Is Porn Worse Than Not Recycling?

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Blessing Bikes and the Oddities of Religious Ritual

My name's Mike Abendroth. And it's interesting, it's one of those days where it's noon in real time, and I've hardly said anything to anyone. I talked to my kids this morning a little bit while they were getting ready to go to school.

And I had to go have some blood tests, annual physical kind of thing. And so I talked to the lady there, gave her my birth date and my name. And that's about it. Been doing other things, but I have not been talking, so now I get to speak.

I saw online, someone sent me on Twitter, get your bike blessed with holy water at Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The 18th annual blessing of the bikes will be held at the cathedral on April 30th. Now, I think this is from New York City, somewhere in New York, Upper West Side, dnainfo .com.

I'm drinking now, by the way, a side note, some Starbucks coffee. Not my favorite, but I had something the other day, probably one of my new favorite drinks. It's TNT, T-N-T-E-A. And it is jacked with a bunch of caffeine.

That's why we like to have certain drinks around here. And they sell it at the gym I work out at. And I don't know, I think the church should probably pay for my gym membership because I think I do more evangelism there and teach the Bible than any other place outside these four walls.

Well, back to the point, get your bike blessed. Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Morningside Heights, there we have it. As you know, I love to ride a bicycle. When it snowed nine inches two days ago, it was kind of hard to ride.

Although I've put a good number of miles on the road this year because of our very kind people. Winter, I think the farmer's almanac was wrong this year, weren't they? I think so, see? Anywho, anyway, while bike lanes and infrastructure continue to increase, riding in New York City still comes with risk.

And some cyclists look to the heavens for a little extra protection. I think it was James White. James, if you're still listening at 1 .5 speed, I thank you for this. James said to me once that he rides his bike like a Christian.

He might've even made up a word, he rides his bike Christianly, but he's quite the grammarian, so he probably didn't do that. What do you mean by that, James? Well, and now to put it in my own words, this might be the last time you ride, so enjoy it, right?

You could die riding your bicycle. Ride your bicycle like you would do anything else that is enjoying what God has made, seeing the sights, hearing the sounds, smelling the aromas, aromas. And when that semi whizzes by at 65 miles an hour and it's only two feet away, you really think to yourself, this could be it.

I get used to it toward the end of the year, but at the beginning of the year, it's quite shocking. It's alarming. Well, if you'd like to get your bike blessed, I would think I'd rather get blessed. Who cares about the bike?

Although it is true with bicyclers, the roadies. If you ever get picked up by an ambulance because of a crash, you say to them, please put my carbon frame in the ambulance as well. That's kind of like I say to my wife, honey, I'm 55.

If I ever have to go into a rest home, just make sure you take care of the hair that grows from my ears and out of my ears and on my nose and in my nose. Just take care of that. I might not even know what I'm doing or where I am, but I think I would still know that.

I think I would still figure that out. So do me a favor, honey. Well, I don't think they're gonna sing the song, blessed be the frame, blessed be the frame. But on April 30th, Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam West Ave at West 112th Street, hosting a blessing of the bicycles at a 9 .30 a .m. service.

Now, I don't know if that's just for roadies, if that's for mountain bikers, BMX people, cruisers, fatties, I don't know. During a short free ceremony. Now, here's the good news. You can get free blessings for your bicycle.

And to top it all off, and you think I'm making this up, you think this is on Babylon Bee or something, don't you? Bikes will be sprinkled with not just any water, but holy water, H-O-L-Y, not W-H-O-L-L-Y.

You'd have to grease your bike after that. And the Rev Canon, the Reverend Canon, Julia E. Whitworth, maybe she's German, Witwerth, will bless the riders. There we go. See, I was looking for bicycles to be blessed and then also the riders.

That's like getting Starbucks blessed. It tastes like Pete's then, or your TNT. I don't know where you get the TNT. The only place I know is at the gym, but you're going to like it. Don't drink it late in the afternoon.

Yesterday, I quickly went to the gym and I had to pick up my daughter, Maddie, from the airport. She flew to Los Angeles for the Masters College preview weekend. I can't remember what they call it. Preview weekend.

Anyway, I thought I'm tired. I have to sit in traffic for three hours and go to Boston. I have good drivers in Boston. So I had a TNT. I think I'm still awake. That was a rough night of sleep last night.

And what's worse than having a rough night of sleep? Well, it's when you can't eat, can't snack, because you're fasting for your tests. A bike will also be brought to the center aisle. I thought that was for Mary.

And a moment of silence observed to mark the deaths of cyclists over the past year. After that, the spring cycling season is kicked off with each biker ringing his or her bike bell. I kid you not. I kid you not.

Pornography, Pastoral Qualifications, and Christian Accountability

Well, I'm looking at the Christianity Today and it is April, 2016. I think I said I wasn't gonna look at this anymore, but I did find this particular passage interesting, especially in light of the book that I recently wrote, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise.

By the way, you can get it. Amazon Kindle is $4 .99. Or if you go to the website, nocompromiseradio .com, you can get it for $11 .99 less five. That is with the promo code Heno, H, small H, E-N-N-O, Heno.

One chapter in the book is about pornography and it is an epidemic now. And for our discipleship groups, when I meet with them, when I meet on Wednesday nights with a group of men, I ask them if they've done their homework and I ask them another question.

Actually, I start off by saying, I personally, Mike Ebenroth, have done the homework. I've read Hebrew three times this week, whatever I asked them to do. And I, Mike Ebenroth, have not looked at pornography or texted anyone inappropriately.

That is, you know, someone that's not my wife flirting around with someone. And around the room we go. It's just everywhere. It is sadly everywhere. And I did find this part in Christianity Today, newsworthy in their gleaning section, porn in the pulpit and the pews.

It says here between senior pastors and youth pastors, pastors who struggle with porn, 36 of youth pastors say they've never struggled. I find that high, but I'm glad, very happy with that. 21 of youth pastors say they're currently struggling.

And if struggling means I'm tempted, but I don't do it, I'm on board. 43 say that they struggled in the past. I try to tell the men here, when we're thinking about any sin, including the sin of pornography, which of course leads to other things, that Christ's death is sufficient.

Christ's death is a covering. Christ's death is sufficient to cover, cleanse, forgive any sin, including sexual, whether that's adultery, whether that is, sorry to even say, a bestiality, homosexuality, pornography, whatever it is, is not Christ's death sufficient?

Is not the life of Christ so wonderful that since he never fell to any sexual sin, you get credit for his righteousness and he gets credit for your sin. And if we talk about specifically his purity in this area and our impurity, well, we know it's true because the father raised him from the dead, accepting that sacrifice.

And our response to the gospel is of course, to repent and to believe. If you'd like it to be simply believe, that would be fine. That's for another discussion. Okay, so I don't want to whack people unnecessarily for pornography, but I want it to be, and this is the terminology, this is the lingo, this is the slogan I use.

I want it to be in your rear view mirror. We can't go back. When we think about sin in our past, we want to go back and we would like to fix it. We would like to eradicate it. We would like to not think about it.

We don't want the skeletons in that closet to ever be dredged up. And that's the wonderful thing about forgiveness, as far as the East is from the West. Ephesians chapter one, it talks about in him, Jesus, we have redemption, apposition, the forgiveness of sins.

We are forgiven. It is nice to be forgiven. It is wonderful to be forgiven. In light of that, Romans six, that should make us to desire to sin no longer. That's a bad sentence. It should give us the desire to sin no longer.

Here it says 43 struggled in the past. Now I don't know how they, I don't know, but there's some signs here that with the arrows and stuff like that. And it's not as if it was the who with my generation signs or the jam or something, all mod cons.

I don't understand. It says currently struggling 56 of whom say they are addicted. So I guess that's of the 21 struggling, half of them, 10 say they are addicted. Youth pastors. Well, we could have a whole show about youth pastors and should 21 year olds be pastors.

Now, if you want to have a 21 year old on staff or something like that, but youth pastors, I would, it would be hard pressed to find first Timothy three and Titus one elder qualifications found in a 21 year old.

Be that as it may. Senior pastors, 44 never struggled with pornography. 43 struggled in the past. 14%, so, so far it's about the same. 14 currently struggling. And a third of those currently struggling say they're addicted.

And I just think those men need to step down. I'm not saying if you sin one time, you're disqualified from ministry. Not saying that at all, but I'm thankful. As I look at my life, some things that changed right away when I got saved.

Well, when I got saved, I quit swearing at least. I didn't say it out loud. I think, I think probably I still swear in my mind sadly on occasions. If I hit my finger with a hammer, I don't swear, but it's, I don't know.

Maybe somebody cuts me off or something. Somebody blessed my bike with water. My prejudice, racism, whatever I had in terms of what other people were like or weren't like, that was taken away. Praise the Lord for that.

By the way, that's why I find the whole racial diversity and diversity talk about churches and in churches. I don't know, maybe I just don't understand because that's been taken away. And I guess I assume that's taken away in every person who's born again.

And I know it's not, but in my mind, that's, I just think about myself. How do I view Christianity? And many times I just view through my own eyes. Well, I was working up to a point. I don't know what the point is.

Pete's coffee, a new book, going to Portland. Everybody tells me that Voodoo Donuts in Portland is really good. Now, should a pastor? I know pastors shouldn't view pornography. Oh, I know what I was talking about, is when I got saved, any desire to look at some other pictures of inappropriate things and go looking for them.

See, we didn't have the internet at the time, so that made things a lot easier. But short of something popping up on my screen when I used to run Windows and then I would tell my wife or tell my associate pastor something popped up on my screen and I need to run CC Cleaner or whatever it was back in the Windows-based day.

I think they still have that. That that's been thankfully removed. Now, I know it's probably just a click away, but I don't want to have anything to do with it. But I want to be kind to people who are struggling with sin.

But it's different when you deal with leaders. And I think you can see that in 1 Timothy, how leaders should be and are held to quite a different standard. If a pastor uses porn, according to Christianity Today, this little research deal, this is Josh McDowell's Ministry and Barna Group survey.

That's where it comes from. 770 pastors and 200 teenagers and adults. If pastors use porn, adult Christians think pastors should 41 be fired or asked to resign. 29 take a leave of absence until no longer using it.

16 be allowed to teach and given help to deal with it. 5 have no action taken against them by their church. 4 remain on staff, but no longer teach. What do you think? What do you think should happen to them?

Don't you find it interesting? I think that we should factor in if they come and confess versus they get caught. Shouldn't that be the case? I know one particular church where the pastor gets caught doing something he shouldn't, and is he repentant or is he not?

Well, we don't know. He's probably not repentant, he's just caught. He's sorry, but how do we know he's repentant? Other pastors. Now, that's what adult Christians think should happen to a pastor. Other pastors think pastors should.

82 find a professional counselor. I know. 59 find a group of mature Christians to hold them accountable. You know, this whole accountability thing, I'm accountable to my wife, I'm accountable to my children, I'm accountable to the elder board, I'm accountable to the deacon board, I'm accountable to the church, I'm accountable to the seminaries I teach for.

There's a lot of people I'm accountable to, but if I want to sneak, I think I can find a way to sneak. I'm not so sure the accountability, well, I am sure that the accountability is not the end all. I can go around the room and ask people, did you?

I guess they could still lie. Did you look at pornography? But the issue is between you and the Lord. And when I look at 2 Timothy, even a, what's called a pastoral epistle, the least pastoral of all the epistles, it could be that even 2 Corinthians is more pastoral.

But, therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who saved us. He's talking about God who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

This is a holy calling. It is a holy endeavor to be a minister as I'm looking at 2 Timothy. It says here, if the use of porn negatively infects my ministry, 44 say true, very true. 31 say somewhat true.

14 say not really true. This is with youth pastors. Not true at all, 2%. So the people that use it know. They know that it does. I mean, how could it not? The cure for hedonism is to try to practice it, one man said.

Ecclesiastes chapter one and two. You can have the world and it's still not enough. Who can eat and who can find enjoyment without him? Ecclesiastes two. Well, if you flip that around, with him you can eat and have enjoyment.

You have these rock and roll stars and they just go from men, from women to men, back and forth and around and around they go and they cannot find satisfaction. It is fleeting. It is temporal. You take a, I haven't done this for a long time.

I don't have grandkids. When I do, I'm sure I will. There's nothing more fun than playing with your little kids when you have the bubble machine or you have the bubble stuff and you dip it in and blow bubbles and around you go and it just, it's there for a couple minutes.

Sorry, a few seconds for the bubbles and then it pops. Pornography doesn't satisfy. So it's this crazier, crazier, crazier kind of pornography. It says here, other pastors think that, like I said before, 82 find a counselor, 59 accountable, 58 tell their spouse, 45 find a counselor who is also a pastor, 21 tell the elders, deacons, board of their church, 8 resign, one tell their congregation.

It seems to me that if only 8 say resign, they, I don't know, they're trying to give their fellow coworkers a break. They realize how tempting it is. They realize how fallen people are and even pastors are far from perfect.

I don't really understand the rationale there. It says here, those who seek out porn regularly, which is monthly or more, 13 practicing Christians, 41 of ages 13 to 24, 23 of those 25 years old and older.

Now, I don't know where they get this here, but on the most immoral and the least immoral sliding scale. So the most immoral and the least immoral. So from immoral to moral, I guess we could say it. How wrong is porn?

Today's young adults, age 13 to 24, view not recycling as more immoral than porn. So the most immoral, we have stealing, adultery, lying, not recycling, thinking negatively about someone else, overeating, now we're working our way to the scale.

We've just tipped the scale, we're getting a lot less immoral, wasting electricity or water, coveting other's possessions, viewing pornographic images, reading erotic or pornographic content, watching explicit television or movies.

That should probably tell us about everything we need to know. Young people have been so bombarded with cultural relativity and cultural instincts, it is more immoral, according to this survey by McDowell Ministries and Barna Christianity Today, page 25, April, 2016.

This survey said that young adults think it's more immoral to not recycle, waste water, waste electricity than it is to view pornography. And we don't think we have a problem. I don't think women understand it quite the same way as men do.

I don't expect that they should. I have these conversations with my wife and sometimes in a different context, my daughters. Men are wired to look at things. There's a, I think there's reasons for that.

We could talk about maybe sometime, not even on the air, but this is an epidemic. I'm sorry to say that if I meet somebody young, I probably say to myself, if I had to bet, I'm betting. So how do we respond?

Well, is there freedom from pornography? Can people stop? Can people repent? Well, the spirit of God dwells in Christians and we can say no to sin and yes to righteousness. And especially for those who are married and then engage themselves into pornography, I think there's an aspect of laziness to it because they need to just go be kind to their wife.

They need to go and love her and serve her and cherish her and nourish her. And then I think everything else will take care of itself. Is there forgiveness found in pornography? Yes, and if you're looking at pornography, today's the day.

The first day, you're not going to look. You're gonna repent, ask God for forgiveness, praise God that you're in Christ and get that in your rear view mirror.

Ministry Commitments and Closing Disclaimer

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

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

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