Feelings

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.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Why Feelings Need a Biblical Test

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. This is Mike Abendroth, and we are back on the air today. And what will we talk about today? No Compromise Radio ministry is a radio ministry from Bethlehem Bible Church, as you've just heard, and we wanna talk about things from a biblical perspective.

There are other shows that have their slant in ministry. We like to talk about biblical issues, at least I do, and I like to talk about things in a provocative way, ways that provoke you to think differently, to act differently, to say to yourself, well, why do I believe what I believe?

Do I believe because my pastor taught me, because my old Roman Catholic priest taught me, because my Lutheran pastor taught me? I grew up a Lutheran, and so I have to regularly say to myself, do I believe that fact about the Bible or Christ because of what the Bible says or because I've learned it from someone else?

And it's a good thing to do, to examine everything carefully. And so today I wanna talk about the topic of feelings. What about feelings? I think of this song back in the 60s, probably 70s, I guess. Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa, feelings.

I'd sing it, except as you can tell, I still have a head cold today, still a little bit sick. I guess I could ask you the question this way. What does the world say about feelings? What does the Bible say about feelings?

Are they the same? While we are not going to give an all-exclusive, systematic theology on feelings, feelology, I wanna just talk about several things in regards to feelings, and we're gonna do this with true or false quiz or test.

Good and Bad Feelings

So if you like test or quiz, this show is for you. If you don't, I think you should listen anyway. True or false, all feelings are bad. False, there are good feelings, feelings of love, feelings of joy, compassionate feelings.

Can you imagine life with no feelings at all? Some kind of spiritual leprosy, no nerve endings emotionally? That would be horrible. We are not meant to have no feelings. There are some bad feelings. Lust is a bad feeling.

Sexual lust is bad. And so not every feeling's bad. Number two, how you doing so far? Number two, true or false, feelings can get you into a lot of trouble. True, feelings can get you into a lot of trouble.

Whether it's Sandy Patty or Amy Grant saying their reasons are one of the main reasons they would get divorced is because they didn't believe God would want them to be in a bad marriage, a marriage where there was no feelings of love.

I feel this, therefore I do it. If it feels good, do it. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it. Feelings can have all kinds of trouble when you realize that they're not the lead in your decision, that they follow.

But that's slipping into number three. Listen to what Lloyd-Jones says about feelings. If you haven't read Martin Lloyd-Jones, David Martin Lloyd-Jones, he was probably the greatest preacher this century, this last century now.

And he died in 1980, 1981, right around there. And he was from London. If you want to read good material, you pick up a Martin Lloyd-Jones book. I suggest you start with spiritual depression. But anyway, he said this, "'Oh, the havoc that is wrought and the tragedy "'and the misery and the wretchedness "'that are to be found in the world, "'simply because people do not know "'how to handle their own feelings,' end quote.".

And the main way they don't know how to handle their feelings, and maybe this is you too, is by saying that they are the initiator, that you have to do something based on your feeling. Feelings are very, very tricky.

Feelings Cannot Be Your Final Authority

And so I ask you the third true and false question on No Compromise Radio regarding the topic of feelings. True or false, number three, feeling should be your final authority when making a decision. Well, the answer is false.

People like to do this, and they do it in kind of a sanctified manner. And they'll say, I don't feel led. I don't feel led to make that decision. I do feel led to make that decision. And basically, they're going on their own gumption, their own gizzard, their own kind of internal feeling, maybe their own conscience, and then somehow they call that God.

Don't ever do that. If you want to say the circumstances have led me to do this, so therefore I decided based on good biblical input, I got wisdom from other godly people, I asked for wisdom from God, I looked at what the Bible says, and now I just think I should make such and such a decision, I think that's good.

I think that's fine. That is appropriate. But when you let feelings be your final authority and then call them God, that's horrible. Feelings are unstable. Remember, because feelings are affected by the fall.

Even if you're a Christian and you are a new creation in Christ Jesus, there's something called the flesh, that sin principle that still dwells in you, what other theologians, I wouldn't, but other theologians called your old nature.

You still deal with the flesh. You will still have a hangover, and that is sin-wise, spiritually, a hangover, and you don't think perfectly. You are not glorified yet with your feelings and emotions and mind and will, ambitions, et cetera.

Feelings should never be your final authority. They're unstable, they're tainted by the fall, they're unreliable, they're governed by pride and ambition and other sinful things. You have to be careful.

C .J. Mahaney writes a good article about feelings, and he said, sometimes lies feel like the truth. That is correct. I would rather go with the truth written by Martin Luther. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving.

My warrant is the word of God, not else is worth believing. I'm gonna repeat that because that is so good. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. My warrant is the word of God, not else is worth believing.

So we wanna be careful about feelings when they lie, when they trump the Bible. People say, well, I'm a Christian, but I wanna date an unbeliever and it just feels right. That's not good. Well, I don't really wanna marry this man in one sense because he's not a Christian and I know I am, but I love him, he loves me.

We feel love towards one another. That is a wrong way to make decisions. The Bible trumps the feelings. Martin Lloyd-Jones goes on to say, avoid the mistake of concentrating over much on your feelings.

Above all, avoid the terrible error of making them central. And so we would teach that you have feelings. Life would be horrible without feelings. Jesus Christ had feelings. He had sinless feelings. But we have feelings that sometimes cannot be trusted, many times cannot be trusted.

And we live in a society that is feeling oriented. We live in churches that are feeling based. Just think about the way you talk about things. How do you feel about this? Well, this is how I feel about such and such.

This is how I feel about this particular theological topic. This is how I feel about so-and-so political party. We don't say like they did in previous generations. This is what I think. This is what I believe.

In my opinion, this is such and such. We must remember, you must remember that feelings are not reliable. They are untrustworthy. One person said they are like the ebb and flow of tides. They change with circumstances.

If pressure is great or if you awaken with a headache or if you encounter one of those difficult people that God has strategically placed throughout the world or if the skies have been overcast and dreary for four days running with no glimpse of the sun, all of these kinds of circumstances affect a person emotionally.

How should a Christian respond to adverse circumstances like these? Well, if he or she lives by feeling, that is to say if a person allows circumstances to control his or her mood and makes no deliberate effort to gain control and master his or her mood, then there will be no spiritual stability and consistency in that person's life.

End quote. I say verily, verily to that. I say amen, amen, amen, amen. I believe it. That is true. It's the old poem that says three men went up on top of the wall, feeling, faith, and fact. Feeling had an awful fall and faith was taken back.

Faith was so close to feeling that when he stumbled, faith stumbled and fell too. But fact remained and held faith up and that helped feeling too. We're taking a quiz today on feelings. Question number four, true or false?

Feeling Follows Biblical Truth and Obedience

A lack of feelings does not, I can't even read my own writing. If you don't feel something, does that mean it's not true? True or false? If you don't feel something, that means it's not true. Well, I say that's false.

Sometimes you might not feel forgiven, but the Bible says God is faithful and just to forgive sins when we confess them. Jesus would not have to pay for our sins and you have to pay for our sins. That would make God unfaithful and unjust.

It would give him some kind of double jeopardy where there's twice payment demanded. That wouldn't be true. And so the Bible says Christians are forgiven whether you feel like it or not. If you have feelings that are different than the biblical truth, the biblical truth is still correct.

Maybe you're married today and you don't feel married. I don't know if I feel married today or not. I'm happily married. I love my wife. Outside of salvation, that's the second best thing that could ever happen to me is my wife, Kimberly.

But if I don't feel married, I still am married. In other words, I'm still responsible to act marriedly. In other words, I have to act like a man who is married and who has one wife, one object of affection.

I remember the story found in a book. It said when George McClellan was commissioned Major General of the Army, he wrote his wife, I don't feel any different than I did yesterday. Indeed, I have not yet put on my new uniform.

I am sure that I am in the command of the Union Army, however, because President Lincoln's order to that effect now lies before me. That is true. George McClellan was a smart man. He understood duty. He understood what it was to be called something, be responsible for that calling, even though he might not feel like it.

Number five, quiz question number five. Mike Abendroth, if you have a question, why don't you write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com? We'll answer your question directly. We might even put it on the air.

And that is info at nocompromiseradio .com. Question number five, true or false? God has made feelings to follow our actions. God has so arranged the world that feelings follow actions. So here's what I'm after with that question.

If you do something wrong, you sin, you have a guilty conscience and you feel badly. That is, if your conscience is not vanished, if it isn't seared, if it isn't somehow suppressed or so cauterized, you can't feel something.

When you do the wrong thing, you feel badly. If you do the right thing, you should feel good. And so it should never be, well, let's feel like doing something, then do it. No, you do something, then you feel good afterwards.

I never would forget back in the days of college football, when all the big bowl games were on January 1st, there were no BCS games, there were no games in January 7th, 8th, 9th, et cetera. All the games were on January 1st.

And it would start off with, I don't know, some kind of smaller bowl game, cotton bowl, work its way to the orange bowl, rose bowl would be played, sugar bowl at night. And I think orange bowl was the last one.

I wonder why I always felt so bad after I watched college football all day long. I mean, I loved watching, but I felt bad. And that is because when you're lazy, when you get nothing accomplished, especially as a man, you should feel poorly.

And so what about the flip side? When you think properly, then you do the right thing, and God gives you the fruits of those good actions, and those fruits would be feeling good. The Bible says, Proverbs 29, verse 18, mark this, happy is he who keeps the law.

When you do the right thing, you feel happy, you have joy. In distinction, if you do the wrong thing, you should feel badly. Question number six. Oh, let me back up. If you feel bad today, and I don't mean you have a headache, or I don't mean PMS, or I don't mean this, that, or the other, but I mean, you just are in a bad mood, crabby, you're down, you're not feeling good.

Could it be that you haven't been thinking properly and doing the right things? Is this your conscience telling you, stop doing what you're doing? I mean, that's good of God to give us these feelings.

If you have a finger and you touch the stove and you don't feel burning, that wouldn't be something that would be good. You have been given nerves by God, so you'll say, ouch, and pull your finger away from the oven or the stove so you can get some medical attention.

And so we wanna make sure our conscience does the same thing. When you feel badly, it's because you've been doing badly. When I have a bad day and I'm in a bad mood, I can tell you that I haven't been thinking biblically, I haven't been thinking about God's glory and other people, and I haven't been doing the right things.

And I will have prayed not like I should have, I had not been in the Word like I should have, and I was thinking improperly, and God gave me the fruit of my thinking. That is good discipline from God.

Self-Focus, Suffering, and the Duty to Obey

Question number six, focus on feelings often betrays selfishness. I know many people that run around and that's all they talk about is their feelings and how they feel and how they do feel this and how they don't feel that, and they are basically idolizing their feelings.

Lloyd-Jones said, quote, we are so subjective and we live in this unhealthy psychological generation that starts with man and ends with man. Most of our troubles are due to that. And so I think that's right.

One man said he believed that the Christian who is in constant state of defeat is there because he is being controlled by his subjective feelings instead of by an understanding of the truth. Deliverance from this condition depends on a total change in approach.

Christians are to look not at themselves and their problems, but at what God has done for them. I would concur. Question number seven. Question number seven on feelings. Following your feelings often produces unhappiness.

I think that's true. You have a problem in your life, situation, something comes up, you unbiblically respond, you sinfully respond, and God grants you feelings commensurate with your actions. This is somehow tied to number five, but that's all right.

Making what was implicit in number five explicit here. Listen to what happens with Cain and Abel. Genesis four. And Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.

The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then Yahweh said to Cain, why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen?

And here's what God said. Note this. If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must master it. So if you do the right thing, your countenance goes up, your face gets lifted up.

And if you do the wrong thing, your countenance goes down. Sin leads to guilt and depression, and then further sinfully handling more situations. It complicates the matters. Feelings are a litmus test to be prior thinking and doing.

J. Adams said, God has so constructed us that when we fail to handle responsibilities properly, our consciences trigger bad feelings. These, if not heeded early, ultimately lead to depression. David looked at depression as a merciful warning sign from God, intended to goad him to repentance and a change of attitude or behavior.

The guilt that underlies depression comes from the failure to handle the problem or set back God's way. I think that's right. I think J. Adams is onto something there, which leads us to feelings, question, true or false, number eight.

We're talking about feelings today from a biblical perspective. Feelings are something that we have to live with, we should be glad to live with. And when we notice the bad feelings, we need to ask ourselves the question, how did they get there?

And we have to also say to ourself, if I'd like to have good feelings, then I ought to do something good. I always think of the times where if you have to get up at 3 .30 in the morning and go down and feed the poor or do some kind of missionary work, you're super tired, you don't feel like getting up, 3 .45, the alarm goes off and you force yourself to get out of bed.

You go do the work for the Lord's glory and his kingdom. And when you're driving home exhausted at four in the afternoon, how do you feel? You feel good. That's how you feel. You feel good. You have a long days of work and you've got a lot of things accomplished and you drive home and you're exhausted, but you feel good.

Question number eight. Many times God expects you to do something even though you don't feel like it. God expects you to do things even though you don't feel like it. The answer is true. You are to obey God whether you feel like it or not.

I remember MacArthur, he'd always say in counseling questions, people would say, I don't love my wife anymore. And John knew that basically what they meant is this. I have no feelings of love and romance for my wife anymore.

That's what they were saying. John would say, stop that sin, repent of it and begin to love your wife. John knew that the command from Ephesians 5, verse 25, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

That kind of language is agape language. It's language of loving the other person, not based on feelings, not based on romance. So when someone says, I don't love my wife anymore, and we're thinking about this particular situation, they're basically saying, I'm not self-sacrificially giving to my wife anymore.

I'm not loving her like Christ loved the church and that would be sinful. And so MacArthur says, stop that sin, repent and start. I'll never forget the time when people from Calvary Chapel, his name was Romaine and he was a, I think he was at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.

And the couple came in and said, well, I don't really love my wife anymore and I have temper tantrums and I throw fits and all that. And Romaine said, follow me. They went down the dark church halls to the nursery, brought the man in there.

And as I've said on the radio show before, in this situation, he handed the man a diaper because they were standing in the nursery. And he said, here's the diaper and stop acting like a baby. It's time to grow up and be a man to your wife and for your wife.

We can't run around by saying, I don't feel like doing something. Jesus said in John 13, 17, now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. You will be blessed if you do them. You can't run your life on emotions.

Don't run your life on emotions. Run your life based on the word of God and informed conscience. And then you'll see the emotions where they need to be seen as a caboose, not the engine. I'll never forget the story where newspaper columnist George Crane tells of a wife who came into his office.

He was also a pastor. I hate my husband. I want not to just get rid of him. I want to get even. And before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as bad as he has hurt me. Here's what he said. Dr. Crane had an ingenious plan.

So he told this woman, go home, act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate and generous as possible.

Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him. And after you've convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you're getting divorced.

That will really hurt him. The account says, with revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, beautiful, beautiful, will he ever be surprised? And she did this with enthusiasm, acting as if, quote unquote.

For two months, she showed love, kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing, sharing. When she didn't return, the pastor called, are you ready now to go through the divorce, with the divorce? Divorce, she exclaimed.

Never, I discovered I really do love him. And so what happened? Her actions changed her feelings. One man said motion resulted in emotion. So she did the right thing and God rewarded her with those things.

Isn't that good? We don't have to be run by our feelings. We can do the right thing. We have been given the word of God. If you're a Christian, you've been given the spirit of God to help you understand the word.

You've been given everything you need for life and godliness. You've been given a local church with people who are there in leadership and who can serve alongside of you. And you need to understand feelings from God's perspective.

And that means you can say to yourself, feelings are good, but they're good because they show me what I've been doing and what I've been thinking. So if you're in a bad mood today, you can ask yourself the question, why, what have I done to get me here?

And if you're in a good mood today, you can ask the same question and praise the Lord for that. Mike Abendroth here, it's No Compromise Radio Ministry. Why don't you write me at info at nocompromiseradio .com.

You need a Bible, you need some notes of something that I've taught on, especially like feelings today. I'll be glad to send you my notes free of charge. God bless you. If it feels good, God bless you.

Ministry Sign-Off and Station Disclaimer

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.

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