July 26, 2017 Show with Mike Abendroth on “Sexual Fidelity: No Compromise!”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 26th day of July, 2017.

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I'm so delighted to have returning to Iron Sharpens Iron as our guest today, Mike Ebendroth, pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts, adjunct professor at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers and the

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Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, Bowing to the Gracious Despot.

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He's also co -host of No Compromise Radio, and today we are addressing one of his books,

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Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Mike Ebendroth.

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Well, I'm so glad to be back on. I am in California today. I'm not in Massachusetts, but if I was in Massachusetts, I'd say, pleased to live in Massachusetts where even the

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Republicans are Democrats. They're the same party, as far as I'm concerned.

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What's so special about that? Somebody once told me they are, the

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Republicans and Democrats are the same crime family, different cartel. Well, I just got back from Europe.

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I spent a couple months there and was doing some Reformation 500 tours and some speaking, and inevitably,

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I mean, almost without fail, man, I would sit down for dinner with some Christians, maybe in Switzerland or maybe in Germany or England, and we would talk about the

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Lord and His Word and the Lord Jesus and theological issues. And then, you know, people say what's really on their mind for the end, and then they would look at me and say, so what about Trump?

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They wanted to know. They weren't concerned about covenant theology, hypostatic union, eschatological views.

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We want to know about Donald Trump, so it's fascinating. And in studio with me is my co -host, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. Turn my mic up now, Chris. Don't get used to it.

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Hello. Okay, you can turn me back down now. Mike, you said something about a dinner party, but is that what you were just talking about now, or is this something different?

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Oh, it was interesting, you know, how God is just sovereignly orchestrating all kinds of things and including this dinner banquet

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I went to. It was a banquet that someone invited my wife and I to, and then there was a concert afterwards, and so it was nice to sit at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center outside of Santa Cruz, California, and there were four of us, and so we had to sit next to four random people.

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And again, it's a Christian conference center, but you know, you don't have to be a Christian, obviously, to go. And we began to talk, small talk, and it was this man's birthday next to me, and he said, so are you a

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Jesus follower or what? And I thought, well, that's interesting way to go about it. He was not necessarily a

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Jesus follower, at least not the Jesus of the Bible. He was from, trained by Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Redding, California, and they had a special missionary, one man told me, at the table, and they spent the night there at his home, and then in the morning they found feathers.

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They said, what are the feathers from? And he said, they were angels. Oh boy.

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I just want you to know that my wife said, Mike, why is it that you are the theological lunatic magnet?

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Wherever you go, just try to be nice, have a nice dinner, and then all of a sudden, crazy people who exchange dreams for biblical revelation show up.

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And I just thought, you know, first I was kind of sad, because here these poor people essentially and functionally denigrate the

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Word of God for their mystical feelings. But I was mad too, because when you place anything on par with Scripture, it just, it brings out the fire in me, because that's just not proper.

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We are men and women, fallen creatures. Even though we, you know, Christians are redeemed, we still need revelation outside of us, because we are fallen, and we can't trust ourselves.

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And the Reformers would talk about extra -noth outside of ourselves. And so I'm glad for your audience and the way you teach.

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We look not to ourselves, but we look for the Lord Jesus in His Word, which is outside of ourselves.

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And Hebrews 1 says, in these last days, you want to know how God speaks? It's not through angel dust, pixie dust, feathers, or anything else.

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It's the external Word of God, and I'm thankful for that. And the Reverend Buzz Taylor has something to say.

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Well, I was going to say, if all they left was feathers, I want to know who shot them. Well, I said to my wife,

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I'm not against feathers. You know, I need a nice pillow and stuff like that, but if that is what you need for evidence, you know, people are exchanging this external evidence for the working of God.

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And it reminds me of the book of Hebrews. Can you imagine these recipients of that letter?

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They were tempted to go back to the tactile, sensual temple. Its beauty, its grandeur, its marble, its gold, the trumpets, the incense, the sacrifices.

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I mean, it just had to be a marvel. And they were thinking, you know what, why get persecuted when we can go back to that great temple?

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And the writer of Hebrews basically says, essentially says, he does say, listen, you've got

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Jesus, and so you've got it all. There's nothing more to be had. He is supreme. He is superior.

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And if you have Jesus, you've got everything. If you don't have Him, you've got nothing.

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So it just made me be reminded again and thankful to the Lord that He has shown me we need to go back to the

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Lord Jesus and who He is found in the Word and in the Word alone. And all these other people come and go, and they're just tossed to and fro.

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And so I just had both feelings of anger, how could people demean God's and then sadness.

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These people were just rudderless. You know, it's interesting. It's kind of a providential occurrence that you even brought up those feathers because I had just heard about a week ago from the woman who led me to the

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Lord 30 years ago, Susan. She told me that she was listening to Catholic radio and there was a serious discussion—and

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I do highlight that word, serious discussion—amongst the Roman Catholic panel, and they were talking about the sacred relics in the

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Vatican, and they included either a feather or feathers from the wings of Michael the archangel.

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Oh, see? There you have it. Well, I didn't see feathers when I was in Rome a few weeks ago, but I did go to a particular church, a

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Roman Catholic church, and in one little kiosk highlighted it was Mary, and the

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Latin phrase is Mary destroying the heretics, and it was Mary with this large cross.

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It looked like almost a lightsaber, and she was destroying both Luther and Calvin and their writing.

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Really? Yes. Wow. Yeah. So, but you know what?

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It's not advertised, but that's really what they believe, and you know, Council of Trent has not been rescinded.

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That's right. We have to keep reminding folks because there are many Catholics and Protestants who are ecumenically minded who behave as though Council of Trent is nothing more than a relic that you can pick and choose whatever is relevant to today as binding upon the

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Catholic church, but that is not true. This is a council that produced dogmas that the church for all ages, the

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Catholic church, for all ages is obligated to obey, and those anathemas against us still stand, and they include the anathemas regarding the

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Protestant understanding of justification by faith, and I've had Catholics say to me, well, you know,

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I agree with you. I believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, and that works are only a necessary fruit of that saving faith, and I said, well, even that is under the anathema of the

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Church of Rome. If you're a Catholic, your own church has an anathema against you because even saying that good works are a necessary sign, but they are only an evidence or fruit of saving faith, even that has a curse upon it from Rome.

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Well, it's amazing, and I totally agree with that, Chris. Here's the amazing thing. What Catholics do, and sadly some

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Christians and every other religion, what they do, we would never do in a personal relationship.

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When you meet your, you know, your girlfriend, and you're thinking about marrying her, you do not say, you know what,

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I'm going to judge you for 30 years on what kind of woman you are and what kind of cook you are and what kind of host you are, and then if it meets my criteria, after 30 years

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I'll think about marrying you. After you do all these things, then

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I'll accept you. And Christianity, Biblical Christianity, can you imagine?

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A justification by faith alone. God declares us when we're saved,

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He declares us righteous, Christ fulfills the law for us, and God sees us as if we did that, we have imputed righteousness of Christ, forensic alien righteousness, and Christ receives our sins by imputation, and God accepts us at the very beginning.

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So then, to go back to the wife analogy, the wife would be free to be a host, to have hospitality, to cook, because she knows she's already loved, and she's not trying to walk on eggshells.

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I feel sorry for my Catholic friends, when my grandmother was alive, Roman Catholic, how would you like to live your whole life wondering, am

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I accepted by God or am I not? It's a good way to grind out works, but it's an anathema for the gospel that clearly declares

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God justifies the ungodly, and we are thankful for that.

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Amen. Well before people start wondering if they tuned into a rerun, because we're not talking about the subject that we advertise,

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I think we should get to our topic today, which is your book, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, and I want to read the description that your website gives for this book, written in NoCo style, which is an abbreviation for no compromise, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

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Sexual Fidelity is internationally arranged in 30 pungent chapters, so that the readers will study one chapter per day, with the hope of establishing consistent and biblical thinking about sexual purity.

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The book's purpose is to saturate the reader's mind on a daily basis, to think correctly about sex and how it relates to Christ and His Church, and I understand,

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Mike, that this book developed from men's discipleship classes at Bethlehem Bible Church, the church that you pastor in West Boylston, Massachusetts, and this basically sprang out of father and son discussions during this study.

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Well, it sure did, Chris, and what happened was, both with the men's discipleship group, and especially with my son, you know,

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I had the talk with my son about sex and God's design, and maybe we can talk about that a little bit later, our next hour, and I said to him, listen, son, any questions you have about sex,

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I mean anything, you can ask me and I'll give you the answer. And we just had an open communication, very father -son like, you know, it wasn't on the radio, it wasn't, you know, in an inappropriate place, you know, time and places, you know, would show maturity, and so I just wanted to have a good talk with him.

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And one day he said we were downstairs lifting weights and hanging out, it wasn't some kind of, you know, catechism moment, but he just said,

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Dad, I don't think I have the gift of singleness. And so I said, all right, son, thank you, and then

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I said something to him, and I put it in a book. I said, Luke, you know, I want to help you with this.

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God's Word says much about it, and the world will educate you if you let it, but I'd like to talk to you about what the

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Bible says, and deep down I have lots of goals for you. I want you to be regenerate, I'd like you to be a wise man and contribute to the work of God, to be a wonderful evangelist, but I said,

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I also have another goal for you, and that is to have a lot of sex. And he just looked at me like, what kind of,

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I've got the best dad in the world. And I said, listen, but it's in marriage, and so let's just study what the

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Bible says, and let's study it in light of who Jesus is as well.

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That's why I almost led you with the discussion of justification of my faith alone early, because I don't want to talk about sex to be strictly moralism, or what

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Mormons could discuss, or what even Roman Catholics could discuss. There's a certain way to talk about it, and that is in the framework of all of the books of the

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Bible, in a biblical, theological kind of way. But that's how it started. So I began to talk to him about a variety of subjects, and then

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I thought, you know what, how often do I need to talk to young men and older men about this topic?

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Well, often I get asked to go speak at conferences, would you please address this in a nice manner, in a non -lewd manner, in a biblical manner.

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And so I thought, you know what, I might as well start writing these things down so we could just pass it on to anybody that could benefit.

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And so that's how the book Sexual Fidelity came about. Let me make sure our listeners have our email address if they'd like to join us, it's chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N, that's Z as in zebra, E -N, at gmail .com,

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and please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old

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USA. And obviously a subject like this may lend itself to people asking personal and private questions, and we are more than happy to honor your request to remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

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But if it's not about a personal private matter, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. What do you think that the church at large is getting wrong when it comes to this subject?

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You would think it's just a no -brainer that I think most people in the

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United States, whether they are Christians or not, they understand that biblical morality includes monogamy, and includes that sex is only for married couples, and that sex is only between a man and a woman.

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I think that even your average homosexual or person involved in that activity, or a person who is just an agnostic or atheist, they have an understanding that that's what the

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Bible teaches, not that they agree with it. So what are we getting wrong as Christians on this subject?

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Well I guess what happens, Chris and Buzz, is we as Christians we either underdo something or overdo it, and you know, 6 o 'clock is biblical theology, is the

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Bible's view of this theology of sex, and we're at 5 o 'clock, or at 7 o 'clock, or we go even farther.

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I think you'll see with the cyclical pattern of things, you know, in the old days maybe more

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Victorian, prudish, let's not talk about it. There are some commentators that I've read, even from the last 20 years, that have said it would be inappropriate to teach through Song of Solomon on a

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Sunday morning in a public setting for the Lord's Day worship. Wow. It's kind of that, yeah, it's that attitude.

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Now of course I'm not promoting Ed Young Jr.'s, let's bring a bed up on the platform. Well he did that.

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He brought it up, I don't call it even platform for him, it was on a stage, and he was trying to get couples to be together on a regular basis, and then he was up on the roof.

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And this is who? Oh, this is true, Ed Young Jr. Wow, Ed Young Jr.

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I used to, when my early life as a Christian, Ed Young Sr. was a part of my staple diet of TV evangelism, and I did for years really love and grow from the dad, not that I today would agree with everything that he taught, but I think

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I would be in largely in a lot of agreement with him, but the sun seems to have gone off the rails, I guess.

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I know, and you know what, I think he paved the way. How do you get attendance up and giving up and excitement for the

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Church, at least from the men's perspective, it seems like, sadly. They'd have these eight -week series, and of course then

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Driscoll did it, and Driscoll became infamous with his overseas talk and some of the things he would do here in the state with this topic, including his book, which

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I think said way too many things. He went over the line regarding that. So we can either, to answer your question, underdo it or overdo it.

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So I'm trying to, in a private conversation with my son, I can talk about more specific things, but in public, in the pulpit, or here with this book,

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I'm trying to just go through passages of the Bible. What does Proverbs 5 say? What does Song of Solomon say?

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What does 1 Thessalonians say when it comes to, it is God's will for your life to be sexually pure?

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Can you be forgiven for sexual sin? I have a chapter about how you can wear white on your wedding day, even if you're not a virgin, because how does

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God see you? God sees you through the perfect righteousness. Jesus was sinless in every way, including in this particular area, and so when

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God sees a sexual sinner who's been forgiven, He doesn't see them as that. They're not identified as that, and so I try to just say, let's go back to the

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Bible, because my own opinion, it will fade. It doesn't really matter, but if I want my grandkids to read it, what is a relevant truth, and that is

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Scripture, and that's why when I write books, I'm thinking, you know, this book should be able to be read in India, in Germany, in America, in Iceland by Eskimos, because it is

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God's unchanging Word, and if I throw in all kinds of modern anecdotes and cultural references to try to, quote, make it relevant, end quote,

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I'm just going to defeat the purpose, so just let the Word of God take care of itself, like Luther said in Wittenberg, when asked how did he start the

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Reformation, Luther said, I preached and I went to bed, because the

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Word of God did it all. Amen. Well, this discussion on sexual fidelity could hardly be adequate if we didn't bring up a sin that seems to be plaguing especially men, although not exclusively men, and a sin that, from what

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I hear, is even a huge problem, not only amongst members of evangelical churches, but even pastors in evangelical churches,

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I don't know how these statistics are developed, I've heard Todd Friel on Wretched give some pretty alarming statistics that I wonder how on earth could he know those things, but I've heard that this is, that pornography is a huge problem, even in the pastorate, in the conservative evangelical church, is that what you have found in some way, according to some statistics somewhere?

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Yeah, I've seen that as well, I don't know if that means, you know, liberal pastors, homosexual pastors,

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I mean, I don't know what they mean by pastor, it's almost like when you say we're going to do a study and a survey of Christians, well, what does that mean?

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Does it mean you're not Buddhist or Hindu? Or does it mean, you know, you're trusting alone in Jesus Christ the God -man, you know, death, burial, resurrection type of thing?

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So it is an epidemic, a pandemic, I can't even research it sometimes because I've got filters on my computer and it blocks it out, you know, how do you get sex information in a holy way off the internet?

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You don't want all those links, and so it becomes difficult. I do know that men struggle with it.

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Sometimes women, but mainly men, and Christian men are struggling with pornography, and maybe

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I shouldn't use the word struggle, some of them don't struggle at all, they just do it. They're remorseful afterwards, but they just do that.

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To say at the very top, I think the way pastors should treat this, though, is if somebody comes into your study and says, you know,

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I've got this problem, and it's whatever, pornography. I want to try to remind them early on that since God doesn't see them as, that's the porn guy,

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He doesn't identify them that way, then I'm not going to either. There's a long line of sinners in this church, and I am the foremost, and so I'm going to treat you when

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I see you on Sunday like another Christian who's worshiping the

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Savior, a sinner saved by grace, and I'm not going to identify you as that because I don't think that's the way the

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Bible identifies you. Now, if somebody's not a Christian, of course, it's a completely different thing, but I found as I begin to talk to the men and remind them first who they are in Christ, and what

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Jesus has done, and why it's important to trust in Him even now, and ask forgiveness, and how powerful the

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Gospel is, and how sanctification does follow justification. Lots of times

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I think laziness, it has not much to do with sex, although testosterone is driving things.

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I think it has to do with Christian men oftentimes laziness, and so I would tell my son Luke, I'd say,

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Luke, listen, you have testosterone, and it's knocking at your door, and what is it trying to tell you?

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Well, if you're playing Call of Duty Part 5 25 hours a week, you are not helping yourself, because testosterone should make you go out and say to yourself,

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I'd like to act in a godly way and go win a godly woman so I can just have a companion for the rest of my life, which includes having sex with my wife.

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That's what it's driving you to do, so if you bypass the testosterone desire for going out to win a wife and just say,

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I'm just going to get on the computer, to me that's the baseline, it's laziness. So too with a man who's married, let's say they're able to have intimacy, but the man just is selfish, and he doesn't want to win a wife.

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He obviously has the keys to her heart, he's the one who first got her to say,

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I do, and now he's just too lazy. He doesn't want to deny himself, he doesn't want to love her, he doesn't want to talk to her, and cherish her, and care for her.

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What's easier? Well, it's easier just to go downstairs to the computer, and so I see a lot of laziness, and people who are struggling with pornography, maybe you might want to ask yourself the question, am

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I lazy? Is that factoring in? So those are a couple thoughts I have about the topic. Yes, and well,

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I think that it is obvious that you have, I don't know if you ever personally had this problem, or addiction, or difficulty with pornography, but at least you took an initial step to prevent going in that direction by something you said.

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You have some kind of blocks on your computer so that you cannot view pornographic material, and therefore that is obviously a recommendation, one of,

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I'm assuming, many recommendations that you could offer to Christians to prevent either that sin from creeping into your life, or from returning to your life, and I'm assuming that another good way,

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I know a lot of folks whose email addresses are identical to their wives, in other words, they share the same email address, and that might prevent those intimate private conversations with members of the opposite sex that begin as pure and wholesome, perhaps, at least in motivation, and then have tragically turned into flirtation, and then sometimes, all too many times, manifest themselves in adulterous relationships.

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So there are things that we can do that are not foolproof, but that at least roadblocks, am

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I right? Yeah, well, I think that's important because there's some of those external things we can do.

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You're all muffled, brother, I couldn't hear what you were saying. Okay, how about now? Perfect.

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Okay, I put my phone to my shoulder for a second because I wanted to look up this particular illustration in my own book.

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By the way, I finally have a book I completely agree with 100%. Although it's interesting, when

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I first began to preach, I was preaching through the book of Mark 20 years ago, the Gospel of Jesus according to Mark, and the guys at our church didn't get it up on the website, or they lost it, or something like that, and I was very bugged.

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It took me a long time to prepare those messages, and we preached it over a few years, and I was perturbed that those sermons about the

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Gospel of Mark weren't up on the website. But now, looking back and thinking about how moralistic those sermons were, and probably filled with more law than gospel, kind of hard to do,

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I guess, unless you're an expert like me at taking the Gospel of Jesus according to Mark and turning it into law.

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So now I praise God those sermons were lost. The lost sermons of Mark. Now, if you could, you've used this term.

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In fact, it was used in a negative way on your website in regard to your book, in other words, that your book was not moralistic.

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If you could explain further for our listeners what exactly you mean by that. Sure. Well, as we just talked about a few minutes ago, there's nothing wrong with saying don't look at pornography.

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Be accountable. Let your wife, you know, see your website. If she wants to see your phone, here, check the phone.

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I mean, I don't have a code that my wife doesn't know. She said, honey, I'd like to see your texts to people that you talk to or edit your books or, you know, any kind of female conversation.

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I just say, here you go. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but, you know, the heart of the matter is the heart, and if we're just addressing things with external behaviors, then

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I think it's moralism or even pietism. If we said, you know what, I don't look at pornography,

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I don't text the opposite sex, I don't search around on Facebook, I don't stare at a girl for more than two minutes,

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I don't check her out, and we have all these things that we do or don't do, and we have the list, then we could think, you know what, we're pretty spiritual.

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We've created a new list, kind of Neo -Nomian list, and we say, you know what, we do these things and we don't do these other things, therefore we're good.

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And I think, you know what, Pharisees were really good at lists, and their heart was far away.

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And so I think a lot of this has to do with the relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and who

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He is. And I would say, if you're listening today and you struggle with sexual temptation, if the only thing you do is study books about sexual purity, study how to block things on your website, may

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I suggest you just start reading the Gospel of John and read about this great

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Messiah who was prophesied of old, who can change people. He can not only change water into wine, and He can not only touch lepers and heal them,

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He can walk on water, but He can change the hearts of people and give them new appetites and new desires.

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And God has not just justified us, He's also regenerated us. And He knows about struggling sinners, and He was tempted in every way as we are, yet He's without sin.

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And so that's why it's so important to focus on this high priest, and think even about Jesus when, you know, you have a bad prayer life.

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I could say, you know, how many hours you pray a day and really lay the law on pray without ceasing.

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And there's nothing wrong with quoting that passage in First Thessalonians 5, we should devote ourselves to the word and prayer,

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Colossians chapter 4 and Acts chapter 6. But at the end of the day, there are some things we need to think about when it comes to the

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Lord Jesus and who He is, and think about Him even praying. The Belgic Confession. Is there anybody more powerful that you'd like to have pray for you?

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Is there anybody more kind that you know of, kinder than Jesus, who you'd like to have pray for you?

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Well, if that's the case, that there's nobody better, aren't you glad that Jesus makes intercession for us even today, even about these things?

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And so I want to make sure it's a Christ -centered discussion about sexual purity and sin, not just a bunch of do's and don'ts.

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And we have to go to a break right now. If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study because everyone needs a pastor.

38:59

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

39:07

Mike Abendroth, and we are discussing his book, Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise.

39:14

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

39:20

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

39:27

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

39:35

USA, and please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter.

39:41

We do have a question from Mike, I'm sorry, from Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

39:49

He has two questions actually. The first one is, I've come to the conviction that there is no such thing as sexual addiction and that victory in the war with this particular sin is a matter of God -dependent discipline.

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What are your thoughts? Well, sometimes we use words like addiction or I've got a syndrome or a disease or something like that.

40:13

God has put it into our image that we will do things regularly, and it will become very simple for us to do.

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And so when you first drive a car, you have no habitual distinctives, and so you just, you know, turn off the radio, nobody talk, pay attention, hands 10 and 2, and pretty soon you drive for five weeks, six weeks, seven weeks, and you can just drive perfectly because God has developed us and made us as habit -forming people.

40:46

So I think we could have habits, and if you're watching pornography every day or something bad every day, then you will develop those habits.

40:54

And it seems like an addiction, but I wouldn't call it that because if you call something sin, then there's hope, and sin can be forgiven.

41:04

Can addictions be overcome? Can addictions be helped? Maybe yes, maybe no, but sin can be overcome by the power of God and His indwelling

41:14

Word and union with Christ. And so I would not prefer addiction, even though I know what the world means by it.

41:22

Yeah, and I mean, couldn't the word in some sense be rightly used? I'll give you an example. I am a person who was delivered by God's mercy from drunkenness, habitual drunkenness, and there is a difference between the person who never drinks, and then one night at a wedding or on New Year's Eve or during some celebration they get bombed out of their mind.

41:50

That is still a wicked sin, but at the same time it is different from the person that habitually every day gets drunk like I had the habit of doing.

42:00

So isn't there some way you could use the word addicted in the sense that you're not undermining the fact that it's a sin, it's not just some biochemical thing?

42:12

I know that a lot of people who are drunkards and drug addicts, for lack of a better term, they use the term addict as some kind of a way to lessen the severity of their personal responsibility.

42:31

They will use it as, you know, and the word disease is thrown around, which

42:37

I don't use, and I am opposed to people using that kind of language when they are more of a victim than a perpetrator of sin.

42:46

But isn't there some place that it is appropriate to use something like addiction just to give you the idea of the difference between somebody who gets drunk once in a blue moon and the person who is habitually drunk?

43:00

Sure, and you know, if I wanted to put biblical words on it, I might use something like ensnared, or Galatians chapter 6, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, we might say with a synonym, addicted or enslaved to, for caught.

43:16

And so I totally understand, and if somebody came to me and said, I'd like some help for my addiction when it comes to pornography or alcohol,

43:23

I wouldn't say, by the way, that's not the word we use. I would say, sure, you know what, I'd love to help, and the Bible can help you, and I would love to help you in any way.

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So I think I know what people mean when they say it, and I'm not some kind of stickler,

43:37

I just try to move them over into other words and different kind of nomenclature, you know, unrighteousness or ungodly behavior or sin.

43:48

I'm trying to think of the Proverbs, I think it's Proverbs 28 that talks about the idea, and I know it's just semantics with the word addiction, but Proverbs 28 has the idea where it says in verse 13, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

44:11

So if he said, you know, God, forgive me for my pornography addiction, I would just say, you know what,

44:17

I'm thankful that he prayed that way. And I'm just trying to use biblical terms when I can and when appropriate.

44:24

Well, Gordy, guess what? You have won a free copy of the book we are discussing today,

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Sexual Fidelity, No Compromise, compliments of our guest today,

44:36

Mike Ebendroth and No Compromise Radio, and also compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com,

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CV, BBS .com. They will be shipping out that book to you unless you are going to pick it up since you live in Mechanicsburg and you're only about 10 minutes away from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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So let us know which way you would like to receive that book. And I will ask your second question toward the end of the program if we have time because it is not related to our topic, but I will ask it if we have time later.

45:13

And let's see, we have Daniel from San Jose, California.

45:21

How far is that from where you are right now, Mike? It's called just over the hill, just by highway 17, so it's about 25 minutes away.

45:29

Wow, okay. Well, I'm not going to tell Daniel your exact location because he might ruin your vacation.

45:37

Might intrude where he is not welcome. I'm only kidding, Daniel. But Daniel in San Jose, California says,

45:43

Can you explain the biblical commands in Scripture to be sexually pure as well as what impurity can and does lead to?

45:54

That's his first of three questions. All right. Well, the one

46:00

I'm thinking about initially is 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3,

46:05

For this is the will of God. And it's amazing to me we have folks running around trying to find what

46:12

God's will is for their life. And here's a very clear one. Your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the

46:28

Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the

46:35

Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we have told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.

46:43

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. And if people say,

46:49

Well, you know what? I don't care about that. This is a new day. You don't understand where we are. We've evolved.

46:55

I find it striking that Paul then says in verse 8 of 1 Thessalonians 4,

47:01

Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God, who gives his

47:08

Holy Spirit to you. And then he goes on to talk about brotherly love. So there is a direct command for holiness and godliness when it comes to sanctification, i .e.

47:22

sexual purity. The one I think about a lot is back in Proverbs chapter 5.

47:29

And Solomon basically has a three -point outline when it comes to Proverbs 5.

47:35

And he tells his son this, and almost, you know, all the Proverbs at the very beginning of the book of Proverbs start off with,

47:41

My son. So this is a dad teaching a son, probably a younger son. And I tell people all the time,

47:49

You should probably have these conversations about sex sooner than you think because the world now is learning sooner and kids at younger ages are understanding these things.

48:00

So anyway, he says, Point 1 in Proverbs 5, Avoid sexual immorality. When it comes to sexual activity outside of marriage, run from it.

48:10

Then he says, you can almost think it's almost Pauline when it's, Don't do something, then do the

48:16

Ephesians 4, Put off, put on. Then Solomon says, I want you to enjoy sexual morality.

48:23

That is, enjoy time with your wife. And then the last point is, God is watching everything you do, whether it's holy or unholy.

48:32

And I really think when it comes to spouses of men who struggle in this area, they should take this to heart where they should enjoy their wives and discontentment comes in, or they're always looking at other people and measuring their wives against models and pixels on screens of people that don't even exist.

48:53

I love the way with cloaked language, there's nothing inappropriate in Proverbs 5, obviously, it's in the

48:59

Bible. But just with this cloaked language, everybody understands, including Solomon.

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You know what? Drink water from your own sister. Let your fountain be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely dear, a graceful doe.

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Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love.

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Just reel and rock. It's almost like inebriated with her love.

49:29

Just enjoy your wife. You know, what a wonderful picture. And then we'll get to the second question.

49:35

But what a picture of a man and a woman who are wed in the name of the triune

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God, and they go back to their hotel room, and they get down on their knees by the bed and say, God, we're thankful for salvation.

49:47

We're thankful for forgiveness. We're thankful you brought us together in your providence. And would you just bless this time?

49:52

You're just such a great God in Jesus' name. Amen. How holy, how wonderful, how we long for that for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren.

50:01

And so this is something that can be very holy and must be because God is holy. The third member of the trinity, he's called the

50:08

Holy Spirit. And so that's why there's such a demand for holiness in the

50:13

Bible when it comes to sin, because the flip side with paganism, with false religions, with prostitute temple worship, with Hollywood, it's so slutty and so defaming.

50:26

And so God says, this is not how you're to act because you are my image bearers. And Daniel also asks, can you explain the process of staying sexually pure while living in a culture that celebrates sexual impurity on television, billboards, at stores, and many times within the workplace?

50:46

How can we flee from such sexual immorality or temptation? Well, that's a really great question, because in the old days,

50:53

I'd say to myself, you know what, I'm not going to go get gas at a place where I have to walk in and they've got a bunch of cellophane -covered, you know, smutty magazines.

51:01

And then now, you know, you can at least pay outside, but you go to Germany or France or someplace where sex is basically utilitarian.

51:11

That's flown over into America now. Basically, if I had to describe the view of culture's attitude regarding sex, it's utilitarian.

51:23

What I mean by that is, when you get hungry, you eat. When you get thirsty, you drink.

51:29

And nobody says, I can't believe you became hungry and had that, let's see, what do they have here in Santa Cruz?

51:36

That macrobiotic veggie burger. I can't believe you did. And so the same thing now happens with sex.

51:47

People say, I have this desire, I have these hormones, and I act on them. Who's to blame?

51:54

Well, you know, what's the big deal? And Paul thought that in 1 Corinthians 6. And the slogan going around Corinth was, the food is for the body and the body for food.

52:04

And Paul rebukes that idea because these bodies are going to be resurrected. And you know, can you imagine living in the culture back then?

52:11

We think today's bad, but how would you like to be at Corinth? And I've stood there in Corinth, and you look up at the hill, and that's where the prostitutes were for the temple.

52:20

And on Friday nights, they would descend upon the city for worship, except it wasn't worship with liturgies and confessing creeds.

52:30

It was for sexual immorality. How devilish is this kind of system? Do you want to get close to a

52:36

God than have sex with a temple prostitute? I mean, you know, men made that up, these carnal men.

52:44

And so Paul says, you know, there's a way to be sexually pure. And I think he knew the recoil was going to be in a sexually saturated culture.

52:53

Christians are going to then say, well, you know what, maybe I should just abstain. I'm so used to being gross when it comes to being an unbeliever sexually.

53:03

I better just stop it all. And then Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, remember, husbands, wives together, whether both are

53:12

Christians, whether just one's a Christian, don't separate for that reason, because you think it's so nasty, because this is a

53:20

God -ordained thing. And how do you survive in a world like today?

53:26

I think part of it is you have the Word of God dwelling in you richly, and you're focused on Jesus Christ.

53:32

I think you have a healthy relationship with your spouse, or you're trying to win a wife. This is, you know, marriage is obviously more than a, you know, so you don't run around sexually.

53:46

But it does contain that, and so we have to just be very blunt and very honest. The only way a man can, or a woman, can satisfy their sexual desires is with their wife.

53:56

And so the world is going to say, obviously, that's wrong, and do whatever you want, but we cannot be people who follow

54:04

Benedict option nonsense and go to cloisters and communities, because we will take our hearts with us.

54:11

And so no matter how bad the world gets, I don't think it's going to be as bad as Corinth, and God still calls us to be pure.

54:17

And we're going to pick up on Daniel's third question when we return from the break. If anybody else would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

54:25

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we have quite a number of you still waiting, and we will get to each and every one of you as time permits.

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So we'll be right back, God willing, with more of Mike Abendroth and sexual fidelity right after these messages from our sponsors.

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that's solidrockremodeling .com solid rock remodeling bringing new life to your home have you been blessed by iron sharpens iron radio we remain on the air because of our faithful sponsors and because of listeners like you there are four ways you can help first do you know potential sponsors who may wish to advertise their goods or services on iron sharpens iron radio second whenever possible purchase the products or use the services that our sponsors advertise and then let them know that you heard about them on iron sharpens iron radio thirdly you can also donate to iron sharpens iron radio by going to our website at ironsharpensironradio .com

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forward slash iron sharpens today hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m

01:03:04

eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am .com

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we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor welcome back if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours with less than an hour to go is mike abendroth we are discussing his book sexual fidelity no compromise if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

01:03:46

chris arnzen at gmail .com and hopefully we will have time to include you on the line of questioners that we already have waiting to have their questions asked and answered before i return to our subject some of my sponsors have important events that they want you to know about fellowship conference new england is being held august 3rd through the 5th in reverend buzz taylor's old stomping grounds that's my co -host reverend buzz taylor who is formerly from at least during a portion of his life the main area and the fellowship conference new england is being held at the deering center community church in portland main speakers include don curran who is the eastern european coordinator with heart cry missionary society an organization founded by paul washer my dear friend pastor mac tomlinson who is an author and pastor of providence chapel in denton texas pastor jesse barrington who's been on this program he is pastor of grace life church in dallas texas which is the sister church of grace life church in lake city florida whose radio station airs iron sharpens iron radio every day in a pre -recorded format and pastor nate pickowitz who we've had on this program he wrote the book reviving new england and we are going to be interviewing him god willing in a matter of weeks again this time on his new book why we're protestant pastor nate pickowitz is also pastor of harvest bible church in gilmanton ironworks new hampshire if you'd like to register for this conference go to fellowship conference new england .com

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fellowship conference new england .com then coming up in november from the 17th through the 18th the alliance of confessing evangelicals is having their quaker town conference on reform theology this year it's on the theme for still our ancient foe obviously a reference to satan from the classic reformation hymn a mighty fortress by martin luther speakers at this conference include kent hughes peter jones tom nettles dennis k hill and scott oliphant if you would like to register for this conference go to alliancenet .org

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alliancenet .org then click on events and then click on quaker town conference on reform theology it's going to be held again at the grace bible fellowship church in quaker town pennsylvania and then we have coming up in january the g3 conference returns to atlanta georgia from the 17th through the 20th on the theme knowing god a biblical understanding of discipleship january 17th will exclusively be a spanish speaking edition of the conference and then from the 18th through the 20th will be exclusively in english speaking edition of the conference speakers include stephen lawson vody baucom phil johnson keith getty hb charles jr tim challis josh bice our mutual friend of my guest and mine dr james r white of alpha omega ministries tom askell of founders ministries anthony methenia michael kruger of reform theological seminary david miller paul trip who is going to be a guest again on this program in a couple of weeks derek thomas who i hope returns to the program soon martha peace who we just interviewed recently who will be returning god willing in the near future if you'd like to join us at the g3 conference i will have god willing an exhibitor's booth there in atlanta georgia would love to see you uh the website is g3 conference .com

01:07:35

g3 conference .com please tell any of these organizations running any of these events if you happen to investigate about these events or even register for them please tell them that you heard about these events from chris arnzen on iron sharpens iron radio and now i must do that unpleasant task of grubbing money from you my advertisers that have currently been keeping iron sharpens iron radio afloat and on the air as long as we've been on the air they have urged me after many years of not making a single public appeal for donations or new advertisers my current advertisers have urged me to come to you during a time of urgent need financially and ask you if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to provide for your local church and your family if you have uh excess resources financially that you are looking to spend in ways that you believe bring praise honor and glory to god if you if you love the iron sharpens iron program if you listen to it regularly if you enjoy hearing the guests that i interview well if you have those extra funds please consider donating to iron sharpens iron radio so that we will remain on the air go to iron sharpens iron radio .com

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click on support and then you will be given an address where you can make a check made payable to iron sharpens iron radio for any amount you choose to send us and keep in mind never ever ever siphon money out of your regular giving to your local church never put your family at risk or take food off your family's dinner table by giving to iron sharpens iron if you are really struggling to make ends meet but if you are blessed above in your above and beyond your ability to do both of those things those two things are commands of god providing for your church and home and iron sharpens iron radio uh there is no command to keep me on the air but if you are able to uh give to us we would love to receive a gift of any amount as long as you do not uh take from those funds that you need to support your church and family if you would like to advertise with us please just send me an email uh with advertising in the subject line asking uh how you can advertise your business your corporation your church your parachurch your special event on this program uh your professional practice like if you're a lawyer a doctor a dentist a chiropractor well as long as what you're doing is is uh compatible with theology that we expressed on iron sharpens iron radio i would love to speak with you about advertising send me an email to chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line that is also the email address where you could send a question right now to mike abendroth on sexual fidelity no compromise chris arnson at gmail .com

01:10:42

and before i go to the third question of daniel in san jose california reverend buzz taylor had something to say in regards to some of the last comments made before the break right the question was of course uh in how to deal with with uh sexual impurity and uh it's been a long time since i've um preached through this text so i'm not totally clear on it but uh in galatians uh five somewhere around verse 22 where you have the deeds of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit paul says very and i believe it's verse 16 he says uh walk in the spirit and he will not fulfill the desires of the flesh and then he says uh after a few verses the the deeds of the flesh are obvious which are in the very first three things he mentions have to do with sexual sins it's it's immorality which is actual acts um and then the second one was impurity so that that was specifically what our questioner was asking about about how to deal with impurity and of course his solution is walk in the spirit and he will not fulfill the desires of the flesh and he acknowledges that the the spirit is at war with our flesh but he also and i think this is where i think people need to pay really close attention to the uh temptation or the failure to have victory over it i should say is that it says also at the end of that passage that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of god so i would say if you're involved in impure thinking and that's that's where you know you've you've encountered this in the world i'm sure many times where uh there are people that no matter what you say uh they can make it dirty that that's that's what paul's talking about is impurity it has to do with just a bad attitude towards something that god has made beautiful to where everything can be made impure that person yeah absolutely and when i think about these deeds of the flesh and i was reminded of romans chapter one where we just watch the world as god gives them over god gives them over god gives them over um when i when i just see folks who are enslaved to that and aren't christians you know our first reaction is yeah it's it's us versus them kind of thing uh but even as paul then addresses the the jewish so -called righteous ones the self -righteous and religious ones when we know enough to know something's wrong then judgment comes on us too and if we perfectly obey the law fine but if we fall in any way we need christ's righteousness as well and and i think you see that in galatians 5 with paul's attitude how do we deal with sin well if it's you know unrepentant habitual sin we need to evangelize people and if people are christians who are caught up in this sin we ought to remember even as it says in galatians 6 we are redeemed people and fallen and we ought not to forget that god has forgiven us plenty of sexual sins even though it might not have been with our body it might have been with our minds i think that's just a good reminder as we deal with galatians 5 and 6 and so good words buds buzz thank you buzz and uh the third question that uh daniel in san jose california says it's a question slash comment lastly mike may not remember me but that's okay i picked up the book discovering roman's spiritual revival for the soul to purchase at this year's shepherd conference and some guy and his son walked up to me and told me that the author who adapted that book was no good the son told me he was a heretic that they both started laughing and said just joking i'm mike abendroth and this is my son so i just wanted to say well well played sir you got me i don't know if you remember that uh occurrence well i wish i would just give him the book for free then see that would have been when we have visitors to the church i regularly say you know what the people here at this church you're going to really love them i think they're going to be warm and friendly you're not going to even think it's a typical new england church and i'm just bragging about the church and praising god as he's working in our people and then i say you know if you can put up with the i think you'll be fine and then 30 minutes into the end of the service they see me stand up and preach so that's the way we roll there in massachusetts and uh by the way yeah you have a family up there in massachusetts because you've got to get them to visit the bible the bethlehem bible church in west boylston yes actually actually uh i was going to go visit the church when i was up there visiting but because of the family deals and all that stuff we just never got around to going that far to church but that's a nice way to cover up you know since i was visiting the family i pretty much had to go with what they wanted to do but i i had suggested it and i was actually planning on dropping down to see you when i was up there well next time make more of a well yeah no problem well it's interesting when you talk about sexual sin and what to do about it uh you know there's some that want to just lay back and let god or you see they just want some anointing or second blessing not that long ago i was in london and i visited john owen and uh his his tomb there thomas good one is i'm glad you clarified what you meant by that yeah i know his tomb and uh and then i also saw spurgeon's tomb and uh i just touched it and uh i had this i don't really like tobacco but i had this desire to smoke a cigar well as long as he didn't do anything freaky like benny hinn and lie down on the corpse or anything never said anything like that by the way if you watch katherine coolman an old video of her with her wife yes and then watch benny hinn with his white suit he has perfected her actions her verbiage her cadence he is definitely a disciple of katherine coolman by the way do you know i don't know i hate to go off the topic here but it'll be very brief did you know that benny hinn's nephew is a reformed baptist his name is costi in and he publicly repudiates the heresies of the word of faith movement out of which he came he is now biblically sound and uh a on the pastoral board at this uh church where he is serving uh and i believe it is in uh california if i'm not mistaken and uh his name is costi hen he's going to be my guest on iron sharpens iron on friday september 8th god willing from 4 to 6 p .m

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you want want to mark your calendars down for costi hen on iron sharpens iron radio well i did know that chris and i told costi to come on iron sharpens iron because i said you know this is my fourth time and the $500 check per appearance is definitely worth it oh if that were only true so the listeners now understand why you need money well in the book i talked a little bit about a bible verse a day keeps the sex in away and i was trying to develop the idea that you know if somebody's struggling with sin do we just give now we should be much more compassionate than that and you know here's a verse you know don't forget about that rejoice always again i say rejoice but the bible is very central as the spirit of god uses it the bible god's word for sanctification and that is why paul says to the colossians let this word of god dwell in you not just dwell in you but dwell in you richly and so i began to study proverbs two five six and seven and what's what the what the writer is doing there in proverbs he's saying listen it's a battle of the words when it comes to sexual sin or fidelity and so the prostitute and the harlot and the cunning woman uh the potter's wife kind of woman she's not going to entice you with her figure uh with her um you know other appearances physically but the focus in proverbs two five six and seven is this lady's going to come at you with your words and she's going to say things that are going to make you follow her so what solomon says is instead of listening to her words you want to listen to my words and of course the words that we have in proverbs our scriptural words are not god's word and so we do not want to underestimate the valuable role of the word of god as the spirit of god applies it by illumination and other uh conviction other ways like that the word of god's role in sanctification yes stemming from union with christ it's not our own work or anything like that but we can't just say well we're just going to kind of float around over and over and over proverb six my son keep your father's commandment forsake not your mother's teaching proverb seven my son keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you goes on in proverbs chapter two if you receive my words and treasure up my commands over and over and over my son my son listen to the powerful words from god or you will heed the lips and smooth speech of the adulterous woman and so it's really a battle of the words and if you show me someone who says they're a christian and they're struggling with pornography or sexual sin they're never in the word they're never going to have what we might say is victory over that and so we want to remind people to let the word of god dwell in them richly so that they can battle all kinds of temptation including this one by the way daniel in san jose california i believe i forgot to tell you that you have won a free copy of the book sexual fidelity no compromise by our guest mike abendroth compliments of our guest and also a no compromise radio and compliments of cumberland valley bible book service cv for crumlin valley bbs for bible book service dot com cv bbs .com

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who will be shipping that out to you we have another daniel also in california but this time we have daniel in bakersfield california and he says hello chris my question for mike is at what age do you think it is appropriate to talk to your child about sexual fidelity with one's spouse the whole idea of talking to my children about sex scares me because i'm not sure if i'm exposing them to this topic too early however i want them to hear about it from me before the world tells them what to think uh i want them to have healthy godly sexual relationships with their spouses one day thanks i'm so glad daniel you asked the question and uh if chris doesn't give you a free book you're going to have to go to noco's website to get it so i wrote a whole chapter about that topic and here's thing uh with social media and with cameras now uh that is phones in everyone's pockets i remember my son saying back in junior high dad if somebody says look at this in school i had him at home school private school public school but if one of his buddies down the street says look at this he knew it was going to be pornography and so they learn at a very young age and i wanted to to have experience with my kids different than i had i learned about this topic from a kid down the street named billy and we were just kind of you know locker room talk type of thing it is one of those times that is so precious when i the dad sat down with the child we put the other kids in other rooms and stuff with my wife sitting right next to me to have what we call the talk and i wish i have four kids i wish i have more kids than that just because i wish i could do it again it's so precious to just walk through these truths uh in the safety of a home with mom and dad i would say most of the things and my wife would chime in and you know with my girls i would say and you know what if you have any other questions you can always ask me but you probably ask mom you know these other questions and so that's the only time i ever talked about what happens physically because sexual fidelity isn't a book on how to do it and one of the risks of writing such a book is people think i'm some kind of you know christianized version of dr ruth that says you know has nothing to do with that at all now i want to hear your german accent you know and so i i wrote that chapter and said listen um it's up to you the parents but when you're starting to think i wonder if now's a good time it probably is just because of the hyper -sexualized culture that we have and it's something that you can sit down i i kind of you know i think you should use anatomical terms when you're there and what happens and the wife should chime in and you can talk about all different things that you can i'll just leave it for the book but you should be the one and you're the dad daniel i think this guy's named daniel who yes same first two both of them have the same first name yeah yeah so daniel you should be the one to say honey would you just sit with me and you pray you talk about how god made bodies differently and it's easier if there's brothers and sisters involved because then the children the oldest one knows oh yeah this is a male part this is a female part and how they're designed to fit together this that and the other and marriage is pleasing etc and we're not going to talk about this to brothers and sisters or anything like that it is a very sweet time i would say the default for most parents is it's too late uh it doesn't mean that they shouldn't do it and and talk about it from a biblical perspective but they wait and they typically wait because they're either ignorant afraid um i was embarrassed i mean i i kind of got a red face and when my wife said certain things i we laughed and giggled and but it was just sweet i mean innocent and and right and i think you won't regret it when you sit down and do that and i tell people with the book many people have asked me can i read this with my kids yes i've had men who go through this with their sons a chapter day and then just talk about it and it brings up this topic in a healthy biblical way i'd say if you've had the talk with your kids they're old enough to read the book if you haven't had the talk then there's no sense having them read the book well uh daniel number two in baker baker's field california you have also won a free copy of sexual fidelity no compromise by mike abendroth compliments of mike and no compromise radio and also compliments of cv bbs .com

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cv for crumlin valley bbs for biblebookservice .com who will be shipping that book out to you make sure that we have your full mailing address i'm going to read you a question and then we're going to go to a break and you can answer it when we return this is from a first i'm gonna have to that means i'm gonna have to study well uh it's a first time questioner although maggie in dallas texas has been listening to iron sharpens iron radio for quite a while and has been very encouraging to me for a number of years on the internet this is the first time i think that she has ever submitted a question and maggie in dallas texas says i wonder if it's been addressed that sex is the one thing that god commands not to do then commands to do it's very distinctive in that way which in my opinion gleans greater rewards for obedience my question is is the marriage bed truly undefiled no matter what so long as the activity is between the two and they both consent that's something for you to think about and pray about before you answer and we'll have your answer when we return from our final break if anybody else would like to join us i would do it quickly because we're running out of time and we still have people waiting to have their questions asked and answered our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com don't go away we'll be right back up going after these messages tired of box store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship and how about the preaching perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from long island well there's good news wedding river baptist church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of god's word and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us

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that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am

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hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives welcome back this is chris arnzen if you just tuned us in our guest today for the last 90 minutes and the next 28 minutes to come is and will be mike ebendroth we are discussing his book sexual fidelity no compromise and we are running out of time so if you want to ask a question do it quickly by sending an email at chris to chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and before the break as you know uh mike we had a uh listener from dallas texas maggie who says i wonder if it's been addressed that sex is the one thing that god commands not to do then commands to do it's very distinctive in that way which is in my opinion which in my opinion gleans greater rewards for obedience my question is is the marriage bed truly undefined or undefiled she said define undefined but it might have been a typo there it might have been because it's undefined in the sense that it doesn't have a full answer to her question no matter what's so long as the activity is between the two and they both consent it's interesting mike when i was doing my program out of new york on wnyg radio a man called it was a call -in show during those days a man called in and whispered that question and then said gotta go my wife's coming and he hung up but uh if you could that's a very interesting question it comes up a lot uh not necessarily on this show but i've heard it come up a lot uh in discussion on the marriage bed and uh i don't know if you will ever get a hundred percent agreement this side of glory on that question yeah well thank you and maggie um i know you must have had a typo but if your your uh ideas of marriage better undefined i will not define them for you hebrews 13 4 says let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed the greek word is where we get the word coitus be undefiled for god will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous that is hebrews 13 4 and so to say a couple things to start sex isn't only for procreation it's also something for pleasure people advocate sex only for for reproduction uh have to deal with this verse song of solomon proverbs 5 and other passages this sex is pleasurable for both the man and the woman in marriage and it fortifies and undergirds matrimony and they're satisfied with each other it binds couples together it gives that's what love does it wants to serve the other person i think that's the overarching principle even in pastoral premarital counseling that i would give if you're concerned about uh giving to your spouse even in the bedroom everything will work out just fine if that's your attitude versus receiving uh then you're going to run into problems and so just be um i'm trying to just be careful because there are some things i would say about the subject in private or in counseling but i just think it's inappropriate for radio and someone once told me if you ever say to yourself should i say that or not then you just don't and so there are certain things uh that of course if you're concerned about pleasing your spouse and not receiving then you're not going to force them to do things or um anything like that you'll see in scripture and that's that's one of the problems by the way of pornography with all the crazy things that go on on pornographic sites and i don't know that to be true i'm just imagining because god is at least uh we have you know i don't struggle with that problem and haven't looked since i've become a christian but uh just simply enjoying your your spouse i think of ecclesiastes nine enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun you just enjoy your wife and so just the simple pleasures of your wife and and if you're demanding things uh and expecting people to do things that they don't like to do or uncomfortable to do uh then there are some some issues i think there are some things that could spread disease and other issues like that that i would say i wouldn't recommend and i'll just uh have to leave it at that i'm assuming that oh i i'm sorry chris and what i did want to say is yes it's true maggie the bible forbids sexual activity and then once you're married the second god says uh you say i do in the presence of god these witnesses it's now commanded it's righteous it's good and does that yield the greater blessing for obedience that but that's not a bad conjecture but this is something that now god commands to do if the couple's able uh and it's a wonderful thing and it's just a foretaste of many other wonderful things that the lord has for us so and please only after you leave the church building that's so one of the things that's well you think about did you think about the old days it was a custom where uh back in the near east someone would get married um everybody would stand around outside the tent while the couple went in and um you know i'm glad we don't do it that way that is a bizarre custom and i'm also glad we don't get baptized naked anymore and then get the white robe put on us to symbolize the righteous robes of christ i think we could just talk about that picture where we don't have to actually do it and i'm assuming a couple of things about your answer to maggie there are people who are involved in marital sex but even in the um the involvement of thought of other people involved adulterous thought i'm assuming that would not be something acceptable before god and also risking uh physical injury for those of who are involved in some of the darker areas of sexual activity and i think that some of those things you might want to examine your heart shouldn't you as to why you would even find pleasure in some of those things yeah and again this is difficult to talk about on the radio but if you know a couple's been married for 30 and 40 years and and the focus is all these kind of crazy things and new things and all that stuff my i think there's probably going to be issues with with the person or the couple because uh even as i say this out loud i just say why am i talking uh let's just put let's just bring it back to where we started in the marriage bed and the door shut husband and wives have the full blessing of god to enjoy one another and uh obviously god has given you consciences uh he's given you minds and so if you're just working on trying to please the spouse and enjoy them just simple things even like uh how do you in ecclesiastes enjoy a meal you just think you know what if it's a great meal if it's a simple meal you just say thank you lord what what a sweet reminder of your goodness in a fallen world and you sit down and you enjoy some fellowship it might be wonderful fellowship it might be uh you know fellowship that you wish would just uh just take up your entire day and you just go thank you for that and so too with the husband and wife it's a good distraction it's a good fortifier it's uh of god and it's exactly what the world doesn't say uh and they don't say it's holy or righteous or anything else well thank you maggie you've also won a free copy of sexual fidelity by our guest mike abendroth keep your eye open in the mail and we also need from you a full mailing address in dallas texas where cv bbs .com

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crumlin valley bible book service can ship you your your new free book uh keep writing into iron trap and ziron and keep spreading the word in texas and beyond about the program we have rose in harrisburg pennsylvania and rose i have to enlarge her font because it's very microscopic here rose in harrisburg says hello brother mike i don't really have a question for you but i did want to say that i really appreciate your no compromise radio show on youtube your short pithy videos are a blessing do more thank you and god bless well that's rose in uh harrisburg pennsylvania thank you very much for that i'm sure mike thanks you even more than i do for that and we have joe in slovenia i recently heard a critiquing the courtship model that was popularized a few decades ago as a better biblical alternative to the typical practice of dating along the lines of secular forms while the critique recognized that within our overly sexualized society traditional dating creates many serious challenges to maintaining sexual purity the courtship model also creates too many unnecessary pressures because it front loads the whole process with thoughts of is this person i'm interested in marrying partner material in ways that are premature relative to the level and degree of involvement between young people the gist of the conversation was that christian young people need to be affirmed in casual dating designed simply to promote their being together in wholesome environments to get to know one another without sexual temptations or premature pressures to evaluate the other as a potential marriage partner both of these errors were seen as unhelpful for maintaining sexual fidelity please ask mike to comment and advise us based on his study of scripture thanks so much for your valuable ministry to us who listen daily that's joe in slovenia joe i uh have a chapter on that in the book called dating courtship and romance and i basically said i don't really care what you call this time uh dating uh courtship you know there are other things that people call it but i just gave a few ground rules that i tried to do with my own children none of my children are married uh and they're all 16 or over and that ground rules are simply number one no dating or courtship until your child's ready to get married i don't really think they need to get together all the time you know as you know alone and hang out and there's more to be said but number two no dating or courting that circumvents my the father's direct involvement i'm the leader and god has ordained that not because i'm better but my daughters have been taught that if a guy says i'd like to go out with you and uh if the answer is no thank you uh be nice to the guy it took courage for him to ask but if it's yes i'd like to your next your next statement is but you'll have to ask my dad well that kind of gets rid of about half the guys and then when guys usually ask i like to say i like to say oh you know i like my daughter too and i'm glad you want to meet with her and everything and go out with her or whatever um tell me about your job tell me about your health insurance and all that and they're like well i don't have a job i'm thinking you want to date my daughter and you can't even afford her you can't afford a co -pay so that's the second one ground rule three the couple's involvement and interaction should be done publicly not privately number four when the couple knows they want to marry each other and the parents agree don't have a long engagement and then ground rule five relax and trust god and so the biggest thing is to me parent involvement dad needs to be involved you go back to the old testament and when the daughter lost her virginity to a married man what did moses command you take that girl in front of the dad's house and stone her because it was his responsibility to guard the virginity of his daughter and children and so dads just need to be involved and i know i'm prone to laziness like every other man women have their propensities because of the fall but for men it's laziness and adam was to work and tend the garden and he fell and that's where his trouble comes and so my problem is laziness i just need to be involved and i told my daughters and to a lesser degree my son but i said to my daughters listen we've we've helped you with everything in your life we want to have you have the best doctors go to the best school we thought i think about friends you go to the best church in the world with the best pastor in the world oh well maybe not quite that but anyway we want to help you and we'll help you find the right guy because sometimes your emotions gets in the way and that's why the church is important uh the church will help you too so joan slavinia i hope a few of those thoughts help yeah i have a dear friend who's uh an ordained minister from the deep south and i can remember every time he was informing me about a new potential boyfriend for his daughter he would always end the uh the conversation with me in the same way he would say well that guy came sniffing around here wanting to date my daughter and i sat down with him had a talk with him and he never came back again that was the way he always ended the set the the conversation um well you know i i have taken potential suitors to the gun range before but that's a different company by the way i have one critique i brought this up even when i was interviewing a brother who wrote a book promoting the courtship model as the only acceptable uh godly a way to address the issue of interaction with the those of the opposite gender um i would think that if you confine the interaction of young people to courtship only with the intention of marrying i can't help but think that this is going to involve people who are only thinking at least initially of outward beauty or outward handsomeness if you're talking about the girl because if you don't know anything about somebody i mean obviously if you haven't dated them and you've only seen them from afar on the other side of the church or whatever it's going to be hard to develop that kind of a lifelong commitment mentality with them you're just going to be looking at that person and saying god has told me i want to that i am to marry this girl because she is strikingly beautiful i mean that's what i'm am i off base here it seems like it would be at least the pitfall at least one of the pitfalls to that uh very conservative approach to interaction yeah chris i think that's a good point i mean here's my philosophy god says uh regarding elders in a local church uh recognize the right kind of men and they'll make the right decisions there's not a whole lot of exact details on how to manage shepherd lead run a church you just need to have the right guys and so since there's no prescription in the bible about what parents should do they're just descriptions of course you know in the old testament samson saying go give me a wife you know that's biblical but it's not a prescription so i just think if the parents are christians and they're involved and they ask god for wisdom if they want to have some kind of dating thing or quarter corking and they'd like to have certain rules apply or they change their rules or whatever it's up to the parents and i think they're if it was my daughter i'd say let's figure out a way you can get to know this guy better or my son let's get to know uh this girl better in other ways at ministry at church or other activities before you just base it on how they look and so i would probably try to hedge the two or i guess i could just have him work for the father -in -law for seven years but he might wake up with the cross -eyed and by the way i think i forgot to tell maggie uh since you're a first time questioner not only did you win mike abendroth's book on sexual fidelity you also won a new new american standard bible compliments of the publishers of the nasb so that will be in the package along with the book by mike abendroth and uh joe from slovenia you've won our final copy of sexual fidelity uh no compromise and we thank you for providing an american address in georgia where your daughter lives where that book will be shipped and so tell your daughter in georgia to keep her eye open for a book or a package from cv bbs .com

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cv for crumlin valley bbs for bible book service .com cv bbs .com we have joe from dublin ireland and joe from dublin ireland i also have to enlarge his email because it's microscopic and it says should we expect fidelity and marriage in today's insane world the world is so messed up now with advertisements pushing kids to look sexy at such a young age and they are starting to have sex when they are in their early teens i don't think it will ever get back to at least talking about abstinence until marriage again thanks again and oh this is a different uh i'm sorry i said this was joe riley in dublin ireland this is another uh individual this is john in simsbury connecticut thank you john for your your question and sorry for confusing you with our listener in dublin ireland well uh what is your uh comment to that obviously we have to expect fidelity marriage no matter what's going on in the world right yeah you know when people are saying well you know they're going to do it anyway so give them condoms they're going to do it anyway so give them this you know hpv virus you know anti -vaccine kind of thing or antivirus or vaccine whatever it's called i just don't think that's what we do and so when i just officiated a wedding of a young couple i want to say he was 30 and she was 24 -ish and we were talking a little bit and i said you know we're almost ready to have the kiss i said privately to the couple during the the marriage ceremony and he said to me this is the first time i'll ever have kissed her and so i said can i tell that to the congregation yes it was very sweet and when i'm in when i'm in premarital counseling and people say you know what we're not we're not touching each other we're not putting arms around each other we've never slept with the girl we're both virgins i almost want to cry in my office it's so sweet to hear them talk that way and it is wonderful and it can happen but when it doesn't happen then the way people need to think about it is let's say one's a virgin and they're marrying someone who's not they just don't need to talk about that you know they don't need to discuss it they don't need to know how many boyfriends the person had or girlfriends and the list goes on and on the person just needs to say listen i'm a big sinner and i didn't happen to sin with my body sexually but i've sinned in every other way but god sees me as clean and white through the righteousness of christ by imputation and i need to see my wife or i need to see my husband as god does and that is cleansed from that area and so that happens most often you know people when they get married they have a sexual history of sexual sin and it just needs to be forgiven and moved on because you just don't need to have your mind running through all those those issues and we have seth in greensboro north carolina who says pastor abendroth as you are well aware the number of men in church watching porn is staggering even more shocking is the admission of pastors who say they regularly view porn we addressed this earlier uh how would you recommend addressing a much needed yet delicate issue behind the pulpit with women and smaller children in the audience yeah thank you for the question i'll never forget the time when i was preaching through first corinthians 7 and just going verse by verse i started off in chapter one and god's faithful and worked through chapter two and got to seven and there was kind of a which i learned later a homeschool family there maybe home church a couple of sons a couple of daughters and i just thought oh brother what am i going to do i'm basically going to say it's a sin not to have relations with your spouse if you're married and able and here's what the bible says about it and a couple that are church now and they're a wonderful couple and he just said you know what what's in the bible i need to hear i don't need to hear it in a crass way or a vulgar way or some kind of shock jock kind of thing but i just want to know if it's in the bible it's appropriate and uh with the way god speaks is appropriate and these are the words you know we believe in verbal plenary and inspiration so i think that's the way things have to be talked about but then when it comes to pornography what does the bible say about pornography you know it's not addressed so we have to think about a way to talk about it so it kind of just goes over the heads of the young ones but everybody else gets it when i used to teach my kids the bible i'd go chapter by chapter in exodus or other books and they were two years old and 12 years old and if i said the word something about sex they would just ignore it they didn't know what it was and then one day my son raises his hand he said daddy what's a prostitute and i thought well i need to address this in a way that all the kids can understand but they don't need to know more than they do and uh necessarily i said a prostitute's a woman who takes off all her clothes gets in bed with a man who's not her husband and he gets to do whatever he wants to her including touch her and my kids almost all wanted to throw up they thought it was so repulsive i i think there's a way to talk scripturally about that in a pulpit but then behind the scenes in the men's breakfast at the discipleship in the men's counseling sessions you can talk about it more frankly just about just like i would talk about what a couple's able to do in the bedroom i don't want to say on radio but i would say privately we have a listener also from greensboro north carolina a pastor sterling vander worker of shepherd's fellowship of greensboro north carolina and he just has a commendation for you chris great show as a matter of fact pastor abendroth is by far my favorite regular guest straightforward and biblically founded positions and lessons he is the best that is quite a commendation now we have to pray for the sin of pride in pastor abendroth's mind well he doesn't think i'm the best until i remember him as pastor wonder worker no we have uh let's see we have an anonymous listener in new york uh who asks is it appropriate to have sexual fantasies about a woman that you are engaged to to be married the answer is no it's sinful if you say to yourself i'm engaged to be married and the days and you're counting down the days uh for time spent with her having coffee having breakfast never having to say goodbye spending time in the bedroom i don't think that's wrong but once you start taking the next step what this is going to be like and thinking about particular details then it's wrong because she's not yours yet and uh you don't own her in the sense of her body's and and your body is hers that mutual kind of ownership and so you can't do that if if a man who's married is on a business trip and he's thinking about his wife and his reunion when he gets home that's legit because you're married it's about the spouse but this woman's not your spouse and uh i don't know what you do maybe you go run a marathon or maybe you go back to church or something but you ought not to be thinking that way and our last anonymous question uh from maine uh the questioner asks is it appropriate to have private conversations with a member of the opposite sex who happens to be your ex -wife i mean after all we have to discuss things regarding the children that we mutually have so where do we draw the line to secure purity in that kind of a relationship yeah okay fair question and what i would say is you just have to be transparent with your current wife and say obviously you know uh honey i have to talk to my ex about the kids and how to pick that when to pick them up and all that stuff you can always look at my phone uh i you know i'm not going to talk about anything except the kids and wish my ex -wife the best and i think that's going to be that that's you just have to take the high road because she's not your wife anymore and this has nothing to do with divorce free marriage you know biblical positions of those topics but if she's not your wife then you just have to treat her like anyone else and i have to talk to ladies in my life uh but it doesn't mean i can't talk to any lady it just has to be a measured conversation and appropriate well we have about 45 seconds for you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today mike sure every sin including sexual immorality is forgiven by by the work of christ his death was so great that no matter what kind of vile gross sin you commit jesus christ blood it says cleanses us and purifies us from all sin and knowing that he's such a great savior we ought to respond with sexual fidelity and purity it's never too late to repent it's never too late to do the right thing and uh there is opportunities to now teach our children and others in the church to to think properly so they can worship god even when it comes to the topic of sexual fidelity great well i want to make sure our listeners have your websites first of all the bethlehem bible church in west boylston massachusetts website is bbcchurch .org

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and as i've said every time i've read that website you have too many c's in there as far as i'm concerned but it's bbcchurch .org

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bbcchurch .org and then no compromise radio where you can also order the book that we have been discussing just click on shop shopp when you get to no compromise radio .com