m being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise.

You know even better than I how much I hate you, and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you, and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you, but that is what I am asking because I love myself.

If you can answer this prayer, I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it, and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now, thanking you for making me love you, whom I hate. Amen.

Yikes. Yow. Now here�s the thing. You can still watch some YouTubes with Jonathan Gershner. One of the things with his voice, I remember one time he did a Ligonier conference, I think it was 1992 down in San Diego, I think it was on the wrath of God.

And he talked about, �The sinner in hell would give everything and more just to make the weight of his sin one less. If the sinner was offered the gospel in hell, he wouldn�t believe. It�s not in his nature.

He�s not a masochist, but he doesn�t want heaven. Do you like this old school seeker�s prayer? Is it old? Is it old school? Is it a seeker�s prayer? Gershner had some interesting comments about depravity, most of which I agree with, and this whole idea of seeking.

And I think sometimes he misunderstood drawing and seeking. I guess it makes good radio, doesn�t it? You could also read his article, �The Nature of Justifying Faith. �Justification by faith alone, affirming the doctrine by which the church and the individual stands or falls.

I think that will be less in your face. I think that will be more to your liking. You can also read John Gershner, �Does God love the sinner and hate only his sin Listen to Gershner here. �Repent or perish forces people to ponder seriously the popular slogan, �God hates the sinner and loves the sinner.

Is a necessary repentance consistent with �God loves the sinner. If God loves the sinner while he is alive, it is strange that God sends him to hell as soon as he dies. I�m going to read that again.

If God loves the sinner while he is alive, it is strange that God sends him to hell as soon as he dies. God loves the sinner to death. Love him to everlasting torment. There is something wrong here. Either God loves the sinner and will not send him into the furnace of his eternal wrath, or he sends him into his eternal wrath and does not love him.

Either you are going to hell unless, because God hates you as you are, or God loves you and you are going to hell unless, is false. See where he is going there? How can this be true? How can we work through this?

Is sin different than the sinner? God loves the sinner but hates the sin? Is sin something we have or is sin intrinsic? This all goes back to the fall as well. Back to Gershner just because it is fascinating for you to think about.

What leads almost everyone to believe that God loves the sinner is that God does the sinner so much good. He bestows so many favors including letting him continue to live. Now on a side note, if you get the Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by Carson, I think that would help you.

Remember, most Christians say to themselves, I know there are different words in the Bible for love. There's eros, erotic love. There's Philadelphia love, phileo, that's a love of, in general it's used for brotherly love.

There's agape, a self-sacrificial love wanting what's best for the other person. Astorge is used, Astorge's family love without family affection translated in 2 Timothy 3. So there's different words for love.

But also I want you to think of it this way. If there are three ladies sitting on the front row of the church building, in the church building, and I say to Lady A, I love you. Lady B, I love you. Lady C, I love you.

What's the difference between those three loves? Well you say, I need more information. I cannot make a good decision until I have more information. Well, I say to Lady A, I love you. Lady B, I love you.

Lady C, I love you. What is the difference? So far there's no difference until I tell you this. Lady A is my wife, Kimberly, 26 years. I love you. Lady B is my daughter, Haley, 22 years old. I love my wife as a husband loves a wife.

I love my daughter as a father loves a daughter. And Lady C, she's just a member of Bethlehem Bible Church. And I love her too. But there's different nuances of every one of those. So it's helpful when you think to yourself there's the love of God for people, a John 3 love, where he has a love because he's created them.

And you can tell that because, as Gershon does say here, there's the common grace, love, rain, children, pleasure, taste buds, etc. But love unto eternal life is just for the bride. That's just like salvific love.

Can it be love if it's less than salvific love? Well, yes. But salvific love is different. How can, go back to Gershon, God let the sinner live and give him so many blessings unless he loves him? There's a kind of love between God and sinners.

We call it the love of benevolence. So see where he's going with that. That means the love of goodwill. Benevolence, italics, italicized. Willing well, doing well. God can do well to the sinner without loving him with the other kind of love.

Complacent love, a pleasure in, affection for, admiration of. It exists in perfection between the Father and the Son in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3 .17. Mark 1 .11. God is perfectly displeased with the sinner.

The sinner hates God, disobeys God, is ungrateful to God for all his favors, would kill God if he could. He is dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2 .1. The thoughts and intents of his heart are only evil continually.

Genesis 6 .5. He is a slave of sin. John 8 .34. The servant of the devil. Ephesians 2 .2. God has no complacent love for the sinner at all. He has a perfect hatred of him. I hate them with a perfect hatred.

Psalm 139 .22. Why does God do so much good for those he perfectly hates, and as soon as they die, now I have to change the page here, hang in there with me, impenitent, send them immediately to hell, and never in all eternity does them one solitary favor more.

It is to show his willingness to forgive the sinner, if only he will repent. It shows the sincerity of God's willingness to pardon the greatest sinner, that even while he hates him with a perfect hatred, he showers him with constant daily blessings.

Or do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? Romans 2 .4. Our text also shows that the one reason a sinner is permitted to be born into and enjoy this world rather than wake up as an infant in hell is that God, with his love of benevolence, is determined to give the sinner a quote, chance, end quote, an opportunity to repent.

Alas, most sinners use this as a chance to sin. They make God's blessed love of benevolence into a curse. What I'm doing here on No Compromise Radio is I'm reading some provocative stuff by John Gershner.

And you can say, I don't like it. You can say that's not what I've been taught. You can say that's interesting, I'd like to read more. Dealing with different kinds of love. Dealing with, to use Gershner, the love of benevolence versus the love of complacence.

Complacent love, benevolent love. You almost feel like R .C. Sproul should be writing some of these words in Latin on the board with chalk. What else does Jonathan Gershner say? Let me turn the page here.

And then, this is not going well. I can't find my spot. In this world, the sinner enjoys nothing but the benevolent love of God. Every experience of pain as well as pleasure is from God's love of benevolence.

Even pain is from love because it tends to wake the sinner to his danger. God indeed loves the sinner whom he hates with a perfect hatred, with a perfect love of benevolence. The sinner, as I said, makes every divine blessing into a curse, including God's love of benevolence.

This he does by construing a love of benevolence as a love of complacency. Construing God's love of benevolence as a love of complacency is fatal. Instead of the divine forbearance leading to repentance, it is used as an excuse for non-repentance.

Thus, the sinner is not saved but damned by God's love of benevolence. Okay, so let's make it practical on No Compromise Radio. Is it biblical? Is it right? Is it appropriate when evangelizing to say to people, God loves you?

Well, you say, based on what I've just learned, if Gershner's right, it is a love of benevolence, it would be fine to say. I don't know if he's an elect person. I don't know if they're a believer yet or anything, so I don't know about his love of complacence, but I know it's a love of benevolence.

And I want to get the person to consider God's love and then realize that benevolence is not love of complacence and that just because God loves him and gives him showers of blessings, literally and figuratively, that he should not misconstrue that, to use Gershner's words, that God is at peace with him in terms of his sin and he is forgiven, reconciled, redeemed, and propitiated by the work of the Son, Jesus Christ.

Now, if you know all that and you want to say that in general, that's a good way to go about it. I'm just glad you're talking to the unbeliever. But typically, here's what happens. We don't understand these different kinds of love, and so we just say, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you're talking to a fornicator, then God loves me in spite of my fornication.

If they're an adulterer or homosexual or anybody else, God's loving me like that, and so we don't say, God shows his love to you in benevolence by giving you so many wonderful things. Don't mistake that for a saving love.

Don't mistake the love of benevolence for the love of complacence. I don't want you to do that. To use the other words that I used earlier in the show, there's a love that I have for my bride that's different from a general love, and there's a love that God has as a creator, and he bestows love as a creator, but it's a different love for his bride, for the elect, for the saved.

If you say God loves you, these are the reasons why. Don't mistake the goodness of God in your life as you prosper on earth, as everything's well with your soul. Here's what the Bible teaches about sin, about lawbreakers, about his holy standards.

So then when you realize, Romans 3 .19, you're shut up to sin, and you have no other excuse, there's some really good news, and righteousness of Jesus Christ can be yours through faith, because Jesus died on the cross as your substitute, if you will believe, and he also lived as a representative, perfectly obeying the law like you should have.

We know God accepted the sacrifice because Jesus was raised from the dead. If God didn't accept the sacrifice, Jesus would have stayed in the ground, and he would be paying for his own sin. We would have thought that, he must have sinned, or something else went wrong, but he was raised as Lord, as Savior.

When you talk to unbelievers, even throwing out the thing that we talked about earlier in the show, God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. I think we ought to be as biblical, and as faithful, and as careful as possible.

Where do we get that terminology? He loves the sinner, but hates the sin. Maybe it's just because it's a throw-out word, a catchphrase, a phrase that makes us avoid all these other love of benevolence, love of complacent, love as a creator, love as a groom kind of issues.

Difficult doctrine of the love of God. Yes, it is difficult, but we want to show people God demonstrates his love towards us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It's appropriate to tell people about the love of God.

I sure hope it is. I know for sure. I know, I know, I know, I know. All the same knows there. Oida versus Gnosko, that's another topic. I got the overdose of God's love. It was a sticky, sickening, sweet, sappy love of God that I rejected.

But I went too far, because then I didn't really want to talk about the love of God much. But now I'm thankful as I get older and I think about how God loves me. I mean, can you imagine? The God of the universe would love me.

Not because I'm me, but because I'm in Christ. Not because I was valuable or worthy of God's love, but it's because of Christ. I think Jonathan Gershner, while you might not agree with some of the seemingly extreme comments, he is going to make you think.

And I think the loving the sinner and hate only his sin is better than the seeker's prayer part. But again, he's trying to get you to think through the issues. And you can then ask yourself the question, to what degree did God use John Gershner in critical thinking for the development of R .C. Sproul and his major theological mind?

Right? I think that'd be good. Okay, no compromise radio. We are attempting to be biblical, then provocative, always in that order. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. You can catch us on iTunes.

You can catch us on Facebook, Twitter. At NoCo Radio is the Twitter feed. The No Compromise Radio is Facebook. Tell your friends, I like to tell people who listen, instead of sending us money, I guess you could, but why don't you tell your friends and family?

There's a no-nonsense radio daily show with new information lots of times, i .e. Fred, that will promote Christ Jesus and thinking critically, thinking biblically, thinking Christianly about things like the difficult doctrine of the love of God.

1 ,500 shows in the archives. Get them all they last, and we will soon be in Pittsburgh for a conference and at Omaha Bible Church. God bless you. 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 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. 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.

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