The Evaluative Sermon Question

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, a ministry at NoCoRadio for you Twitter people,

No Compromise Radio for the YouTube people, Facebook, I think it�s

No Compromise Radio, and we�re glad to have you today. iTunes, you can pick us up, and we�re thankful to be on World View Weekend.

And what else are we doing? I think there�s going to be No Compromise TV on a Midwest station,

I can announce it soon, on Sunday mornings. This particular radio TV station, they carry

Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Ponderosa, no, it�s

Bonanza, Barbecue. Anyway, that could be

No Compromise TV on that Sunday slot, that�d be fun. Well, S.

Lewis Johnson, Romans Commentary. S. Lewis Johnson is one of my favorite Bible teachers.

I think the Lord has blessed him or did bless him in a unique way. Lewis died in 2004, and he was a preacher, and he was a seminary student, and he was a scholar.

And so I just thought to myself years ago, because I listened to him, oh, several hundred hours a year on my bicycle,

I rarely listened to anything else. Maybe the last half hour coming home, I might put it on Pandora to get some music to get my legs cranked up so I�m 90, 100

RPMs staying that way to the end, to the finish. But most often it�s just S. Lewis, or Lewis as he was known to his friends,

Samuel Lewis Johnson Jr. And I just love the ministry. And so I was first introduced to his ministry by John MacArthur.

He listens to S. Lewis, and I always thought if Lewis is good enough for John, he�d be good enough for me.

So I regularly listen. I like to listen to older preachers because they�re weathered, they�re tenured, they�re other things too.

And so he only had one book out in 1980, Zondervan published a book about the use of the

Old Testament in the New Testament. And it was more from some lectures and a scholarly book, and that was it.

So you could go to Believer�s Bible Chapel and listen to S. Lewis�s sermons, the sljinstitute .net.

You can get the PDFs of his messages, but it�s just not the same. So anyway, a few years ago, I met with Martha Johnson and Grace Johnson Monroe, the daughter, wife and daughter, and then they granted me permission to put the stuff together with his notes and with the

BibSAC articles for the first three chapters of Romans and then the Believer�s Bible Chapel notes,

Believer Bible Bulletin. And so we have the Zondervan commentary out now by S. Lewis Johnson, Romans, Discovering Romans, and you can pick it up on Amazon or wherever you want to go.

I know it�s got my name on that in smaller print, but I think you�ll be very encouraged. You ought to get that book, $13, $14, a good overview with plenty of technical data found in the end notes and lots of easy -to -read portions in the rest of the book, in the epistles.

Where am I? I have no idea. It�s been a rough week this week, I have to tell you. I don�t know why. For one of the first times in my life,

I think, you know what, I feel 54 this week. I normally don�t feel 54, but today

I feel 54. So S. Lewis Johnson, Romans commentary, and I think you�ll be edified.

Well, before I get to the message today that I�d like to talk about, Canadian woman leaves husband�s dead body in bedroom for six months, decomposing in the bedroom for six months.

Why? Well, according to DailyMail .co .uk on 12 -3 -14, the family was praying for his resurrection.

Okay. Well, the subnotes are Kaling Wald, I don�t know where he�s from, 50, pleaded guilty to not notifying authorities of her husband

Peter�s death. So I didn�t really know that was a crime, but I guess it is. He refused to go to the hospital to treat an infected left foot, deciding

God would cure him and died at 51 after slipping into a coma. She kept Peter�s body sealed in a bedroom, was found after six months when there was an eviction notice and the deputy showed up.

The friends, the children, and Kaling were praying for his resurrection.

Well, the good news is they believe in resurrection, right?

There are so many people who don�t believe in the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we often go there for kind of a little proverb, don�t we?

And we talk about friends, and should we have certain kind of friends, and what about these ungodly friends that we have?

He is talking about the mystery, �We�re not all going to sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed, for this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on the immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, �Death is swallowed up in victory.�

O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? Sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our

Lord Jesus Christ.� So what do we do with this chapter in 1

Corinthians with the resurrection? And it says there, �Do not be deceived ,� in verse 33, �bad company ruins good morals.�

Well, I find it fascinating because we just pull that out kind of like a proverb, and we forget that it�s in 1

Corinthians, and we forget it�s in 1 Corinthians 15, and 1 Corinthians 15 is about the resurrection of the dead, and we know that in chapter 15, verse 12.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

And so he�s making the case that people will be raised from the dead, and he, in chapter 15, verse 1 and following, talks about, of course,

Jesus Christ, the one who was raised from the dead. So you have to believe in the resurrection, or a resurrection, if you are a

Christian, because Jesus, the captain of your salvation, he has been raised from the dead. Well, all that to say, here in 1

Corinthians 15, verse 33, �Don�t be deceived, bad company ruins good morals.� The context is, if you hang out with a bunch of people, here�s the contextual hermeneutical meaning.

If you always hang out with people who deny the resurrection, consequently they will live like today�s the last day of their life, like there�s no tomorrow, like there�s no afterlife, like there�s no accountability, like there�s no standing before God.

If you live with people who deny heaven and hell, who deny eternal life, who deny eternal death, who deny there�s life after your last breath, that you have a spirit and a body, or a soul and a body, spirit, soul, and a body, then it�s going to affect you, because they aren�t thinking to themselves, �Well, one day

I�ll have to stand before God.� There is a God who will require an account, and so when you hang out with those kind of people, it will affect you.

Now, Paul is not saying you can�t have unbelieving friends, you can�t have an unbelieving spouse. He�s already dealt with that second one earlier in chapter 7.

But here�s what�s happening. We regularly go to 1 Corinthians 15, and we just kind of cherry -pick things.

Here, back to the story with the Kehling Wald, she did believe in the resurrection, but she had a faulty view of the resurrection.

Now she was thinking that probably, this is my guess now, that the 1

Corinthians 15 issues are talking about the resurrection today, and my guess is she did what a lot of people do, and that is, you go to Lazarus� passage and other passages where some apostles are raising people from the dead,

Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and so we can have people raised from the dead now.

And so she makes that mistake. Of course, it was probably done with bad theology, of course, but with also love, because I�m sure they loved them.

We�ve got bad theology, too, where you can�t go to doctors. I think of Luke the physician. I think of the wine for Timothy�s stomach that Paul commands him to drink.

It does say here in Mark 16, �They will pick up servants with their hands, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.� And so here we have Mark 16, of course, not in the best manuscripts.

I�m sure they may have used that as well. Here�s the point. Bad theology can really affect you.

Bad theology can actually kill you because of these kind of things.

This man slips into a coma, and she kept sleeping by his side. She noticed signs of stomach bloat and rigor mortis days later, so she sealed him in the bedroom.

Kaylene�s Christian devotion had, quote, �tainted and warped her better judgment ,� according to whoever this man is, and the family prayed on a daily basis for Peter to come back to life.

Next -door neighbor Brian Dennis says he saw the family dancing and chanting in the backyard while wearing black robes.

He also saw flies at the bedroom window and birds pecking at the screen. Very sad, very sad.

Well, on an upbeat note, did I ever tell you the story about John Flavel?

John Flavel was a Puritan preacher, and I like John Flavel for lots of reasons.

He replaces in my mind the stories that I have about my neighbor for many years, and his name was

Billy Flavel. Billy Flavel was the first guy to try to tell me about life and those kind of things.

He was a guy that lived up the street, and he always exaggerated. He always used hyperbole.

He always – well, he didn't always, but he lied. We called him liar.

I don't know what the scoop was, but we walked to school together and then his family moved off. We still continued to use his house rooftop though because when we throw snowballs at cars and then they would stop and then the guys would get out to try to chase us, we ran up the back way through the

Foss's house, through the Paulson's backyard, and then on top of Billy Flavel's house, his old house.

Those were scary days. Anyway, John Flavel was a

Puritan preacher, so then when I think of Flavel now, I think of John Flavel on the good days. He was from England, and if you can get some

Banner of Truth books, maybe some little Puritan paperbacks by John Flavel, I'd encourage you to get those.

Billy Flavel, by the way, if you're listening, please get a hold of me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

I would love to hear from you, Billy Flavel, William Flavel. I wonder if he's alive. I don't even know where he moved to, so how could

I track him down? And so the Puritan John Flavel was preaching and he was landing the plane, that is, he was getting ready to finish his sermon, and he's coming to the benediction.

And so you pronounce a blessing on people for the benediction. You have the Aaronic Blessing, don't you, in Numbers chapter 6, the

Lord bless you and the Lord keep you, and just here the Lord will bless you. Now think, by the way, just for a quick moment about the blessings from God.

And we have earned His displeasure, we have merited His curses, and we have one who now blesses us because Jesus became a curse for us.

And so that we receive the blessings of God and from God, it is amazing. God bless you.

I regularly say God bless you, and what I mean by that is, may God richly bless you in and through the person of Jesus Christ, that He would bless.

What a great God that He would bless. So at the benediction, the Puritan preacher John Flavel, F -L -A -V -E -L -L, said this,

This morning, I'm sorry that I cannot pronounce a blessing upon you. They probably were attentive.

I cannot pronounce a blessing upon you, for not all of you love our

Lord Jesus Christ. And if any man love not our

Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema. Paul tells us this very thing.

I cannot give you a blessing this morning, and with that, the service ended. And so, can you imagine, if you're sitting in the congregation and you hear the pastor say that for the benediction, be warm, be filled, go in peace.

When I was in the Lutheran church, it was always, go in peace, serve the Lord. That's what they always said. They also said at the communion bench, it wasn't the anxious bench, it was the kneeler thing we had to go up and receive.

I was actually taught to hold my hands a certain way to receive the host. I don't know if they called it the host there or not.

And go in peace, serve the Lord is what they said at the benediction. What they said after we received the wine was, by the power invested in me, by the authority invested in me, as a minister of the gospel,

I now pronounce your sins forgiven, go in peace, serve the Lord. Well, at the end of 1 Corinthians 16, since I was thinking of chapter 15 earlier today with the dead man's body, it says here at the end of Corinthians, I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranatha, our

Lord, come. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus, amen.

If you don't have any love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Lord, come, like Lord, come and take care of these people who don't love you.

And so, Flavel's up there preaching. He gives this anti -benediction.

What do you call it in a non -benediction benediction? What would that be called? By the way, you can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com

if you'd like. Most of the time we get really nice letters. Seriously, I would say 95 % of the correspondence we receive on all forms of social media, including email, it's positive.

So I'm thankful for that. I think I'm probably nicer than I was a few years ago. How long have we been doing the show? Five years? And so I'm thankful for the nice responses.

I did get, you know, the ones that talk about the 501c and, you know, churches are compromising because they've signed some form or something.

Those I delete because I think those people are – am

I allowed to say loons? Of course I'm allowed to say anything I want. It's my show.

It's free country. And the one that said to me a while ago on the suicide video about thinking biblically about suicide, that I should kill myself.

I was an old man. Kill myself and find out. Well, as I've said before, I wasn't so bugged that they said, go kill yourself.

I was more bugged that they called me old. But see, as I said at the beginning of the show today,

I feel old. All right. Here's the cool thing to the story of the – the cool part of the story for John Flavel.

There was a man, a younger man, sitting in the congregation that day.

I can't pronounce a blessing on you for you don't all love Lord Jesus Christ. Now, how

Flavel knew that? I don't know. I mean, it's a large enough congregation. You assume some people who are there are not born again.

But maybe he knew about this young man. There are some other folks that came. And this young guy, 17 years old, heard that in England.

86 years later, this man's in the continental United States. Okay.

86 years later. He was 103 years old. Hundred. One hundred and three years old.

And he was just sitting there thinking. I think one story said he was sitting at the beach and he was thinking about that message.

And he got converted. He got converted in America 86 years later.

Talk about the power of God's word. Talk about it's not going to come back void. It does its purpose. Whether that purpose is to save or that purpose is to hold more accountable and damn and convict.

It does its work according to Isaiah. 86 years later.

He was 103, got converted. For three years, the account says he lived as a Christian. You can find his tombstone today.

I wonder where that would be. I think it's in Connecticut. Billy Flavel would know. For three years, he lived.

So, 17, 86, 103, lived three more years. And here's his tombstone.

Here lies a babe three years old by grace who died at 106 by nature.

Can you imagine? 106 years old. Three years old by grace.

Can you imagine? That's just to me the power of the word of God. All right, what else do

I have here in front of me? I was going to do something else today, but we're just flowing. We're going with the flow.

A new evaluative question. Evaluative question.

I don't know if evaluative is a word or not, but here it's on modernreformation .org. I like the folks over there.

And I almost said for the most part. I do like them for the most part.

There's a few parts I don't. The minor parts I don't like. But the most major parts

I do like. I was looking up something by William Willimon.

And William Willimon was the Duke Chapel pastor, Methodist for years.

I think he's since retired. And he is more liberal than we would be on No Compromise Radio by far.

But he understands evangelicalism and he understands a lot of what the Bible says. And he's an engaging preacher.

And when you listen to Fred Craddock, for instance, as a liberal preacher. And you've got this aha moment.

These liberals, they don't really tell you what you should think. They want you to come to the conclusion at the end of the message. Oh, yeah.

Uh -huh. I found it. And I like William Willimon better because he is more scriptural.

And if you pull him up on YouTube, you might find the same thing. Well, I was introduced to the ministry or the person of William Willimon through Modern Reformation and Michael Horton.

Because he would, he, Michael, would interview Willimon. Willimon would say something like this.

It's a sad situation in the state of the world when you go to a Baptist church and you don't even get a message there from the

Bible. And that was in the day of the Seeker Sensitive Movement. And so I was looking for some quote of him and his.

And then I saw this, an interview with William Willimon. Modern Reformation, an old article.

A new evaluative question. Evaluative question.

There it is. Evaluative question. Evaluative. Evaluative. Evaluative question. Here's a question that you should ask when you hear a sermon.

Now, this is in light of the moralistic sermons, the how -to sermons. David was courageous.

You be courageous. Jonathan was a friend. You be a friend. Timothy drank wine.

You drank wine. I mean, I don't know what these things are. The new evaluative question.

What is it? All right. Well, I'm telling you. This is radio. I got to draw this thing out. I got to tease this thing out.

Would Jesus have to be crucified to make this sermon work? Hmm.

Would Jesus have to be crucified to make this sermon work? We do these no -co videos.

No -co 90s. They started off as, but then it was hard to get them exactly 90 seconds. So now they're longer and better produced by Ben, might

I ask, with Mario's assistance. Well, I did one on a

Bible study that was sweeping the nation. Be like Mike. Mike likes to be on time. You be on time.

Mike likes to be. Mike likes to read the Bible. You should read the Bible. This whole thing was basically about me and the insanity of the whole thing.

Well, it's similar. You can tell people. Maybe you're the

Sunday school teacher. You can tell your kids to be honest and tell the truth. I guess those are the same thing pretty much.

You can tell them to be on time, respect their parents, honor their father and mother.

You can tell them all kinds of things. But if you don't tell them the gospel, the evaluative question would be good for you to ask.

Would Jesus have to be crucified to make this sermon work? You can tell people to be honest. You don't need the work of Christ for that kind of sermon.

Oh, oh, I know what you're saying. Theologically, if it's done with good motives, it needs to be a response from your union with Christ.

I get all that. But here's my point. My point is, here is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

These triumphant indicatives as Machen would call them. By the way, I'm reading the

Stonehouse Machen biography. And so you have to love theologians who talk about triumphant indicatives and who ride bicycles.

Really? Yes, he loved to ride bicycles. And so he is the – you know, it's S. Lewis Johnson and J.

Gresham Machen, as far as I'm concerned. Two of my favorite theologians in the last 100 years.

I have living theologians that I really like as well. I'll have to tell you about them another day.

So the evaluative question, would Jesus have to be crucified to make this sermon work? So make sure when you teach junior church, you teach your children the

Bible. You're a homeschool mom or dad and you're teaching your children the Bible class curriculum.

If you're a preacher, if you are an evangelist, that you talk about the death and burial of Jesus Christ.

His life, death, burial, resurrection. Those things should just come off the lips regularly of your mouth.

His life and death and resurrection. Life, death, burial, resurrection. Ascension, soon return. And you're just talking about who

Jesus is, this historical figure. Something that actually happened. This happened in time and place.

And of course we need the Bible to understand what happened at that cross, on that cross. When Jesus would bear our sins and was raised from the dead.

But anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. ModernReformation .org, a new evaluative question.

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 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. 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.

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