Falling Out of a Tree

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.

Examining Scripture and the Problem of Sexual Sin

Welcome to No Compromise Radio. My name is Mike Abendroth, and welcome back to the show today. This is a show where we want to examine the Bible, examine who God is based on his revelation, what he says about himself.

There are certain things we can know from the creation around us, and there are other things that we can only know by God telling us and instructing us through his messengers, and we have those messengers in the Bible and the Bible alone.

I want to talk today a little bit about disqualifying sin, sexual sin, the anatomy of a fall, and talk about faithfulness, fidelity. I turned on the TV the other day, and Ted Haggard was on the TV talking about his comeback, and it wasn't that long ago, 2006, I believe, Associated Press, November 5th, Haggard said, the fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem.

I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that's so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life. And I certainly commend him for that statement, certainly not backing out of it or having some kind of excuse, or the devil made me do it or something like that.

It was a sad fall. He was, in 2005, one of the top 25 most evangelical, most influential evangelicals in America. And so there are issues that go on in a person. I'll never forget when MacArthur said, you don't just fall out of a tree, you have to climb up it first.

That is to say, you just don't wake up one day and say, I think I'll just go cheat on my spouse. There are things that move you along that slippery slope, and then one day it's the culmination, that sin comes to fruition, that sin is hatched, as it were, and then the sin.

And we look back in the landscape of Christianity, and sadly, there just aren't political people who commit sexual sin. There are, quote unquote, religious people. Religious scandals are pretty common, sadly.

If you were to keep an old folder with these scandals, it would be pretty big by now. Most of us don't keep paper, it's just all stored in our computer. You, of course, remember Jimmy Swaggart, sinning against God and his wife after he had a prostitute taken to a motel.

That was certainly a hit on his $150 million a year ministry, quote unquote. There was Jim Baker. There are all kinds of other people that have had these things, and I think we could learn some lessons today in No Compromise Radio land.

And let me give you some steps down the slippery path that you don't want to take. In other words, these will be preventative maintenance steps, things to be careful of, to watch out for. We are not beyond any kind of heinous sin.

We are flesh and blood, and Galatians 6 would say that we ought to take heed lest we fall, and we ought not to mock God or deceive ourselves because we could easily fall into sin just like someone else.

And so we want to make sure we don't. Whenever I see lessons like this, I say to myself, Lord, I don't want that to happen to me for the sake of my own integrity, the sake of my relationship with my wife, the sake of the ministry that you have given me.

And so what do we do? What we do is we take a look at the scriptures and then we do some preventative maintenance. So these are steps down the slippery path. The good news is you can repent and you can get out of this anytime, maybe even today.

Maybe you are one of those people that you're contemplating some relationship with someone at the office who's not your spouse, someone at the church, someone in the neighborhood, and hopefully the Lord will use this to nip you in the bud and nip it in the bud.

Step One: Choosing Happiness Over Holiness

So the first step down the slippery path to sexual immorality, or in general, any kind of sin, we could make it more general if we'd like. The context today is in sexual sin. Number one, believe the lie that happiness is more important than holiness.

Believe the lie that happiness is more important than holiness. Most people today go on their feelings and their feelings say, I'd like to be happy, and therefore they've got to cave in to those feelings and if that's how you run your life and that's the engine of your life instead of the caboose feelings, you're going to say, then I've got to be happy.

And we forget, as Havner has said, God does not save us to make us happy, but to make us holy. If you think of Ephesians 1, verse four, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, not necessarily that we should be happy.

Sibbes, the Puritan, Richard Sibbes said, those that look to be happy must first look to be holy. So our culture switched it all around. And so if you're married, you say to yourself, I want to be holy, and so that would exclude anything that would be outside the confines of sex in marriage.

If you're single and you say, I'd like to be holy, then that would certainly mean fleeing from all kinds of immorality, including fornication. And so you say, well, yeah, but I want to be happy. I want to be, you know, like some of these singers, Amy Grant and Sandy Patty, happiness is the big concern.

God didn't make me to be in this kind of bad, unhappy relationship. And so we have to be very, very careful. God is holy, and he expects you to holy, W-H, holy, worship him. Isaiah 57, for thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever, whose name is holy.

I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit. It doesn't say, and I dwell with the happy in pursuit of happiness. I've got that right. The constitution said it. Well, let's look how to live under God before we look how to live under our constitutional forefathers.

And then the text goes on to say, in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. God's love is holy. God's attributes are all holy. His righteousness, his justice, they're all holy.

And you might think lightly of God's holiness, but he doesn't. Arthur Pink said, the God which the vast majority of professing Christians love is looked upon very much like an indulgent old man who himself has no relish for folly, but leniently winks at indiscretions of youth.

Men often refuse to believe in the God of the Bible and gnash their teeth when his hatred of sin is faithfully pressed upon their attention. No, sinful man was no more likely to devise a holy God than to create the lake of fire in which he will be tormented forever and ever, end quote, Arthur Pink.

So when you think to yourself, I am more concerned about my happiness, you are starting to climb up that tree and you will fall out of that tree into some kind of sin. Remember, every sin is against God primarily.

It's not against your spouse. It's not against people in the church, although that's true. It is primarily a sin against God. And God will have no communion with sin. Heinrich Hepp said, things are admirably arranged.

God likes forgiving sins and I like committing them. And see, with that kind of cavalier, brash, sinful attitude, well, I've got to be happy. There are many people in life who have been holy and then the happiness follows, but they have not strived to be happy because that's going to make them climb up the tree.

God hates sin. And for just one sin, he kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden. For just one solitary sin, there's a curse on the posterity of Canaan. For how many sins was Elisha's servant smitten with leprosy?

We have to be very careful. Those four creatures in heaven, those angels, never stop saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And so maybe you need to do some kind of study on the holiness of God.

Step Two: Living by Feelings Instead of Truth

Closely related, let me give you the second step up the tree. So you don't take this step. So you don't then take the steps and then fall out of the tree into some kind of sin. Sexual sin is the context today.

And this is related. Live your life based on your feelings. So the first one was a little more general. Now we get a little more specific. Live your life based on your feelings. Lloyd-Jones said this, oh, the havoc that is wrought and the tragedy, 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.

Your feelings should never be the final authority when you have to make a decision. Your feelings have been affected by the fall and they are unreliable. They are unstable. They have pride. I love what Luther said, feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving.

Remember Jeremiah 17, the heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all else, who can know it? My warrant is the word of God, Luther said, not else is worth believing. We have to be very, very careful.

People say, well, you know, I have to be feeling good about what's gonna happen. I don't really feel good about marrying that Christian, but I feel really good about marrying that really attractive non-Christian.

And I feel good about dating unbelievers. And I feel in this particular case, God understands and he'll meet me where I'm at. We have to watch out for that. You have to watch out for that. Go on the truth, don't go on emotion.

You know, you have a feeling about something. It doesn't mean it's true. And you have a lack of feeling about something. It doesn't mean it's not true. When George McClellan was commissioned to be the 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'm sure that I am in command of the union army. However, because president Lincoln's order to that effect now lies before me. That's why I don't feel like I am the major general, but I am because I have that order.

So be very, very careful when it comes to feelings because feelings are often self-righteous and feelings are almost every time, if you're not doing the biblical thing, they are selfish. Mark that, they are selfish because they're tainted by the false.

So that's why you're put in the context of a marriage. So your spouse can check that, a local church. So the elders and the other Christians can check that, that we have government to check that. We have to be very, very careful that we don't run our life on feelings.

Step Three: Rejecting Doctrine and Sound Teaching

Well, what else? Number three, ignore all emphasis on doctrine. Ignore doctrine. If you'd like to fall into some kind of grievous sin and say to yourself, huh, how'd I get here? Then you can just look back and say, I used to think that happiness was the most important thing.

I made sure I live my life based on that very feeling. And number three, I've ignored all emphasis on doctrine. Weak doctrines, Plummer said, are no match for powerful temptations. Weak doctrines are no match for powerful temptations.

And so if you have powerful temptations in your life and you will have them, you need strong doctrines to combat those, to overcome those. And when Paul said to Timothy, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, and reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and doctrine, he didn't mean watered down, gruel doctrine.

He meant healthy, hygienic, sound doctrine that exalts God and minimizes man and man's contribution to salvation. Did you know the New Testament church in Acts 2 .42 was continually devoting themselves to apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to breaking of bread and prayer, to the apostles' doctrine.

That's what they were devoting themselves to. Furthermore, Jesus himself was a doctrinal preacher. When I first heard Reisinger talk that way, Ernest Reisinger, I thought that's exactly right. Jesus comes to preach and he has come to preach doctrine.

The ASV says in Mark 1 .22, and they were astonished at his doctrine. Verse 27, what new doctrine is this? We need to preach doctrine so Christians can live in something more than some glob, blob, goo type of body.

There needs to be support and ligaments and bones and structure, and that would be called the doctrine of the Christian faith. People say, well, we don't teach much doctrine in our church. Well, you've got a lot of sin in your church is what you've got, because powerful temptations will collapse those who run around with weak doctrines.

Titus 1, the elders are supposed to teach sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. Titus 2, Paul says, as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. 1 Timothy 3 .2, this wasn't just for Crete, this was for Ephesus and for Worcester and for wherever you are.

An overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife. Temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, and able to teach. And you say, yeah, but doctrine divides. Yes, truth always divides truth from error.

That's exactly right. You say, doctrine creates controversy. Well, Machen said, if we are going to avoid controversy, we might as well close our Bibles. For the New Testament is a controversial book practically from beginning to end.

The New Testament writers and our Lord Himself presented truth in sharp contrast with error. And indeed, that is the only way in which truth can be present in any clear and ringing way. No doctrine just creates moralism.

It creates to-do lists. It creates man-centered, moralistic things. Philip Rikens said, I visited New Life Church when it was in its popular ascendancy about a decade ago. The strongest impression I had on that particular Sunday, this was Haggard's old church, was a palpable absence of the gospel.

Lots of feel-good worship and moralistic exhortation to lead a good life, but little in the way of biblical message of repentance for sin and grace in Christ. Well, my name's Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, 760 AM WVNE in Worcester, broadcasting out of Auburn, Mass, Auburn.

It's A-U-B-U-R-N, but if you'd like to pronounce it like the people around here pronounce it, you would pronounce it A-W-B-I-N. We're talking today about what not to do. MacArthur said, if you want to ask yourself the question, how did that particular man fall into such gross immorality or idolatry?

You don't do that overnight. You take baby steps to get to that final disaster. And so you don't just fall out of a tree, you've got to climb up at first. So I'm giving you things not to do to make sure you climb no tree.

This is a no climbing tree zone right here. The first is believe that holiness is not very important, but happiness is more important. Live your life based on that truth. Number two, base your life on feelings.

Ignore all emphasis on doctrine. Number four, blame Satan for everything. Blame Satan for everything. I think if you go back to Haggard's ministry and read in some of his statements in October, 1993, you will see some of that very thing, this spiritual warfare.

Tina and Sherry went to the top of the mountain and prayed for God's blessing and mercy to come upon the people of this region. This is strategic level spiritual warfare. Upon entering the worship area, we noticed Islamic religious symbols distorted by their makers into satanic symbols.

And on and on we go. Too much spiritual warfare looking around for Satan and not enough personal ownership of sin. It goes back to the whole issue of, you know, the devil made me do it. Horace Mann said, temptation is a fearful word.

It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden sharp cry of fire under our windows by night, it should arouse us to instantaneous action and brace every muscle to its highest tension.

Now, Horace Mann, I don't think was some great theologian, but that is certainly true. The Bible teaches that it is not Satan who is the one who is to blame. Evil temptation certainly is not from God either, James 1, verse 13.

But the Bible says that the real blame for sin falls at the feet of environment, Twinkies, hereditary deals. I'm Italian descent. I've got an Italian temper. I've got PMS. I don't feel good. Husband says he's worked a long, hard day and he's got a headache.

He doesn't feel good. He can't obey. No, the Bible says you made yourself do it. The essence of temptation doesn't come from the outside Satan. The essence comes from inside. James 1, 14. Each one of you is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.

Not by a syndrome, not by a disease, not by anything else. J. Ver McGee said, then there were other psychologists who say, what about your background? Did your mother love you? Did anything unusual happen while you were in the womb?

If you said, well, my mother was caught in a rainstorm while she was carrying me, the psychologist would say, that's the reason you're a drip. Kind of dumb, I know, but if I could speak like J. Ver McGee did with that Southern drawl, maybe you would find that more funny.

In contrast to blaming God, James 1, 13, we are to blame ourselves. This is an absolute universal truth. Each and every time you're tempted, you can't blame anyone else. You need to say it was my own evil desire, sometimes translated sexual passions here in James 1.

And this language in the original Greek is pushed to the front, so it stresses how lust works when it comes to temptation. Certainly sex is good, it's God-given. Certainly food is good, it's God-given.

Certainly sleep is good, it's God-given. But when sleep turns into laziness and eating turns into gluttony and sex turns into a distortion used outside of marriage, it's bad and it's man's own temptation.

God can't be blamed. Jesus said in Mark 7, verse 23, all these evils come from inside and make a man unclean. You'd think James might blame the devil, but no, he says it's personal responsibility. And so what we wanna do is we don't wanna run around and say we never sin, but the sign of a Christian who's not going to be climbing up that tree, it's going to be quick confession and a clean conscience.

When you sin, you quickly confess, you repent, you forsake, Proverbs 28, verse 13, you find mercy from God, and then your conscience is clean. You don't wanna just keep assailing your conscience over and over and over again and somehow making it less effective, less bright, less loud.

The Bible says in Proverbs 19, three, a man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord. And so you need to say, I did it. You know, I was tired, that's true. I had PMS, it was true.

Seems like Satan was all out tempting me, that could be true. Environment was against me. My peers were against me. It's all could be true, but I myself did the sin. I myself did the sin. And there's sad results to that too, as Ted Haggard had seen, James 1, 15, then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.

And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. So don't be misled. James 1, 16 says, don't be deceived, my dear brethren, meaning you could be deceived. You could be misled thinking somebody else is to blame and you always get the short end of the stick.

And, you know, we don't wanna do that at all. Number five, make sure you don't climb up the tree of sexual sin or any other kind of temptation by number five, having some kind of pet doctrine that you study that is not focused on Jesus Christ and his word.

Jesus Christ and his word needs to be the center of your life so that you would love him. Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about people who wanna worship John Calvin. Of course, I would use the term, I'm a Calvinist, but I don't wanna worship John Calvin.

I don't wanna worship some kind of eschatological system. Ephesians chapter two is very clear. Ephesus lost their love. And so we wanna make sure we have a hot, good, biblical, righteous love for Christ Jesus and his church and his word.

And that should help us not climb up the tree to be satisfied with some kind of sand when we can be in the king's castle. And so Revelation chapter two, Jesus is going after Ephesus. Oh, they did some good things and Jesus knows their works and perseverance and they've got discernment.

There are certain apostles who aren't really apostles and they could see that and they've endured for Jesus's name and they haven't grown weary. But in Revelation two, four, it says, but I have this against you, that you have left your first love, that you have left your first love.

The Greek order of the words would be your first love you have left. You've cooled, you've grown lax, you have somehow become spiritually dull. And so we don't wanna do that. We wanna make sure we haven't forsaken our love.

And that is Christ Jesus who has loved us and has given his life for us. And so if you've got a good relationship with the Lord and loving the Lord Jesus Christ, it will help you not be somehow cold, somehow just orthodox, somehow just some intellectual thing.

No, you wouldn't wanna treat your wife that way, nor would you wanna treat the Lord that way. We wanna make sure we have the remedy and the remedy is remember therefore from where you have fallen, Jesus says, and repent and do the deeds which you did at first.

That will be the way to see good fruit. Well, there are ways to climb up a tree and I don't want you to climb up the tree into sexual sin or any other kind of sin. And so with Christ at the center, you are going to be fine.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And today we were talking about climbing up the tree of sexual sin. Don't climb up it. And if you don't climb up it, you won't fall out of it.

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.