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Don’t let the media, group think or your own heart deceive you about sexual sin.
It's cold in this room. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry aka Duplex. Gratia, double grace, Christ for pardon, Christ for power. You are listening to No Compromise Radio recorded in beautiful downtown Burbank, California on Buena Vista Street.
No, just kidding. Today is so cold here in Massachusetts I wish I was in Southern California. It was 63 here yesterday and it's 43 today. I think maybe for a high. Brrrr. Plus it gets dark now at 420 in the afternoon.
No wonder counseling goes up, marriage issues increase, depression escalates. Make sure you're taking your vitamin D if you live up here in the north, the Northeast. Take it in the Northwest too, but I'm not a doctor so that's just my suggestion, in my opinion.
Right, you can always get away with things by saying, in my opinion, if I were your dad. By the time you hear this I'll have returned from Tennessee, Kingsport, Tri-City area, flying to Knoxville, hang out with Justin Bice, but I haven't done that yet.
Really, technically that's tomorrow. Today on the show, just kind of a little warning maybe. That's kind of what the show is today, a warning. Like it or not, we are a persuadable people and we, even as Christians, can be affected by the media.
Certainly advertisers spend money because they know advertisements work, commercials work, and we get influenced and that influence can either be for good or for ill. I mean it can be neutral with food and other things, but other ways we can be influenced might not be so good.
Remember, the world is not godly. The world is anti-God. The world system is against God and His Word, and therefore we as Christians need to stand guard and to be watchful. I'm reminded of 1 Corinthians 16 verses 13 and 14, and if the Church of Corinth would start doing these things, or if they would have done them ahead of time, they would never would have gotten to the carnal state they were in.
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, let all that you do be done in love. We have to watch and be careful and to guard, especially our minds, as we are pummeled and assaulted by different agendas.
And so one of those agendas has to do with sexual immorality. These days it has to do with not even necessarily the homosexual agenda, although that's included, but also the transgender movement. And it doesn't take you very long.
I just pulled up Wikipedia and found a list of recognized awareness periods for the LGBTQIA alphabet soup. And I mean it's pretty big. Internationally recognized Agender Pride Day is May 19th. Aromatic Spectrum Awareness Week, that's the first full week following Valentine's Day.
There are Aromatic Visibility Days June 5th. International Asexuality Day, that is April 6th. Ace Week, that's the last full week in October. That's talking about asexual spectrum stuff. Bisexual Awareness Week.
Celebrate Bisexuality Day. Gender Fluid Visibility Week. Drag Day. International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. International Day of Pink. Has to do with bullying, anti-homosexuality stuff.
Intersex Awareness Day. That first took place in Boston, Massachusetts, by the way. Intersex Day of Remembrance. Lesbian Day. Lesbian Visibility Day. National Coming Out Day. Non-Binary Awareness Week.
Non-Binary People's Day. Pansexual and Pan-Romantic Awareness Day. Pronouns Day. Trans Awareness Month. Trans Awareness Week. Transgender Day of Remembrance. Trans Day of Visibility. Transparent Day.
Not transparent, but trans-parent day. Zero Discrimination Day. That's quite a big list. That's quite a big list. What goes through your mind when you hear those days? What goes through your mind as you try to think biblically about these issues?
Are you tempted to go with the flow? Are you tempted to get mad? Are you tempted to be depressed? What goes through your mind? And so today on the show, I'd like to talk a little bit about these issues.
And I want you to try to think straight about the issues. I don't want you to believe lies. I don't want you to buy into political issues. I want you to think biblically. Sometimes lies feel like the truth.
It's easy to buy the world's company line. And the Lord wants you to think rightly, rightly as a Christian. And so on the show today, I'm gonna start off with a variety of lies in the middle of this kind of new sexual revolution.
And I think it'll be helpful to you. All right? Lie number one. Individual sinners, whether they're heterosexual or homosexual, are our enemies. So transgender people, homosexuals, just go down the list of whatever sinner you want to put in there, fornicator, adulterer, you can put that in there as well.
What's the Christlike response to this? Are these people our enemies? Or do we love sinners like Jesus loved sinners? Certainly these folks are image bearers. They have souls, i .e. they have a spirit.
And we don't have to celebrate their sin. We don't have to affirm their sin. But we need to love them. And we need to not hate them. And we have to stick up for the truth. Matthew 9. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
This is a great feast and a wonderful banquet. And it's almost like you're there. Behold. All of a sudden you're watching Jesus with tax collectors and sinners. And you put those two words together, and they're the outcasts.
They're the low of the low, similar to Luke 15, the reason why Jesus gave the parable of the lost sons. All the tax gatherers and sinners were coming near to Jesus to listen to him. And both the Pharisees and scribes began to grumble, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.
And with reporter-like language, and it came about, you watch what's going on. Reclining at the table. He wasn't sleeping at the table. I got in big trouble if I was a kid when I would kind of attempt to doze off at the table.
There's a large feast here. And while you didn't recline for every meal, if you had a big feast, a big party, and you had special guests, you would recline. Extend your feet out on long couches and lean on your left elbow and eat with your right hand.
That's just what they did. That was their cultural thing to do. And it was Levi who gave a big reception for Jesus at his house. That's what Luke 5 .29 says. The context of Matthew 9 .10 is Matthew 9 .9, duh.
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. So, there's the context. And this is going to be a feast to honor the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what Levi is doing, because he's introducing his fellow co-workers, his fellow tax collectors and sinners to the Lord Jesus. Maybe it's a farewell party because he's going to be one of Jesus' disciples.
And here is this big, essentially, an evangelism party. You might have, I'm trying to think of different ways people have parties to maybe make money off people, right? You have, what was those baskets?
Langerberg basket parties? Tupperware party? I don't know. What are some of the other kind of parties that people have? Pampered chef parties? There are other ones, but I've forgotten what they are. I should know what those parties are.
For a long time, Kim didn't go to those parties because what are you supposed to do? If you don't buy anything, then, oh, pastor's wife is stingy. And if you do buy something at one, you have to buy something at everything because then the person would say, well, pastor's wife bought something at my Tupperware party, but didn't buy anything at your pampered chef party.
Here's a real hospitality. Really going to the hospital a lot. That's why I say that. Real hospitality ministry here. Many tax collectors, Mark says, many of them. Two times it says many. And they're dining with Jesus.
And remember the tax collectors, not wrong to collect taxes, but these people were basically extortionists and they paid their little franchise fee to get the taxes. And they were usually Jewish people and now taking money from other Jews with an upcharge and then some money to Rome.
So, they were really hated. And the word sinner, of course, we're all sinners, but used here in this context, especially here in the gospels, kind of the lowest of the low. Someone who didn't care about the law, didn't care about Mosaic law.
Just, you know, let's put them down with prostitutes and Gentiles and barbarians. Kind of like it's an occupation. What do you do for a living? Well, I sin. And three times it's used here in this passage, tax collector and sinner, tax collector and sinner.
And we have Jesus with the outcast and the rejects and the misfits and these unclean kind of people. And when the Pharisees saw this, that he was eating with tax collectors and sinners, they said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
It's a guilt by association, is it not? Birds of a feather. And they're grumbling, it says in Luke chapter five. Look at Jesus' association and we're offended. What are we going to do? Be contaminated by these people?
And by the way, your rabbi, Jesus, the teacher, your teacher, he's contaminated too. I mean, we, even the Pharisees, the word means separated ones. And we don't like what's going on with the tax collectors and sinners.
Does he eat? I mean, what is Jesus thinking? Hanging out with people that don't want to keep the law at all? What's the response? But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. This well-known proverb, I'm sure, embarrasses the scribes. And when you want to see Jesus in his most blistering fashion, blistering mode, as my mother would call it, you watch him talk to self-righteous Pharisees.
Matthew 23 stands out, doesn't it? Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. Over and over, woe to you, woe to you, woe to you. You blind, you fools and blind men, you serpents, you brood of vipers.
How shall you escape this sentence of hell? Now, the question wasn't addressed to Jesus, but he heard, and he makes a response, and he rebukes him. Of course, the mission statement of all mission statements is the Lord Jesus's, and it is reiterated by Paul, the Apostle in 1 Timothy 1 and 15.
It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Jesus gives two reasons he has this kind of fellowship. One's from a simple analogy. Those who are well have no need of physician, but those who are sick.
Obviously, Pharisees didn't think they were sick. They didn't think they needed to repent. They didn't think they were unclean. They didn't think their righteous deeds were like a filthy garment. They didn't think they had all kinds of iniquities.
But the sinners, they knew they were sinners, and they knew they needed grace. And so, what's the point? Do doctors go to the physically sick? Yeah, they do. Now, and these days, you know, we go to the doctor, but they then come into the room to receive us, to talk to us, to help us.
Spiritual doctors, I think they go to the spiritual sick. I think they're around them. Are they around them? Do they have to be near them? Or is it the newfangled way of teledoctoring? Brooks said, for Jesus to refuse to associate with sinners would have been as foolish as for a doctor not to associate with the sick.
And here we have the great physician of the soul, the Lord Jesus. And if doctors risk contamination and contagion, and they get sick from their patient, is Jesus going to somehow not want to be around people that he could be, in somebody's mind, contaminated?
This is all grace. This is not the sick calling the doctor. This is the doctor going to the sick, right? One writer said, no statement of Jesus in this gospel is more profound than this one. A doctor ministers not to healthy persons, but to the sick.
So, Jesus came not to call the righteous, i .e., self-righteous, but sinners. Jesus' call is to salvation, and in order to share in it, there must be a recognition of need. The new thing in Christianity is not the doctrine that God saves sinners.
No Jew would have denied that. It is the assertion that God loves and saves them as sinners. This is the authentic and glorious doctrine of true Christianity in any age. So, he has a simple analogy, and then he gives an argument from scripture.
By the way, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Don't forget, you can order Discovering Colossians by S. Lewis Johnson on Amazon. I hope to get it out on Kindle sometime soon, but just I've been too busy to pull all the triggers to do that.
And this is not going to be one of those books that sells a lot, but that's all right. I just want to perpetuate, perpetrate. I watch too many cop shows. I like cops. I like jail. You ever watch jail, J-A-I-L?
I think it started off in Vegas, and, you know, somebody gets arrested on the street for public drunkenness, and they're taken into jail and booked, and it just shows you what goes on. There's a chair they have to strap him down in if they're, you know, trying to kick or hit, and then they've got like spit masks and stuff they put on.
Oh, anyway, perpetuate. That was the word that I was after. There's an argument from scripture here as well, but go and learn, Matthew 9, 13, what this means, Jesus said. Go and learn what this means.
Ouch. I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. If you want to rebuke some teacher or a student even, go learn what that means. Come back and talk to me later.
Here, here's my assignment for you. Don't go off on a journey. That's not the issue, but I really want you to try to understand this. You don't understand it, obviously. You should know better. You should know it.
And Jesus quotes from Hosea 6, 6, for I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. As Gomer was unfaithful to her husband Hosea, you are unfaithful to God.
All your rituals, sacrifices, they don't mean anything if you're not compassionate. The Bible teaches, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
Call sinners to repentance. That's the issue. Jesus answered and said to them, it is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
That's what Luke adds. That's what Jesus said, dealing with the fact that you're a sinner and dealing with the fact that only one Savior of sinners is found, and it's the one who's speaking. Christ calls you ungodly.
God loves sinners. It's one thing to call fishermen to be your disciples. That was a stretch, a bunch of hay seeds from Nebraska. I mean, Galilee, but tax collectors, sinners. While we are still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man, someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Spurgeon said, there was nothing in you to make him love you, but he left heaven's throne for you. Jesus loved people enough to tell them the truth, just like other situations in the Gospels. I think of Jesus going to Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus receiving Jesus, and when they saw it, they all grumbled.
He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. You might like Jesus' miracles, but you don't want to be around the people that he hangs out with. Calvin said, while out of doors men are murmuring, this is with Zacchaeus' house, within the house God displays magnificently the glory of his name and refutes their wicked calumny.
C-A-L-U-M-N-Y. Mike Havendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. I just want you to think through this a little bit and to say in your mind, as you preach to yourself a little bit, do I think of people that I disagree with in this movement?
Are they my enemies, or are they my mission field? Should I think about them as God would think about them? Of course, what they believe isn't right. I'm not saying that at all. Don't take this the wrong way, but we are to be kind to people.
We're to love people, and we ought not to just fall into the trap of somebody disagrees with us. Somebody takes the Bible out of context for their lifestyle, et cetera, as unbelievers and making unbelievers our enemies.
Are they enemies of the gospel? Yes. Are they enemies of God? Yes. But weren't we as well? What's the difference between us? We're going to get to that here really soon. Well, there's another lie, and you might be tempted to believe it because it's promulgated by a lot of people, and that lie is that if you disagree with someone, you're a bigot, you're a phobic, and you're intolerant.
And so here with the alphabet soup of sexual differences, preferences, aberrations, et cetera, people are going to try to make you think that you're afraid of people. You're a phobic, homophobic, transphobic, whatever it might be, just because you disagree.
We realize God is holy, and we are not going to commend or recommend covetousness or adultery or drunkenness or celebrate any other kind of sin, but you're not a homophobic, a transphobic, if you disagree with someone and call sin sin.
What they're doing is an ad hominem attack, and they're trying to set you up. Joseph Gunnell in the Kinsey Institute of New Report on Sex defined homophobia as a fear, dislike, or hatred of homosexuals.
Now, if you're thinking in any way, shape, or form as a Christian, you should not fear, dislike, or hate people. A phobia is an irrational fear. I have no irrational fear or hatred of people on the alphabet spectrum.
I don't even know what to call that. I mean, I just can't keep up with all the letters, and so I'm not even trying to negatively say it. That's just the way it goes. The Bible teaches in Psalm 33 that God loves righteousness and justice.
The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. Psalm 99, the king in his might loves justice. You've established equity, and you have executed justice and righteousness. Proverbs 59, the way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursues righteousness.
So for us at No Compromise Radio, I hope you say to yourself, I love people, and I want to associate with sinners, and I see them as a mission field. I see how Jesus treats them. I see how Jesus treated me, and you ought not to be afraid of them, and you ought not to buy into the lie that somehow you're a phobic when you're not a phobic.
You just disagree, right? I could use the same thing against other people. You're a Christianophobic, right? You have an irrational fear and hatred of Christians. That's not how I would argue things, but you see how everything just gets turned up.
All right. What else do we want to say today? Well, what we want to say today is this is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and we're going to pick this up tomorrow because there's lots to say, and I'm not going to get into it now because I've got quite a few minutes on the next point to talk about.
Make sure you're thinking biblically, and the best way to do that is to read your Bible. Mike Adenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.