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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.

A Lighthearted Return and a Bible Baseball Game

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. Pastor Steve is back here with me on this Tuesday. Steve, after your holy hiatus, welcome back. I like to think of it as a hajj. Well, if it was a holy, what kind of hernia do people get?

Hiatal. Yes, hiatal. Holy hiatal hernia, Batman. Yeah, it was a holy hiatus. In your back, you visited your mom in Colorado, and I heard that went well. Yeah, it did, really did. Good, went to the Shepherd's Conference?

Had a great time. The men were terrific. We had a great time. I thought that before, maybe, you went to the Shepherd's Conference, you weren't really that pro-Shepherd's Conference, pro-MacArthur, pro-expository preaching, but you've come back, and it seems like you've had a change of attitude.

I was on the fence. You know, I mean, sometimes you hear this. I mean, I'm kind of more, you know, into the making sure that we have clowns for the kids on Sunday and stuff like that. I mean, I like, church should be something extraordinary, you know, kind of an extravaganza, as it were.

What's it, when you're afraid of clowns, what's that called again?

What kind of phobia? Clownophobia. No, it's not that. I think it starts with an O, but I could be wrong. Ogoraphobia. Yeah, afraid of the marketplace in Athens. Well, today on No Compromise Radio, we thought we'd show up and figure out what we're gonna talk about, because that has an added spice of spontaneity to it.

It gives the show a little bit of zing.

I thought we were gonna go through, page by page, the evangelical dictionary of theology.

We were, but then I started to think we should go through Paige Patterson's theology. Okay, well, that'll be fun. Now, in my hot little hands here today on No Compromise Radio, I have a pink little booklet, and it's got a baseball mitt with a baseball going into it.

Since it's almost, well, it is spring.

It is spring training, yeah. I mean, there are fantasy baseball drafts this Saturday.

This is called Bible Baseball by Robert Taylor, D .D. You know what D .D. stands for? Didn't do it. D .D. Ramone. And you know what, though? We used to have a book of Mormon baseball when I was a kid.

So I'm gonna ask Steve some questions here, and there are different kinds of questions. One is to get on first base. There's a double, there's a triple. There are home run questions.

Oh, boy, don't ask me any of those. Sacrifice. How about the strike. Three questions? I want those. Let's start off with this one.

Sacrifice fly questions. If answered correctly, the runners advance. Batter is out. Cannot be used with a two out. Some rules apply to bunts.

Sounds like some kind of McDonald's contest or something. Who came to Jesus by night? That's John 3. Wait, it's the teacher of Israel, and he doesn't know. Yeah, Nicodemus. For some reason, I wanted to say Zacchaeus, and I'm like, must suppress answer.

I know the answer. It's John 3. I should have just opened the Bible. Who named the birds and the beasts? Adam did.

There you go. Who was the mother of Jesus? Do we really have to do this? Now, those are sacrifice fly. What about these ones with No, let's not. With home run questions. That's weird. Who went out from the trial of Jesus and wept bitterly?

His defense lawyer? No. Well, we try all kinds of things on No Compromise Radio. That one didn't seem to go over so well, so I have in my hand top secret Bible quizzes by Margaret Anderson, and this is a very top secret, and they have things like vacation visiting.

For the record, all these things look like they were printed in the 1930s.

Do you know it actually smells like cigarette smoke? Really? Well, close. Is that must or cigarette smoke? No, that's the ashes of hell that you're actually selling me. You know, it's ashes from Ash Wednesday a couple weeks ago.

Steve, what did you give up for Lent, by the way?

I gave up Lent for Lent. That's a good answer. Yeah, thanks. I like that. I just put it all behind me.

The McGuffey Reader a while ago printed the Ten Commandments in rhyme. You know, I like the McGuffey Reader. That's an excellent series of books. You know what I know about the McGuffey Reader?

Almost nothing except that James Kennedy used to refer to it a lot in his kind of how we've lost education and lost the country, so I'm sure this'll be edifying.

These just have little rhymes to help you memorize things, like thou know gods shall have but me. I don't know if that rhymes. It says it rhymes. How about before no idol bend the knee? Oh, the me and the knee rhyme.

Okay, yeah, there you go. Wow, okay, let's get rid of that. Yeah. All right, let's get to something spicy today, something biblical. That was a long introduction because Steve's been gone and I needed to lay out the figurative red carpet for Steve to come back.

Thank you so much. In his full plumage. Steve and I went to see D .A. Carson the other day and we really loved D .A. Carson. It was an excellent series on preaching and historical theology, preaching and biblical theology.

Jean. Yeah, and he is a French-Canadian and speaks French fluently, and he was talking about the right kind of genre, G-E-N-R-E. And so I think I pronounce genre pretty well. Jean. Yeah, and so he would say if you're preaching in a certain kind of genre.

And I mean, it's just like, the way he does it, though, for me, I kind of have to warm up so I can say it properly. Jean. Yes, because if you're. He just, it just rolls off.

If you wake up early in the morning, your lips can't do that. Right. So Steve is going to have his proverbial blood boil right now because I hold in my hand a piece of paper from thechristianpost .com news, and it says this, evangelical delegation extends friendship to Mormons in Utah, March 11th, 2011.

Friendship with Mormons and the Problem with the Evangelical Table

So before I read you anything else, Steve, what are your gut reactions to the evangelical delegations that extends friendship to Mormons in Utah?

I think it's great to be friends with Mormons. I think it's terrific.

I have lots of friends who are Mormons. I thought you were going to do the whole McArthur thing when he said, you know, you don't like charismatics, you hate charismatics. I'm married to a charismatic.

That's right. I would say, same with Billy Graham, you know, when asked, you know, what about all these five-point Calvinists, and do you like five-point Calvinists, and what's going on about all these nasty five-point Calvinists?

And his response was, I've slept with a five-point Calvinist for 70 years.

Yeah, well, you know, I could say this. My wife married a Mormon, so.

Well, you know, maybe we could do some kind of reality TV show.

My wife married a Mormon. Yeah, she married me. You know, I was a Mormon way back then when we got married.

Steve, it won't surprise you that Richard Mau, the president of Fuller Seminary, has basically said this. Christians have been too mean to Mormons. Evangelicals have been too snippy. There's been no place at the theological table for dialogue, and we need to start toning down the rhetoric and start turning up the opportunities to discuss things.

Well, I think it's great to discuss things with Mormons. We had some, surprisingly, several weeks ago, we had some Mormon missionaries show up on a Sunday evening, and by the way, if the church Here at the church, yeah.

Yeah, if the church ever hears this, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon church, they could get in trouble, I would imagine, but they were here, and I was a little surprised to see them after the service ended, and made a beeline back there to talk with them, and had a great discussion with one of the elders.

Now, how did you, probably 16 and a half years old, or 17? Yeah, not too old. He was probably 20, 21. Now, Steve, did you do some kind of religious stereotyping and some kind of religious profiling, and how would you know from far away they were Mormon missionaries?

That seems to me that you're profiling incorrectly.

Yeah, well, here was my clue, and this was based on 21 years as a police officer, many, many hours of training. I looked towards the back, I saw a couple men in suits, not that unusual, it's a church, they had white shirts on, which makes it a little less likely, very plain ties, and then they had the name tags that said, Elder So-and-So, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That was the capper, you know? That's where I kind of tuned into that and figured out who they were.

I think I've said before on No Compromise Radio, when I went to Utah for business years ago, I was a new Christian, and I stayed at a Marriott in Salt Lake City, can you imagine that? And they had a Mormon Bible, well, they had the King James Bible in the Marriott Hotel and the Book of Mormon, and I did not have a copy, and I like to have, as a seminary student and now as a pastor, some of the other religious writings, the holy writ of other religions.

And so, I didn't want to just take it, because I figured that would be stealing, so I called the concierge. And I said, can I please have the Book of Mormon? They said, no, but we'll send up some Mormon missionaries, they'll talk to you, and then they'll give you one.

I said, no, that's okay, I'll just leave it, and they said, okay, go ahead and just take it.

So I still have it. Did you ever see, you open it up, it says it's placed there, compliments of the Kittians, not the Gideons. I don't know.

Steve's on some serious cough medicine today. It's called cough syrup, some kind of Ipecac special. Been suffering for a few days,.

But you know what's interesting was, if we could just talk about this for a second, the Mormon missionaries, I actually asked one of the guys, I said, you know, do you think it's vital to go to the, to be married in the temple to get to the highest degree of heaven, which I knew, of course, is one of their core beliefs.

And the elder said, well, yes, I do. And I said, can you tell me where that's found in the Bible? And he said, well, hmm, you know, I'm gonna sound like Ronald Reagan. Well, and he said, it's not in the Bible.

I said, okay, you know, that's fine. Where is it in the Book of Mormon? You know, another pause, well, it's nowhere in the Book of Mormon either. And I said, oh, so why do you guys believe it if it's not in scripture?

You know, granting for the moment, the idea that the Book of Mormon was scripture. And he says, well, he says, you ever been in the temple? And I said, yes. And he goes, baptized for the dead? And I said, yes.

And he goes, the closest I've ever felt in my life to God was being in the temple. And he goes, that's how I know that the temple is the right place to get married and all this other stuff. And, you know, so it's based on feeling.

Steve, let's talk about that. We're No Compromise Radio,.

Mike Ebendroth and Steve Cooley. This whole burning in the bosom idea, and it even can spill over into charismatics today and evangelical Christians today, where truth is confirmed to be true truth, as Francis Schaeffer would say, by experience.

And so my question, Steve, this morning is, this afternoon is, what's the difference between an evangelical Christian who says, I've had an experience, therefore it's true, tongues, for instance, and the Mormon missionary and the Mormon who says, I've read the Book of Mormon.

I've asked God to confirm in my heart that it's true, I've experienced the burning of the bosom, therefore it's true. Is there a difference?

Experience, Feelings, and the Authority of Scripture

There is no difference. I mean, this whole concept, and we hear evangelicals, Christians say this all the time. I have a piece about this, you know, that I know is from God or, you know, God didn't stop me from doing this, that, or the other thing, therefore I know he approves.

What are some other things that people say? I've heard the still small voice of God whisper, you know, or God told me, or, you know, fill in the blank. They look for a sign. It's a, I guess, a righteous and faithful generation that seeketh after a sign.

Isn't that what Jesus said? It's exactly that. And so when you have to try to trust in something differently than what God has told you to trust in, God's natural revelation, and now his special revelation in the Bible, it's just an attack on God and saying, I don't really trust you.

I need to have some confirmation outside of that. And so I always go back to, and you know the passage, Steve, in 2 Peter 1, verses 16 and following, where you can have an experience and hear things. The Father, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

You can have an experience and see things. Jesus, as he is transfigured and the glory of God, Shekinah glory beams out from the inside of Jesus, as it were, what he's on the inside shows up on the outside.

And still we've got something more important than the Bible. But see, Steve, the Bible, dusty, old, who wants to study that, memorize that? That's kind of the old book. We want the new experience.

Well, Peter says that there's nothing, nothing that trumps scripture. And so all this talk, I mean, seriously, I challenge people all the time. Show me where in the Bible it talks about the still small voice.

Or, you know, we were talking not long ago about this one pastor who said, you know, we just have a knower. In our hearts, we just know. Look, Jeremiah 79 couldn't be more clear. The heart is deceitful.

You know, we just have a real peace about it. Well, I'm glad that you have a peace, but what does the Bible say?

Well, I have a knower in my heart and I'm not talking about Noah in New Englandese. I have a knower and that knower is crooked. That's right. I got a crooked knower. And that's right. So let's talk a little bit more about Mormonism since we're on the topic and it's kind of spiraling out of control as usual here on Tuesdays.

Like a kamikaze pilot. Steve, tell me a little bit about the different strategies. And as many people know, but maybe not everyone, Steve was a Mormon for a long time. And so I'm sure he has a heart of compassion for Mormons because he doesn't want to see one Mormon go to hell.

But he also has a pastor's heart and that is one with a rod to warn and to keep the wolves away from his own people. But Steve, tell me the difference between having friends who are Mormon and then having some kind of evangelical dialogue, including them in the table.

And let's also talk about having Mormon missionaries come to our door and do we then let them in? What's the difference? So let's start with friendship. It's good to have friends with Mormons and what do we do when we have friends who are Mormon?

Why Mormons Cannot Be Treated as Co-Belligerents

It's great to have friends.

Who are unbelievers of any stripe. You know, I think the question is, do we sit them at the table as kind of co-belligerents? In other words, we're both on the same side of the gospel table. We're sitting on the right side and it's an unbelieving world that we're all seeking to win equally.

They have a completely different Jesus, a completely different view of scripture, a completely different view of God, a completely different view of man, a completely different view of heaven, hell, the whole nine yards.

There is nothing about Mormonism that ultimately is compatible with Christianity.

And the thing about Mormons and Christians and our dialogue and all those kind of things, we are not trying to say, we want you to be mean to people. And if you say, well, Jesus, he ate with sinners and tax collectors, that is absolutely true in Luke 15 and other passages, but they weren't sane as a tax collector and as a sinner.

Yahweh's views are wrong. Yahweh's view of salvation is wrong. Yahweh's definition, the definition of Yahweh is wrong. If they would have come along and said that to Jesus, reclining at the table, Jesus would have treated them like the lawyers, scribes, Pharisees, Herodians, and everyone else.

So when a person is your neighbor and they don't believe the gospel, we want you to be kind and take their trash out when they're gone and watch their dog and do all those kind of things, but we don't allow Mormons at the evangelical table and ask, I think, not just unwisely by Richard Maule, but unwisely and in an ungodly fashion.

This is all anti -2 Corinthians 6. We don't allow them at the table and say, you know, we've been too mean to you. What do you have to say? I already know what Mormons have to say and I don't need to listen because it's categorically wrong.

Well, and to just kind of put a little fine point on that, you know, one of the reasons why I bolted to the back of the church to talk with them, you know, almost every Sunday we'll have visitors of one stripe or another who show up at the church.

I don't always or I'm not always able to make it back to them but I'll tell you what, somebody could have come up to me with a question and I would have given them a very nice brush off, but I had to get back to those elders.

Why? Because I'm not gonna set them free in the church to kind of poach among the sheep. You know, as a pastor, I have an obligation to protect the flock and I can't just turn these guys loose who ultimately would be wolves if they could get away with it.

Well, listen to the language in Jude and I know you know this, Steve, but for you listeners listening to No Compromise Radio today with Mike and Steve, for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, and this is what they do and this is what the Mormons do.

They do it in a nice way. Matter of fact, on YouTube now I see a guy who'll say I'm a rock singer, I'm a football player and then they show a really nice life and wife and kid and I'm a Mormon. Yeah.

This whole Mormonism .org thing is Great folks. I mean, listen, I grew up in the church, I love Mormons and you could not ask for a nicer group of people. That is not the issue.

But here's what they do theologically. This is what the text says in Jude 4 ESV, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. So you say, well, I don't think they're always sensual and I don't think they deny Jesus by their sensuality.

I'll tell you what, when you are a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witnesses or a Jehovah's Witness or anyone else and you add works to grace, you are perverting the grace of our God. That's exactly what you do.

And second, correct me if I'm wrong, second Nephi or Nephi or Neptune, second Neptune. It's Nephi. It's Nephi, okay. You have been saved by grace, something about faith after all you can do.

Right, grace picks up your slack. After all you can do, grace picks it. And when I was talking to the missionaries, I asked him about that and he said, that's right. And I go, no, that's not right, that's not grace.

And you go step by step. Again, the articles of faith say we believe that the Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. And then they say, without equivocation, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

In other words, the word of God or the Book of Mormon is perfect. The Bible, on the other hand, has been tampered with and can't always be trusted and that's their out. If something that they teach doesn't go along with the Bible, they just go, well, you can't really trust the Bible all the time.

And these are the issues. I mean, this is where we separate. We have to separate because their view of God is that he's not powerful enough to preserve his word. Now, he preserved the Book of Mormon, although it's been changed countless times, amended.

I also asked him about the pages that were lost. They believe that a bunch of the Book of Mormon was lost and they don't have a problem with that. And on and on it goes where they just diverge from Christianity.

We ought not to be treating them as co-belligerents, as our brothers and sisters in Christ, because they are not.

Guarding the Flock and Refusing False Teachers at the Door

Well, when a church or assembly or denomination says, we should reexamine women in ministry, we should reexamine homosexuality, we should reexamine whatever it is, you know it's over because once the question's asked, there's already an agenda behind it.

And so when Mao says, well, we should try to look at this again, I know we disagree. He says, although I have to say there are a lot of things in Mormon theology that we disagree with, yet he's still letting them come to the table.

And so, yeah, things like Steve said earlier, wrong view of God, wrong view of man, wrong view of Jesus, wrong view of sin, wrong view of atonement, wrong view of resurrection, wrong view of creation, wrong view of the Bible.

I mean, but we agree with some things, like what? Being nice neighbors and abortion's bad?

Polygamy? I mean, seriously, wrong view of God. They actually believe that God the Father was once like us, that he was once a man, once a created being, and that he perfected himself and became a God.

Jesus Christ, created being, created along with us spiritually. All of us existed spiritually. Jesus Christ was the first created spiritual thing. And on and on it goes. Like I said, wrong view of sin, because they view sin as something that we ourselves can rid ourselves of.

Wrong view of scripture, because they think it's been tainted, they think it can be added to. You just go right down the list. There is nothing about Mormonism, ultimately, that is Christian.

How about this letter called Second John? And this letter is written to someone as an encouragement and as an instruction. And John, the great beloved apostle, wants to encourage a lady. And so he says, I'm going to write to you the elect lady.

That's an encouragement. Most people don't think election's really good for encouragement, but to think that you're elect. And so the elder writes to the elect lady. And here's what he says. Watch yourself so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but you may win a full reward.

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

If your Mormon friend wants to come over for a soda and you're talking and watching a football game together, fine. If the elders knock on your door and say, we'd like to talk to you about Jesus Christ and how he's not God, then do you let him in the door?

I wouldn't. And you know what?

Here's the tricky thing. They will actually say that Jesus Christ is God. And you have to kind of pin them down because I was stunned the first time somebody said that to me. I said, really? You believe that?

And he said, yeah. And so then you have to back up all the way to, was there ever a time when Jesus Christ did not exist? I asked that Mormon missionary the other night and he said, yes, there was a time when Jesus Christ did not exist.

And I'm like, well, then you don't believe.

In the Jesus Christ of the Bible. Absolutely, the eternal God. Can you imagine Jesus Christ, the eternal I am?

Before Abraham was, I am, John 8, 58.

And so when you have, they know, and they've been trained, and Steve knows this better than I do. When you talk at the door, they'll try to talk your lingo and they'll talk, we believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in this, we believe in that.

And so you've got to be very careful. And so what do we say as pastors? We say, if Mormon missionaries come to your door, you tell them, this is my house, we have a message for you, and that message is, your Mormon Jesus can't save you from your sins and you are a sinner and you need a perfect substitute, an eternal son of God who added flesh and great humiliation and condensate.

Condensate. I said that. Condescension. Condescension. And he was a sin bearer and was raised from the dead. That's not your Jesus. And if you don't believe in this Jesus, turn from your sins and the sin of believing in this hogwash, you're gonna go to hell.

Well, you know, don't be so mean, don't go so fast, et cetera, et cetera. And I say to them, it's my house, you're trying to damn my children. I'm not supposed to say, God bless you, I'm not supposed to pray that you have a merry way, I'm not gonna give you a Diet Coke,.

Anything, you need to stop it. Yeah, well, one of my favorite stories, and I'll make this brief. We were still in California, we were having a yard sale and Edwin was over, our good friend Edwin, and there were a couple of lady missionaries and they were walking around the neighborhood and they stopped by and Edwin said, hey, what are you guys doing?

They said, we're going around telling people the good news. And Edwin said, well, what's your good news? And they started, he goes, that's not good news, that's horrible news. And he just, he gave them the gospel right there and then that was a great moment.

That's a good question to ask people.

When they come to your door. What's your good news? And for them, the good news is work, work harder, work a little harder. And our good news is the work has been done. Isn't that good news, Steve? Jesus Christ has done the work once and for all.

Amen. So if you're listening today and you've got a Mormon friend, preach the good news to him, preach the good news to her, that Jesus has done it all and the response should be belief and repentance.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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