Threats to the Gospel

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 take two.

You don't know that, but this is take two. I sat down, I just grabbed my notes and pushed record and talked for a minute and 51 seconds, and it was no good. It's going into the vault, sealed, area 51, so no one can access it ever because it sounded so lame.

Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, unless it's a lame intro. So we start again today. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com. Pastor Steve is on sabbatical. He has a little Shabbat going.

It's three months. He's going to be writing a book. I told him to make it biblical and funny in that order. So we're gonna be set. I think I'm gonna have to do a lot of Tuesday guy stuff from now on. Maybe I'll have to have more guests, but I don't know, the way I feel lately, I don't really think I like guests.

Guests really need to start stepping it up or I'm not gonna have any more. Actually, I don't get books from publishers anymore because I guess I don't have their authors on. A lot of the authors that I wanna talk to don't do interviews anymore.

They especially don't stoop to No Compromise Radio. So I guess I could go back to the old school and ask James White or Carl Truman or somebody like that. But anyway, I'm just too busy to read the book than to call the author, to set it up.

I try to ask questions that are good questions. That all takes time. And so what do you get instead? You just get me talking for 24 and one half minutes. Today I'd like to talk about threats to the gospel and threats to gospel ministry.

The Church Must Fight the Spiritual War with Gospel Weapons

Friends, like it or not, we are in a battle. Spiritual warfare is going on. And the question really is, how do we fight the spiritual battle? Paul said to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

And as Paul fought, we ought to fight. Church, we are on the front lines. No one's going to do our fighting for us. Fox News isn't going to fight for us. Ted Turner is not going to fight for us. I almost said Ted Tripp.

Ted Tripp, hopefully he will fight for us. We have to fight our own battles. And when Paul says, we war, we wage war, he's basically using the word strategy. That's where we get our word strategy. Remember that game you played when you were a kid?

If you're older, stratego, that's the word here. And for Paul, he had a mission and his mission was to hold up the gospel and fight this battle for the souls and lives and destinies of men. Not with marketing, not with pragmatics, not with picket signs, not with marches, million man marches, not with human ingenuity, not with his own IQ, not with tradition.

Those things would not have worked. Those things would have been like pea shooters trying to ward off Hitler's panzers or Rommel's panzers in World War II. Paul knew about the military and he liked to use this military language.

I don't know if it was because he was chained to Roman soldiers for a lot of his life, but he knew military metaphor. Paul says philosophy's not going to do it. Secularism isn't going to do it. Let's try to get a bunch of people organized.

Let's use entertainment. We need a Christian celebrity. That's what we need. Paul doesn't do that at all. Paul also doesn't say, well, let's just get together with a bunch of people in an ecumenical gathering because might is right, moral majority.

Let's try to just, you know what? Catholics are pro-life. Catholics are against abortion. We need more people. Let's team up with some other folks because the way it's working now, it seems like the church isn't doing a good job.

Paul didn't do that at all. Paul didn't say, you know what? Politics is the way to go. This battle is fought through politics. Or when Lutzer said, the problems of the USA are too far gone to be remedied by a change of political administrations.

And Lutzer is right. This is a spiritual war. Some people say, well, we're in a culture war. Okay, I would go for that to some degree, but at a deeper level, this is a spiritual war. And it's not primarily, excuse me, not primarily about abortion, although that is a horrible sin.

It is a theological, not a social. It is a doctrinal, not political battle. Ed Dobson said, politics cannot offer permanent solutions because politics is based on a flawed view of sin. It's the same thing with psychology too.

What's wrong with psychology? One, wrong view of God, two, wrong view of man. And besides that, it's pretty good. That was a Peet's Coffee break there. So far, Peet's Coffee has yet to send me any free coffee after all the promotion I do with it.

I was just in Scotts Valley, California. Went to a Peet's Coffee there. They had some special hand-roasted. I don't know how you roast coffee with your hands, but hand-roasted. And so it was some incredible amount of money and I just bought it like a lemming.

It was okay, but it was quite earthy. Spiritual battle is what we are in. So that's the point. So since we are in a spiritual battle, the weapons that we use have to be spiritual. See, doesn't that make sense?

They can't be carnal. They can't be humanistic. They can't be political. There's a means to fight. There's a method to fight. Satan is a deceiver. He is a liar. He uses subterfuge. He has guile. He has compulsion.

He has schemes and systems and strategies. How do we overcome these? How do we overcome these strategies of Satan? And he's blinding men and women and deceiving people's minds. Kistemacher said, God's soldiers must use his armaments, not those of Satan.

And so for Paul, he wasn't after numbers. He was after truth. He was after honoring the Lord, Coram Deo, an audience of one. And the weapons he used were strong. They have divine power, 2 Corinthians 10, verse four.

Divine power to destroy strongholds. And certainly if you lived back in the Bible days, in the Bible area, you would realize strongholds were around, especially if you lived in Corinth. We are going to Corinth here soon.

Been to Corinth a couple of years ago. And you can see a lot of rocky forts and crevices and cracks and walls there that would serve to be forts, strongholds. At Corinth and other ancient cities, you would have fortresses where?

On the top of hills. So the cities, when they were under attack, could flee there for refuge. So that's what Paul is talking about here. The Bible says in Proverbs 21, a wise man scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.

And so if I could go further to bring in 2 Corinthians to Proverbs, a wise man uses God's mighty weapons. Mighty in the world's eyes? No. Mighty in your friend's eyes? No. Mighty in the practical effects that you can see tangibly and tactically, tactically?

With your feelings, with your touch, with your taste. Zechariah 4. This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, you know this verse, don't you? "'Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit,' says the Lord of hosts.".

It is a counterintuitive battle. Organization, political influence, ecumenism. No, the church has to use weapons that are mighty. One man said we can't invade Normandy with comedians and clowns. That's true.

See, and what we're after, the opponent, if you remember that, it will help you pick the right weapon because Paul said in chapter 10, verse five of 2 Corinthians, we're destroying speculation. So how do you destroy a speculation?

How do you destroy a lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God? How do you take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? How do you kill those? How do you go for the kill when it comes to a military metaphor?

Every opinion that raises itself up against God from self-esteem to works righteousness, it sits up there on a high perch, as one man called it, the perch of audacity. How do we go for the kill? Furthermore, how do we take a prisoner of war?

That's what Paul means there when he says bringing into captivity. A military metaphor, Paul uses, yes, once again. And I love the word bring into captivity. It's from two words put together. So the Greek likes to do that, especially Koine Greek.

And it says spear and to be taken. To be taken by spear is to be taken captive. That's a cool word, isn't it? How do we do that? I don't think tricks are going to work. I don't think bait and switch is going to work.

I'm pretty sure gimmicks aren't going to work. So how is this done? How do we do what Paul has just been saying? Well, Arkan Hughes makes it simple. Paul would simply apply the truth of the gospel to every situation in life.

Paul was concerned that people thought properly about God and he always had his antenna out for anything that smacked of another gospel. That's what we need to do. We need to see this as an opportunity to advance the gospel.

It is the gospel. It is the word of God. It is the word of grace. It is a truth about God that is going to help us. That is our weapon in our war that we're in, the gospel. So no wonder Satan attacks the gospel.

If the gospel and Christ's word is our weapon, then it is no surprise that Satan attacks the gospel. So in light of that, the rest of No Compromise Radio Ministry today and probably next time since Steve is sloughing off and slouching away, remember Robert Bork's book, Slouching Toward Gomorrah?

Slouching Toward Gomorrah? I don't think it was that good of a book, but the title was brilliant. Threats to the Gospel Ministry. That's what we're going to do. And it's going to have to be a very condensed, concise no-co, right?

Because there are a lot of threats. I'm just thinking about something I saw watching some cable TV at the hotel, see? Because if I get to a hotel, then I get cable TV since I don't get it at home. So I was watching this man and he had a gun sitting on a bus stop and he was waving it around and he was making threats.

And so the SWAT team comes in and I think he was even threatening his own life. And the SWAT team came in. It was interesting because from a long distance away, one of the SWAT team's snipers shot the pistol out of the man's hand.

Didn't even shoot his hand, just shot the pistol. And it was quite surprising for the man. And then the other guys rushed in. And so here we have a weapon and the weapon is the gospel and the truth contained in the Bible.

And we ought to guard it carefully so we don't get it shot out of our hand. How's that to rescue all this? Boy, Mike, you seem tired today. I know, I'm super tired. I'm probably getting ready for that Greece trip is what I'm doing.

No compromise Greece trip. In two years, we'll go back to Israel. If you'd like to go with us, we'd love to have you. So start saving your shekels. Threats to the gospel ministry. Let's start within the church first.

Threats that we have right under our noses. Instead of externally, let's go internal first and work our way outwardly, outwards, outwardly. By the way, the S. Lewis Johnson project, the book of Romans, commentary, about 85 ,000 words, about 300 pages.

I think it's going to be paperback, discovering Romans, S. Lewis Johnson, adapted by Mike Abendroth. I was going to say with Mike Abendroth, but I'm not with S. Lewis Johnson. I'm adapting this stuff.

By the way, I need a special word to put into the book. You know, the old, I don't know if it was a wife's tale or not, but the old underground lore myth legend was that Phil Johnson put the word bogus into every one of MacArthur's books.

I asked Phil about that when I had dinner one night with Phil, not to drop any names, but I can't remember what he said. That's the problem. It's a problem with some of these older guys on the radio. They can't remember what they were going to say.

Speaking of which, I listened to Steve Brown on the radio the other day, Presbyterian pastor, who's been on the radio for a long time. Something like old gray guy, old wise guy, old something, I can't remember.

It's SBR, Steve Brown radio, which it's like, you know, M-A-R, Mar Mike Abendroth radio, and he plays Johnny Marr too. Anyway, he interviewed Mark Driscoll, and it was a catastrophe. I don't know what Steve Brown's thinking, but I guess it's good that he's relegated off the airways, at least here of WVNE, although we get Seventh-day Adventist heretics on Saturday in this radio station, and we get crazy people, the people at 430 who don't understand judicial forgiveness and who cause tons of trouble and wreak havoc wherever they go until the radio station figures it out and kicks them off.

So right into WVNE so we can get those guys off too. I don't know what the scoop is on that. I've tried, I'm trying again today. This is not healthy radio at 430 on WVNE, and it's not healthy for the Bible Answer guy, whatever he's called, I don't mean Hank Anagraff, for the Seventh-day Adventist on Saturday.

It's just not healthy. So if it's a ministry, let's serve healthy things. I'm not trying to be nitpicky regarding Charles Stanley and Chuck Swindoll and some folks that I might have some disagreements with.

This is not healthy. This isn't frosted flakes for breakfast. This is rocks and garbage is what it is. So back to the text. First threat to the gospel is that the church just assumes the gospel. One of the threats we have to gospel ministry is just having the professing church, the evangelical church I'm talking about here, assume the gospel.

We assume that our people know it. We assume that society knows it. It's almost a torque on Joel Osteen when he says, I don't need to tell everybody about sin because they already know they're sinners.

In this particular case, the church assumes that her people know the gospel. Now, many Arminian churches, their people know the gospel probably better than some of the other churches because at the end of the church service, there's an altar call.

And to give them the benefit of the doubt, they give the gospel before the altar call. And they talk about substitutionary atonement and Christ the Messiah dying for our sins and being buried and was raised from the dead.

And the response should be, should the gospel believe and repent and trust and come forward, I guess, to the front of the aisle. You know, one of my favorite things, this is kind of rambling radio today.

One of my favorite things is when people get saved and they begin to come to the church here, Bethlehem Bible Church, and they are here for one year, two years, three years, and they hear me call people to salvation and they hear me talk to people to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but they never hear an altar call.

And so when they go see one on TV or go to a different church, they don't know what to think of it. That's a lot better than when I first got here, people said, well, doesn't Mike believe in evangelism?

Meaning if I don't do an altar call, I don't believe in evangelism? So I think we've changed the scenery and the topography spiritually here at No Compromise Radio. Well, the church needs to keep preaching the gospel.

It is of first importance. Some people don't even know what the gospel is, and they're at an evangelical church because they think, well, I did all that. I got that over with. I believed in this substitutionary atonement, the Savior, he's alive, he's at the right hand of God.

I got that taken care of, and then now I can move onward. I could say gospel and you could say, it's a kind of music. I could say gospel and you could say Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. First Corinthians 15, now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received in which you stand, and by which, by through the gospel, you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preached to you unless you believe in vain.

This is good news that Paul keeps hammering in to the minds of the Corinthians. The word gospel in English comes from Old English, God spell, good news, glad tidings. The Greek word euangelion means good, you, like eulogy, a good word.

Here it's euangelon, that's where we get the word angel, but angels are messengers, a good message. This is a good message. For I delivered to you as of first importance. Everything in the Bible is important, but some things are more important than others.

There is a hierarchical structure to the importance of things in the Bible. What I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

The church should not assume the gospel, the church should preach it. The church should hand it down. The church shouldn't assume, the church should proclaim. Even by definition, the gospel is to be proclaimed.

It has military overtones. The runner returns with a victory report, we won. It's not only good news in content, it's good news in delivery form. That's why you can't live the gospel, that's why you can't do the gospel.

Horton said, instead of reporting the news, we become the news. In fact, today we often hear Christians speak of living the gospel and being the gospel as if anything we do and are can be considered a supplement to God's victory in Christ Jesus.

There's something called the Great Commission, Matthew chapter 28, and also Luke chapter 24. Most times we default to the Great Commission being Matthew 28. In my opinion, the Great Commission was the Father sending the Son.

You can read a lot about that in John chapter 17, actually in all of the gospel of Jesus according to John. But then the Great Commission Jesus gave to the disciples is most often talked about in Matthew 28.

But I like to talk about the one in Luke 24 because many forget about that one. It also includes the discussion of repentance. It says in verse 47, well, let me go back to verse 46, and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. Then he led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.

While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God. Today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about gospel threats.

And I think the first threat we've seen today is that the church just assumes the gospel. So if you're a pastor or an elder, just keep teaching the gospel. The people need good news. They need good news in the world, but they need good news spiritually.

And to take their minds back off of themselves and remember who Jesus is, what Jesus has accomplished, how great a salvation this is, so great salvation. That's what needs to be done in local churches.

If you assume the gospel, then here's what you think. You think everyone in your church is saved. And you think everyone at the church is saved doesn't need to grow, because the gospel helps in sanctification and the gospel helps in salvation.

The great indicatives of the faith need to proclaim, because in light of those indicatives, then the imperatives make sense. So it doesn't become therapeutic, moralistic deism. So today on No Compromise Radio, threats to the gospel, we've done gospel threat number one, assuming the gospel.

And I don't want to assume the gospel with you. You're a sinner and there's only one hope for you because God is holy and you've broken his laws and that is Jesus Christ lived the perfect life. He obeyed those laws.

He died in the place of sinners like you and was raised from the dead and you need to repent and believe and trust in him.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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