Classic: Lies About Sexual Sin (Part 2)

Welcome, welcome, welcome. No Compromise Radio Ministry, Mike Ebenroth here, glad you tuned in.

It is November 8th today, around noon in real time, in no -code time, this is mid -November

Thanksgiving -ish. My mother was born on November 8th, although she's been long gone.

She's been in heaven for 18 years, probably just seems like a moment. How do you measure time in eternity?

I don't know what will happen, but in my mind, this is what I think when it comes to heaven.

Let's just say I die this year, or when I do die. Hopefully it's going to be 10, 15, 20 years down the line.

Let's say whenever I die, my mom's been there 18 years, so what happens?

Will she say, oh, I've been waiting for you? Well, A, I think all the focus is going to be on the

Lord Jesus, think Revelation 5, but there will be an awareness of who's there,

I'm sure. We're not going to know less in heaven than we do on earth, and I knew my mother on earth, and so I think

I'll know her in heaven. But we'll join in, in praising the Lord Jesus, joyfully together, and I think it'll just seem like a moment in time.

She's there worshiping now, and then 18 years later, I go, but it'll just seem like just a quick little moment.

That's what I think. I could be wrong. You can write me and tell me I'm wrong, but by the time you write me, it's three weeks from today, and I can't remember what's going to happen three weeks ago, so I don't remember.

Gospel Assurance, you can get that, the 31 -Day Guide to Assurance, that's on Amazon, and the shorter version,

I thought the shorter version, the Little Devotional, would sell many more copies than the other one, the larger version, but it is not, in fact, true, so maybe over the long haul,

I'm not sure. I probably need to write about 20 more books, and then I could receive a monthly stipend for the books, except the way trade books work is that you sell a bunch right away, and then it's just a little trickle, so I have to have just a lot of little trickles, and then what if I could make $5 ,000 a month on book sales?

I'd have to write a lot of books. I think these days, it's probably $150 to $200 a month, or something like that, with all the books, all the books combined, nine books combined, got quite a ways to go, and the way inflation's going to go, and what's going to happen to the dollar, what's the difference between $200 ,000 and $5 ,000, nothing, $5 ,000 will be 200 in years to come.

We're talking today about lies that you might be tempted to believe when it comes to gender, all the different letters of the alphabet, the

LGBTQ stuff, and last show, I talked a little bit about how people are not our enemies, and what the

Lord Jesus did in Matthew 9, Matthew 15,

Luke 5, Luke 19, and how

Jesus associated with tax collectors and sinners, and so we talked about that a little bit, and I wanted you to have the same kind of attitude.

I also talked about the lie that said if you disagree with someone, that you're phobic, right, that you're gender -o -phobic or something, having an irrational fear of people, because you disagree with them.

It has nothing to do with that at all, it's ad hominem, don't fall for it. I could tell people that they're

Christophobic, Christianophobic, because they have an irrational fear of Christians.

It's amazing, kind of at the big level that's in the news and politics, all this kind of these screeds happen, maybe from both sides at times, but if you sat two people in a room,

I think you would want to be kind and you want to be nice, nine times out of ten.

Next lie, people are not responsible for their behavior if they're born a certain way.

If you're born a certain way, you're not responsible for your behavior, and does that alleviate all your guilt?

So if I were to say to you that I was born a fornicator, is that getting me off the hook if I fornicate?

And you'd say, no, that doesn't, and so it goes the same way with other sexual sins, like homosexuality, like adultery,

I'm born an adulterer, I'm born a homosexual, and therefore I don't have to be held accountable, right, to err as human, this is the way

I've been made, and God don't make no junk, as people might say. James 1, 14, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

The other passage we could look at is Romans chapter 1, and you can see that it's a sinful, willful suppression of truth.

You say you're born a certain way, well, you might be born that way, but when you're older, there's a way that people act, and they suppress

God's truth, they ignore his revelation, and they torque things. Romans 1, 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Here the wrath of God that's revealed, it's not eternal wrath, that's saved for chapter 2, but it is a temporal wrath, a temporal divine displeasure.

Righteousness is revealed in verse 17 of Romans 1, wrath is now revealed, and it is to show the need that people have for God's righteousness.

You need to be perfectly righteous to get into heaven, and Paul is trying to say in Romans chapter 1, these

Gentiles, these non -Jews, they don't have enough righteousness. I'm going to take a little sip of this coffee.

Why am I drinking Keurig? Keurig, that sounds like an ape or something.

When I was a kid, we watched Tarzan, and shows have takeoffs, spinoffs, not spinoffs, but ripoffs, and I remember there's a man named

Bamba, and Bamba was like Tarzan, jungle, knife, swinging from vines.

Kind of like if you, I don't remember which one came first, Adam's family or the Munsters. Partridge family, wasn't there another singing group?

Partridge family, monkeys, a show,

Danny Partridge, I don't know, doesn't matter. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

God is infinitely holy, and therefore he hates sin, and we need to say to ourselves, are we responsible for our behavior?

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. Are they really without excuse?

Yes, they are. They're without excuse, and they can't blame anyone for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So, they are without excuse, without an apology, literally.

They really can see and they can perceive even though their mind has been tainted by the fall, that God is powerful and that there's a divine nature of faithfulness and goodness.

And although they knew God, Romans 121, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

And what is happening is you'll see that sexual immorality is a consequence of human idolatry.

As one man said, the mind becomes damaged, claiming to be wise.

They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

The society isn't getting better when this stuff happens. The society is getting worse. And you see how

God gives people up to their own sins. And he gives them up to the lust of their hearts of impurity, to this honoring of their bodies among themselves.

In Romans 1, 24, he gives them over punishing sin by letting the sinner commit other sins.

It says in chapter one, verse, what did I say? Verse 24.

Okay. Now verse 25, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the create creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Amen. And so, it's a worship of something that's created, can worship themselves, but it's idolatry nonetheless.

Worshipped. We're not supposed to be worshipped. Not supposed to worship anything but the

Lord. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

And men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts and men with men and receiving in themselves a due penalty of their error.

And then finally, verse 28. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge

God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what they ought not to do. Or as ESV says, what ought not to be done.

There are pauses here because I'm coughing. I have a cough button, but it's a stupid

Keurig that I'm drinking. Matter of fact, we might as well drink some right now. I think

I lost that listener that would email me all the time and say, stop slurping your drinks in the middle of the show. For her sake,

I just hit the pause button. Mike Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. We're talking about lies that I don't want you to be tempted to believe.

Here's another one. This is the big one. This is the one that I want to really focus on today is that we're better than other people.

That Christians are better than other people. Christians are better than the

LGBTQ people, better than transgender people. We have not fallen to that sort of sin or depravity or thinking.

And of course, in Romans 1, verses 29, 30, and 31, there's lots of they's.

They were filled with all unrighteousness. They are full of envy. They are gossips, haters of God, insolent, haughty.

They are boastful. They are inventors of evil, I could add, because that's just the essence of it. They're disobedient to parents.

They're foolish. They're faithless. They're heartless. They're ruthless. They're the ones that do all that.

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give heartily approval to those who practice them.

They, they, they, they, they. At least we're not that bad.

At least I'm not like that. Glad he's talking about all those people. They, they, they, they, they.

But that's not me. It's them and it's us. I mean, I'm moral.

I'm upstanding. I'm married to a wife. There's always been a wife.

They're the crazy Jerry Springer wackies. I have a Midwestern work ethic.

And the list goes on and on. But you see, Romans 1 is followed by Romans chapter 2.

Therefore you, now we go from they's to you's, have no excuse, oh man.

Every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

They, they, they, they, they. What they do is wrong. And since we know that's wrong, what about the wrongs that we do?

We have no excuse. We're judging people. Hey, what they do is wrong. So we should know the difference between right and wrong, right?

Right. We practice things that they practice.

We're self -righteous. They need a savior. I don't really need one. I'm pretty good actually.

He condemns in chapter 2 people that want to say they're moral and they don't do the things that are so low in chapter 1.

It's almost like a gotcha moment. He draws them in. They, they, they, they. Look at the world.

Look at the world. Look at all these people. Look how bad they are. Well, how do you know they're bad? Well, because you're judging them according to scripture.

And you know what scripture says about love God, love your neighbor, summary of the law. And how are you doing?

Actually, this perceived morality is actually worse because self -righteousness doesn't think it needs righteousness.

As we saw earlier in Matthew with these Pharisees, scribes, the Pharisees. If you're unrighteous, you know, you need righteousness.

If you're self -righteous, you don't know you need it. You still do, of course. I mean, can you disagree with anything that's found in Romans chapter 1, verses 18 through 32?

Wrath of God, judgment, worthy of death, people saying amen for what they do.

You can see it in other people, but it's harder to see sin and self -righteousness in yourself.

And you know what? Let's think about this for a second. Maybe many people in the

Romans 1 category don't know the Bible, haven't been taught the Bible, don't listen to the

Bible at all, don't hear sermons at all. And then we say to ourselves, you know what?

We've had more special revelation than they have. And what are we doing?

While the unbeliever in chapter 1 rejects general revelation, we are rejecting special revelation?

William Sackler said, many have passed the rocks of gross sins, who have suffered shipwreck upon the sands of self -righteousness.

Paul says later in chapter 2, in verse 13, it's not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

In other words, if you want to be justified in God's sight, you need to perfectly obey the law.

We know those people in Romans chapter 1 are sinners and without excuse.

But what about us? We are without excuse as well. If you can judge sins in others, that's right, that's wrong.

It shows you know the difference between what right and wrong is. And are we not capable of committing all kinds of sins, including the ones that are in chapter 1?

If you break one commandment, you're guilty of how many? And even if we don't actually commit it, we just think it in our hearts.

We have to be very careful. We're without excuse. We have more information,

Spurgeon said. But further, the plea of self -righteousness is self -contradictory upon another ground.

For all that a self -righteous man pleads for is comparative righteousness. Why saith he,

I'm no worse than my neighbors. In fact, I'm a great deal better. I do not drink or swear. I do not commit fornication or adultery.

I'm no thief. The laws of my country do not accuse me, much less condemn me. I'm better than most of the men.

And if I'm not saved, God help those who are worse than I am. If I cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, then who can?

Just so, but then all that you claim is that you are righteous as compared with others. Do you not see that this is a very vain and fatal plea?

Because you didn't, in fact, admit that you are not perfectly righteous, that there is some sin in you, only you claim is not so much in you as in another.

It is true that other people's sins can't excuse you.

Right? When people write this way, and somebody wrote about this, you have to stand upon your own feet.

Yeah, I pay my taxes. I love my wife. I help my kids. I help them with homework. I've done fifth grade math five times.

We have to be careful. Prostitute, pastor's kid, one's unrighteous, one's self -righteous until they're given the righteousness of God by faith alone.

What's the difference? Is there a moral superiority when we're all morally corrupt? I think

Paul is hoping you bite into this, and you buy into it.

You bite in and hold it, and you buy into it and think that, you know what? Yeah, those people in chapter one, yuck.

But is God's justice and righteousness flexible? Shouldn't we be able to say,

I'm not any better? The only thing that's different is the grace of God in my life. That's it.

That's it. We can't stand before God's judgment alone.

We need Christ's righteousness. As Spurgeon said, the greatest enemy to human souls is the self -righteous spirit, which makes men look to themselves for salvation.

I will not be saved in God's way, says self -righteousness. I'll make a new road to heaven. I will not bow before God's grace.

I will not accept the atonement which God has wrought out in the person of Jesus. I'll be my own redeemer. I will enter heaven by my own strength and my glory, my own merits.

The Lord is very wroth against self -righteousness. I do not know of anything against which his fury burneth more than against this, because this touches him in a very tender point.

It insults the glory and honor of his son, Jesus Christ. So said Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

We might say, yes, we're all unrighteous, but maybe we're more righteous than other people.

Maybe we're better. Maybe we're more deserving. Everybody needs

Christ's righteousness. We're thankful that if we do sin, we have an advocate with the

Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.

Did you keep God's law perfectly? Perfectly. On balance, that's not Christianity.

It's like the rich young ruler. We don't want to buy into that.

My name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And basically what we're talking about here is self -righteousness.

And we want to make sure that we are avoiding thinking like that. Next lie.

I think maybe this will be our last lie. I'm tired of lies. It's very difficult to be deceived regarding this subject.

That's a lie. It's easy to be deceived. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

1 Corinthians 6, 9. Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

The word deceive comes from where we get our word planet, planeo. And it looks like planets like go astray.

And similarly, that's what happens to us. Don't we know that people that are unrighteous won't inherit the kingdom of God?

Don't be deceived. You don't have to be deceived. There's no need to be deceived. But you can be because you can have friends and relatives and nice people.

And you can have really mean Christian friends and really nice homosexual friends. And the list goes on.

Really mean Christian friends, but really nice adulterers who were friends.

You don't want to be deceived, do you? No, of course not. You have to be careful. All right.

I said the last lie, but here's the last one. That sinners can never change.

LGBTQ people can never change. People are saying conversion therapy doesn't work.

I don't know what happens in conversion therapy. But I do know this, that God, if He converts somebody, that works.

That works. And such were some of you, 1

Corinthians 6, 11. But you were washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our

God. And maybe there's some weird things in conversion therapy. I'm not even trying to defend that.

I don't even know. I hear all these different things. I just want you to know that there can be a change.

Paul has a long list of people at Corinth who are ex -fornicators, ex -adulterers, ex -thieves, ex -homosexuals, because it's all the grace of God.

Washing, think about sin as dirty or washed. Sanctified, set apart for something special for God's use and justified, declared righteous based on the work of the

Lord Jesus ministered by the Spirit of God. I think that's good news.

Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And I hope to see

Justin Bice in one day. I hope he has the green