Classic: The “Almost” Christian (Part 1)

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.

Heavenly Father, the Lord's Prayer, and Upcoming Travel

My name is Mike Abendroth. And it is a good day to be alive, right? We know the Lord provides for us and cares for us. You think of the word �father. Protection, care, compassion, discipline, and it�s good to have a Heavenly Father.

I read the Lord�s Prayer today, the Disciples� Prayer, and I thought it is good to have a Heavenly Father. Is it not, dear Christian? If you want to write me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. I don�t think I really have much travel going on these days.

I�m supposed to be in Germany to speak at the Shepherds� Conference there in Germany. And I always call it the German Shepherds� Conference, but then that sounds like a dog training conference. If I had to do something else besides be a pastor, I probably, in terms of what I love to do, I love dogs, I love to train dogs, so I�d probably do something like that.

The dog whisperer. That would be a joy of mine, but right now I�m much more happy to be a pastor. If you have a show idea, please let me know. We get one of those once in a while. I get emails from people, �Check out the church.

Our pastor is preaching. What do you think of such and such Quite a few of you are saying these days, unlike the old days. The old days, the listeners were looking for more of a Reformed church, and I think what you meant by that was a more Calvinistic church.

Five Solas, the Doctrines of Grace, Predestination, etc. I think that�s good. That�s the kind of church that you should be at. As time has gone on, many of you are writing me saying something like this.

My home church, the pastor is preaching, he�s faithful to the text in terms of exposition and going verse by verse, but there�s the tincture, there�s the legal aspect, there�s the maybe scolding aspect, the condemning aspect, really not understanding the first use of the law, a mirror accusing the unbeliever, and then the third use of the law, a guide or a norming norm or direction for the believer from the hand of the Father because of Christ.

That�s kind of like the emails I�ve been getting now, and I�m very reluctant to say to people, �Oh, you should leave your church. I don�t think, I mean, if it�s a Pentecostal crazy word of faith, I say, �Leave.

I remember the Lord blessing me and put me in a Calvary chapel when I first got saved, and I learned so much. I have differences, but learned and wrote a letter to the pastor and told him how much I thanked him for everything that he taught me.

Similarly, then the Lord put me at Grace Church with John MacArthur, and I learned so much there. I don�t think I�ve written John a letter, but I�ve certainly told him in person how much he meant to me when I was there.

While I have my disagreements, I�m thankful that the Lord has used both Raul Reis and John MacArthur in my life, and therefore it makes it hard for me to say to people, �Oh, what about your pastor? And what about your church?

And it�s not this great church, and it�s got pastors that are fallible and sinful and not the Lord Jesus. I just want to really be careful, because I wouldn�t like it if some radio host told people at Bethlehem Bible Church, �Ah, you�ve got to get rid of Abendroth, or you�ve got to leave, because it�s no good for this reason and that reason.

So I think it�s good to be careful, but I do understand that after a while, when it�s just a to use Goldworthy�s comments when it�s a theoretical gospel church and not an operational gospel. Theoretically they believe the gospel, and you go to 1 Corinthians 15 or any other passage that talks about the need for a Savior, i .e. sin, who is the Savior, what he did, what he accomplished, his substitutionary death, his literal resurrection, etc.

But it�s not really involved with any kind of sanctification. They don�t understand duplex gratia, Christ for pardon, Christ for power, Christ for us, Christ in us. Anyway, we just, I think, need to kind of be careful and work through those things.

I hope that church can see the progress in my life, and maybe you can see the progress in your pastor�s life. You should probably be praying for your pastor, and he�s probably going to grow, right? There�s hope for all of us.

Matthew Mead and the Problem of the "Almost Christian"

I have in front of me today a little tract, it�s a little tract taken from a book. Now early on in my Christian life, I was given a book to read, and it kind of goes with a Lordship type of thinking, and when I say Lordship, I don�t mean Jesus is Lord, everybody believes Jesus is Lord.

What I mean by that is, okay, there�s a lot of people who say they�re Christians and they live with their girlfriend, and therefore it�s a spurious faith, it�s a fake faith, it�s a James 2 dead faith, and we need to tell people, you know, don�t be deceived, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -12.

That�s fine. Well there�s this book written by Matthew Mead in 1661 called Almost a Christian, and I guess what I want to say here at the outset, just because somebody�s called a Puritan doesn�t mean they�re good.

I think there�s this false perception that if somebody�s a Puritan, they must be good. I guess I could even say, okay, you look at the landscape of evangelicalism today, and you say, well, there are evangelicals in this century, they must be good.

Well, there�s all kinds of evangelicals, and there are all kinds of Puritans. Now a lot of the Puritans, they didn�t have much else to do except sit around and write and read, but we have a lot of their writings, and there are wonderful Puritans, and you can read Richard Sibbes, and you could read Thomas Watson, and you could read William Perkins, and you could read John Owen, they�re great people to read.

And if you want to call them Puritans, it�s almost like it�s such a fluid term, what�s the definition of Puritan, right? So if you want to read Richard Baxter, I don�t think you should, but he�s a Puritan, but it doesn�t matter if you�re a Puritan, just how pure are you?

And the same goes for like Joseph Alain, I need to reread some of his stuff. I don�t think it�s really that good, I don�t recommend it. And Matthew Mead�s Almost a Christian, it�s the same thing. So what I�m going to do today is I have this little tract, it�s a tiny little thing from the chapel library, and I�m going to start reading this and make comments, almost kind of like the Beza briefing that we have, and we�ll see if in fact I�m right as we do this show.

This is Almost a Christian, tiny little tract from a treatise of Matthew Mead, 1661. I�m trying to remember who published that in the last 25, 30 years, probably Sully Dale Gloria? Would that be right?

There are two questions of very great importance which should every one of us put to ourselves. What am I and where am I? Am I a child of God or not? Am I sincere in religion or am I only a hypocrite under a profession?

Yet I am in a natural state or am I in a state of grace? Am I yet in the old root, in old Adam, or am I in the root Christ Jesus? Am I in the covenant of works that ministers only wrath and death, or am I in the covenant of grace that ministers life and peace?

Okay, I don�t have any problem with people asking themselves the question, �Do I really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it a false faith I think this is going to be overboard in introspection in time, but just in general, fine.

Am I sincere in religion? I think that starts hinting to something right away. How sincere do you have to be? Instead of believing where we can have a little belief, a sentient belief in the right object, therefore it�s the response that the unbeliever gives to the good news of Christ Jesus is belief and trust and rest, that�s a little bit different than, �Am I sincere in religion

Just how sincere? Well, you say, �Well, Mike, you�re pushing the point. It�s not that big a deal. Give him a break. Mead, I press this upon you that are professors because many rest in a notion of godliness and an outward show of religion and yet remain in their natural condition.

Many are hearers of the word and not doers of it, and so deceive their own souls, James 122. He that slights the ordinances cannot be a true Christian, but yet it is possible that a man may own them and yet be no true Christian.

You kind of see the tact here. You kind of see what�s going on. I think if you said to yourself, �Ecclesiology, the pastor�s preaching, and is he to be preaching to edify the sheep or is he trying to root out the goats

Of course, the preaching of the word of God will do both, but in general, as you�ve heard me say on this show, I want to preach to the Christians, and therefore I regularly say to them, �Dear Christian, God�s not mad at you.

Dear Christian, even though this week was full of sin in your life, you are not condemned. Dear Christian, I want to remind you who Jesus is and how he forgives and how he�s kind and tenderhearted and merciful.

This is your Lord, and I present to you, I serve you, him, through the word of God and through the Lord�s supper, the Lord Jesus. And I don�t keep doing what I used to do, and that is there�s some unbelievers here, and I�ve got to root them out, spending all my time, or a majority of the time, or lots of time, trying to root out unbelievers, because they�re there, I know that, I want them to not have false assurance, that�s true, but it�s just the direction of what�s happening.

�Meet, errors in the first foundation are very dangerous. If we be not right in the main, the fundamental work, if the foundation be not laid in grace in the heart, all our following profession comes to nothing.

The house built upon the sandy foundation, though it may stand for a while, yet when the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon it, great will be the fall of it. There are many things like grace that are not grace.

Now it is the likeness of things that deceives. Many take gifts for grace, common knowledge for saving knowledge, whereas a man may have great gifts and no grace, great knowledge and yet not know Christ.

Some take common faith for saving, whereas a man may believe all the truths of the gospel, all the promises, all the threatenings, all the articles of the creed to be true, and yet perish for want of saving faith.

Now that�s interesting to me, how he says that. And I�m not the one who, you know, I�m trying to give you my slanted opinion, that�s true, it is my opinion. But okay, I just don�t like the way he�s going about it.

I don�t like what he�s going to say there, or what he�s saying there. You believe all the truths of the gospel? Is he meaning James 2, that you can, demons believe and tremble? If he�s meaning that, okay, I cut him some slack.

But if you believe the promises of the gospel, and the truths of the gospel, the promises, all the threatenings, are there threatenings in the gospel? I don�t think there are, strictly speaking, no, the gospel is good news, no threatens.

The reason why we need the gospel, because the law does threaten that certain. Some take morality and restraining grace for renewing grace, whereas it is common to have sin much restrained, where the heart is not at all renewed.

Some are deceived with a half-work, making many mermaid Christians, I�ll give them that�s funny, mermaid Christians, or like Nebuchadnezzar�s image, head of gold and feet of clay. Endless are the delusions that Satan fastens upon souls for one of this self-search.

See like how much self-search do you have to do? That goes back to the whole issue of introspection and pietism. And what do we do about assurance? Am I going to have Matthew Mead soon enough tell me some good news so I can rest and so I can trust and so I can understand?

Endless are the delusions that Satan fastens upon souls for one of this self-search. Satan will try at one time or another. He will winnow us and sift us to the bottom, and if we now rest in a groundless confidence, it will then end in a comfortless despair.

Nay, God himself will search and try us, at the day of judgment especially. Who can abide that trial that never tries his own heart? Again, he�s way too introspective, and again, he�s using fear as the motivation.

He�s using condemnation, final judgment. Kind of sound familiar what people might be doing today? Whatsoever man�s state be, whether he be altogether a Christian or not, yet it is good to examine his own heart.

If he finds his heart good, his principles right and sound, this will be a matter of rejoicing. Okay, examine your heart to a Christian, and I want you to be honest, because if you�re like me, you�re not going to be honest.

You�re going to be self-righteous. You�re going to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. You know, it�s like if I read the qualifications for elder in Titus and 1 Timothy, and I�m like, �Yeah, yeah, I do that.

Oh, yeah, it�s the grace of God in me, but yeah, I do that. Whew. Look to yourself, and you don�t know how you can be saved. You look to the Lord Jesus, you don�t know how you can be lost. Where is that?

Find your heart good? How much good is in there? By the way, if I do have any good in my heart, it�s because God has put it in there. How much good do I have to have to think that my heart�s good? This is the problem with this kind of preaching.

If he finds his heart rotten, his principles false and unsound, the discovery may be an order to a renewing. If a man have a disease upon him and know it, he may send it to the physician in time. But what a sad vexation it will be not to see the disease till it be past cure.

So for a man to be graceless and not see it till it�s too late, to think himself a Christian when he is not, that he is in the right way of heaven when he is on the way to hell, and yet not know it till a deathbed or judgment day confute his confidence, this is the most irrecoverable misery.

There are the grounds upon which I press this duty of examining our state, oh, that God would help us in doing this necessary duty. Okay, I�m all for it would be awful to be in your deathbed and be deceived.

I�m all for that. It�s possible to be deceived. You see over and over and over, do not be deceived, do not be deceived, do not be deceived, in several passages in the New Testament epistles. But, okay, so what�s the solution?

Back to examining our state. And I think we�re going the wrong direction. We�re looking inwardly wrongly and too often. Now, he�s going to talk about Jesus now, let�s see how he talks about him. Before he talks about him it says, �You will say, but how shall I come to know whether I am an almost or altogether a Christian

And even that, I�m an almost or an altogether, am I altogether a Christian? What if I�m just not very good Christian at all but I�m trusting in the promises of God? I don�t know much about anything, I�m a farmer, I�m a computer guy, I just trust but I�m just not this big theologian, I�m an altogether Christian?

Who would call themselves that? If you said, well the Spirit of God made me a new creature in Christ and so I�m an altogether a Christian now because of the work of the Spirit of God. Okay, fine. But who calls themselves that?

An altogether Christian? Christ is King, Priest, Prophet and all is mediator. Without any one of those offices the work of salvation could not be completed. As Priest he redeems us, as Prophet he instructs us, as King he sanctifies and saves us.

Therefore the Apostle says he is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Righteousness and redemption flow from him as Priest, wisdom as a Prophet, sanctification as a King.

Now many embrace Christ as Priest but yet they own him not as King and Prophet, Savior and Lord kind of thing. They like to share in his righteousness but not partake of his holiness. They would be redeemed by him but they would not submit to him.

They would be saved by his blood but not submit to his power. Many love the privileges of the Gospel but not the duties of the Gospel. The duties? There are duties in the Gospel? Well you know, Mike, we have something called Gospel Imperatives.

Okay, the duties of the Gospel, a response to the Gospel, fruit of the Gospel, evidence of the Gospel. The Gospel is not a duty. You say, well, you know, you're supposed to obey by believing, obedience of faith.

Okay, but you're not making your point, you're making mine. It is a command in response to the good news. The believer tells the unbeliever to believe and that's a command. That's true. Oh, now these are almost Christians, notwithstanding they're close with Christ, but it is upon their own terms but not upon God's.

The offices of Christ may be distinguished but they can never be divided. And again, I go back to what's the response? How do you know? If you're really believing and trusting, if you're really a Christian, you don't want to be in your deathbed and go to hell.

Here he uses those words twice. They would not submit to him. They would not submit to his power. Remember submission, i .e. submit, commit, yield, treasure, desire. Those are words of Arminians. Those are what Arminians think you should do if you're an unbeliever and you want to respond to the work of Christ in his life and his death and even up in heaven after he's been ascended.

The response should be and has been in church history when things have been understood properly. Believe, rest, trust, rely, receive. Because how much do I have to submit? That's my question to this guy.

How much do I have to yield? How much do I have to commit? Jesus is king. How much of my life have I submitted to King Jesus? And if it's not all, I don't think you can have much assurance because assurance is going to need to be based on perfect work.

Now if I say as a Christian, and you probably do this as a Christian, I want all my life submitted to Jesus. I want him to be Lord in every area, King in every area. That's completely different. Here he says, but the true Christian owns Christ in all his offices.

He does not only close with him as Jesus, but as Lord Jesus, he says to Thomas, my Lord and my God. He does not only believe in the merit of his death, but also conforms to the manner of his life. As he believes in him, so he lives in him.

To what degree do I have to conform in order to have any assurance whatsoever? To what degree? I want somebody to answer that question because this is pastoral negligence. When you say you better be conforming or you have no, I mean, is there going to be conforming?

Yes. But to what degree? That's why it goes back to the object of the Lord Jesus who perfectly submitted, perfectly yielded. I'm looking for another one, not in myself. I'm looking to the Lord Jesus. The altogether Christian has a thorough work of grace and sanctification wrought in his heart as a spring of obedience.

Now there we're going to argue about sanctification and monergistic sanctification. It is true that sanctification has been wrought in the heart of an unbeliever and when he's saved and is going on as a believer, God is the sanctifier and we respond with faith and obedience.

But the spring of obedience? Regeneration is a whole change. I agree with that, but he's going to be saying, I bet you a million dollars, what kind of whole change needs to be in your life? And some of the whole change, it's hard to see.

It's Ephesians chapter four that we talked about last show where it's when you were taught of Christ, when you learned Christ, Ephesians four, you were taught to put away and to be renewed and to put on.

You were taught that. But to what degree do you have to do it? This is amazing to me. All old things are done away, all things become new. It is a perfect work as to parts, though not as to degrees. Okay, but you're not helping me if you're trying to backtrack a little bit.

I'm scared. Carnal men do duties, but from an unsanctified heart and that spoils all. A new piece of cloth never does well in an old garment, for the rent is made worse. When a man's heart is thoroughly renewed by grace, the mind savingly enlightened, the conscience thoroughly convinced, the will truly humble and subdued, the affection spiritually raised and sanctified, and when the mind and will and conscience and affections all join issue to help on and with the performance of the duties commanded, then is a man altogether a Christian.

What a suffocating strangulation. Here the almost Christian fails. He does the same duties, but he does not do them in the same manner. If he prays, he regards not faith and fervency in prayer. If he hears, he does not mind Christ's rule.

Take heed how you hear. If he obeys, he looks not to the frame of his heart in obedience, therefore miscarries in all he does. These defects spoil all. Okay, well, if that's the case, I think you're pretty much all doomed, listeners, and you should probably listen to other shows, maybe a little comedy while you're waiting for the Damocles sort of death.

Obviously, when you're justified, you're sanctified, and God begins the sanctifying process, and you respond with faith and good works, fruits and evidences, consequences of God's sanctifying power. Obviously, we are given laws from the hands of Christ, and we want to do them, but to what degree do we have to do them?

This poor guy and his followers, thoroughly renewed, mind savingly enlightened, conscience thoroughly convicted, will truly humbled and subdued, affection spiritually raised and sanctified, mind and will, conscience and affections, all joined with issue and performance of the duty's command.

Then you're an altogether Christian. What a farce. This is Rome. This is not Arminianism, even. This is Rome. So, just because somebody says great things about Puritans, and it's published by somebody who's good, almost a Christian?

Altogether a Christian? What? What are we doing here? So let's get back to pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ and not introspectively belly-butting. Belly-button-looking.

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.