Heresies and HEY YOU

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've 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 NoCo speak, NoCo 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, what did he look like afterwards?

What did he say? Did he need stitches? Yes, he needed stitches. I don't really 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. 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 that 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, that 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 a, 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. Steve, I think this is actually in the Message Bible in Romans 1, as I read the

Message Bible. We really do need to get some intro music for this. Since they didn't bother to acknowledge

God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. That's wrong. And then all hell broke loose, rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing.

It made life. But that's just wrong because it says - It doesn't bother anybody. Well, yeah, it's just wrong because it distinctly says

God took action, He gave them over. 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, fork -tongued,

God -bashers, bullies, swaggers, insufferable windbags. I actually like some of that, right?

God -bashers, insufferable windbags. They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way.

They play ring and run. Oh no, sorry. Stupid, 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.

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. Steve, Christianity Today. Maybe your favorite

Christian magazine, do you think? 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. Well, what I do is I basically get

Modern Reformation Magazine and Christianity Today and blend the two. Well, yeah,

Christianity Today helps me properly interpret Modern Reformation. Because, you know,

I might be reading some kind of - It's your hermeneutic, right? Yeah, yeah. So in case

I need the law gospel hermeneutic or something, it helps me understand Modern Reformation and Rosenblatt's articles.

Right, right. Somebody has to help you understand Rosenblatt. Well, I, yeah. 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. What makes good radio?

A really good monotone voice. I've heard preachers like that. Me too.

Me too. Hey, you. Hello.

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. I love being a good heresy. 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? 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. 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.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next evolution in church sermons, which will be something like six steps to a better potato salad, you know, things like that, so.

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. What's wrong with your baked potato? Steve, was it

Martyn Lloyd -Jones who said that all doctrine is application and all application is doctrine?

Yes. Did he say that or somebody else? I don't know, but it sounds good. Yeah, well, let's just give it to the Reverend Doctor.

Reverend Doctrine. The Dr. Reverend, yeah, the Doctor of, no, the

Reverend of Doctrine, there you go. I'd never got to hear Martyn Lloyd -Jones preach in person, did you?

No. I wasn't saved when that happens, when he was preaching. Then he died, I think, in 1981. Yeah.

Have you seen the new movie, Logic on Fire? Just bits of it,

I've seen parts of it. I haven't got to see it yet, but I heard it was good. Yeah, I saw about, I think, the second half of it.

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 talk. They didn't talk to you because I'm featured heavily in the first half of it. Really? Yeah. That's nice.

The High Holy Reverend, Steve Grooming. 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. Yeah, I mean, they might show up for laughs at a, you know, dead church, but.

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%. Well, that's good. And God's sovereign over all people, 89%.

Bible's the word of God, 88%. Not bad. Now, those are high scores, but that means 4 % of them.

And the 88 is what, a B at Master's Seminary, huh? 96 %

Jesus rose from the dead. I mean, what if you're one of the 4 % and you say, yeah,

I'm an evangelical, and I don't believe he rose from the dead. Now, what's that all about? You're not an evangelical. Right, yeah.

I don't know, but I would venture to say 96 % on that one is probably about the same as our church.

You know, and I think if we pressed hard enough, we'd find 4 % who didn't believe that. Then why did they come here?

I couldn't tell you. Are they big givers? I think they're just like you. Well, I'm glad somebody -

He's so loving from the pulpit. Actually, I think my demeanor from the pulpit is getting much nicer.

I think it is too. It's like a Sunday morning hug. 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.

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.

Yeah, that's what we budgeted. Yeah, and what happened? Why didn't the deacons do what we asked them to do?

I'm not really sure. I think that went into the coleslaw instead. We could have on the guy's hand, it say, hey, you, hello.

So 92 % say Jesus alone, through him alone, you receive salvation.

Yeah, that's not that good. I mean, 90 - One out of 10? Yeah, see, I thought 96 % was pretty good.

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.

No, that's not good. That would be bad. 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? 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 gonna be visited upon someone.

And thanks be to God that Jesus Christ bore the penalty for our sin on the cross at Calvary.

Galatians 2 .21, I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law, then

Christ died for no purpose. I go for that. 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. It's hopeless.

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 gonna be a margin of error because people who don't understand the question.

No hablo espanol. 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.

Okay, on the flip side, Steve, in bothering, because I know what gets underneath your skin and your collar, 6 % of evangelicals.

My clerical collar. Yeah, well, of course, I want to know that little white thing that's up there by your

Adam's apple. I'm trying to become more reformed. Well, there's only certain kinds of fabric and clothes you can wear on the

Sabbath, I know. Yeah. And mine are, you know, no mixed fabrics. Definitely not.

Shabbat shalom. Thank you. Steve, it says here 6 % of evangelicals think the Book of Mormon is a revelation from God.

No, they don't. Yep, that's according to this. 6%. Well, that just goes to show that the survey was 6 %

Mormon. Well, yeah, maybe the people who did the survey considered Mormons a, hey, their church name says

Jesus Christ. So they must be, must be Christians. What's that movie that came out that was putting a positive spin on Mormons and Mormonism, Meet the

Mormons, something like that? I think that was Meet the Beatles, but. Hey, hey, we're the

Mormons. I just saw, I just started watching something, some Mormon sent me a link the other day and I started watching and 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. Steve, when

I was thinking about modern reformation a moment ago in the White Horse 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. Christian booksellers, I think.

Yeah, 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're quite humorous on one hand and quite sad on the other.

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, 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

Bibles to Romans 1 and your book off 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 at 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 a hundred different messages and the other's 200. I would really recommend that if you're a mom or a dad, you're not even a seminary student, you just wanna learn and grow and you wanna protect yourself from nonsense like it's being promoted, go to sljinstitute .net

and listen to the systematic theology, even one a week, and you are gonna 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, 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 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.

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.

Hey, you. We're going to be chewing our shoulder in no time. 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, what he would say, my father's greater than I am.

People just get lost in some of these things. Yes, but even 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 big words like the ontological Trinity and the economical

Trinity. He needs to explain those kinds of things. Why? Because you need to understand them.

And 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. And along with that, he has to say not only what this text means, but what it doesn't mean.

That's right. There's this polemical aspect of preaching, but Steve, so many people,

I know the folks at Bethlehem Bible Church aren't 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.

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. Well, Steve, I don't want to be mean, and I don't want to 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 speak, and people say speak the truth in love, and they highlight love, but you have to speak the truth.

That's right. And 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 be so nice that I'm afraid to tell the truth.

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, hear ye, hear ye, we've won victory.

Our king has won victory over these pillagers, and we won, the war is over.

Well, you gotta be a little nicer when you say that. 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.

Oh, that's interesting. See how that works? I only have two words for that. Sometimes it's one word with forget you or hello.

There's only two words that really captivate me and summarize my thoughts. Hey, you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 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.