Christianity Today Redux

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. Steve, what did you just say just moments ago before you put your headphones on?

Well, you know, just suddenly I had a mental picture of Gary Owens doing, he used to stand behind this great big microphone with a screen in front of him and everything, when he would introduce

Laugh -In, I think it was. Isn't that what he used to do? Rowan and Martin's Laugh -In.

Yes. Yes. Way back when. I have all kinds of pictures in my mind, but you probably can't see them on the radio.

Yeah, probably not. I think it just pushed things. You ever say to yourself, oh yeah, I remember watching that as a kid, and then you see a rerun and you realize, wow, that was bad.

What were my parents letting me do? That was, you know, 30 -plus years ago. Well, I just have good news today on No Compromise Radio.

We like to be bearers of good news, indicatively, triumphantly proclaiming good news.

And so the good news today is in spite of whatever happened in the election just a short while ago,

Toby Mack, the English, excuse me, the Christian hip -hop artist, his album

Eye on It is the first Christian album to top the Billboard 200 in 15 years.

You know, I read that last night, and honestly, I could not go to sleep because I was so excited I just thought about the amazing grace of God and all the things that I've been through in my life and all the sins

I've committed and how he forgave me for it. And then I just thought, and on top of that, Toby Mack is number one on the charts.

And I could not go to sleep, just so excited. I just started hearing the sound of helicopters in slow motion in the

Apocalypse Now movie when the Jim Morrison Doors song was on the background. This is the end.

Dun, dun, dun. See, I think of Good Night Saigon by Billy Joel Idol.

Is that where American Idol comes from? No. Billy Idol never had a decent song or anything in his life.

Well, he did sing the John Lennon cover, Give Me Some Truth, when he was with Generation X. And so I like that.

Give Me Some Truth. Isn't that a good theological? That's the name of the Saturday show for Tuesday guy, G -I -M -M -E.

Give Me Some Truth? Give Me Some Truth, yes. Okay. Steve, we're continuing today in our discussion of Christianity today, because it's nice to talk about current events, and of course it's nice to be nice, and it's good to be good.

November 2012, page 17, it talks about the trouble with TBN. TBN is imploding from the inside out with scandals, and of course, fleshly, carnal organizations do that because they follow the lead of the leaders.

Well, I'm crushed because, as you know, this is the first Christian organization to which

I gave money. Oh, that is right, and you're probably still on the mailing list. I'm still on the mailing list because it doesn't matter.

Once you give them money, they track you down. You know, you could say, Steve, cease and desist. Steve gives money to TBN.

Well, I'll admit, I did send money to Bob Larson when I first got saved. I sent it to Billy Graham, Chuck Swindoll, and Bob Larson.

What did I know? I mean, you know, I don't even know if I was saved yet, you know. I was just kind of like, I think

I need to give something. I need to do something, you know, and I think I need to give something.

Well, I did find this part interesting, and this is a good no -compromise discussion here. The Trinity Foundation, which is not the

Trinity Broadcasting Network, they said to people like Billy Graham and Franklin Graham, Charles Stanley, Jack Graham, Adrian Rogers—Adrian Rogers is dead, but the people that—

Adrian Rogers would be appalled that he's still appearing on TBN. And so these people that actually teach the real gospel and not the health, wealth, fake gospel, these people actually believe the real

Trinity. Isn't it interesting, Steve, you don't have to believe the Trinity to be on Trinity Broadcasting Network? Yeah, it's worse than irony.

Power, money, and greed. I guess that's the Trinity or something. Ooh. I just thought of that. So, let's just talk a little bit about, can good preachers be on bad stations?

In other words, you know, Mohler was saying in this article, well, Billy Graham used to buy one -hour specials on channels that would play soap operas.

Well, great example, and I won't go into the details, but I'll just reframe it this way. If some church extended to you an invitation to preach on Sunday morning, and you knew that they didn't agree with you, and you told them, look,

I don't agree with you theologically, and they said, we don't care. We've heard you preach, and we just want you to come and preach whatever the

Lord has laid on your heart, brother. Would you go? Well, I don't want to answer that.

Please say yes, because while you're gone, I get to preach. Yeah, see. Yeah, Steve doesn't like it necessarily when

I travel all the time, and because he has extra duties. But then he realizes the pulpit is free.

Woohoo! Come on. Well, I think of Kirk Cameron, is that the guy's name?

Kirk. Kirk Cameron, yes. And he had the show on TBN. Maybe he still does. Well, I think what happens is he pops up to kind of guest hosts sometimes, which

I think is funny, because here's a guy who actually believes the gospel, and why they give him the mic,

I have no idea. And then he had MacArthur on, I believe, so technically MacArthur was on TBN. There's got to be a time when you draw the line,

I guess, but maybe another way to think of it is this way. If I'm Billy Graham, or Adrian Rogers, or this particular case,

Charles Stanley, do I want to give TBN money to be on? I guess the other option is you've got to own your own station, or maybe we go back to is

TV really the vehicle for gospel ministry? Because you could be on 100 radio stations for the price it probably costs you to be on 5 or 10

TV stations. Well, here's the other issue. Well, I mean, what if they give you the airtime for free? Like if they came to us, if TBN came to us, and they said, look, we want to give you guys a half hour

TV show free, would we take it? And the answer is, well, we have to think about it for a minute.

It might be controversial, because while we would love to have the truth proclaimed on TBN, the flip side is, what are you doing?

You're giving them credibility, you know, because they could say - We offer a variety of opinions.

Yes. And, you know, suddenly they've gone from the heresy channel to, well, the heresy channel plus one truth teller, you know, and they go, well, we've got

Eavendroth, you know, we're covered. Well, tell me if I'm thinking correctly, Steve, on No Compromise Radio. Driscoll, I believe, was asked to speak at the

Crystal Cathedral before it was a Roman monastery. And -

Really? They've done that now in Orange County, turned it into a monastery? The Catholic Church bought it. What else did they do? Yeah. Yeah.

And they've served eviction papers. I mean, they're getting ready to occupy. I think it's a new Miller Beer slogan.

The monastic life is the high life. Living the high life. If I was a monk,

I think I'd drink better beer than Miller. I don't know, because I've never had one. Okay. So, I guess if you say to yourself,

I'm going to go. They're not limiting what I say. I'm there to preach the gospel. I've had people ask me to go to places.

Can you come do this wedding? But I don't want a bunch of religious stuff. And I tell them, I'm a minister of the gospel, good news about Jesus Christ, the

Savior, who forgives sins, who's the only God, that kind of thing. And they say, okay, well, then come.

But the question is, would they invite me back again? So when Driscoll went back the second time, then that either -

I mean, how do I read those tea leaves? With great care, because when you read tea leaves,

I don't know what that means. But I understand what you're saying. Because if they liked you enough to bring you back a second time, then they're either looking for more kind of credibility or -

I mean, it is possible, right? You go there and they go, wait a minute. That sounds true, but it's so different.

Well, let's hear them again. And next thing you know, they're giving the heave -ho to the old false teacher and they're bringing in a good teacher.

So I mean, could that happen? Yeah, theoretically. But how many times has that happened? How many times has a church that's been steeped in false teaching heard the truth one

Sunday and thought, well, let's hear it again next Sunday, and then thrown the old pastor out and said, we now believe?

How many times has that happened? I don't know, but we have a lot of questions on No Compromise Radio. Here's another one. Steve, are you going to buy the new

Francis Chan book called Multiply? I already ordered multiple copies. Multiple copies.

Multiple multiplies. Well, it is the new book by Francis Chan. Of course, to sell cool books, you've got to have just one word, maybe.

And so Crazy Love was just one too many words. Multiply is good. Erasing Hell, too many words, and Forgotten God, too many words.

Here's a good one. Eradicate. You know, that would be... Eradicate. That's one word. What's wrong with it?

Multiply is a simple, practical, biblical, helpful, and personal tool for disciples of Jesus who want to make disciples of Jesus from the foreword by David Platt.

I do find this interesting. David C. Cook says, New York Times bestselling author Francis Chan, should say, and Mark Buring or Buig or whatever his name is, it's too small for me to read.

Steve, thoughts in general about Francis Chan? Would you say he's a heretic? I wouldn't say he's a heretic.

Okay. I'd say he's one of these kind of spiritual, ethereal

Christians who just, God tells him to do things, and I find him fairly frightening, actually.

Well, I found it, well, he used to be in my Greek class. Did you know that at the Master's Center? He was in your Greek class?

Really? Yeah, he was. That's where he learned a lot of this stuff. Maybe. I think the picture actually shows he's got some seed falling out of his pocket.

Is that he's sowing seed there? Actually, no. He's standing by barley, I think is what it is.

I think that's some kind of feather or something, but you know, when I saw this, you know what I thought? Is he auditioning for a new Mod Squad kind of thing?

I mean, it looks like he should be an undercover cop, right? Now only

Steve would give a reference to the Mod Squad, vintage 1972, probably.

Julie Link, and what was the other guy's name? Julie Link. Lancelot Link? No. Lincoln Hayes.

Lincoln Hayes. It was that Julie Link, I'll think of the other guy's name. Well, since I haven't read this book,

I can't make any comment, but I think - Are you going to get a free copy? You know what? I don't think

David C. Cook is going to send me any free copies, sadly. Didn't he win American Idol one year?

I just would probably say I wouldn't buy it. I don't. That's my recommendation.

Save your money and buy something else instead. Save it and buy a good book, is that what you're saying? You know, if you buy one book by B .B.

Warfield, instead of a Francis Chan book that will last you for a couple hours, a

B .B. Warfield book will last you for 40 or 50 years because that's how long it will take you to read it. It's like one sentence at a time.

That isn't true because I'm reading some B .B. Warfield right now, and if you just type in B .B.

Warfield predestination and read that article, I think you will like it. I'm talking about a whole book. Well, I'm working through it too right now.

Yeah, he writes like he's a Puritan on all but the era in which he appeared.

Steve, the very back of the Christianity Today, it's got Jamie Grace, and she's got the song

Hold Me, and she's a 20 -year -old young lady. Is that the remake of Fleetwood Mac's song

Hold Me? You know what? It could be. I'd start singing it, but I'd do a bad

Betsy Buckingham. I bet you do. I bet you I do. So here's my question.

She seems like a nice, sweet young lady. She's sitting there with pink hair and a guitar.

It says in the subline, though, Jamie Grace says Tourette's took her for a spin.

Jamie Grace Harper may be the world's only musician with Tourette's syndrome, ADHD, obsessive -compulsive disorder, echolalia, anxiety disorder, and a

Grammy nod. She lives in Atlanta with her parents, James and Mona Harper, co -founders and pastors of Kingdom City Church.

So I just don't get it. What are we doing? I don't even know what echolalia is.

Is that where you just say the same thing over? Or you do this, go, echolalia, echolalia, echolalia.

Well, the only thing that I can think of is laleo. I think we get the word to say something, and so maybe you say it over and over and over again.

The same thing. It says over here that she repeats from the Master of Disguise show, I'm going to be the

Master of Disguise over and over and over. So I think maybe that is repeating the same thing over and over.

And she doesn't even realize she does know. I get it. No. So that's my guess of what that is.

I haven't looked it up, though. But laleo, I believe, is to speak. I'm going to guess that that song is somewhat repetitive, then.

A 7 -Eleven song. So Tourette's syndrome,

Steve, do you think you can say some things so often and so regularly?

Do you believe that you can slide into a pattern of saying these things? I do. I think so. I remember a man came to my study, which actually is your study now.

And he said, I heard somebody wandering around in the church, and there was a ladies' Bible study at the time.

And so I wanted to go protect the ladies. I thought that was pretty good. Chivalrous. Absolutely.

Night -like. And so I went out there, and here's this guy, and he's swearing his head off. And so I brought him into the study, into the office, and I said, well, let's just talk for a minute.

And he started cursing me out in words that I remember hearing at the punk rock nightclubs in Los Angeles, but I haven't heard underneath the roof of this building.

Yeah, because this is sacred ground, and no one would dare speak in such a tone here. The sanctuary.

So anyway, I told him, I said, that is sinful behavior. And do you know the Bible teaches that you're going to be judged for every sinful word you utter like that?

And you know, he did not swear the rest of the time. Amazing. You cured him. I cured him. Just like that.

That's a Bible verse a day. Keeps Tourette's Syndrome away. Now, Tourette's Syndrome can, I guess, manifest itself in lots of different ways.

I hear she's repeating things. But Steve, do we want to push people out in the limelight when they're struggling with issues?

We could talk about how a lot of this is just psychobabble and just a variety of sinful manifestations of speech and that kind of thing.

But do I want to push this person out? What are these? My point is this. What are these parents thinking? Well, I'm going to guess, you know, that they just want everybody out there who suffers with the same things she does, which

I, some of these things I've never even heard of, but to know that they're okay. It's an affirmation.

You know, you can step out, you can be yourself and have pink and brown hair and whatever else, you know, it's all good.

I just don't think the parents are being very wise. In Los Angeles for many years, Steve, you have people who have a baby.

The baby's cute. You want to get the baby on TV and Laverne and Shirley or something. You go down, you got to get an agent.

You got to get this, that, and the other. And I don't really think it's helping the kid very much. And I know it's only anecdotal evidence, but look at the child stars now.

How many child stars make it? Yeah, they don't do, they don't do real well. In fact, most of their lives are disastrous, you know, you might say.

So go ahead. I have a daughter, three daughters. You have a couple daughters.

Daughters struggle, sons struggle. But if I've got a struggling daughter, I'm not going to push her into the limelight and fame.

I think that's not going to be helpful. I'm with you. Okay. Boyce College has an advertisement in the advertisement section on page 94.

Now Steve, this is going to probably get me into serious trouble here. But Boyce College, I actually promote

Boyce College. I like Boyce College a lot. I am very thankful that it says here that Boyce College exists to prepare students for a life of faithful ministry by providing them with a

Christ -centered education. I commend them. I like Southern Seminary. That's excellent. But it's got

Trip Lee on the front, and Trip Lee is a singer. We are serious about theology.

And then Trip Lee is standing there with his hat on backwards crooked. Now, nothing says serious like a hat that's backwards, and if I looked at the lid, it probably has the original price still on it in size.

He looks like he's getting ready to go do a hip -hop concert, not really ready to go to a theological class.

So I don't know. It's just maybe me, Steve, but it just struck me as funny that we have a thing saying we're serious about theology, and then you have a picture of someone that doesn't look like they're that serious.

It strikes one as being incongruous. There's my word for the day. Page 66,

Steve, in Christianity Today, God did it, Carolyn Andrens, Ardrens, Arons, sorry.

But I don't know exactly how the world was created. I was surprised. Although I was a keen young earth creationist as a teenager, that's when

I was a kid, my understanding has evolved, pun unavoidable, to the point where the notion of gradual creation over eons isn't a threat to my faith.

I'm going to be Ed McMahon. First Ed McMahon, second Ed McMahon, and first Steve?

Gary Owens. Gary Owens, Steve McQueen. Yeah, okay. Have you considered the possibility that God may have used evolutionary processes in His creation of the world,

I ask? No, Mom, I believe the Bible, etc. We're getting this from every point of view, aren't we?

We're getting the Tim Keller, we're getting the biologos, we're getting the, what does it matter? It's literary genre.

Who cares? What's wrong with that argument? I'll tell you what's wrong with that argument. I think the Bible is pretty clear.

Well, and I think it really undermines, you know, you read 1 Corinthians 15 earlier, you know, when

Jesus is addressing marriage, you know, everywhere you look at the

Bible, it's based on a literal Adam and Eve, and if you take away a literal Adam and Eve, you open up all kinds of problems, and there's no reason to doubt the veracity.

Why does the Bible in Genesis 1 and 2 not mean what it says? That is the question that all these people have to ask, and here's their answer.

Their answer is science. And so science trumps the Bible. I sat next to a man coming back from Dublin to Boston, and it was a seven -hour flight, six and a half hours, and he's a scientist, and he wanted to know my view of the

Bible and science. And so I basically said, I think people like to hide behind science.

There are, by the way, many faithful Christian scientists who don't do this, but a lot of people hide behind science so they can sin freely, so they have a clear conscience while they're sinning, and they realize they don't have to stand before God on Judgment Day.

And so I said, for me, I am quite content to let science catch up to where the

Bible is. And so right now, do you look at the Bible through the lens of science, or do you look at science through the lens of the

Bible? And so I think eventually science will catch up to where the Bible is.

Well, and I've said this on many occasions, the issue with science is it's ever -changing. That's the virtue of – well, not the virtue, it's the basis of science, is you test and then you reform your opinion, your – what's the word

I'm looking for? I don't know. I was thinking about something I can perceive profoundly after that.

Yeah. Well, anyway, the point is that science – if you ask a scientist, look, is evolution going to be the theory for the next thousand years?

They'd probably say no. Why? Well, it's not because the scientific evidence, as it is, doesn't point toward evolution right now, they will tell you.

But it's because science is ever -changing, we'll learn more, we'll change, da -da -da -da. Okay, so then why do they want to basically put people to death almost for evolution now when they know it's a faulty theory?

Because it doesn't matter. It's like you were saying, it's their presupposition that the Bible must be wrong, the God of the Bible must not exist, because if it does, they're going to be held accountable.

And one day, science, as it always does, catches up to the Bible. I mean, you know, for years we had archaeologists telling us that there was no literal

David, there was no literal this, there was no literal that, and, you know, what do we come to find out?

That all these people actually did exist, just like the Bible says. The Bible is right, and scientists are wrong when they come in conflict.

That's just always the way it is. Steve, I guess it's intentional from the editors and the owners of Christianity Today.

This stuff just keeps coming over and over and over, and here it's a nice lady, she's a mom, but then when she says stuff like this, it so bugs me.

The Bible is not a book, it's a library containing books of many dates and genres. That's why it's not inconsistent to read

Genesis 1 and 2 as an inspired, ancient, Near Eastern cosmology that poetically declares

Yahweh to be the Creator, while reading the Gospels as inspired first century biographical, historical, eyewitness accounts of events.

That just bothers me to no end, because it's behind this cloak of, see,

I know what I'm talking about, but now let's turn Genesis 1 into poetry. No one, I remember

Daniel Bloch saying this, no one 2 ,000, 4 ,000, 6 ,000 years ago would have read

Genesis 1 -1 and said anything but, well, this particular, this document says

God made the world in six days and then He rested. That's just what it teaches. They wouldn't say anything else.

You've got to be some liberally leaning, New York, I want acceptance kind of theologian in Manhattan to say, this can't mean what it says, so let's pick something else.

What sounds good? Poetic genre. Well, and if you're willing to do this, you know, she could say whatever she wants about the

Gospels. But suppose the Lord tarries for another 500 or 1 ,000 years. We don't know. I mean, we always think the end is coming, and personally,

I want the end to come sooner rather than later. But, you know, in 400 or 500 years from now, some lady like her will be writing some column, and she'll be saying, well, you know, why do we have to take the

Gospels literally? It could be just a really nice literary device, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Same kind of thing. Why? Because when the Bible makes claims that are just not comfortable for us or don't make us look very smart, then we just run away from the

Bible. Scientific consensus promoted by pastors who should know better yields stuff like this,

Steve, that I think we need to stand against. Am I that concerned about evolution?

Well, when the unbelievers are talking about it, no. But when believers try to use this as a linchpin,

I just get bothered. Well, again, you know, evolution science is going to move, and so, you know, you're going to change doctrine all the time based on science?

Crazy. My name is Mike Abendroth. I'm here with Pastor Steve Cooley, NoCompromiseRadio .com, info at No Compromise Radio.

Have a great day. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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