Holy Ghost Nudges and Liver Shivers

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. My name is Mike Abendroth. I think these antibiotics are finally helping. Who knows? It is bright, blue, sunny, no wind, outside and 34 degrees.

So there you have it. Well, we�re glad you�re listening today. I�m very thankful to receive your emails after our seven months of email jail problem. For whatever reason, when we upgraded to a Google Mail, I did not get the code to authorize me getting the info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

So I got online and there were hundreds of emails, and some were, �Please help. Some were, �Thank you for the show. Some were, �How do we give money to the show, to the ministry. Some were, �Come, please, and speak.

�Come, speak, please. There�s all kinds of things. I just� I saw all those and I just started sweating. So if you have a theological question or if you have a dilemma, a theological dilemma or personal dilemma, �Should I go to a Roman Catholic Mass

�Should I do this �Should I do the other �My husband�s an unbeliever and he�s X, Y, and Z. We would love to help you, and either I will answer it. Pastor Steve will, if it happens to be received on a Tuesday, or Ray or somebody else will answer those emails.

So please email if you�d like, and also thank you for listening. Before I get into the topic of the day, there�s a new book by Bill Hybels coming out, �The Power of a Whisper. �The Power of a Whisper.

I just wanted to say that in the day we live in, we live in a mystical, subjective, Quaker-like, inner light day. And I just want you to remember that when it comes to listening to yourself and then thinking that it�s really God, exchanging, as David Wells says, exchanging theology for autobiography, there�s a real danger.

And that danger is real because I can�t think of any words today we have a valid danger because we are depraved people. We are people whose hearts have been affected by the fall. We are men and women who have been affected by Adam�s sin, credited to our account, and then consequently we have our own sins.

And if you�re not careful, even as a Christian who has a sin hangover, I know redeemed from the penalty of sin and the power of sin broken via Romans 6 and 7, etc., we still have to remember that we are crooked people.

We are wicked people. And if you are listening to your own gizzard, then you�re going to be listening to something that is not pure, even on the best days. And so that�s why you need an outside source.

That�s why you need external revelation. That�s why natural revelation that is, the sun and the moon and the stars are not enough. We need more because we�re fallen. And so when you see books out there that say something like this, this is the publisher�s summary.

�Power of a Whisper Bill Hybels, �without a hint of exaggeration says Bill Hybels, �the ability to discern divine direction has saved me from a life of sure boredom and self-destruction. I can make comments about that, and maybe I�ll just hold my tongue for a minute.

Well, that�s hard to do, though, when it�s radio. �God�s well-timed words have redirected my path, rescued me from temptation, and re-energized me during some of my deepest moments of despair. So if that�s a Bible verse that pops into his mind or he opens the Bible for direction, I would not have any problem with that because I think God does speak to us today.

And God speaks clearly, God speaks plainly, God speaks so that we can understand, God speaks comprehensively. And so this whole God-talks-to-me bit, you know, God tells me to do something indirectly, then it�s okay for James MacDonald to do what he does.

God told me to do something, then it�s okay for Mark Driscoll to do what he does or say what he says. It�s just total trouble. In the power of a whisper, vision is cast for what life can look like when God�s followers choose to hear from heaven as they navigate life on earth.

Well, then for unfortunate people like me who choose not to, I don�t trust myself. Do you really trust yourself? Are you really that sure of yourself where you think, you know, God just told me something?

You? He told you something? He rarely talks to anyone, and he talked to you? In the history of divine drama, the drama of redemption, about a hundred years of God talking directly to people, Moses and Elijah and those kind of folks, and I guess you�re next in line, it just makes no sense at all.

It gets you in trouble. Whispers that arbitrate key decisions, nudges that rescue from dark nights. This is a Holy Spirit nudge. I just got nudged. I�m just going to be sitting there one night reading, and my wife�s going to look at me, and I�m just going to kind of jump a little bit, and she�s going to say, �Honey, what happened?

Did you get bit by a bug or something No, I got nudged. I got nudged by the Spirit. Nudges that rescue from dark nights of the soul, promptings that spur on growth, urgings. Now, see, this is an attack on the sufficiency of Scripture, the attack on the sufficiency of Scripture, Sola Scriptura.

That�s what it is. You say, �Mike, you just never get off this topic. You have just a few topics, Mike, the exaltation of Christ in salvation, standing up for the real gospel against Catholicism, and your anti-mysticism.

Well, that�s where I live because we live in a mystic age. I live in New England, which is a Catholic area, and I want Christ exalted. That�s what I want. And when you think this is needed for spurring on growth, that means the Spirit of God through the Word of God is not enough.

That�s how the Spirit works. That�s how He has chosen to work today. And so, when people run around saying, �God is nudging me to do something then who am I to argue? How can I argue with God? �Mike here, God here, see the difference

Right? To quote Brian Reagan, �This is not right. Francis Chan, �Well, God told me to do such and such. Well, how can anyone argue? John Piper, �Well, God told me to do such and such. See, Jamie Heaney, charismatics are charismatics for lots of reasons, but this is why I think we need to watch out so that we aren�t charismatic.

We don�t think we can hear from God. Well, I hear from God from outside the Bible. You�re basically telling me, well, you are telling me, even though you don�t know it, that you don�t believe in the sufficiency of Scripture and that you deny sola scriptura.

Now, you might not like it that I put you in the same category of a functional Catholic. Catholics have more than Scripture for their authority, the magisterium, and tradition, and you�re doing exactly what they do.

You�re doing exactly what they do, nudges. I mean, this just drives me bonkers. Don�t we have the prophetic word made more sure, 2 Peter chapter 1? Don�t we have that? Can�t we stand on the Mount of Transfiguration as we� we don�t stand, but as we look as Peter, James, and John stand on that mountain?

And can�t we say, even though they heard from Jesus, they were both eyewitnesses and earwitnesses. They heard from the Spirit of God as they saw Jesus, to be technically correct. And there�s a more sure word than that, more sure than that.

Whispers that arbitrate decisions, promptings that spur on growth, urgings that come by way of another person. See, these promptings that I have and urges that I have, lots of times they�re bad. They�re, they�re muy mal, I�m telling you.

Be careful. Urgings that come by way of another person, how does the Spirit of God teach that way? Inspiration that opens once glazed over eyes, glazed donut eyes, to the terrible plight people face in this world.

Of course people face terrible plights, but that doesn�t mean we�re open now to become George Fox, Quaker, inner light people. We don�t believe in the inner light because we are depraved people. We are fallen people.

B .B. Warfield said, �There are two religions in the world. MacArthur later said the same thing. Many people have said it. MacArthur�s deal is, there are two religions in the world, the religion of divine accomplishment, that is, God, the triune God, accomplished and planned salvation.

He effectuates it. He does it all. Human accomplishment says, I�ve got to be good, I�ve got to be religious, I�ve got to do works, I�ve got to be better, I�ve got to do, do, do. And so, as Spurgeon would say, religion is do, do, do, and God is, it is done, done, done.

Humanistic religion, do. Pragmatic religion, do. But gospel is done. And of course, we respond to the gospel with faith and repentance. But B .B. Warfield said, the great Princetonian, the man who influenced Machen theologically more than anyone else, according to Machen�s own words, he said there are two religions.

There�s two religions. One, the religion that says God speaks to us from the outside, external revelation. God reveals to us, specifically through Scripture, Genesis through Revelation, things that we could never know, mysteries many times the Bible calls them, not because they�re mysterious, but because they cannot be figured out by man.

Man�s brain, as finite and fallen, cannot plumb the depths of divine thought until God reveals that thought and then has the Spirit of God illumine said mind. So that�s the first religion, according to B .B. Warfield.

And then the second religion is religion that says God speaks to me from the inside, maybe from the outside too, but somewhere in the mix, somewhere in the Dairy Queen Blizzard theology that they have, is God speaks to me not only from special revelation, not only from His dry, fixed, letter of the law book.

This is a new way, this is a new way that we hear from God, and it falls prey to the obvious and simple error, it�s a simple thing to get over, that when you read the Bible, it�s the high school yearbook theology, where am I in the yearbook, you get the yearbook, I remember in 1976, 1977, and 1978 where I was in high school and I got the Northwest High yearbook.

Boy, those are wild pictures, by the way. And the first thing I did is I tried to find myself in all those yearbooks. And so I knew if I went under sophomore, my picture was sure to be found. And then when I was a junior and then a senior, I could find them.

But then I went to other places. And so since I wasn�t part of the in crowd, and I wasn�t friends with the thespians and the photography club people, I was nowhere to be found except on the basketball team, the football team.

I think I was on fellowship for Christian athletes, as I wasn�t a Christian, but I thought I was. What else was I in? I think I was probably in a math club or something like that. That sounds strange, especially now when my 10-year-old, Gracie, comes up to me and asks me to do prime factorization, and I have to read the book before I can help her.

Oh, man. So I have no idea what I�m talking about. This is NoCompromisedRadio .com. I was going to talk about Romans 12, but I am not sure I�m going to get there because this mysticism drives me batty.

Read Psalm 19 sometime about God revealing himself in special revelation after natural revelation, and you�ll see what the Word is like. Read Psalm 119 through, the longest psalm in the Bible, and you�ll think, �Why would I go to anything else

Psalm 19 says, �The law of the Lord is perfect. Now, as I read these, think about your own human heart and how prone you are to sin and how crooked you are, and so how do you know if it�s really God or not?

How would you like to think it�s from God, but it�s really not? That is dangerous. Why don�t you just trust God and make a decision? Scripture, wisdom, desire. That�s how you make a decision. What does the Scripture say?

What about wisdom? I�ll ask other people, I�ll ask God for wisdom, James 1 .5, and then I�ll do, if I�m in the Word and walking in the Spirit and by the Spirit�s power, I will just do as I desire, you know, trust the Lord and he�ll work out the rest.

Not presumptuously, but he doesn�t give me all the information, and so how do I make a certain decision? You don�t need to hear from God. That shouldn�t be your confidence booster. It should be God�s sovereign.

God providentially works things out, and even if I make a mistake, I don�t want to be presumptuous, and I think I�ve done a good job of due diligence working through these decision-making processes, but I�m going to make a decision, and God is certainly great enough to cause all these things that I�ve done that are even mistakes or sins to work together for his glory and my good, and I can�t un-glorify myself, and God is sovereign, so make a decision.

Do something. Don�t just sit there. Do something. That�s a good decision-making strategy, and so when it comes to two different religions, I wonder what religion you subscribe to. Do you really think God speaks to you with nudges and whispers?

Here it says on the book, �The Power of Whisper. By the way, this is a� I haven�t given a Kooks and Barneys award for quite some time, so today I�m giving a Kooks and Barney award to Bill Heibel�s �The Power of Whisper.

He�s probably a nice guy. I�m sure he�s smarter than I am. He might even be better looking than I am. Who knows what he looks like these days? He�s certainly more influential, but this is not good for you.

This is not a good way to go about living, �Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond. That�s the subtitle. I hear God from the Scriptures, that�s all, and so I don�t want to have guts to respond to my inner gizzard.

Do you have enough guts to respond to your gizzard? That�d be maybe a different title, but of course my books don�t sell. I think his book will go straight to the top, and my book remains number nine billion on Amazon.

Hey, I was encouraged. Who was it? Is it Christy? Was it Christy or someone else who�s deciding to use my new book about understanding God as King, that you can order at Amazon or CBD, whatever you�d like, �Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Bowing to the Gracious Despot.

They are using that book for a home Bible study or a ladies Bible study group, something like that. Now, how about that? You know, I wish you would have let me know before we sent those 15 books up to Maine or whatever it was, because I would have autographed them for an additional $5 fee.

Okay, so what does that have to do with anything? Well, this has to do with Kooks and Barneys. A Kook and Barney. What�s a Kook and Barney? Well, when you�re surfing, and my wife is from Santa Cruz, my son and wife, we all can surf as a family, but my son and wife are really, they�re the worshipers, they love surfing.

Actually, you can worship while you surf. Worship the God who made the ocean, the God who made the tides, etc. But anyway, Kooks and Barneys are people that don�t know what they�re doing. And they paddle out, and they get in a lineup with all the really great surfers, and then they ruin things.

And they burn you, that is, they cut in front of you when you�re on the wave and it�s your turn. They don�t know any of the rules, and so they�re people that drive over the hill from San Jose into Santa Cruz and just mess up the fun of the locals.

So if you are a Kook and a Barney, it is a term used for someone who is in over their head. They shouldn�t be out there. They should go down the line a little bit and catch some of the white water. So that�s a Kook and Barney.

I made that up for Todd Friel�s show, Wretched Radio, that I�ve done several times, but Todd hasn�t asked me back. I have no idea why. You can tell Todd, I think Todd believes I�m too dangerous for Wretched Radio.

He talks a big game. He has lots of people on there, but I think there�s a little bit of danger involved when he thinks of No Compromise Radio. I�m throwing down the gauntlet for Todd, Todd Double Dog Daria.

He�s probably saying, �Well, when do I get a host on No Compromise Radio I�d let him do a show for sure. I�m not afraid of Todd, and I think Todd Friel might just in fact be afraid of me, but I owe Todd many thanks for A, doing the show, B, paying me $1 ,000 per program, and C, allowing me to speak at Psalm 119 conference at my own church.

Actually before we advertised on Wretched Radio, before No Compromise advertised, we had about three people listening, and they were all in the Ebendroth household. I�m counting my dog, too. But since we�ve advertised on Wretched Radio, we are off the charts, baby.

So what about whispering? What about a horse whisper, a dog whisper? Let�s see what Zondervan also says about this book that I�m going to give the Cooks and Barneys Award to. If you want me to give it to Bill Hybels, I�ll give it to the book itself.

Then it�s not so bad, right? Then it seems like I�m kinder. It�s a kinder, gentler, more loving thing. Oh, glazed over eyes to the terrible plight people face in this world through firsthand accounts spanning 57 years of life, more than 30 of which have been spent in the trenches of ministry, Hybels promotes passion in Christ followers� hearts for being wide open to hearing from God and for getting gutsier about doing exactly what he says to do.

For more information, go to www .cooksandbarneys .com. Go to www .thewhisperwall .com. I guess that�s kind of like the wailing wall in Jerusalem where you go up and put a cardboard, a yarmarker on your head.

Actually, when I was just there a year ago, I didn�t have to put a yarmarker on my head because I had a Hurley baseball cap on, so I didn�t have to do it. If it was a Burton cap, I would have had to take it off, but Hurley is kosher, so I was okay.

By the way, if you�re listening today and you�d like to go to Europe for a Mediterranean cruise to see Athens and Corinth and Patmos and Ephesus and Thessalonica and Berea, that is going to be April 2013, no-compromise radio cruise.

How about that? How about that? And I�ll be teaching along with my brother, Pat Ebendroth. I�ll be teaching at websites� I�ll be teaching at the locations there. Actually, I taught Corinthians in Corinth once before, and so I�ll have to pull up my old notes.

How about that? TheWhispererWall .com. So, we�re going to give this Kooks and Barney�s Award to The Whisperer today. I didn�t even get any place else. Back to Psalm 119. As I listen to this, think about what the Bible says about itself and how trustworthy it says it is, and therefore it is, versus our own hearts.

Why would we want to go someplace else? I don�t want to listen to myself. I�ve given myself lots of bad advice over the years, and if I would tell you some of the specific things that my heart has told me to do, and then I did, and then how shameful that is, and how I long for the day when I�m in glory and I don�t have to remember some of these horrible, wicked iniquities that I have committed with my hands and with my mind and with my body, etc.

Just horrible things. I�ve led myself down the wrong path. And so after 57 years, I don�t have that. I have 52 years with 23 years as a Christian. Don�t listen to yourself. And if you do have a gut feel, don�t call your gut God.

Turning your gut into God, maybe that�s a better thing than saying having the guts to respond. Making your guts God. That splankna, that Greek word splankta for your inner being, don�t, don�t say that�s God telling me.

That�s why He gave you external revelation so that you could trust it, and then He made sure that it was passed down. Do you know from the manuscripts that we have for both the New, let�s just stay with the New Testament, God preserves His Word.

That is fascinating, that no matter who wants to try to burn people for having the Bible in their own language like the Catholic Church did to Tyndale, or anyone else, we have the Bible preserved. And listen to how great the Bible extols the perfect clarity and the saving work and guiding work of the Word of God.

Psalm 19, �The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. See, my gizzard isn�t perfect and it isn�t sure. Is this from God? Is it? How do I know?

Go to the Bible. �The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. Do I know if what I�m hearing in my heart about God, the nudgings, the Holy Spirit urgings, the triune promptings, are those from God?

I have no idea. But the precepts of the Lord are right. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. I know my heart is not pure, therefore what my heart tells me to do isn�t going to be pure.

So then why would I have my impure heart tell me something and then I say, �Yeah, I�ll do it because God told me. Answer, A, out of ignorance, B, out of a dastardly concept that says, �I�m not sure enough about walking by faith, therefore I have to call this God so I can be sure to do it.

I can make decisions and then I say to myself, �I walk by faith, not by sight. God, without presuming on you, I need to make this decision. It seems right. I�ve prayed about it for wisdom. I�ve asked other counselors about it for wisdom, trying to sharpen my concepts.

Am I doing this selfishly or out of sin? I�ve asked my wife who knows me well. I�ve asked my elders. And now it�s just time to make a decision. I could go either way on this one, but I have to decide.

And to not decide is to decide. So I need to make this decision. We will do this. So for instance, when the church just bought 53 acres of land, I wish God just would have told me, �Go ahead and do it.

I just wish God would have said, �You know what? Here�s what�s going on, Brother Mike. But He didn�t, so He tried to make a good decision. �The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey in the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and keeping them there is great reward.

So when it comes to hearing from God, friends, you have the book. There�s plenty to try to study and to learn. And once you master that, then let�s talk about gizzards, guts, splankna, and nudging. Have you been nudged today?

I�m going to nudge you to read the Word of God so you can know exactly what God says. 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 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.

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