The Apostate PCUSA

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. This is show number two for us today, Steve, but it seems like a Tuesday again.

Well, I don�t think there�s ever any way that we can do too many Tuesday shows.

Oh, does that sound arrogant? I�m sorry. Steve, now, come on. This is, where�s your pastoral side? Hmm. Let me look for it. It�s around here somewhere. All right. Well, speaking of pastoral side, there is the debate, I know it�s a debate, even though I, it�s not debatable, but there�s a debate now in Christianity, mainline Christianity, and now even in evangelical Christianity, that we should allow homosexuals, practicing homosexuals, to marry.

And even yesterday in real time, maybe not noco time, but real time, the PCUSA, Presbyterian Church USA, said it�s okay for two people to get married. They don�t have to be a man and a woman. Do they have to be adults?

Well, as time goes on, the answer is probably no, because in Denmark and other places, as you have the Nambla kind of societies trying to push for ages to go lower and lower and lower, 12, 14, 16, depending on which country you�re in.

Oh, come on. That�s just the error of the slippery slope. I think Portugal�s 12. That�s a logical fallacy. You know, somebody, well, people like to say that anyway, you know, �Oh, you guys are just scaremongers.

That�s the slippery slope. And I�m like, �Hmm, no. I think if you watch, it�s exactly what is happening in our society. So you know, a slippery slope is only a fallacy if it�s not true. Well that�s true.

I mean, are some slopes slippery, right?

Especially in New England. Last night, you know, it seemed to be 45, 50 degrees at 4 in the afternoon, and then by 4 .30, it was this hailstorm coming down and wind and icy roads.

Steve, it was amazing. Yeah, Joey and I were driving, I guess it would have been maybe 5 .45, we were on the 190, and we could see sun, you know, right in front of us, and we were getting hammered by this ice storm.

I just go, �Hmmm. This is interesting, so windy, and it was funny.

Steve, anything new in your life regarding personal life? You got any more grandkids or anything?

Not that I know of, you know, but I�m always open to surprises.

Now, what do you do if you have to take all your grandkids in the car at the same time? Do you have like a space shuttle or something?

It�s a caravan, you know, so.

Well, it�s not a caravan van, but it�s a caravan of cars. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, I mean, we�ve been talking about that a little bit in our need to maybe, you know, at some point in the future get a bigger vehicle, but yeah, right now, we just kind of, we�re limited to a couple of grandkids at a time.

It�s a nice problem to have. Steve, isn�t it funny how life works where first you have to have bigger cars for kids, and then the kids move out, and then you downsize, and then the kids have kids, and then you have to get bigger cars again?

It�s a wonderful problem. It�s a blessed problem to have.

The PCUSA’s Move Toward Same-Sex Marriage

So Presbyterian Church USA, they embrace LGBT inclusive language, and they say in their new book of order, it�s called Amendment 14F, by the way, so we�re technical because we like to, we like to make sure we�re above I�m going to write that down.

Above reproach. Okay. All right. Marriage is being, quote, �between two people.

You know, I think you do have to back up a little bit, though. I mean, I do. What kind of church would allow into, thank you, Chris Berman, would allow into membership somebody who�s a, you know, let alone marry them, right?

I think there�s something really odd about a church who just says, �You know what? It�s fine if you�re a practicing homosexual. You can be a member of our church.

Yes, but Steve, that�s unloving for you to somehow do the opposite. I think you�re going to get a standing deviation. It�s the opposite of a standing ovation. It�s a sitting ovation. A sitting, yes.

Or a round course of booze. But here�s the thing. If the Bible says it�s a sin, then what do I do? I just have, you know, it gets back to our last show, inerrancy. Was the Bible wrong? It is the Bible wrong, you know, when it said that homosexuals will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Is that an error?

Steve, didn�t you find it insightful when Al Mohler was discussing this very issue? And he said at the highest levels, the homosexual community has conceded, they have conceded the fact that the Bible teaches homosexuality is sinful.

You know, they still try to say, well, Romans 1 happens to be for people that don�t love each other or forceful kind of rape or blah, blah, blah, blah. But really at the highest levels, they understand what the text says and means.

So now they try different ways of approaching this problem. And one that they�ve done in the city church in San Francisco that used to be a PCA church until I believe around 2004 when they left, maybe 2006-ish, it�s a pastoral problem for them now.

We want people to flourish. You know, we�re holding people back if we don�t let them have same-sex relationships.

Why did I read that? I think I actually read that, so maybe you sent it to me, but yeah. Holding people back. Holding people back, yeah. Why restrict people�s personal growth? I mean, surely you don�t want to stop them from being all that they can be on their way to hell.

I mean, I�m with Spurgeon. If people are going to go to hell, let them jump over our, you know, over us, let them, you know, let them enter hell with us holding on to their leggings, you know, as it were.

Let us do all that we can to prevent that. And I think if we�re, it�s a contrast, because the city church would say, you know what, if you want to go to hell, we�re going to help you get there and feel good about it.

You�re not going to feel so good once you get there.

Steve, tell me if you think my analysis is right or wrong, or just add to it if you�d.

Like, or subtract from it. I�m going to vivisect.

Inerrancy, Authorial Intent, and the Authority of Scripture

Well, okay, well, just hear what I�m going to say first, okay? Please, come on. I mean, we have liberal denominations, mainline denominations, and they gave up inerrancy a long time ago. Okay, I�m with you.

So far, so good. And so it�s no surprise for us, it�s not a surprise to us, that the PCUSA, who used to ordain, you know, ladies, who still ordain ladies, now say homosexual marriage is fine. That�s no surprise.

And I find it interesting, Steve, that their numbers, their membership roles have, as they have become more liberal, their numbers have decreased.

Well, it�s actually kind of shocking, isn�t it? Because you would expect the opposite. As they become more inclusive, you would think their numbers would grow.

And it�s fascinating to me. I think it�s Mueller or somebody else that said PCUSA is in the news a lot now, because they, the New York Times and other places, were trying to get them to swing over to this particular view.

But now that they�ve swung over, they are irrelevant. And they say the exact same things that the New York Times says, so why listen to the PCUSA anymore?

Yeah, I mean, why go to their meetings when you can just pick up the New York Times and get the same thing, right? That�s right. If you�re going to check the Bible, just pick up the New York Times.

So I�m not surprised that liberal Methodists or liberal Lutherans or Episcopalians or PCUSA folks have, you know, caved into this. But what�s fascinating to me are the churches that are evangelical, at least by name, in Nashville and now City Church in San Francisco.

They, you know, a couple campuses, a thousand people. Yes, they might lose two members of the elder board because of this issue, but they tend to be growing.

Well, you know, it can only happen in places like Nashville and San Francisco, I guess.

All right, here�s what Fred Harrell�s church said, the City Church in San Francisco. Good old Fred. Mm-hmm. And he, along with the rest of the board, wrote a letter, and it says in this letter, explaining their position, �Imagine feeling this from your family or religious community.

If you stay, you must accept celibacy with no hope that you too might one day enjoy the fullness of intellectual, spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical companionship. If you pursue a lifelong partnership, you are rejected.

This is simply not working and people are being hurt. We must listen and respond. I�m hurt. So how about that subjective language? Forget the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 6 and Romans 1.

Forget objective truth. Yeah. Yeah. It�s all about subjectivity. How does that make you feel?

Steve, this is another one of my working premises. Premi? Is premi right? I doubt it. I know it�s not, but it sounded, I don�t know, intellectual to some degree. Premici. Uh-huh. Well, in front of us is this book.

We�re not kidding. And the book is called, �Woe is I, Patricia T. O�Connor, The Grammophobe�s Guide to Better English in Plain English. I can always tell when it�s getting hot in here. In 2004, City Church leaves the PCA.

PCA is a, Steve, describe to our listeners, PCUSA, PCA, OPC.

Are all Presbyterians the same? No, they�re not. PCUSA used to be the denomination. But then, you know, what, maybe 80, 90 years ago, they went completely liberal off the rails. Then you had the PCA, and then OPC, and all these other denominations.

But PCA, OPC, these are generally, they hold to inerrancy, you know, and they�re good, solid places to go and learn the Bible.

So, back to Slippery Slopes. 2004, City Church leaves the PCA so they can ordain ladies to the office of elder. And so, there we have it again, my working premise. If you can take the Bible, which says, �I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet 1 Timothy 2, and make it say, �I do allow.

Then you can make the Bible say whatever you want, including, we celebrate the experience of homosexual sex.

Well, I�ll go back to the Slippery Slope thing. Listen, life is all about, I mean, when you�re talking about the Bible, if you�re going to step off of anything, if you�re going to take a less than fully inerrant view of the Word of God, you are starting down a Slippery Slope.

And you may not want to hear it, but things are going to go from bad to worse in your church, in your denomination, because once you have chucked the authority of Scripture, once you have said, �Well, that�s nice, God, but, you know, that really, all that stuff doesn�t work today.

And that�s what he said there. You know, that doesn�t really work. It�s not really effective. It is the ultimate in mass therapy. You know, it�s almost like instead of having people sit in pews, they ought to have everybody in the congregation lay down on the couch and tell us what they feel in response to what the pastor says.

And then we�ll gauge what truth is by what the people out on the couches think of what the message is.

Authorial Intent, Mass Therapy, and the Limits of Subjectivity

Pete Steve and Mike here on No Compromise Radio. Tuesday. Guy, what�s that called. When you put somebody in a dunk tank, there�s a big thing of water underneath them, and you throw the ball, and if you hit a certain area, it releases the lever and drops the person into the tank?

Pete. Rap music. What is that?

It�s called a dunk tank. I don�t know why you give the whole premise away in the first two words.

I didn�t know. That was a technical definition of a dunk tank.

When you call it a dunk tank, it�s a dunk tank. Everybody knows what a dunk tank is. It�s not where you go into a thing of water and Shaq dunks on you, you know. All right.

Steve, when a congregation begins to say, �We need to reexamine this issue. We need to put together a committee, ask some questions, and we need to read some books, read the Bible, do some social science interaction.

What do you think is going to happen after that, five years, 10 years, 20 years later? I mean, it�s inevitable.

When you just say, �You know what? We�re going to sit in judgment of the Word of God. And you could say whatever you want, but that�s what it is. You�re putting a bunch of sinful men and women in charge of determining what scripture means.

And once you do that, it doesn�t matter what a group of people think it means. What matters is what it means. And our job as pastors, anybody who�s seriously studying the Bible, we need to know what authorial intent is, and that means what�s the divine intent and what is the divinely inspired author�s intent.

But what the audience hears, what they want to hear, what they believe it means, is utterly irrelevant.

Laura Turner, a communications coordinator for City Church and a blogger for Religious News Service.

Didn�t she sing, like, �Proud Mary, keep on burning. Was that Lana Turner? No, she was the movie actor. I know that.

Or Tina Turner. I know. Oh, yeah, there we go. Sorry. Telling LGBT, where�s the Q, by the way? I don�t know. They�ve got a whole alphabet now. Telling LGBT people they have to change before they can become Christians is leading to depression, suicide, and addiction, and we won�t do that anymore.

Well, wait a second.

I have never done that. Have you ever said that? I�ve never gone to anybody who was a homosexual, a gambler, a pedophile, a burglar. Rapist. In any sin and said, �You have to change before you can be saved.

You change, and then God will save you. Right.

Is that the Bible? You know, I don�t think she understands any kind of ordo salutis. I don�t think she understands regeneration preceding faith. How about the gospel? I don�t think she understands the marital controversy, but she would even disagree with this, Steve.

We shouldn�t tell practicing immoral people, right, from heterosexual to homosexual. We don�t tell those who are employing sexual license to repent and believe the gospel. You can�t tell them to repent.

You can�t tell an unbeliever to repent. That�s what she�s saying. You don�t tell a homosexual to repent.

Who can you tell repent? I don�t know. I guess that would be very difficult. I mean, obviously, that would be too judgmental to say the word repent, right? Because that indicates that you know something they don�t know.

You know that they�re in sin. Hermeneutics of humility.

Yes. Now, Christopher Robbins writes a response.

He�s one of my favorite authors. Whatever he says will just make me feel like a tigger.

And here�s a quote. This letter�s position, that City Church�s letter, reminds me of a strange phrase from Jeremiah. Several times God tells the Israelites they�re doing something that I did not command or mention.

It never entered my mind. That�s an odd thing, said Christopher, for an omniscient God to say, but that�s exactly what�s supposed to startle you. What they were doing was so far out there, so removed from who God is, and contrary to what he said, that it doesn�t compute.

And what happened to blessed are those who mourn? Man of sorrows was his name, wasn�t it? It wasn�t man of flourishing. A hermeneutics of happiness has to perform a lot of mind-twisting gymnastics to get around that.

Blessed are those who mourn for those who think they know that others are in sin.

Steve, when Jesus on that mountain, that Mount of Beatitudes, by the way, I just stood there. I think the Catholic Church pegged it just right. There�s a special eight-sided church on that, at that mountainside.

One for every Beatitude, by the way.

Wow. Yeah, I just was right there. So did you give an offering to local Catholics? One-eighth of what I normally give.

And it says, Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn. Now, it wasn�t that long ago I preached that passage, and there are a variety of different words for mourn. And the word Jesus has used, he uses the word for when you have to bury a loved one, a family member, a mom, or a daughter, or a son, and it is gut-wrenching mourning.

And Jesus is talking about, blessed are those who mourn over their sin. And if we don�t tell people that that is sin, what you�re doing is sin, and now let me point you to the Savior. Here�s the law that says don�t sin this way.

Here�s the Savior. Then what kind of good news can we offer?

And what kind of love is it that would deny somebody the truth that can transform their lives, that could save them from eternity? You know, everybody�s concerned with the temporal, with how they feel right now.

Forget that. Listen, if you live to be 70, 80, 90 years old, and your life is miserable, and then you spend all eternity in heaven, how does that balance out versus, you know, this life is wonderful, it�s happy, it�s joyful, you know, you have everything that you ever wanted, and then you spend eternity in hell.

Are you going to look back while you�re in hell and go, hmm, my life was so good, I think this is worth it.

Steve, in the City Church, they said, �Our pastoral conversations and social science research indicate skyrocketing rates of depression, suicide, and addiction among those who identify as LGBT. Q. RS.

You know, whenever you say Q, I think of that person on� Star Trek. Yeah, The Next Generation. Yeah. Yeah. And Leonard Nimoy died. That�s a shame. It is a shame. I know. So, what do we say? Okay, people that go against God�s ordinances, I have trouble in life.

And if God has made you a man, you are supposed to act according to your nature. And if you act in a different way, there will be troubles and problems and physical issues and psychological issues and mental issues and spiritual issues.

And so, I don�t want anybody to be depressed. I certainly don�t want anybody to commit suicide. But it is true, Solomon said, �The way of the transgressor is hard. And so, now we�re trying to go to these people and say, �We have good news for you.

How would you like to be forgiven for all your sins Well, yes, I�m a sinner, but my homosexuality isn�t sinful. I mean, what do you do with that?

Well, what do you do with it? I don�t know, but here�s what I don�t want to do. I don�t want to be guilty of Romans 1 .32. It says, �Though they know God�s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give hearty approval to those who practice them.

In other words, there are people literally cheering. Imagine going to a homosexual wedding and cheering the bride and the bride or the groom and the groom. And yet, that�s exactly what�s going on because people are so blinded to the truth of Scripture that they want to just give approval to everything, everything that comes down the pike.

Steve, if you were invited to a homosexual wedding, I know you wouldn�t officiate one, but would you go?

No, I mean, I couldn�t. It�s, you know, it�s a travesty. I couldn�t even say that I was happy for them. I wouldn�t even care how close they were to me, you know, in terms of familial relations or if it was somebody I�d known all my life.

It doesn�t matter. It�s just because it really is throwing dirt in the face of God.

Christian Love, Repentance, and the Gospel Call

Now, what we do, Steve, is we ask these questions and then try to answer them. Christianity Today, its latest issue or edition, it asked that question and had three different responses. And we�re not saying, I mean, I have homosexual friends and if they were to say, �Would you please come to the wedding or would you officiate it

I would say, �Thank you for asking. I know it meant a lot for you to ask me because you know my position and as a Bible teaching pastor, you must know that the Bible teaches that men and women are given in marriage and this is an ordinance of God which reflects upon who he is and what he�s done and his law and his holiness.

And while I�m thankful you would ask me because I know it�s an important day for you, I couldn�t attend and so here�s my concern for you and your soul and here�s what I would hope to see in the future.

I want you to have a wonderful life. I want you to be, you know, but I�m more concerned about your eternal soul. It�d be that kind of conversation. And, Steve, even the demeanor. Was I yelling? I mean, it�s the bedside manner kind of discussion.

And it really would be, I mean, and that�s exactly right. It really would be sorrowful. This isn�t fire and brimstone stuff. But when I even think about, you know, Ephesians 5, just to put myself there, to project myself sitting there and just having, because this is what I like to preach, Ephesians 5 at weddings, and to just think about that imagery of Christ and his bride and the spotlessness of the bride and then just look at what was taking place before me, my stomach would be sick.

I�d probably have to run to the bathroom. I mean, if I was chained and forced to be there, well, I guess I�d be there. But they�d probably have to duct tape my mouth too because I�d be saying, �This is wrong.

This is an offense to God. This is sin. This should not happen.

The City Church had some objections at the end of the letter anticipating, you know, pushback. And what would Jesus counsel us to do regarding caring for these folks in this community? Their answer, quote, �If Jesus were the pastor of City Church, what would he say to the people who are asking if they can belong?

And we consider the life of Christ, his example of love, his call to embrace the outsider and cast down and is patient with those who earnestly seek him. What is a Christlike response That�s what we would do.

Jesus, of course he was kind to the man and woman who knew they had no righteousness, but he did not applaud their sin and say, �You�re good. They still needed repentance. What would Jesus do?

He would preach the gospel to them. Pete. Yeah, I wasn�t quite ready for that. But, you know, in Revelation, what does he say, you know, about the immoral? Are they going to heaven? No. And so what would he say to them?

I know what he�d say. He�d say, �Repent. He�d say, �Believe in me. He�d say, �Turn from your sin. And, you know, look to my righteousness instead of your sinfulness. Look to my resurrection. Look, invest yourself entirely in me and repent.

That�s what he�d say. Pete Yeah, my death was so wonderful that it can cleanse all your unrighteousness, including your homosexuality. Pete Amen.

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 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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