Whitney Houston and Boston College

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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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Steve Cooley is with me here, ready to sing his debut,

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Ebony and Ivory. Greetings and salutations. Steve and I are trying to recover.

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Maybe we need some Ativan or something because the last six shows we recorded, or as I like to say, because I'm older, the last six shows we taped did not get recorded.

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No. I think that's a sign. Is that a sign from God? I don't know, but it's certainly quite disturbing. I think it's a work of the devil.

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Now, see, if I was a charismatic, I would say it was the work of the devil. If I was kind of a

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K -love Christian, I would say, I'm sure you'll do better next time. It's all right.

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Pip -pip cheerio. If I was an obnoxious person, I would say, serves you right.

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But we may have some listeners out there who are saying that very thing. It serves you guys right. Info at nocompromiseradio .com.

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That's what you get. We got some responses, Steve, from our ADHD infomercial.

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Yeah, but they were basically incoherent. People would start a sentence and then shift subjects and I couldn't make heads or tails out of them.

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Now, we were not trying to give every possible theological slash medical analysis of ADHD, but we did refer you to read that article,

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Myth of ADHD, and so I'm wondering if any of our listeners read that. I don't know, you know, we didn't get an email that said, yeah,

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I read that article and here are the problems with it. Nothing like that. No, it was more your co -host,

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Mike, is snarky. I think that's what they said. With a capital S. We did get a listener, though, who liked the show and he wrote and Kenny said, when

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I was a kid, they diagnosed me as ADHD, having that, but what I really needed was a good spankin'.

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That's what he said. Now, I didn't say that. That's what Kenny said. I needed a lot of good spankins'.

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So today on No Compromise Radio, we're trying to channel the past. If we only had

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Ramtha, we could channel the past to figure out what we said before so we could retape it today. Ramtha, is that the name of some demon?

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No, that's the new Audi car. It's the Ramtha. Steve, I'm gonna read you a song and you tell me if you like the song and if you'd like to sing it, you can.

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I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses and the voice

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I hear falling on my ear. And he walks with me. The son of God discloses.

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And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me that I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

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I feel like he's gonna pick me up and throw me in the air when I hear that. I mean, that is infantile, if I may say.

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I mean, that is, and you know, people ask me, why don't we sing that song? Well, and what's your answer?

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My answer is, we don't sing that song because Jesus hates that song. And you say, well, how can you know that Jesus hates that song?

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I go, if you were Jesus, you would hate that song. That is so unbiblical. And so, I mean, it is just, that song,

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I don't know when it was written, probably in the 1920s or something like that. But that is like, that is the pansification of Christianity.

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I mean, that is just namby -pamby nonsense. It is not worthy of being sung in kindergarten.

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And that's how bad that song is. He speaks and the sound of his voice is so sweet, the birds hush their singing.

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Is that when he said, get thee behind me, Satan. And the melody that he gives me within my heart is ringing.

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Then he walks with me in refrain. I'd stay in the garden with him, though the night around me be falling.

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I think pretty much Peter said that and Jesus said, you deny me three times. But he bids me go through the voice of woe.

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What does that mean? His voice to me is calling. Now, Steve, would you not, in fact, agree that God is close to his children, the eminence of God, Emmanuel, God with us?

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Isn't that what he's talking about here? I would absolutely agree with that. I just think this is kind of a walk in the park sort of song that nobody should ever, it should be torn out of every hymnal across the

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United States. It is appalling. It should be banned. In fact, if I were a member of Congress, I would introduce a resolution to have it banned in the

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United States. Now, I know why some people like it and it's because their grandmas liked it and then their moms and then there's a sentimentality there.

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People like to sing it at funerals, et cetera. We want to know that God is close to us. I believe, Steve, I think you agree with me, that God is transcendent, different.

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He's over us by nature, but he is eminent close to us by decision, by will through the incarnation.

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Closer than a brother, all those kinds of things are true, but I mean, there's so much untruth in this.

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In fact, I think it was John MacArthur, I may be wrong and if I am, I apologize, Pastor John, but I think he said these were the most insipid lyrics he'd ever seen.

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And I'd have to, insipid meaning empty -headed. I mean, there is nothing -

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Numbskullish. Yeah, there is nothing that would make you think of a transcendent God, a savior in this song.

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What is there about sin, about his suffering, about anything, about his substitutionary death, his resurrection?

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This song says nothing. Well, Steve, I think we should do a whole show on hymnody and songs and some of the songs even,

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I learned the other day, I think you told me that Dare to be a Daniel is actually in the Trinity hymnal, the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church's hymnal. Yeah, I found that on a website. I was just like, you must be joking because we joke about Dare to be a

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Daniel preaching and there you have a whole song on it. Well, that's why I think there are many new hymnals that come out is because everyone realizes there are a few real null and the null set, the

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Zed sets in there and then we can't sing those. And so in the garden, we put that pretty much with joyful, joyful, we are

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Unitarians adore thee. Well, people go, what's wrong with joyful, joyful, we adore thee. The music is absolutely beautiful.

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The lyrics are lacking. That's right. How about Battle Hymn of the Republic? We need to do a show on that too.

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Boy, my eyes are singing. When I was just in Dallas, we didn't sing that song. They don't sing that song in the

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South. Not too surprising, I guess. Like in Virginia, I don't think they sing that song. Yeah, I mean, talk about the mixing of politics and religion.

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That song pretty much does it all right there. Steve, I was in Dallas a while ago, as you know, and I was meeting with some of the elders who served alongside of S.

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Lewis Johnson. And so I had my ears tuned to any S. Lewis Johnson story or fable or apocryphal, pseudepigraphal deal.

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And they did say at Believer's Chapel in Dallas that they would not sing and S.

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Lewis didn't like them to sing the old rugged cross. Oh, really? And they didn't like Victory in Jesus.

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It was too much about what we do and all that. And so, I don't know, maybe we should revisit those songs.

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I think we've already offended in the garden people and now the old rugged cross. I do like He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood.

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That's pretty good. I do like that. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe we'll have to ask S. Lewis. I'd love to. Yeah, let's give him a call.

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Maybe a ramp that can hook us up. Well, see, here's the problem. My mother, she loved

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Victory in Jesus. And what she was thinking about was during her cancer and times she was dying, that even though she's dying, victory over death has been won by Jesus.

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And so that was close to her heart. And then since it was close to her heart, I remember singing it with her.

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She has no hair, she's got the wig on, all the chemo, and she's singing Victory in Jesus. And I'm just crying thinking about it.

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So Steve, I understand how people could love In the Garden. I don't. In the sense that it's, you know, it was their grandma's favorite hymn and they sang it at grandma's funeral and all that kind of stuff.

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I still don't. Maybe it's a Mormon song. I'd stay in the garden with him because in the garden, that's where Jesus actually bought atonement for the

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Moroni followers. Garden of Gethsemane. I mean, the only garden I wanna be in is the Garden of Eden.

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You know, that might be pretty cool. I preached a little bit about the Garden of Eden, the

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Garden of Gethsemane in Gethsemane just a short time ago. Did you? Yeah, I was there. That was my teaching time, not my brother's.

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And did you guys sing in the garden? We sang in the garden, but we didn't sing in the garden in the garden.

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Okay, tell me what's going on with your life, Steve. Do you have any kind of announcements you'd like to make or any updates?

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People like to get to know you a little bit, get to know me, Steve Cooley. Get to know me.

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I'm not running for Senate in Minnesota. All right, well, since the,

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I know what Steve's means by, let me give you a Kevin Costner quote from the Whitney Houston eulogy.

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Please do. In a Baptist church. Since this is no compromise radio ministry, tell me, Steve, if this is a compromise.

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And in fact, if it is a compromise, why is it such? Noted theologian, Kevin Costner. Everybody's a theologian.

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Yes. It just depends on if you're godly or ungodly, right or wrong. Noted or unnoted.

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Noted or unnoted. I think people lose their theological minds when there's a funeral.

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It's hard for people because of death and death is an enemy. And I feel sorry for people that have no shepherd.

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These are people at that funeral that there's no shepherd leading them through. How do we grieve? And what does God say about it?

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Kevin Costner. There is a lady in heaven. He was referring to Whitney Houston, who is making

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God himself wonder how he made someone so perfect. Okay.

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Let me just read that one more time. You know, I hadn't heard that. I mean, I didn't, it's funny because I did watch a little bit of the funeral.

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I hadn't seen, I didn't see that part. That is pretty nauseating. Tatanka. How did

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God make Whitney Houston so perfect? It surprised God that there is a lady in heaven who is making

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God himself wonder how he made someone so perfect. Well, I know, biblically speaking.

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Biblically speaking. You correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Whitney Houston would have had a sin nature. Would this be correct?

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She was impacted by the fall of, I mean, we don't have some kind of immaculate conception here, right? Well, maybe there's, maybe you're onto something,

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Steve, with that. Maybe there's going to, maybe they're going to, Catholic Church is going to make her a saint. Ha ha ha ha.

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Saint Cecilia Whitney. She's a singer. She's the patron saint of singers. Yeah. One of her first miracles would be taking an obscure country song and turning it into a number one song for like 12, 15 weeks or whatever.

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My heart breaks when I think of pastors who don't preach the word and then all the people sitting there to listen.

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This thing was, it was a worship service on TV for the world and a man needed to just stand up behind the pulpit and say, as wicked as sin is, as cruel of a tyrant as death is, as sad as we are because we lost someone that we love, whom we love, we have a savior.

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And one death reminds me of another death. And that death is by Christ Jesus on the cross for sinners like Whitney Houston and sinners like you.

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And the way we deal with issues now is to think clearly and soberly about our lives and about how we, like Whitney, will meet our maker and then we'll stand before him.

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And if we don't stand before him with the righteousness of Christ cloaked over us, then God's all pure laser beam eyes will undo us.

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And so believe on the Lord Jesus Christ so that you have a covering and that you have your sins paid for by Christ.

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Now, just how hard is that to say? Not hard at all. But you know, I saw probably about, I'm gonna say somewhere between 25 and 30 minutes of that funeral.

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And it was interesting because a lot of scripture, but then we got into things like Tyler Perry talking about how central

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Whitney Houston's faith was to her. There were songs about how great

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Whitney Houston was. There were, I mean, even somebody said, the pastor there at that church said, you know, we're gonna celebrate, we're gonna have church.

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And then there was nothing about Christ. He said, we are here to celebrate

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Whitney. Whitney, we're here for you and to talk about you today. That's not how we have church.

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Oh, I'm just very sad by the whole thing because where are the men of God who would follow the injunction by Paul to, in the face of everything, in season, out of season, just preach the word.

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Just stand up and read from the Bible. I would have been happy with that. And then you have all these people. You know, and the media,

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Steve, I know this is not theological point for No Compromise Radio, but here the media props her up and grants her stardom.

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I mean, she had talent, of course, but they give her stardom. Then they love to chronicle her demise. And then after she's dead, then they make her a saint.

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It's just, it's sick is what the media does to people. And then, you know, you have the young people wanna be famous.

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You just watch the Lindsay Lohans of the world and see what fame does. People are not meant to be worshiped.

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Show me someone who is worshiped and I'll show you most of the time, if not all, people that just become unglued.

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Miserable. I mean, it was interesting while you were talking about Whitney Houston because it really is kind of like she had this, she burst onto the scene.

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Of course, she had a very exceptionally superstar career, but then, you know, the years of battling drugs and alcohol and everything else.

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And really they did chronicle her demise. I mean, step -by -step all the way until the day she died.

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And then it was national news. And now she is, you know, like you were saying, I mean, basically she's been elevated into the pantheon of rock superstars who were all in heaven because they died untimely deaths.

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It's really bizarre how people get to heaven according to the world. All you have to do is die.

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Yeah, salvation by death, salvation by singing the national anthem better than Steven Tyler.

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Well, and it was, and now it turns out that that was taped and she was lip syncing, which was - Yeah, you didn't know that?

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I did not know that. Yeah, I saw that and I was like, oh, that's disappointing because it really was quite a stirring moment right after 9 -11.

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I did say to the gas station owner down the street in West Boylston, his name is Sam. And Sam, I don't think

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Sam's his real name. I think he's from the Middle East. It reminds me of times, well, I forget that back to the point and I said to Sam something about Whitney Houston as he was giving me some gas and stuff like that.

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And I said, you know what? People think these days you just die and go to heaven. That's how you get to heaven, you just die.

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But I said, there's a sin problem to be dealt with. And I said, I'm sure glad my sins have been dealt with by Christ because I know

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I'm going to heaven. And he goes, you are? How do you know? I said, I know because the Bible says so.

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And he's like, the Bible. I said, I spent the last 30 years of my life studying the Bible because I know I'm a sinner and I need forgiveness when

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I die and Jesus is the only way. And he said, oh, what's he going to do?

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Here's double charge me for the gas. It is amazing how biblically illiterate people are but how they can even pretend.

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Like I said, back to this funeral thing, Tyler Perry gets up there and he said, he quoted

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Paul in Romans 8. He says, nothing can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus. I mean, he quoted all those things and he's like, basically even implying that her drugs and everything, nothing could separate her from the love of Christ Jesus and which

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I say amen to, but that presumes one is in Christ Jesus. And the other thing that happens,

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Steve, is when weak -wristed, limp -wristed pastors get up in the pulpit, they're not even really pastors and then aren't faithful to what

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God says and then assumes everyone is a Christian. So when you do a funeral, you just assume everybody's in and talk to them like they're part of the body of Christ.

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And where are the challenges? I don't think you're going to get up and I wouldn't say get up and do a sinners in the hands of an angry

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God sermon, but to say sin and death and hell and victory over those things based on Christ's death and sin so bad someone had to die and the wages of sin is death and talk about free forgiveness and God's love for his people and his love for the son.

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There's a lot of ways you can go about it, but where are the people to just stand up and what I would say, pull the trigger by preaching the word of God.

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Well, it's not so hard. If Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the

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Father but by me, but through me, then why can't we do that? I mean, as heralds allegedly of the truth, that's what pastors ought to do.

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And the whole idea that somebody would just get up at a funeral and just say nice things about the person and assure everyone in the audience that they're all going to heaven someday, that just doesn't jive with what the

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Bible says. Nothing new under the sun. Speaking of which, how do you like that segue,

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Steve? I like it a lot. Boston College. Do you like Boston College? Only when they're beating

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Notre Dame. See now, what I usually do is I root against teams that have wrong theological beliefs.

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So for instance, if it was a Roman Catholic team versus a Protestant team, I would always root for the

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Protestant school. But if it was a liberal Protestant school playing an evangelical Protestant school,

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I'd root for the evangelicals. How many evangelical schools have football teams?

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Maybe Liberty. Do they have a football team? I don't know. But when

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Boston College, a Roman Catholic institution, plays Notre Dame, I always wish there'd just be a tie.

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But it's defaulted to rooting against the team that's called Our Mary. Yeah, I have to pull against Notre Dame every single time.

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Nothing delights me more than seeing Notre Dame on the losing end. Well, I figured it might humble them and they'd have to seek

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Christ's resources instead of trying to cooperate with Christ's resources. Our lady.

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Our lady. Perpetual motion. So if you're listening today and you're a Roman Catholic, we want you to know that we're not mad at you.

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We just are still waiting, aren't we, Steve, for that first email that says, you know, you guys are teaching the wrong doctrine and we'd love to teach you the right doctrine.

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We love you enough, but people just hide behind. You guys just hate other people. Yeah, we don't hate

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Roman Catholics. We hate the Roman Catholic system that says that you must work your way into heaven.

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And that if you just simply believe in Christ alone, that you're damned. Yeah, that's exactly right.

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So here, Boston College, on their website, and Chuck Miller sent us this, so here's a hat tip to Chuck Miller.

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Finding God in all places, Boston College. And so, Steve, what they have on the website for those who are religious.

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Let me just read it to you. Finding God in all places is an Ignatian desire. Oh, say an

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Ignatius. I thought that was a rock. Oh, no, that's an Ignatius, I think. Remember What's Up, Doc?

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Yeah, yes. That Barbra Stey said. I think he had those kind of rocks. Okay. Ignatian, capital

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I after the person, desire that calls us to look always for opportunities to experience the spirit, small s, working in our everyday lives.

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Small s. Yeah, finding times and places to do this can often seem a luxury in the hectic pace.

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Oh, I thought it said heretic pace of contemporary life. All right, now here's what we're after.

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Here we go. This prayer map identifies several sites on the

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Boston College campuses where members of our community have found the space for cultivating the habit of reflection and prayer.

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These prayers, poems, and passages mirror experiences from a variety of religious traditions.

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They invite you to your own prayer and reflection. All right, here we go. This is going to light

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Steve's proverbial fire. Well, you've already got me going. Last sentence, may you find

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God in all things and in all places. Oh, that's so beautiful. Poems and prayers and passages.

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Alliteration. That's a John Denver song. Oh, it is. It's pretty close, yeah. It is. Yeah, I just, that whole thing.

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Listen, if there's a specific place that you need to go, I would suppose - Mecca? Yeah, I would suppose on the

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BC campus that it would probably be near the cafeteria where they found a piece of toast with the image of Mary on it or something.

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Maybe that'd be in the co -ed dorms. Look, I got a Pop -Tart with a... Stop just for a second,

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Steve. I saw the other day, I think it was a Lampoon kind of website, satirical one, but they had a piece of toast that looked like it just had a kind of a splattering of burnt particles on it.

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Yeah. Kind of a hub with a bunch, and then it was more flex as it went out, and it was an atheist who said he found a picture of the

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Big Bang in a piece of toast. I saw that. One of my atheist friends posted that on Facebook, actually.

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Oh, is that what it was? Okay. Yeah, I like that only because it's about as dumb as thinking that you could see the image of Mary or whoever.

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I mean, who even knows what Mary looks like? Well, every Catholic who's ever seen a burnt piece of toast is what she looks like.

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That's foolish. Steve, is it true that you can find God in all things? No. And in all places?

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What does that mean? Is that pantheism? Panentheism? Uh -huh. God in everything? Yeah, that's kind of bizarre.

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Now, you can see God's handiwork in all of creation. I definitely think that. And if you said, if you are a

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Protestant institution or evangelical, we have a nice garden. It's called the Garden of Solus or something.

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Of the Solus. And you can go there for a quiet time of reflection. There are benches.

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Sola Fide Grove? Yes, Sola Fide Grove. And our new church building that we're going to have one day in 20 years, we need to name the rooms, things like that.

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Well, I've already decided on the new church name. It's going to be called Church in the Woods. Oh, Church in the

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Woods. Church of the Woods. How about if we call this Finding God in All Places Bible Church?

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That is beautiful. Uh -huh. This is My Father's World Bible Church. Would that work?

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Or this world's not my home. I'm just passing through. How do I take those two hymns and teach those to my kids?

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Isn't that, what's his name? Michael Horton. Yeah, Michael Horton. Schizophrenic evangelical hymnody.

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Steve, in the minute we have left, you can go to the Chestnut Hill campus and they have the chocolate bar as one of the places where you can go experience

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God. I'm not kidding. What do you get, some kind of crucifix chocolate bar or something?

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You could go to the Multifaith Chapel. With the stations of the cross and the star and the crescent moon and, yeah.

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Or you could go to the statue of the Blessed Mother. Oh, boy. I guess my mom's there because my mom was a blessed mother.

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This is St. Carla. Actually in the Lost Boys with Kiefer Sutherland, it was filmed in Santa Cruz where we go all the time, my wife from Santa Cruz, but they called it

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Santa Carla. Nice. I never saw that movie. I'm not recommending it on No Compromise Radio.

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But you could go to the top of the Commonwealth Avenue garage to find God. That's just craziness.

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How about the Dust Bowl? You could go to the Dust Bowl. Or landing on the Higgins stairs. See, what I would really like is if they explain how you find

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God in those places. That would be better. I think that's on the other website. This is No Compromise Radio. See you at Boston College.

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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.