Folly and Wisdom

Welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. Glad you've tuned in to YouTube. Hit subscribe, hit like, share, et cetera.

And by the way, if you've got some internet skills and you think you might want to come alongside and help us with certain things, you let me know and I could always use your help.

We've had volunteers throughout the NoCoSphere over the years, and maybe you could help us do this.

We're operating on, I shouldn't say pennies, but anyway, we could use your help.

Today, variety show number seven. The masses want more.

Should I give them more? I don't know. We're just gonna try a few more and see how we do. Variety show, meaning I typically would talk about a subject throughout the whole conversation, throughout the whole 30 minutes.

Here is just certain segments to spice things up, change things up, just see how we do.

You can always write me, mike at nocompromisedradio .com. Or if you want to order books that are on Amazon, 10 or more books, if you email me,

I can get you 40 % off the list, plus a little bit of shipping for drop shipping.

I saw somebody ordered 10 cancer books the other day on Amazon, paying full price. If that person would have known who

I was and could have emailed me, mike at nocompromisedradio, I would have saved them 40%.

But that's okay. It is what it is. The Chosen about unconditional election is the latest book.

I started working on my next book last night for an hour, an hour and a half.

My wife is out of town and I'm working on a book on sanctification and what it is.

And so we had Law Gospel, a Primer, an introduction on Law Gospel. This is Sanctification, a

Primer. This is a follow -up to Law Gospel. What is sanctification? How does the sanctification take place?

What's our response to God's saving work, faith, killing sin, living to righteousness, is sanctification.

Monergistic, synergistic, what does it matter? How does it apply in my daily life? In light of God's sanctifying work, how should

I pray? How should I live, et cetera. So hopefully by the Pactum Conference in October, that will be out and available,

Sanctification, a Primer. Today on The Variety Show, we start off like always with Kooks and Barneys.

And Kooks and Barneys is the award that I give to someone with bad theology so that you might avoid them.

And I can just sadly laugh a little bit and just think, what in the world? This is crazy. So the

Kook and Barney Award today goes to Stephen Furtick. And Furtick started off seemingly years ago, more

Orthodox. He received his Master's of Divinity, I believe, from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I got my Doctorate of Ministry there. And so he certainly was taught the right thing, but it seems to me, in my opinion, he's gone for more of a word faith, seeker -sensitive, pragmatism, not authorial intent, not verse by verse, not exegetical.

My biggest concern, and this is again, in my opinion, he knows better, but he's still doing what he wants to do.

From my point of view, and in my opinion, he seems to be wanting to be the next T .D. Jakes in influence and popularity and maybe even theology.

Well, there was an article quite a while ago in the Charlotte paper or the

Charlotte website, how Elevation Church, Pastor Furtick produces spontaneous baptisms.

So when I see the word spontaneous, first I thought it was spontaneous combustion. I guess it's not that.

Some of the article reads thus, Elevation Church keeps an exact count of its thousands of baptisms, all part of its laser -like focus on numbers.

To get those thousands of baptisms takes a lot of planning. Now, if the planning is, we've got to make sure there's enough water and people who can dunk them, my back would be hurting after a thousand people dunking.

That planning is one thing, but if the planning is how to get the baptisms, that's another thing.

Elevation produced a document to show other churches how they could do likewise. I don't know if it's still on the side or not, but in the old days on their website, they had a website and it said a how -to guide.

Here's how you get spontaneous baptisms. The first people instructed to respond to Pastor Stephen's call to baptism were not converts suddenly inspired, this is the article, not people that say,

I believe where's the water to get baptized, right? The way it should be. But elevation volunteers carefully planted in the crowd.

So I used to work in retail, I sold Duracell batteries. And if you have a big display bin that holds 96 batteries, and we're gonna set it out at a

CVS drug store, we set it out with 96 batteries and we remove like 10 and put them in the box in the back because people walk by and go, other people are buying these,

I should too. If you walk past a box and nobody's buying anything, you're like, I don't wanna buy that. So in a similar fashion,

Billy Graham, when he would do his crusades, he would have volunteers that are already Christians.

When he gave the altar call, come forward to receive Jesus, they would go kind of the proverbial priming the pump, kind of getting things flowing.

I don't wanna go anywhere, but look at all those other people are going, okay, I'll go too. And that's wrong and that's not right.

And we could talk about altar calls all day long, but there's no altar in the church, there's no reason to come up to the front.

You can just hear the word of God where you are and faith comes by hearing a message about Christ. Romans 10, 17.

Here to get more people baptized, there are plants, people on staff, and they go up and start getting baptized.

So, hey, I might as well as well. Spontaneous baptisms, no, this is a plant.

The guide instructs, the guide says with instructions online, 15 people will sit in the worship experience and be the first ones to move when pastor gives the call, more intentionally through the highest visibility areas and the longest walk.

So where do you put these plants? Where everybody can see them, of course, why put them under a bushel and where they've got to walk a long way?

Because remember what Billy Graham would say, Billy Graham would say, the road to Calvary was a long way, no matter where you are in this stadium, even if you're in the back, this long road up to the front altar to dedicate your life to Jesus is worth it.

A scholar said in the article critiquing this, compares the mass baptism show, a service to a show at Disney World, quote, this church has obviously discovered what we in the industry call the

Disney -ification of religious services. So while you might like elevate music, while you might like that there's a lot of people, while you might like Furtick's $2 ,000 jacket that he wears or whatever the number is of his jacket, we don't manipulate, we don't do that.

We can persuade people, we can entreat them, we can beg them to come to Christ. And after they're saved, is it important to tell them that they must obey the

Lord in this ordinance of baptism? Yes. Book recommendation.

Well, I have not recommended a biography yet. This section right here of my books, this section is a bad section.

This is a good section and these are all biographies, some autobiographies, stories about the life of saints.

Now there might be some Churchill things up there or General Patton or something like that, but most of them are Christians. And I like reading biographies for two reasons.

One, it convicts me, motivates me because they're frail, they're affected by Adam's sin, they're going through all kinds of things.

And I'm thinking, if this person can burn out for the Lord Jesus in the middle of a jungle without any creature comforts, what am

I doing? So it motivates me because it pricks at my laziness if I'm not careful.

Secondly, when I read biographies, I think in a positive way, that person's sinful just like me, that person has struggles just like me, that person waged war against the flesh just like me, had a hard time loving his wife just like me.

And here's how the Lord could use a sinner like them, He could use me. If the Lord could use them,

He could use me. He can't lose me. And I'm just thinking, I'm motivated.

And you read about some of these guys in their relationship with their wives, some of them were really bad. It makes me look like I'm a perfect husband.

But if the Lord could use them, He can use you. And if the Lord could use somebody like me,

He can use you. So the book I'm recommending is my favorite, maybe biography, Christian biography, by Roland Batten or Batten, B -A -I -N -T -O -N,

Here I Stand, The Life of Martin Luther. And it is a great read. It, if you like, you know, sitting down and watching 10

Netflix show, just binge watching, you would binge read this. It is so fun to read and so exciting to see

Luther and see the providence of God in Luther's life. Luther said, faith is a living, restless thing.

It cannot be an operative. We're not saved by works, but if there be no works, there must be something amiss with our faith.

And just as he's established justification by faith alone, you're saved by faith alone. And in the category of sanctification, that faith won't be alone.

And in that category of sanctification, your good works, God doesn't need, but your neighbor does.

So many things. It is wonderful. To see how

God can use someone. Banton on Luther.

He fasted sometimes three days on end without a crumb. He laid upon himself vigils and prayers in excess of those stipulated by the rule.

He cast off the blankets permitted him and well -nigh froze himself to death. At times he was proud of his sanctity and would say,

I have done nothing wrong today. Then the misgivings would arise. Have you fasted enough?

Are you poor enough? And in this cauldron of thinking, did you pray enough, read enough, study enough, fast enough, repent enough, obey enough?

He realized it's never enough. There's nothing I can do. And I have to look to the one who did enough, who said it is finished.

He paid it all, paid in full. And so now if I were to say to you, how do you know you're a

Christian? Is it because you pray? Well, do you pray enough? Do you fast enough? Do you do all these things enough?

The answer is no, no, no, no, no. But I'm looking to the one who did it all in my place. Great book.

Here I Stand, Roland Baten about Martin Luther. I think you'd be encouraged.

Well, we come to the next part of the show. Already the message moment. Wow. I like messages.

I like good messages. I like good news, but I don't like the message paraphrase. Romans 8 verse 35 in the message.

Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There's no way.

Not trouble, nor hard times, nor hatred, nor hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats.

This whole bullying thing. I'm not for bullying. I'm not pro -bullying, but actually that's just something that exists.

Kids get bullied on the playground. And sometimes they get bullied because those kids ask for it, right?

When boys play, for instance, on the playground, you realize quickly what is acceptable behavior to other boys and what is not.

And if you're a jerk, you get bullied. If you're this, that, or the other, you get beat up. I'm not promoting bullying.

I'm not promoting getting beat up. I'm just saying this overemphasis. I'm just being bullied. It's just something, it's a new thing.

Not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in scripture.

See, he puts theology in, whether that theology is good or bad. And now I don't even know what the passage is about.

Am I not supposed to know what the passage is about? Here's the passage. Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

And by the way, this is a question of who. It's not what shall separate us, it's who.

And the backdrop I think you'll see is Satan. I think the backdrop is Satan.

Who is going to leave a charge against God's elect? Satan will try, but it's not going to work.

Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. So avoid the message. If you're gonna read the message, make it only for a moment and listen to it only on No Compromise Radio.

I have friends that they're like, well, we have the chosen Bible. We have the message Bible. We have the

Bible for a 13 year old girls who like anime. There's just all these subsections.

The Bible is the Bible is the Bible. And so if you think about even Ephesians, it's good for parents to hear what's the charge given to them regarding children.

And it's good for the children to know how the parents should act. It's good for people who are not married, how husbands should treat their wives, how wives should treat their husbands, how husbands love your wives, wives submit to your husbands, children obey your parents and the

Lord for this is right. There are different people in the audience. I don't need a study Bible for children in terms of a real

Bible. I mean, if you want a dumbed down version when there are three, that's one thing. I'm getting myself into more trouble than I thought Mario. I just better move to the next section.

Don't bully me. Hey, you're bullying. Are you a

Roman Catholic or a Protestant? As you know, many times we blur the lines. And since we have a works righteousness principle in us, it lends itself for us to easily believe the

Roman Catholic doctrine of justification and sanctification, which are blurred, which are combined, which are commingled.

But I want you to think like a Protestant. I want you to think like an evangelical that has good news. Two statements, one of them is

Roman Catholic, one of them is Protestant, statement number one. The unbeliever is free to do good or evil.

To repeat, the unbeliever is free to do good or evil. B, or the second one, the unbeliever is free only to do evil.

And of course we know that is total depravity, whole depravity, W -H -O -L -E, wholly depraved mind, emotions, will, conscience, body, soul, spirit, whatever you want for component parts.

And so the unbeliever is not free to do good. You say, well, good in society, yes. I mean, the way

I would say it is, if you think about a box with four boxes in there, a box with four sections.

So there's good, good, good works done by those with a good heart, a heart given by God.

That's when believers do good works. Bad, good, when Christians do bad things and sin, but they're still having a good standing before God.

They're Christians who do wrong things. Then there's good, bad, good things in society that unbelievers can do for one another based on common grace, walking a grandma down the street, paying taxes, being a good soldier, et cetera.

And then there's bad, bad, unbelievers who do bad, sinful, wicked things.

And so can unbelievers do good things? In God's eyes, no. Can they do good things in the sight of other people?

And for other people, of course they can do good things. We have a police force that is supposed to do good things and reward good things that people do.

Not just what Christians do, but what unbelievers do. So good, good, bad, good, good, bad, bad, bad.

You got it? Quit bullying me. The unbeliever is free only to do evil.

He's got a choice to do whatever he wants, but never can he say, I'd like to please

God and offer a sacrifice of aroma pleasing to him on his own.

That has to be a work of God initiated by God. And the response of the person would be to believe and to trust and then obey and follow.

Right? Right. All right. The main point today, the offense of the cross.

The offense of the cross. We think of the cross in sometimes less than scriptural ways.

We think sometimes of the cross as a decorative piece of jewelry. If you have a cross around your neck,

I'm not gonna tell you to take it off. If you've got a cross and your ear pierced, I'm not going to tell you to take it off.

But it lends itself for us to be thinking, hmm, cross? I mean,

I don't know of anybody who has the electric chair hanging from their neck. Maybe some, maybe

Sid Vicious used to. I don't know, that was a padlock. I don't know many who say,

I'm gonna have like a firing squad hung around my neck. I'm gonna have a lethal injection syringe hung around my neck.

But for the cross, we have it around our neck. Now, part of that reason is because the people that wear it probably wanna be reminded of the cross.

There's no Jesus on it. He's been raised from the dead. Here's the central truth in Christianity. Jesus came as a mission, set his face towards Jerusalem to die on the cross.

And maybe they think that way. Certainly they could think that way. But I want you to remember how despised, how foolish, how awful the cross was in the days of the

Bible. So 1 Corinthians 1, it says in verse 18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So for the unbeliever, while we sing that song, I think George Beverly Shea wrote it, the old rugged cross.

And on that old cross, my dearest and best, and all this about just the sentimentalized cross.

But the cross to unbelievers back in the Bible day, you wouldn't let your kids watch a crucifixion.

It was like a swear word. It was repugnant. It was repulsive. This is like the worst thing, the cross.

Here's a man naked up on the cross, gasping for breath. And of course the soldiers would come around later and mock them and make fun of them and sour wine and break their legs and all the other things.

It says that the word of cross to unbelievers is foolishness. It's where we get the word moronic.

It's stupid. It's so below me. It's unworthy of belief. Now, part of this is gonna be an explanation that when you're preaching to your friends and you're like, this is the best news ever.

Jesus paid on the cross, all my sins, the wrath of God. He assuaged, He satisfied. He absorbed all the wrath that was due to me.

Can you imagine the ferocity and the loudness of eternal judgment? I mean, a fire.

I mean, I hear the roaring fire sometimes at home and my kids will go, dad, you know, you put too many Amazon boxes in the fire.

Just imagine the ferocious volume and the decibels of judgment. And then you think, you know, that's how

I think about it. Jesus did that in my place. So thankful for a substitute. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But for the unbeliever, this is something you don't talk about. You learn in class. You know what?

Say, yes, ma 'am, no, ma 'am. And don't talk about the cross. That repugnant thing where naked people are put.

Matter of fact, the Persians, when they designed the cross, if memory serves, they didn't want people to die with their feet on the ground because they would be soiling the earth.

So let's lift them up on the ground and kill them because they don't deserve to soil the earth with their feet.

Crazy. It's foolishness. Let me give you some reasons why unbelievers think it's foolish.

They will help you see behind the scenes, maybe in your desire to pray for them and evangelize them. Slaves and the riffraff and the miscreants were the ones put on crosses.

This is not, oh, you know, wonderful people are put on crosses. You know who's put on crosses? Embarrassing people.

Embarrassing to society, reprehensible people that we don't want to talk about and we want to just ship off.

Those are the people that go on crosses. One man said the rule was reserved and the cross was reserved for hardened criminals, incorrigible slaves and rebels against the

Roman state. Not good people. They're really bad people.

That's why I want you to think, you know, wearing a cross, that's not my point today, but people don't wear crosses with the atom bomb explosion over Nagasaki, like mass execution.

They don't do that. It's a swear word. It's a four letter word. There are certain words my kids aren't allowed to say.

And back in the day, one of them would be cross. A well -known site in Rome has some graffiti from 2000 years ago.

And it's a worshiper standing before someone and that someone is on a cross and it's a body of a man on a cross.

So a worshiper worshiping a body on the cross, except the head wasn't a man.

It was a donkey. It was a jackass. It was an ass. That's how people thought of Christianity.

A worshiper worshiping someone like that. Cicero, a very famous writer, talked about crucifixion.

And he said this, the very word cross should be far removed, not only from the person of a

Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. We don't talk about the cross.

And you know, the thing about it is, it's not just the cross. It's everything that happened before the cross and the whipping and the beating and the flogging and the carrying the part of the cross to where you're gonna go get.

And then they hammer the nails into your wrist and in your feet, and then they drop it into a hole and then you feel that.

And that's just the human side, right? There's human pain and suffering on the cross, no doubt.

And we haven't even got to the assuage and of the wrath of God, which no TV show could ever talk about.

Unbelievers think the cross is foolish because it's for slaves. It's for the worst people. Number two, unbelievers think the cross is foolishness because they see

Jesus, a Jesus who in their mind can't even save himself. Salvation is gonna come from a cross.

The one on the cross can't save himself. You saved others, now you save yourself. This is stupid.

Now we as Christians, we watch and we go, of course the cross, it's wonderful. He died for me, he lived for me.

There it's all happening, the pinnacle. But for the unbeliever, the

King of Israel, Matthew 27, let him come down now from the cross and we'll believe him. If salvation comes from the cross, save yourself.

No wonder Nietzsche, the Lutheran philosopher said, the cross and Christianity is the metaphysics of a hangman, hanging there.

Number three, unbelievers think the cross is foolish because you mean to tell me

Christian that me, the unbeliever, my eternal destiny is based on my belief of a man 2000 years ago named

Jesus who did some miracles, was born of a virgin, suffered on the cross and was raised from the dead. You mean to tell me my eternal condition, heaven or hell is based on what

I think about Jesus and do I trust in him or not? 30 ,000 other

Jews were crucified. What's the big deal about Jesus? John MacArthur said that one man could die on a piece of wood on a nondescript hill in a nondescript part of the world and thereby determine the destiny of every person who has ever lived seems stupid.

Especially in our pluralistic world where there's all kinds of roads to God. You mean this one man in real history?

This doesn't seem wise, this doesn't seem right. Number four, why do unbelievers think the cross is foolish?

Because the religious symbols of the day were anything like the cross.

They weren't anything like the cross. I found some religious symbols and Mario, I'm not talking about coexist.

There's a nine pointed star in the Baha 'i faith. There's a pentagram for Wiccans. There's a sun cross for Gnosticism.

There's a star and crescent for Islam. There's a star of David for Judaism. There's yin and yang for Taoism or Taoism.

But the cross, okay, one more. Why do unbelievers think the cross is foolishness?

Number five, the cross means that those who follow the one on the cross are also going to get persecuted like Jesus.

Salvation, full and free, eternal life, heaven, joy, fruit of the spirit.

But the suffering servant has servants who suffer. You wanna pick up your cross and follow me?

There's a cross for you too. Now it might not be real death, but you can go to Rhodesia and other places and there's real death.

But there is suffering for the Christian. All who live godly lives, 2 Timothy 3, will suffer what?

Persecution. You're gonna follow that man? You know one of the reasons why they think it's dumb? Who wants to sign up for that?

And nobody wants to unless you can have all your sins forgiven. It'd be no wager to say, I'm gonna sign up for persecution unless you know you could have your sins forgiven.

Then you'd be like Paul. Then you'd be like Peter. Then you'd be like Andrew. Then you'd be like doubting

Thomas, who doesn't doubt anymore. And you'd say, you know what? When it comes to pick up cross and following Jesus, it's worth it.

So when we come to the Bible and we see the cross, I just want you to remember, say to yourself, what was the cross in my mind before I got saved?

It might not have been so despised like 2000 years ago, but it just seemed like that's what Christians believe.

It just seemed like, oh, it's just, yeah, he's on a cross and I have a cross too. It's my wife and I have a cross to bear.

No, no, this is something that was just so foolish to the Gentiles.

To the Greeks, because they thought they were wise or Gentiles. And the Jews, they wanted a sign.

And the sign was not the Messiah on a cross. The Messiah was to crush Rome. So today on No Compromise Radio, we just talked about the cross.

We talked about Stephen Furtick. We talked about all kinds of stuff. You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

And again, this is a real offer. If you have some skills on the internet, skills on uploading shows, skills on helping with social media, we could probably use those skills.

And we pay quite the wage. If you get bullied,

I'll pay you. But if you're not bullied, you don't get any pay. Eternal rewards. Don't forget The Chosen is a book that you can order on Amazon.

And any of the other books, if you wanna mix and match 10, a couple about cancer, my friend Nahum, he has gone back and the cancer is spreading.

He's a pastor in Ohio. Would you pray for Nahum? And he's been handing out those books and proclaiming the good news.

Anyway, you can get them cheaper if you buy 10 or more. So anyway, that's the show. I got 15 minutes of airtime to kill.

I have no idea what to do. Here you go. You're not supposed to tell jokes in the pulpit. So here you go. What's the difference between Benny Hinn and a dog?