John 3: 1-21, “The Right Gospel.”

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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

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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.

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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. Our Father in Heaven, we come before you this morning on this beautiful day, just looking at all the snow, and are just reminded that because of Christ, we have been made whiter than snow because of His righteousness covering our sin.

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Lord, we gather this morning to worship you, to study your word, to ponder about the great things that you have done for your children.

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Father, I pray that you bless each one here, in Jesus' name, amen. My wife was kind enough to point out to me last night that I was teaching this morning.

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No, no, do you know you're teaching tomorrow? No. She looked, she was on Facebook, which is always dangerous, and she saw a little blurb for a church in Sterling.

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It's called First Church, yeah, they say church, and it was a little blurb and it just said, you know, that they had a safe space for LGBTQIA double

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P plus, you know, raised to the second power children from ages, or from sixth grade to twelfth grade.

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And they had a little program there, you know, and of course they were waving, no it wasn't the

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Ukrainian flag, it was a rainbow flag. And I just thought, this is a, not only a fallen world, but you know, when

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Christians, alleged Christians, are involved in that kind of thing, it's craziness.

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Anyway, so, we're going to have a little quiz this morning. I like quizzes, and one of the reasons

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I like quizzes is because they basically evoke response.

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So, I love question number one, don't ask me why I love it, but I love it. Why doesn't

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BBC hold a Super Bowl service? Have you seen those?

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I mean, I don't know, how many of you watched the video here a few weeks ago of this church, it was probably, sorry, with all due respect, in the

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South. They had cheerleaders and a great big party going on, and actually people eating like popcorn and different snacks while they were watching the

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Super Bowl, and I thought, that's a lot of things, but what isn't it? It's not a church, it's not a worship service.

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But anyway, why doesn't BBC hold a Super Bowl service? A, we don't believe in fellowship and fun.

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Now most of you probably said that, and that's a logical... B, such a thing would violate our philosophy of ministry.

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That's so boring, it must be the right answer. C, broadcasting the game would take special licensing.

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See, I thought some of you might take that one. D, the reformers staunchly opposed all forms of sports competitions, except beer drinking.

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Well, I wanted to address C because I figured somebody would say, I'm not going to name any names, somebody would say that that is true.

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But as of 2007, I mean it's changed, but as of 2007, churches across the

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United States planning Super Bowl parties Sunday have been given sweeping permission by the

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NFL to go ahead, just as long as no admission fees are charged.

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Maybe not, but I thought, well, if you think about this logically, what's the difference going to church to watch the

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Super Bowl and going to a bar? Do they charge you to get into a bar?

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Maybe, but maybe not, but you're going to consume something while you're there.

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So it seems like that's not the case, that you can do that, that's not the reason.

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The reason obviously is B, such a thing would violate our philosophy of ministry. I mean, what would you all think if we did that?

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I'd think Mike, Steve, Pradeep, and Scott had been kidnapped and held for ransom, that's what

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I'd think. I mean, that's crazy. If our philosophy of ministry, what is our philosophy of ministry? Anybody know?

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Anybody want to hazard a guess? What are we trying to do? The regulative principle, okay?

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But I mean, ultimately, yeah, I mean, that's how we operate the church, but if you were to say, you know, what's the functional driving force behind everything you do here at Bethlehem Bible Church?

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I would submit that it would be something akin to Colossians chapter 1, verse 28.

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Him being Christ Jesus, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

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I mean, isn't that in our program somewhere, or at least it used to be on a little printer program? I mean, just think about the idea of gathering together to watch the

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Super Bowl and calling it a church service. What is that really? Is it worship?

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It might be worship, but it's worship of a completely different God. You know, worshiping the God of NFL, which there are plenty of men across the country who want to do that anyway.

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So, you know, okay, number two, true or false, the concept of dogma was created by Catholics and therefore must be rejected.

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Got a 50 -50 shot. Okay, to which part? I mean, is it true that if something was, seems to be of Catholic origin,

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Roman Catholic origin, that we must reject it? I mean, that seems to be, isn't it?

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Let's just put it this way. Is that a logical fallacy? Okay. I mean, for example, you know, what if I say, well, it seems that Aquinas taught about the

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Trinity, therefore we must reject the Trinity. I mean, that would be silly.

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Um, okay. In my notes here,

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I have who cares who coined the word, right? I mean, who coined infallibility of scripture?

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I mean, it's, by the way, it wasn't the Catholics. What are some other words that we use for dogma?

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Doctrine. Good. Okay. Systematic theology.

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So when we use the word dogma, what are we really saying? These are our core beliefs.

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These are our foundations. These are the things from which we will not move, right?

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These are fundamental truths. These are the things that we want to equip every believer to understand and even to defend.

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We want to equip everyone in Christ Jesus, right? Yes, you probably are. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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So let's, let's talk about that. The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary or the perpetual virginity of the

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Virgin Mary, those kinds of things. Those are dogma. True. Thank you for that modifier, right?

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The fact that they're Roman Catholic dogma doesn't mean that, you know, if we just look at the word dogma, and I think, you know, it's a, it's a good question in this sense.

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We have to divide in our minds the idea that dogma necessarily means

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Catholic. We each have our own dogma, right? For example, you know, you're, you tell your child to take out the trash.

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Now in your mind, you could say that's an irrefutable truth that must, you know, it's my command.

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Therefore, it must take place. Child says, dad, can I ask you something? Are you dogmatic about that?

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Right? And you say, well, no, there's nothing wrong. In other words, the whole idea of Roman Catholicism is a separate entity.

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Ultimately, when we're talking about the word, it may have some connotations.

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We're talking on the way in about Lent. I don't even know. You know what, rather than Googling this and figuring it out, what is

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Ash Wednesday? What is that all about? Yeah, please. Okay, but what's with the ashes on your forehead?

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Well, I mean, I marvel at that, right? Because when it's Ash Wednesday, how do I usually know it's Ash Wednesday? Well, I don't see many people.

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I'll just like turn on the TV and I'll see people with ashes on their forehead. And I'm like, how can you do that?

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You know, don't you have to have makeup on? Oh, sorry. But yeah, I just think that, you know, that's, is that a dogma?

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Yes. For them, it's not a dogma for us. The perpetual virginity of Mary, not dogma for us.

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And by the way, I'm just going to say a word about that. Why do you think they stress the perpetual virginity of Mary?

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Okay, so they can worship her. That's part of it, I think. Yeah, well, yeah, they're always trying to squeeze four people into the

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Trinity. Okay, for Christ to be sinless, he must have come from a sinless vessel.

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But what you said there just implies something. Perpetual virginity.

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Sex is inherently sinful. I mean, why are the holiest people in Roman Catholicism, those who live apart from everyone, right?

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This ascetic lifestyle. Look at them. They've even sacrificed, you know, all these different things.

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Including sex. They're not even tempted. Is sex sinful?

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I mean, what did God say to Adam and Eve? To be fruitful and multiply.

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You know, not, okay, now each of you go to your own rooms. Live sinlessly.

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It's just a, it's just a bizarre, you know, if you want to know if Roman Catholicism is ultimately

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Christian, just look at the things that they command. Look at their dogma and you'll go, no, it's not.

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But anyway, we don't care about the origins of the word dogma. It's okay for us to say that we have dogma because our dogma is not

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Roman Catholic dogma. You can have dogma in your home. You can name your dog dogma.

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Your cat dogma. Doesn't matter. True or false. Number three, true or false.

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Rigid rules of dogma can actually cause someone to be a heretic. Rigid rules of dogma can cause someone to become a heretic.

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Let me read it again and see, let's see. Rigid rules of dogma can actually cause someone to become or to be a heretic.

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Okay. And it ultimately does come down to the word cause, right? If we say that, you know, baptism doesn't save you.

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And your belief is that baptism does save you. Did our doctrine cause you to be a heretic?

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Okay. I would even argue just saying what the Bible says. Identified you as a heretic, right?

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It didn't cause you. It didn't push you out into the wilderness of heresy. You know, you're already there.

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You know, we just told you, hey, bro, you're out in the wilderness of heresy, right? We just clarified that for you.

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Okay. The practical outworking of your heretical beliefs makes you a heretic, right?

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Let's talk about that for a moment. Heresy. Latin word is from the

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Greek heresis. Taking or choosing for oneself a choice or means of taking a deliberate plan, purpose, philosophical sect or school.

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It's a doctrine or opinion at variance with established standards. In other words, your opinion or your doctrine is outside of orthodoxy, right?

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You believe the same orthodoxy to hold the traditional view, to hold the right view, to hold the biblical view.

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Here's a bonus question. If we're not dogmatic about something, in other words, if we're not convictional,

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I'll use a different word about something, what does it suggest? If we don't draw our line in the sand, right?

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What does this suggest? Okay. We can be swayed. Yes. It's a negotiable item.

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Yeah, it's more a matter of personal opinion. I guess we could say, Charlie, thank you for that. I, you know, just this is in my notes, but I was,

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I posted this on somebody else's wall this week. I was reading an old message of mine and I'm going,

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I hope I didn't say this. Because it was, you know,

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I'm going, you know, it's probably even something

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I learned in seminary, but it's wrong, you know? And I really hope, I hope

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I just like elided over that while I was going through the notes and preaching away because I, oh boy, that was bad.

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Number four, one of the dangers of dogma. Oh, I'm sorry.

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Yeah. One of the dangers of dogma. A, we might be sincere, but sincerely wrong.

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B, dogma can make us seem mean. Who wants to be known as dogmatic? C, as we get more and more revelation about end times, we might be tempted to change our position.

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What's that? Yeah. C was like chum thrown in the water.

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Just to see if I could, you know, like reel in anybody on that. What do you think?

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What's the correct answer? I don't know if there is one. Okay. I think there is because who wants to argue over doctrine?

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Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I mean, if you, I mean, who was the guy who said in the

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New England, what was that? Man, what do you say? It was just something about, you know, it's this whole concept of the hermeneutics of humility.

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You know, you don't want to, it was Brian McLaren, right? Yeah. We don't want to be too harsh or too firm on anything because there are just a lot of things that we don't know.

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What are the things that we don't know? You know, biblically speaking. Okay. We don't know when he's coming back.

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We don't know that for sure. I think there are a lot of things about the end times that we don't know that, which is why

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I just love this. You know, I'm like, I'm reading people's Facebooks. Nobody here reading people's

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Facebook feeds. And they're like, oh, it's all lining up. You know, now we're seeing the end. It's the dragon and the lion and the bear and the whatever.

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Okay. You know, let's bungle in the jungle. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's crazy.

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I mean, it's like, am I reading zoology or am I reading, you know? Yeah.

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Okay. Number five. True or false. Too much dogma doctrine for John.

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Too much doctrine might lead to schism. Schism is separation, division.

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Too much doctrine might lead to division. Okay. We preach the word to glorify

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God. And if we offend people, that's fine. Mark. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to bail, bail us out here.

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I think you're reading too much into the question. Because what do people say?

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You know, doctrine divides. Why are you so dogmatic? Nobody ever says, why are you too doctrinal?

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But why are you so dogmatic? Why are you so strong about things? Why can't you just be a little fuzzy and you know, because doctrine leads to division.

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I mean, Lutzer wrote a whole book called doctrines that divide, right? Anybody ever read that book?

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Some of the things that divide or what? Like election, you know, I mean, just basic fundamental doctrines.

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But ultimately does doctrine lead to division?

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And the answer is no, it leads to unity. Let's open our Bibles for a moment to Ephesians chapter four, which coincidentally, and it is a coincidence, is where pastor

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Mike's going to be preaching this morning. And I hope to like thoroughly preview and interrupt his.

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No, I'm not. Ephesians four. And if somebody would read verses 11 to 16, please.

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I mean, the concept here, first of all, is the Jesus. That's the he, right?

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Gave gifts to the church. He gave these men through the centuries to the church. That's why, you know, side note.

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Mike so often speaks about biblicism and against biblicism. Why is that?

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Because biblicism is the idea that, you know, we landed here on planet earth in a vacuum.

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Nobody existed before us. And we have to reinvent the wheel. We have to discover all these doctrines for ourselves.

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You know, if there's not a specific verse that says something, then we can't teach it. Well, there's a lot of problems with that.

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You know, a lot of doctrine is a summary of biblical teaching. Like if we get back to the

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Trinity. Where would we find the Trinity taught as, you know, the word

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Trinity? We wouldn't. We have to sort of draw that out. You know, does every generation need to reinvent the

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Trinity? No, it's a truth. But Jesus gave the church, these men, these gifted men throughout the centuries so that they could teach the church.

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So they could equip the saints for the work of ministry. And it's interesting here until we all attain to the unity of the faith.

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In other words, that's what we're doing. We're equipping, we're teaching, we're reminding so that the body comes together.

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So that it functions properly. Doctrine leads to division.

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Schism. No, it leads to unity and to love. We all believe the right things.

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We serve together. We work together. And together we are blessed in Christ.

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And eventually we grow together in love. Questions, comments?

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Let me just read the authorized notes here from the MacArthur Study Bible. Oneness and harmony among believers is possible only when it is built on the foundation of sound doctrine.

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The more diverse the doctrinal opinions are in a church, then what?

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The more schism there is, the more division there is, the more likely there is to be church splits and that kind of thing.

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Oneness and doctrine prevent such things. Okay, number six, true or false?

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I'm going to, I'll again bow to John. The more firmly we understand doctrine, the more arrogant we are likely to be.

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The more firmly we understand, I guess I should say we hold to dogma, to doctrine, the more arrogant we are likely to be.

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She says,

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I would think the opposite would be true. And you know, that's amazing because that's what I have in my notes. Truth brings forth what?

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It brings forth conviction, which brings forth humility.

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Listen again, you know, previewing Pastor Mike's sermon here this morning. Ephesians 4, 1 to 3, I therefore a prisoner for the

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Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the

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Spirit in the bond of peace. When we have the right mindset, when we're thinking biblically, when we're thinking along with the

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Holy Spirit, right? We think of others more highly than ourselves.

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We hold to these truths and we want to proclaim them. We want to defend them, but we also don't want to be cage match, you know, steel cage match

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Calvinists, right? Has anybody ever been that way? I mean, I will confess, although I had teachers who were worse than me and so I'd stand back sometimes and just kind of go like that.

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So learning not to be so harsh sometimes. But the more,

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I mean, even if we take the Apostle Paul as an example, you know, was he harsh and judgmental?

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I would say no. Instead, you know, we read things like, I mean, Romans 7 is almost like a confessional, right?

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The things I want to do, I don't do. I mean, you read that and you just think, well, this is me.

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The things I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, I do.

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And what does he say? You know, he doesn't end the chapter saying, you know, I thank

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God that I'm not like any of you, my readers. He says, what? Who will deliver me from this body of death, humility?

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Because the more we understand about truth, the more we understand our sin.

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Number seven, how many of these must one believe to be a Christian? Do you have to believe these things?

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God is eternal. Man is sinful. Jesus was born of a virgin.

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Jesus was innocent. Jesus died for the sins of believers. Roman Catholics don't go to heaven.

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Roman Catholics could go to heaven, but it wouldn't be because of Roman Catholicism. In fact,

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I say, and I will say it this morning, I think, because I like to be consistent.

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I like to be dogmatic about certain things. The higher up you are in the Roman Catholic Church, the more difficult it is to believe.

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I think to be saved, the more you actually believe what the church teaches, the more you're on that treadmill of works.

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It's true, right? It's true. I mean, do I think some

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Roman Catholics are going to go? Yes, because all they think is, you know, Jesus died for my sins, and they don't know any better, you know.

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But all these others are straight, you know, they're just Bible. I mean, we could do Bible verses on all these other ones.

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I'm not going to. Yes. Okay, so God gives us faith, and then we learn about him.

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I mean, could you go to heaven not understanding all these things or not knowing all these things? I think it's better to say not knowing all these things.

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I mean, it's, I think you're correct.

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I mean, if somebody says to you, you know, if you say, I'm a Christian, and then you ask them, you know, is

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God eternal? And they go, I don't know. And then you talk to them about the scriptures, and they go, well, yeah, I believe that. So I think, you know, thief on the cross, all that.

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What I think is hard to do is throw the thief on a cross asterisk after everything, right?

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I mean, are there thieves on, you know, deathbed conversions? I think there are. And I agree with that.

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Okay. What's that? A newborn baby wouldn't know any of these doctrines.

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Well, that's true. I still think they go to heaven, you know, but that's a whole different asterisk.

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Good point. Yeah. I think at the very least, you would have to go with, you know,

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B and E. And then, you know, you would B and E, breaking and entering. But you would, you can take the uniform off, but, you know, it doesn't go away.

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Okay, number eight. True or false, providence can be defined as karma, chance, or luck. I just had to say that.

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You know why I had to say that? Because I get so tired. I mean, what did I, I can't even remember the situation.

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Somebody was talking about karma. And I'm like, these people are professing Christians. Get that word out of your mouth.

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You know, I mean, I guess we were playing a game about karma or something. I don't know. But karma, chance, or luck.

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That sure was lucky. Providence, every event can be attributed to God and his eternal plan.

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R .C. Sproul said, if there's one rebel molecule in the universe, and we could go down lower, atom, electron, is it, there's something like quark.

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Whatever the smallest thing that we ever discover. If there's something, if there's, if there's one little particle in all the universe that isn't doing exactly what

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God wants, then what? He's not God. He has to be completely sovereign.

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Let's see. I don't even want to say what God wants, what

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God decreed. Let's put it that way. And then my second note on that, you know, when

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I answer the thing false, I said, that's just me being dogmatic and unloving. So, no or not, true or false.

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The fact that many religions contain some truth is helpful when evangelizing. The fact that many religions contain some truth is helpful when evangelizing.

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Charlie. Exactly. It's useful in this sense.

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Is that what the word I use, useful? Helpful. It's helpful in the sense that it provides a bridge, a launching pad, a point of contact.

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That's a word, a phrase I don't really care for. But it gives us an entry, right? Just like Mars Hill.

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Paul says, I notice that you're religious, right? Yeah. I mean, he couldn't miss it.

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There were idols all over the place. So, you could say, well, you believe in God, right?

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You do well. I wouldn't go on and then say, did you know the demons also believe in God?

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I mean, you could do that. You know, it depends on, I guess, how dogmatic the other person is.

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I can't pronounce it. But that thing. Was that close?

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So good. I mean, I had the opportunity this week. I was speaking.

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I'm going to do a funeral here in a few weeks, a family funeral for my cousin's widow.

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She asked me. Now, she's not a believer. And, but she was at my uncle's funeral and she wants me to do my cousin's funeral.

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And so I said, you know, these are some of the things I'll do. And because I just thought, I mean, you have to understand.

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This is going to be a little different. It's going to be on a Sunday. Christians typically don't hold funerals on Sundays.

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Of course not. So just talking to her about, you know, she believes that there's a

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God and she thinks she's a Christian. So I just started talking to her about Christianity. She obviously knew nothing.

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She'd never read the Bible. She has one in her house. And that Bible is, you know, from her mom, 50 years old or so.

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She has no idea what's in it. So I just started talking about what's in it. And I said, you know what?

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What do you think I told her? I mean, in short, you know.

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Question number seven. I mean, yeah, basically. And I said, you know, I would encourage you to read.

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She says, you know, a lot of the names in the Bible are so difficult to read and everything. And I'm going, well, you know, maybe you don't start with Leviticus or, you know, 2

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Samuel. Thank you. Yeah, I have pretty free.

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Actually, you know what I did tell her? I said, download the ESV app, right? Because this is not a sophisticated person.

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And I said, she does have a smartphone. I said, download the ESV app.

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And you know what you can do? I said, there's a setting there. You can just hit the audio and you can just listen. And she'll read all the words to you, including all the names.

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And I said, but here's what I want you to do. Start in the gospel of John. Because you really need to know who

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Jesus is. And you're going to read about the amazing things that John did. And then I told her why

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I love John so much. You know, because it's not just, it is a picture of Jesus as God.

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But we also get to see the man, Jesus. We also get to see the way he interacted with his disciples, the way he loved them.

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And, you know, John, as I said many times, kind of takes us behind the scenes and shows us things that the other gospels don't.

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Including, you know, so much detail and the Last Supper and other areas. But really, really good.

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And I said, you know, would you do that? And she said, yes. And I said, well, I'd like to send you a

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Bible. And so I did. And it'll get there tomorrow. So you can be praying for Carrie.

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But that, you know, the fact that many religions contain some truth is helpful. Number 10.

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Upon death, some believers are enabled to be guardian angels. You die and you become like Hawkman.

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You know, you've got wings. I mean,

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I see stuff like that. People who are professing Christians and they say, well, you know, so -and -so is a guardian angel now or I, you know, and what do you say?

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I mean, the survey says. Hebrews 9, 27.

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And just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes angel status.

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Judgment. Judgment. The only question on Judgment Day isn't, you know, it's not heaven, hell, purgatory.

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And it's not heaven, hell or angel status for a while so that you can protect your family or loved ones on Earth.

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It's just heaven or hell. Did you believe in the Lord Jesus or not? Also, 2

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Corinthians 5, 8. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body so that we can have wings and protect our loved ones.

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And no, no, there's no guardian angel status.

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Zero, zero percent of that. Somebody says that, nicely tell them they need to believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ and read his word. I think we're supposed to quit here.

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So we'll quit at the halfway point. I have some good stuff here still to come. So that's disappointing.

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But, you know, when you write 20 questions, you know, you're not going to get through it because you're dogmatic about ending at 945.

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Okay, well, let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for the gospel of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, for his life, for his death, for his resurrection, for granting us faith that we might have eyes to see, ears to hear, that you have opened our minds, that you have given us new hearts.

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Lord, I pray that we would be dogmatic in the right way, that we would draw the right lines, that we would strive for unity, and that we would seek to proclaim the truth in love to others, and that with humility, we would grow together in Christ, serving one another, loving one another, and growing all the more in Christ -likeness until the day of Christ Jesus.