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Christianity is a precise religion because God is a precise God. Satan’s strategies for heresy seem to never stop. Mike and Steve analyze the evangelical church and her propensity to believe wrongly.
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.
Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It happens to be Tuesday, so that means Steve�s here. Hi. Steve, the other day you were talking about someone you thought that might have been demon possessed.
You know, we can�t ultimately know about these things, but this man was deranged and he was thinking improperly and he was chewing on his arm. And I think you gave one of these slogans that has almost risen to the �henno� status.
�Henno� is what we say when something�s weird. It�s like, �Hello? What are you thinking? Don�t think that way. That�s dumb. That�s what �henno� means in no-co-speak, no-co-nomenclature. And there�s also another one now that�s rising in its popularity in the Twitterverse and that�s what?
�Hey, you �Hey, you And so, when you yelled �Hey, you to this man who was eating his own arm, like, what did he look like afterwards? What did he say? Did he need stitches?
Yes, he needed stitches. I don�t really, you know, want to fully describe it. It was just, it was fairly gross, but, you know, he just looked, he looked kind of stunned, you know, when I just, �Hey, you pounded on the glass and he just looked up like, �What
You know? And I said, �Stop that And, you know, then he was just, like, staring at me again, you know, kind of glazed over. And so, and, you know, I know that he had been on some medication, some, you know, antidepressants and stuff like that.
And obviously, I think that he had been misdiagnosed.
Steve, you know, they have those pharmaceutical ads on Hulu and now on TV commercials and all that. And then they have to say really fast, you know, side effects include, you know. Chewing your own arm.
Chewing your own arm! Some people have known to just, you know, like auto-cannibal kind of thing.
I mean, it really was just, I've seen a lot of things in my life, but that was one of the most bizarre. And, you know, I'd talk to him and I'd set him aside. I'd put him in the day room because he wasn't acting rightly, you know.
But I certainly didn't have any idea he was going to do that. Or I, you know, we would have handcuffed him and taken him straight down to the infirmary.
So... Steve, now we have these slogans and stuff, you know, No Compromise has a slogan. And how could we incorporate the slogan, �Don't bite the hand that feeds you� into this �Hey you� business?
I don't know, but I'm just like, don't bite your own shoulder because it hurts, you know.
Well, you know, the only time I think that'd be acceptable is, you know, the guy, he had to cut off his arm because he was stuck in Utah or whatever.
The backpackers. I mean, this whole, there's just a whole fad of self-mutilation. I just, I think, bottom line is, I think, you know, the Bible says men are inventors of evil. That might be the King James.
But it is true. I mean, whatever way that the image of God can be defaced or we can, you know, somehow sink to some new level of depravity, I mean, people are thinking of things that I just, in all my, if you put me in, locked me in a room for a week and said, I want you to think of evil things, I would never think of the things that people think of, just different ways of defiling what God has created.
Pete Steve, I think this is actually in the Message Bible in Romans 1, as I read the Message Bible.
Pete We really do need to get some intro music for this.
Pete. Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. Pete. That's wrong. Pete. And then all hell broke loose, rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing.
Pete But that's just wrong because it says Pete It doesn't bother anybody. Pete Well, yeah, it's just wrong because it distinctly says God took action. He gave them over, you know. Pete You are so right.
And I think the S. Lewis Johnson Romans commentary makes it clear what kind of giving over that is. Yes. And then it says, look at them, mean spirited, venomous, forked tongue, God bashers, bullies, swaggers, insufferable windbags.
Pete I actually like some of that, right? God bashers, insufferable windbags.
Pete They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. Pete They ditch their parents when they get in the way. They play ring and run. Oh, no, sorry. Pete Stupid. Pete Stupid Patrick, slimy, cold, blooded, cruel.
And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care. Worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best. I did not misspeak.
Pete. You know, some of that, some of that is, you know, the spitting in God's face, I like that part. But it's worse than they don't care. They know it and they rejoice in it. They revel in it. You know, it's, this is full on in your face rebellion.
What are you going to do about it, God?
That's more like it. Pete Steve, Christianity Today. Maybe your favorite Christian magazine, do you think?
Pete. Well, it, you know, it's mandatory reading. When I get it, it's from cover to cover, several times. I usually try to memorize most of the articles.
Pete Well, what I do is I basically get Modern Reformation magazine and Christianity Today and, and Pete Blend the two. Pete Well, yeah, Christianity Today helps me properly interpret Modern Reformation.
Because, you know, I might be reading some kind of.
Pete It's your hermeneutic, right? Pete Yeah, yeah.
Pete. So in case I need the law gospel hermeneutic or something. It helps me understand Modern Reformation and Pete Rosenblatt's articles.
Pete. Somebody has to help you understand Rosenblatt.
Pete. This is an older article, but I like it because it makes good radio. By the way, Steve, what does make good radio? We should probably establish that first.
Pete What makes good radio? A really good monotone voice. Pete I've heard preachers like that. Pete Me too. Pete Me too.
Hey, you. Pete. Hello. Pete. New Pole, this is the article's name written by Kevin Emmert. New Pole finds evangelicals' favorite heresies. Now we've talked about this before, but boy, time flies. Pete I love being good heresy.
Pete. Never met a good heresy you couldn't critique on the radio. And this article, subtitle says, Survey finds many American evangelicals hold unorthodox views on the Trinity, salvation, and other doctrines.
Now before we look at some of these in particular, Steve, why do you think evangelicals are basically ripe for the pickings when a JW or a Mormon shows up at the door?
Pete Because they don't know the Bible and they don't know doctrine. Other than that, I think they're pretty much good to go.
Pete And don't you think oftentimes it's because the pastor wants to give the congregation, you know, five easy things to do, six steps to take home and to figure out how to employ, and they want all practice and no doctrine.
Pete Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next.
Evolution in church, you know, sermons, which will be something like six steps to a better potato salad, you know, things like that.
So…. Pete. Do you know what? I'd like a little jalapeno in mine and maybe a little blue cheese, but not too much, because then I have to use my EpiPen.
Pete. What's wrong with your baked potato?
You know, I mean, it's…. Pete Steve, was it Martyn Lloyd-Jones who said that all doctrine is application and all application is doctrine? Pete Yes. Pete Did he say that or somebody else? Pete I don't know, but it sounds good.
Pete Yeah, well, let's just give it to the.
Reverend Doctor. Pete Reverend Doctrine. Pete The Dr. Reverend, yeah, the Doctor of,.
No, the Reverend of Doctrine. There you go. I never got to hear Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach in person, did you? Pete No. Pete I wasn't saved when that happens, when he was preaching. Then he died, I think, in 1981.
Pete Yeah. Pete Have you seen the new movie, Logic on Fire? Pete Just bits of it. I've seen parts of it.
Pete I haven't got to see it yet, but I heard it was good. Pete Yeah, I saw about, I think, the second half of it.
Pete Yeah, okay. Well, I think, you know, the makers of the documentary, I think they must have forgotten our address, or maybe it went down the street to the United Methodist Church.
I think they were sending those out so we could. Pete They didn't talk to you, because I'm featured heavily in the first half of it. Pete Really? Pete Yeah. Pete That's nice. Pete The High Holy Reverend Steve Gooley.
Pete. So, evangelicals, heresy, of course, Satan is not going to have his emissaries attack dead churches because they're already dead, right? So you have to push this stuff into evangelical churches.
I mean, they might show up for laughs at a, you know, dead church, but.
Pete Now, see, Steve, let me tell you, let me tell you, that was a delayed laugh there. Let me tell you what this article said, and it seems like the author thinks this is pretty positive, but I'm kind of the flip side of this.
Evangelicals did score high on several points. Nearly all believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, 96%. Salvation found through Jesus alone, 92%. Pete Well, that's good. Pete And God's sovereign over all people, 89%.
Bible's the word of God, 88%. Pete Not bad. Pete Now, those are high scores, but that means 4 of the.
Pete. Although an 88 is what, a B at Master's Seminary, huh?
Pete 96 Jesus rose from the dead. I mean, what if you're one of the 4 and you say, I'm an evangelical and I don't believe he rose from the dead. Now, what's that all about? Pete I don't know.
Pete You're not an evangelical. Pete. Right, yeah. I don't know. But I would venture to say 96 on that one is probably about the same as our church. I think if we pressed hard enough, we'd find 4 who didn't believe that.
Pete. Then why did they come here?
Pete I couldn't tell you. Pete Are they big givers? Pete I think they just like you. Pete Well, I'm glad somebody does. Pete He's so loving from the pulpit. Pete Actually, I think my demeanor from the.
Pulpit is getting much nicer. Pete I think it is too. It's like a Sunday morning hug.
Pete What's that Jesus hug statue that's, I think, off the interstate in Ohio? And it's this huge statue. It's called the Jesus hug statue, Hugging Jesus. And they say, the detractors of that church say that they think there's cocaine stored inside of there.
Pete Hmm. Pete Yeah, Hugging Jesus. Maybe that's what we should do. You know, I thought, Steve, out in front of the church building, here at 307 Lancaster Street, that we should put one of those air filled balloon things that goes all crazy back and forth with the weird kind of hair and that would attract people to the church.
Pete Yeah, that's what we budgeted. And what happened? Why didn't the deacons do what we asked them to do? Pete I'm not really sure.
I think that went into the coleslaw instead.
Pete We could have on the guy's hand, it say, Hey, you. Pete Hello. Pete So 92 say, Jesus alone, you know, through him alone, you receive salvation. Pete Yeah, that's not that good.
I mean, Pete. One out of 10? Pete. Yeah, see, I thought 96 was pretty good.
Pete Okay, so let's just let me give you that, even though my gut wants to rebel. But how about every row of 10 people, one of them thinks you can get to heaven a different way? Pete No, that's not good.
Pete That would be bad. Pete Yeah, that's bad. Yeah, if you could get to heaven a different way, Steve, tell me why would Jesus have to assuage God the Father's wrath? Why would that happen?
Pete. Well, there would be no reason. And you know, biblically, that's exactly what he did. You know, he's the propitiation Romans 3 says. God is wrathful, he hates sin, and you know, that wrath is going to be visited upon someone again.
And thanks be to God that Jesus Christ bore the penalty for our sin on the cross at Calvary.
Pete Galatians 221, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Pete I go for that. Pete So what if we have like a no purpose driven life?
And it's all about works, righteousness and law keeping to get to heaven. I mean, our law keeping.
Pete. It's hopeless. I mean, I, so, yeah, I mean, I don't know why that bothers me more than the resurrection. I guess, you know, when you're talking 96%, you have to allow for a certain margin of error.
You know, I mean, no matter what the poll is, there's always going to be a margin of error because people who don't understand the question are, you know, yeah, whatever, you know, I mean, they're just confused or, so, you know, I think 96 is not that bad because it could be like, as high as 98 or 99 and, you know, but 92 starts to bother.
Me. Pete Okay, on the flip side, Steve, in bothering, because I know what gets underneath your skin and your collar, 6 of evangelicals. Steve My clerical collar. Pete Yeah, well, of course, I want to know that little white thing that's up there by your Adam's apple.
Steve Mm hmm. I'm trying to become more Reformed. Pete Well, there's only certain kinds of fabric and clothes you can wear on the Sabbath, I know.
Steve. And mine are, you know, no mixed fabrics, definitely not. Pete. Shabbat Shalom.
Steve Thank you. Pete Steve, it says here 6 of evangelicals think the Book of Mormon is a revelation from God. Steve No, they don't. Pete Yep, that's according to this. Steve 6%. Pete 6%. Steve Well, that just goes to show that the survey was 6 Mormon.
Pete Well, yeah, maybe the people who did the survey considered Mormons a, hey, their church name says Jesus Christ.
Steve. So they must be, must be Christians.
Pete What's that movie that came out that was putting a positive spin on Mormons and Mormonism, Meet the Mormons, something like that?
Steve I think that was Meet the Beatles, but.
Pete A .A. were the Mormons.
Steve I just saw, I just started watching something, some Mormon sent me a link the other day and I started watching, I go, you know, and I just can't be bothered, but it was boasting about a new day for the Book of Mormon, you know, and just had different people talking about their experiences with the Book of Mormon, including, you know, supposedly a Baptist minister.
When anybody's described as a Baptist minister with no name, you know, attached, I'm just like, allegedly.
Pete Steve, when I was thinking about modern reformation a moment ago in the Whitehorse Inn, I love those shows when they go around and interview people at, not at CBD, but the Christian Book Association and places where you would imagine people would have some idea of Christianity.
And then they ask them questions like this, and then, I don't know what it is, when somebody puts a microphone in people's faces, they just go off the heresy cliff or something, but they, they're quite humorous on one hand and quite sad on the other.
Pete. Well, it's like the ABC News guy, I'm trying to think, Jimmy Kimmel, who does his little man on the street interviews and they run out there and they ask people, they say things like, what do you think about LeBron James inauguration address?
And they go, well, you know, I thought it was pretty good and I think he'll be a great president and, you know, they're dead serious. I mean, they just act like they know what's going on in the world, they don't have a clue.
And you know, it's the same with evangelicals, you know, what do you think about the new books that have been added to the Bible? Oh, they're great! I just love them, you know, and so, yeah, I mean, I, actually, I would do that sort of thing.
It's exactly the sort of thing that people would expect me to stoop to and yeah, I'd do it in a hot second.
Steve, can sequential exposition help congregants resist these kind of aberrations and heresies? In other words, tell our listeners that if you sit underneath good exposition, high view of God exposition, Christ-centered exposition, you're going to learn a lot about systematic theology even though the pastor might not say, open your Bible, open your Bibles to Romans 1 and your Berkhoff to page 38.
Yeah, I want to say something shocking here.
Biblical exposition is necessarily doctrinal in nature. That's really not shocking at all, but you have to explain doctrine as you're going through the Bible. Why? Because doctrine is just biblical teaching.
So, as we go through a particular passage of scripture, we're going to bring up the doctrines that are presented in that passage of scripture. Why? Because that's what you would talk about during that passage of scripture.
We're going to expose what it says about you, about God, and that is doctrine.
I think MacArthur and Lloyd-Jones are two men who specifically excel in teaching systematic theology as they preach and work through the passages. I remember when I was in a seminary part-time and I wanted to take some systematic theology classes, but they weren't offered, Steve, when I needed to take them because I had a full-time job.
And so, Jim George, I think, said, well, just keep listening to MacArthur's messages, verse by verse, and your systematic theology will get better.
They really just, they wanted you to graduate so bad, they just like waved. Did you take any classes in the seminary or did they just wave the whole thing?
Well, they said if I taught a couple classes, I could get out of it. I believe that. Steve, I love listening to S. Lewis Johnson, and at sljinstitute .net, our listeners could go there and you can have two different systematic theology classes for free downloads.
I think one is 100 different messages and the other is 200. I would really recommend that if you're a mom or a dad, you're not even a seminary student, you just want to learn and grow and you want to protect yourself from nonsense like that's being promoted, go to sljinstitute .net and listen to the systematic theology, even one a week, and you are going to really be helped.
Who is God? How can he be one, yet triune? Those things are very helpful, sljinstitute .net.
Well, they are very helpful, and again, you know, people recoil at this idea of doctrine. But if you're hearing, excuse me, if you're hearing the Bible taught and you're not hearing doctrine, then you're not hearing the Bible taught.
If you think you're hearing the Bible taught, pardon me, then you are hearing doctrine. You should absorb it, you should love it. Why? Because you need this. It's like, you're being sent, when you leave church on Sunday, you're being sent out into a world that's going to pillory you, that means attack.
They're going to attack you for what you believe and they're going to demand to know what kind of fool you are to believe it. And if you don't have some answers, if you're not equipped, then, you know, shame on your pastors.
So, that's what they're supposed to be doing, they're supposed to be equipping you for the work of ministry. And that would be both in the body and then to the world. You're to serve, to do the one another's in the body, and you're also to evangelize, and you can't do that if you don't know the truth.
Pete I think you're also going to need to read your Bibles at home on a regular basis and have some type of plan. Maybe you get the study Bible that tells you what to read every day. For me, I don't use that plan, but you need to have some plan.
I just talked to one of my children yesterday, matter of fact, and they said, Dad, well, sometimes I wake up in the morning really wanting to read my Bible, and other days I don't. And I said, well, here's my strategy, because I go through the exact same thing.
Whether I feel like it or whether I don't feel like it, I just sit down with my Bible and begin to read. Because after I read for a little while, then I realize this is good for me to think biblical thoughts.
Some days I feel like loving my wife, and some days I don't. Some days I feel like loving the Lord Jesus Christ, some days I don't. Some days I feel like, boy, if we go by our feelings, we're in for a rough ride.
Pete. Hey, you! Pete. We're going to be chewing our shoulder in no time.
Pete. According to this survey, God the Father is more divine than Jesus, 31 of evangelicals say that he's more divine than Jesus. But what's behind that? Don't you think people are not understanding how the Trinity functions in light of the Incarnation and this incarnational talk from Jesus where he would say, you know, my Father's greater than I am.
People just get lost in some of these things.
Pete Yes, but even when, if your pastor's going through that passage, he ought to explain exactly what it means. And he ought not to be afraid of talking about, you know, big words like the ontological Trinity and the economical Trinity, he needs to explain those kind of things.
Why? Because you need to understand them. And you know, the Bible, including Jesus, spent a lot of time warning about false teachers, false doctrine, damning heresies. Well, why is that? Because they're really out there, because they're really a concern.
And you, you know, even in Titus, Paul wrote to Titus, here's how you choose elders. They need to be able to exhort in sound doctrine, that is to say, truth. And they need to be able to refute those who contradict sound doctrine.
That is what your pastor is supposed to be doing.
Pete. And along with that, he has to say not only what this text means, but what it doesn't mean. Pete. That's right. Pete. There's this, there's this polemical aspect of preaching. But Steve, so many people, I know the folks at Bethlehem Bible Church are this way, and many of our NoCo listeners are not this way.
But we want to say to ourselves in light of culture often, I don't want anything negative, and I don't want to, when the pastor critiques somebody or says something, I don't really like that. Steve I don't like it at all, because it just sounds mean.
It sounds unloving. And why can't you guys be more loving? Oh, sorry. Pete. Well, well, Steve, I don't want to be mean, and I don't want to, you know, be so wound up that I'm going to have a heart attack and a vein is going to bust on my forehead because I'm screaming mad.
I know I'm a sinner. I know God has saved me from this foolishness that other people are involved in with these heresies. But still, we have to, we have to speak. And people say speak the truth in love, and they highlight love, but you have to speak the truth.
Steve. That's right. And, you know, could it be that sometimes when I'm speaking, I'm not as loving as I could be? Probably, because I am a sinner. But if I shrink from declaring the truth, if I don't tell the truth, then I'm absolutely useless.
Yes, I wanted to speak the truth in love, yes, otherwise I'm a clanging gong and a clashing cymbal or a clashing gong and a clanging cymbal, whatever it is. But, as you said, it starts with the truth.
And then I need to explain the truth and try to put a nice voice in it and try to couch it in nice terms, but it has to be the truth. I can't swerve from that. I can't nice, you know, be so nice that I'm afraid to tell the truth.
Jared. Well, we only have 30 seconds left, but when we're told to herald the word, you can just imagine the town crier down the street, here ye, here ye, you know, we've won victory, our king has won victory over these pillagers and we won, the war is over.
Well, you know, you've got to be a little nicer when you say that. David. Because we don't want to offend anyone.
It's like one of my police buddies used to say, our job was to protect and not to offend.
Jared. Oh, that's interesting. See how that works? And I only have two words for that. You know, sometimes it's one word with forget you or hello. You know, there's only two words that really captivate me and summarize my thoughts.