Satanic Footholds

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, a ministry. I just want to take a moment to thank people here who assist in the ministry. I won't mention the guys who work on the website for maybe the next show I'll mention, but Josh McDonald does a great job directing this whole operation, designing shirts.

I even gave a shirt to Carl Truman the other day, and he said he would wear it, and he said he liked the website. He said, I think it was sub-ACDC is what he said. You need to go to our website, bbcchurch .org, and listen to Carl's messages when he was here a few weeks ago doing a conference.

I think I'll put some of those on No Compromise Radio as well. Just split them up so you can listen, especially the Friday night leadership messages and his Sunday morning sermon. I thought those were excellent.

So today, my name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. I'm thankful for Charlie Crane, who does some of the audio stuff behind the scenes, and Mario Escobar and Mario's new album is coming out, Tulip.

I need to get the information for that. Mario's got to give me the website, and I can promote that Calvinistic rap album. How about that? I wonder what Calvin would think. I wonder what rap artists would think.

But anyway, thanks for the people that help here, No Compromise Radio. Today, I think I'd like to talk a little bit about Satan, since I was doing a little bit of the Spiritual Warfare series in the last several weeks.

Again, if you haven't heard the announcement, we'll be off WVNE soon, 760 WVNE. Thankful for the partnership the last three years, and we'll switch to iTunes, No Compromise Radio, TuneIn Radio, No Compromise Radio, Facebook, No Compromise Radio, or NoCompromiseRadio .com.

You can listen online. Not that I'm following Piper and everything. I like Piper's print stuff more than I like his audio. But he did go to podcasts quite a while ago, and it saves a lot of money. And in budget times like this, crunch times like this, know this isn't an appeal for money.

I guess if you want to send me $20 ,000, I'll probably keep the show on. But even then, church budget's tight, all that stuff. This is an extra ministry. This is something I just do. I don't necessarily do it in my spare time, because this is during the day on a work day.

It is a ministry outreach from Bethlehem Bible Church, and things just are tight around here. Lots of people who don't have jobs. Lots of people at the church moved away. And so, anyway, if you turn on 760 AM at 330, one of these days from Monday through Friday, and you hear a psychologist, it won't be me.

You'll have to go to NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you're here, John Jolliffe, David Stoop, Minereth Meyer, or any of those guys you know, it won't be me. You know, I have to say, seriously, in all honesty, WVNE does a really good job keeping integrated Christian psychology, secular psychology with Christianity, off the air.

I could be wrong. Maybe it's a Saturday show or a Sunday show, but I can't think of any show that's on that is secular Christian psychology. I guess Dobson, that's as close as we get. I mean, that is him, a Christian psychologist, but anyway, they don't have a whole lot of those.

So I commend WVNE on my way out. I don't think it was a force out. All right, let's talk a little bit about Satan and how he schemes things. I do believe that Satan is alive. I believe that he is a being.

I believe that he is a created being, and he doesn't have the same power that God has. He is not Satan, that is, is not omniscient, he's not omnipotent, he's not all anything. And as Luther would say, he's the hardest working servant of God because Satan, with bad motives, sinful motives, ill desires, does only what God allows him to do.

So whether that is Job 1, where Satan is used by God to afflict Job for God's eternal glory and purposes, Satan still does bad things with bad motives. But most people, when they think of Satan, they think of Satan worshipers, Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible, Wiccans, playing the Ouija board, a lot of external things like that, Hollywood-level issues, media-driven levels.

But I'd like to bring it a little closer to our actual lives, Satan and how he affects and infects, not the Christian, he can't infect the Christian, but he certainly can affect the Christian. And let's bring this right into your home.

Let's bring this actually right into the bedroom, because this is exactly what happens when Satan works. And 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11, it says, So, if you're thinking about Star Trek and the Borg, resistance is futile, you must be assimilated.

That wouldn't work here because there are ways to resist Satan and his schemes. Satan can be given opportunity to hurt you, and so you need to know of these areas in your life. And I think I'll talk about, oh, maybe three of them today.

Going to Bed with Sinful Anger

Number one, basically, how do you let Satan into your life? And again, this is going to be not the Ouija board type of thing. This isn't going to be seances, tarot cards, channeling. Again, this is going to be something that's very, very mundane, very routine, very common that we need to watch out for.

Number one, you need to be careful not to go to bed with sinful anger. Actually, my notes say, don't go to bed. I'm not going to go to bed. Don't go to bed with sinful anger. Ephesians 4, 26 and 27 says, Do not let the sun go down in your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Don't give the devil a foothold, literally in the Greek, don't give the devil a place. Don't give him a foothold, a place that he could prop his foot, as it were. I'm not saying he has a foot, but where he could get a foothold into your life.

Don't give place, I believe the King James says, to the devil. It's a present imperative, and it's a command that prohibits something. I thought I was Carl Truman for a second with controversy. Doctrine, doctrinal.

I like that actually, kind of doctrinal. I like controversy. That's not too bad either. Present active imperative, never, ever, ever, at any time, give the devil a place. And so, what is the particular context?

Well, righteous anger, we know, is, ready for this, righteous. But it's difficult to stay righteous when you're angry. It's difficult to have righteous anger. Now, Jesus certainly had righteous anger.

He cleanses the temple, remember? Meek and mild Jesus cleansing the temple. Not so meek and mild there. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that scourging by Jesus. But getting angry at unrighteousness, getting angry at sin, getting angry at what God is angry about, isn't in and of itself angry.

Actually, there are some times you need to be angry because Paul says, be angry, and yet do not sin. So, it would be very easy to be angry and sin because it turns to prideful issues, selfish motives, how does this affect me versus how does it affect the glory of God.

Most of us struggle with that. That is just what we do. So, Paul says, be angry and don't sin. Then he says, don't let the sun go down on your anger. So, what he means by that is, if you're all riled up about something, and it's righteous, and it is good, it is profitable anger, you need to do something about it.

You need to do something about it then because righteous anger put in the crockpot turns into, very often, sin. I didn't even write that down. I just kind of made that up. You put righteous anger inside the crockpot overnight, and you're going to wake up in the morning to sinful anger.

So, here's what Paul is saying. Do something about it right then. Because if you have a righteous anger and you don't act upon that anger, then the devil can get a foothold and can take that and use it for his advantage.

And so, most of the time this verse is used with spouses, right? Don't go to bed mad. You know, you got in a fight with your wife and you shouldn't go to bed mad because you usually wake up mad. Well, I think if you got in a fight with your wife, you should try to work it out.

Sometimes, quite frankly, if it's late and you are not on your best, you don't have all your faculties working because it's 11 o 'clock, it could be best just to say, I love you in spite of all this. I'm committed to you till death do us part.

Let's just go to bed now. We can talk about the rest in the morning. I mean, there's some wisdom there, isn't there? And so, typically this verse is used. Just don't go to bed mad. But here it says, be angry and don't sin.

Do something about it because otherwise Satan gets a foothold. You don't want to have Satan have a foothold in your relationship with your family, with the church, with your spouse, or anyone else. If you are all riled up about something and you think after examination, these are healthy motives, righteous motives, this is God's glory at stake, then do something about it.

Robbing Your Spouse of Sexual Intimacy

Number two, how does Satan get into the lives of people and have opportunity to hurt people through him himself or through one of his angelic bad angels? First one was go to bed with sinful anger. The second one was robbing your spouse of sexual intimacy.

Well, I said it was going to get straight into the bedroom, and it in fact does. And certainly here on No Compromise Radio, there's a way to talk about this subject, and so that's the way I'm going to talk about it, in a righteous way.

You don't have to turn off the radio if your kids are around or anything like that. There's a way to talk about this, and I want to do it in a righteous way. I don't want to do it in a perverse way or an innuendo way.

This is a subject that we need to talk about, and if we don't talk about it, the world will. And so it's just very, very clear. First Corinthians chapter 7, Paul says, Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

And so when you study the Bible, you'll run into metaphors, euphemisms for things, and here this is not just touch, like tapping them on the shoulder. This is husband and wife together. But because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

Have, like have-have, like honeymoon night have. Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife. Celibacy is right and good for single people, back up in verse 1. I think I alluded to that as being a married couple, but no.

It's good for a man not to touch a woman. So for celibate people, for single people, celibacy is right. But for married couples who are able, of course, celibacy is wrong. It is something that deprives the spouse.

And here, not necessarily in the most romantic language, husbands fulfill your duty to your wife. You have a duty. Also, likewise, the wife to her husband. And here, fascinating language, he starts off with a man, and the culture of the day back in those days would be anti-women, women not equal, no reciprocity.

Ted, where are you? I can't talk. There's not a reciprocal nature to this. But here, of course, men and women both equal in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3 .28, and both have duties. A husband has a duty to his wife, and likewise, the wife to the husband.

Reciprocity. Verse 4, 1 Corinthians 7, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And here, amazingly, this is counter-contra-cultural. And likewise, also, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

And see how Paul puts it? Nobody has to plug their ears. Nobody has to be all embarrassed. Husband has rights over the woman. The woman has rights over the man. Boy, that is fascinating. The woman has rights over the man.

In this culture, so when people say, Paul is patriarchal, and he's pushing women down, they haven't read the Bible. But they probably have read Cosmo. 1 Corinthians 7, 5, and here's where we get into the Satan issue.

Stop depriving one another. So see, the context is, conjugal rights, that's where we get the word, conjugal rights. We have a right to the other person's body if we're married. This exclusive claim. Verse 5, it says, Stop depriving one another, except by agreement, so husband and wife together, for a time, specific time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, this is what we'll do instead, and come together again, physically, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Now, if you're celibate, you shouldn't have gotten married. But since you got married, you show that you're not celibate and that you have these normal, natural, God-given desires. The context of marriage, use those desires to the glory of God, enjoy yourself, Proverbs 5, Song of Solomon, one through, how many chapters in Song of Solomon?

Eight, I think. I want to say six for some reason, but I think there's eight. The other day, I forgot how many chapters were in Exodus or something, numbers, I had to figure it out. So here, interestingly, with command language, you rob your spouse of something that is rightfully theirs, Satan tempts.

So the program today is talking about how Satan works his wiles in the lives of people, not necessarily through the tarot cards and martyrdom of people. This is through normal, everyday situations, like in a family, like in a marriage.

And so if you think your marriage is difficult now, just say no to your spouse and let Satan in. And just prop a door open. Every night before I go to bed, I do the fatherly thing and make sure the car doors are locked.

I usually give that to my son to do now. And the doors of the house are all locked. Tuck the kids all in, make sure they're all in their little beds. Let the dog out. The doors are locked up. Get the AK out.

No, I don't do that. I wish I had one, but I don't. I think my son says, you know, they're no good now because they're only semi-automatic in the U .S. But if you think it's hard, why don't you just leave the door wide open?

We'll have a sign in there saying, you know what? Satan, you know, ravage our marriage by saying no to the spouse. Now this doesn't get the other spouse off the hook for being kind and loving and deferring and all these other things that go along with it.

I'm just trying to teach what this particular text says. Satan is not only found in Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween. I don't even know if he's found there. He doesn't even need to show up. They're all crazy.

But he's found in righteous anger that's gone unrighteous. He gets a foothold there. How it works out, I don't understand, but it's true because the text says it. And he gets a foothold in a marriage where spouses rob their spouses of what is duly theirs.

Withholding Forgiveness from Others

Number three, no compromise radio. Mike Abendroth here. How does Satan get a foothold? Number one, when you go to bed with sinful anger, when you go to bed rather with righteous anger, but you don't do anything about it.

When you rob your spouse of sexual intimacy. Number three, when you withhold forgiveness from people who ask. So Paul is writing in 2 Corinthians 2 in a context of being a spiritual father. And he's talking about willing to forgive the sinner.

Now this is a local church context, but certainly it applies to individuals, doesn't it? 2 Corinthians 2 .10. But whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ.

Verse 11, in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his schemes. Forgiveness for the sake of others. Have you ever thought about forgiveness like that? Lots of times we think of forgiveness from our own perspective and from our own perspective alone.

How does this affect me? What will this do to me? How will this affect my reputation? What will they think of me? I mean, the list can go on and on and on, can't it? But how about you love the other person, an agape love, biblical love, epitomized by Christ Jesus on the cross, dying for sinners like us, fulfilling the plan of the Father to the nth degree.

How do I think about forgiveness when I think, what's best for the other person? I'm going to give them love by forgiving them. Because it's right, it's Christ love. And if I don't, this is a perfect opportunity for Satan's schemes and he will take advantage of me.

I don't want that. I don't want to do that at all. These schemes that Satan enters in, you know, in place to your mind. I shouldn't say entered in. I don't, you know, I'm not trying to say Christians can be possessed.

But these thoughts that enter in. Withholding forgiveness when people are repentant is a play into the hands of Satan, the expositor's Bible commentary says, who already had gained one advantage when the man sinned.

There is a point at which punishment can purely be vindictive. That's what expositor says. So I ask you the question, is there somebody in your life you're supposed to forgive? Spouse, children, parents, friends, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances, did I say church members?

Satan hates forgiveness. The most Christian thing that you could ever do, the most godlike thing you could ever do is forgive someone. And so flip that around, the converse, maybe Ted could help me, the inverse, the opposite, the antonym, would be, you know what, I'm not going to forgive.

That's basically satanic. I think if I could summarize this in the New Message Bible translation by Mike Abendroth, it is satanic not to forgive. It's satanic, to withhold forgiveness is satanic. Certainly it's a scheme of Satan for you to do that.

And so, so often we think Satan, death metal music, Satan Ouija boards, satanic, crazy moonwalks or something, moon dances. But this is, these are just three very common occurrences. Lack of forgiveness plays right into the hands of Satan.

I don't want to be Satan's dupe. You want to be Satan's pawn? Then just let go, just let it go, forgive. Grant them forgiveness. One of the things that I loved about my grandparents were they were very kind to me, and I really felt loved.

I had four grandparents. At 12, I lost my first grandparent, and then the other grandparents lived until my late 20s and early 30s. I love those grandparents. The first one that died, I didn't really know so much, but the other three, in spite of their love for me, I just think they were old, bitter people.

Not professing Christians, well, they professed to be believing in God, monotheistic. Two going to a Lutheran church, the other one more Roman Catholic, straddling Lutheranism for the sake of her husband.

But they just couldn't forgive. They didn't forgive. And, you know, when you're a kid, you have tons of friends, and when you're old, you kind of die alone. I don't want that. I don't want that. I like to see people like Kim's grandmother, Grandma Evie, when she was alive, and her friends, old, and you know what?

People offended her. She just forgave it. She just brushed it off. And she had lots of friends. She had more friends than probably I'll ever have. So who wants to fall into this trap of being bitter and remembering all the things that people did to you?

Some things I can remember well, and some things I can't. I can't remember jokes very well. That served me well by the grace of God because I couldn't remember all the dirty jokes people have told me before I became a Christian.

And, you know, I know I don't really stick my nose into people's business or I'm not controversial or anything like that or blunt. And so if people are after me, I pretty much forget it. It's hard for me to remember.

Praise God that He's given me that ability. And so I plead with you today. If you, let's just go back to number one, if you're riled up about something and you think you're right in your anger and righteous in it, do something about it or turn the chapter.

Secondly, if you're holding out on your spouse because it's, if you do this to me, I'll do that for you. And if you get me, I'll get you back and I'll withhold and I'll use sex as a leverage and I'll try to make you pay.

And who do you think you are? Stop it. Ask for forgiveness. And which leads me into number three, if you're withholding forgiveness and you know you need to grant it, you need to reread Matthew chapter 18 for sure, and then grant it.

Satan hates forgiveness. God loves forgiveness. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is NoCompromiseRadio .com. Info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. And soon, podcast only, NoCompromiseRadio .com. 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 6. 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.