S04 Ep 31 Conformity Over Faith. Why Do We Compromise?

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Good morning, Will Hardy. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. Welcome back to Man Talk Radio, folks. Thank you so much for joining us. We just would like to say thank you as we open up this morning to all of our listeners.

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It's very important we have feedback from you folks and again, as always, we thank you so very, very much for being a part of it. Will, what's on the topic today? Well, today, Roy, we're going to talk about compromise and I think when we look at compromising, there's a number of aspects we can look at, but what we want to look at is when we compromise our faith for the acceptance of someone who wants us to compromise, that's a non-believer. Or even believers, right? We even have compromised expectations from some believers because we know what's going on in the church these days.

We've talked about that. The churches are moving into the world rather than the world's moving into the church rather than the church moving into the world. Yes, and it's a bigger picture too than that because, you know, there's reasons behind why you have this influx of one and the other, you know, so it's sort of like a reaction, a chemical reaction that you can drive it one way and then you put something else in the mixture and you drive it another way and so that's what's happening. You're getting this driving effect from the world aspect in the church and then the church aspect into the world. That's a good way of putting it and we could almost say it's a toxic effect at times, right?

We can get the chemical analysis. Oh, absolutely, and so when we look at compromise, though, we look at there's one good example in Revelations chapter 2 and when Jesus Christ is speaking here, he's talking to the church at Pergamon and he says that, I know your works. This is Revelations 2 beginning in 13. I know your works and where thou dwellest even where Satan's seat is and thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful martyr who was slain among you where Satan's seats dwell. Now he talks about Satan's seat three times in that particular verse and anytime when you're talking about a seat that represents power, authority, or even a capital of.

So we talk about like the the seat of Rome, generally you're talking about the pope. So here he's saying that here you are in the midst of a place in Pergamon where Satan's seat dwells and you've kept my faith. So you've been faithful to me, but there is an exception and I don't know if you have the rest of that verse up, Roy, on verse number 14, but he goes further and he talks about that there's some things that he has against them.

Yes, we've got that and it's in the NIV version. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you. There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they are food sacrificed or they food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. And I think Roy, it's that sexual immorality piece that we want to prop concentrate on the most because what happened is recently I was reading a story that was actually on the religious news network or service and they were talking about 100 Methodist branches of the United Methodist Church that was branching off from the main body. It's because there were certain practices that the main body was accepting and these 100 branches did not want to accept. And of course mainly that was looking into gay marriages and putting people who were gay into leadership positions within the church. And see, that's a very fine line because what you have is you have a situation to where you say if you're not going to accept the people within your congregation, then you're discriminating against them on the one hand. But if you accept, you know, their views and values without question or contention, then what happens is you're saying now you're compromising your faith. So that's a very good question to the listening audience and to just us in the room is what would you do if you were pastor of a church, Roy, and all of a sudden you had a group of, you know, gay people come in and you had a person who sat there and then all of a sudden they're holding hands or they show affection. If they start showing affection with each other in the church, how would you address that as the pastor?

What would you say to them? Because on the one hand you want to show love, but on the other hand you don't want to discriminate, but then on the other hand you don't want to compromise your values. Right. That's a great question, Will, and I guess that applies to anybody that we know that would be sinning against the word of God, right? Whether it's that particular area or other things. But within this particular area, that's a great question.

Many, many pastors are facing that challenge today, and for me personally, I would have to first go to the Father in prayer about that because we know that we're supposed to love all people, but we're also supposed to stand on our standards as it relates to what we believe in, right, within the Bible. So that's something would have to be addressed by the pastor of the church because it's a public show of affection within same-sex is against what the Bible says, right? Yes, it is. It is.

It is. But I think there's that side when you come to people who want to accept that particular mindset. Now, I think when you come into a situation like that, then it has to be made unequivocally and perfectly clear that there are certain things that as part of this congregation, if you hold to this standard, when you come into our midst, that there are certain things that you basically should not do, right?

And if the person cannot accept those things, then maybe this is not the place for them. So I think that's, as a pastor, that's how I would do it. We would take it on a one-to-one basis because in today's times, Roy, what you have is you have individuals who are actually coming into a local church and they're saying, if we find ourselves hated or discriminated against, then we're going to take you to the government and saying that you're talking hate speech, which is happening.

It's happening around the United States. There's a pastor up in Canada near Alberta about four or five years ago who was basically jailed because he was preaching Romans one. And so, you know, that's that fine line. Well, you make a very, very good observation and a very good direction here for us as the body of Christ. I think the key is that we've got to love people and stand on our standards. And that's where people, most Christians have a difficult time.

You know, they think they can't love people and stand on their standards, the biblical standards, by that I mean, because God's very clear in his direction about this, very clear on how he feels about this, amongst other sins as well. So we have to be diligent in walking this thing out properly. I love the way you put it, you know, just these are our expectations as part of the body of Christ, no different than any other group of participating in. And in this case, we have biblical standards that we're following. And if those can't be followed, then it does require some conversation and maybe they need to find another place of worship.

Exactly. Because I think the tendency is, and I want to bring up this, another article that I read in 2015, the I think it was the Trinity Broadcasting Network, they featured a story on there where down in South Carolina, the Southern Baptists, they also had on their website that they're not going to no longer discriminate. And of course, you have to basically dive into that word to say, what do you mean when you say discriminate? But on their website, they said that they are opening their doors to basically everyone, regardless of sex, gender, or their knowledge in reference to what the Bible says about this or that. And if they go against that, then we're going to accept them for who they are. So ultimately, what you're going to what you're going to have here is you're going to have a conflict of interests. You're going to have conflicting views somewhere along the line, because if a person hold to a particular view, and then all of a sudden, you know that you're holding the Word of God standard, and that standard is against their view, it's going to ultimately clash. It's going to ultimately conflict. And you ultimately might have a divide within the church.

Some people say, I'm going to hold and say we should continue to love these people and do what we do because we are children of God. And on the other hand, we're saying, how can we love someone? And we're trying to uphold that standard. And ultimately, we're going to disagree somewhere along the way. How can we have a united body? As Amos 3-3 says, how can two walk together except they be in agreement? Well, like we talked about at the dinner, you have to be in one accord. So you have to be reading off the same page of standards.

In our case, it's reading out of the Bible and adhering to what God's direction is for our life. And if you don't, if you want to compromise to your word, compromise this, then it's you're going to have conflict. You're going to have disagreements.

You're going to have a parting of the ways. So I think that's what makes us so unique as a society is that we try to make everything fit for everybody. It just doesn't work that way. If you're a follower of Christ, you just need to say, these are the things that I believe in. This is the way I live my life. If you choose to live differently, that's OK, because that's your choice. You have to be held accountable, just like I have to be held accountable for my choices and my actions. So you as another individual will be held accountable for your actions and your decisions, no matter what it is.

This is obviously a hot topic right now across our society, but especially given the current decision as of late with Roe versus Wade, and they're also now other conversations are coming around that they're concerned about that's going to be rules change and that sort of thing. So we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back to you. Talking and walking Christian men's ministry would like to invite you to our monthly men's breakfast held every first, third and fifth Friday of each month. You enjoy fun fellowship in the word of God as we break bread together. The meetings are held at First Christian Church, 1130 North Main Street, Kernsville, North Carolina.

We start promptly at 6 30 a.m. and have a hard stop at 8 o'clock a.m. Come join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Welcome back to Man Talk. Will, back to the conversation. I think that's the key for all of us as fathers of Christ so that we don't get distracted as you and I have talked about many times with all the worldly issues.

And you always are great about this. Look at things through the biblical lens. And if it holds up to biblical testing, you're solid. If it goes against what the Bible tells us in biblical view, then you're not solid. If you're doing those things, it's very simple as a father of Christ. Now, we know the unbelievers, they don't hold to those guidelines.

They don't hold to God's direction because they just have chosen not to do that or don't believe in God, whatever it may be. Well, I mean, I'm glad you brought that up, Roy, because, you know, as Bishop Jackson was talking about during the the meeting on the week we had on Thursday, he he he really brought home something that really appealed to me. And of course, that was when he said, I don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, independent, I'm neither one of those. That's right. And see, and that's always been my position.

Yes. Always that I never look at groups or organizations because, you know why, Roy? Because I just read where forty seven congressman who were Republicans for Democrat. I mean, excuse me for the senator and House of Representatives are now in favor of voting with the same sex marriage rights.

And one of the senators is Tom Tillis from North Carolina. So see, this is why you can't do that. You have to look at, say, I'm not associating or filling myself with any group because I know everybody within that group does not hold the same values because they're compromising. And see, and in an election year, and I'm passionate about this, folks, but in an election year, you hear individuals who are doing this. And of course, we're coming up into an election year and they're doing it because of the votes. And then they may switch back or they may have another mindset. But their motives, the key is their motives is not pure when they do things like this. Yeah.

It's because they're not standing on a solid foundation, which is the word of God. They're moving with the wind. Absolutely.

They'll get the most votes or what the most popular thing is to put them back in office or to keep them in office. Absolutely. With the message we want to really make clear here is that you've got to love each other. And part of being a loving person to another person is be willing to speak truth into them and speak truth to them. And sometimes that's difficult because, you know, you don't want to say things that you think it might hurt their feelings or that may offend them. But let's be honest. If you're thinking about their eternal well-being, then the moment in this this earthly disruption, if you will, if you said something that may upset somebody or that that they may hurt their feelings, but you're doing it out of love and you're you're trying to get their eternal salvation secure, then it's it's OK.

I'm not saying you go out and you lambast people and do all that kind of thing. You come from a position of love, share your heart. And before you even do that, pray ahead of that conversation. Right, Will.

Absolutely. Just got to we've got to be bold in our witness, be bold in our position, but be loving and tender. You know, Jesus was loving and tender, but he was bold and he was a warrior and had no problem doing both. And that's what we as followers of Christ need to be until he drove out the money changers.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So see, there was another side of Jesus. And so we want to understand that the word of God is going to offend you. And I'm glad it offended me in my sin as well, because what happens is if it don't do that, then you have a tendency to do exactly on the topic that we're talking about, compromising what you're doing to maintain whatever standards you're maintaining and not wanting to let go of it.

And of course, you have to let go of whatever it is you're holding on to that's not getting you biblical, biblically sound and putting you in a position so you can represent Jesus Christ in the absolute best way possible. When you when we looked at that verse, Roy, and we talked about the way of Balaam and Balaam. See, Balaam, what he did is he compromised the gifts that God gave him as a prophet. It's what he did. He sold himself out for money. And so Balaam said, this is what I want you to do.

I'm going to shower you with all kinds of gifts. And of course, you can find this in Numbers chapter twenty two through verses. I mean, through chapters twenty five. That's where you can find this. But what what Balaam did is he said, I want you to go and curse the children of Israel.

And what happened is when he did that. We have to take a quick break. Folks, we're going to let you know about an upcoming event here real soon. We've got a bold meeting the second Saturday of each month held at the crossing at the Pecan Lane in Cartersville. Second, we'd like to tell you that if you'll join our website, www.tawkm.com, tawcm.com and hit the link for christianbook.com, you can make your purchases through christianbook.com on our website and it gives a little bit of money back to the ministry. We get a small fee for you accessing it through our website and it helps to support our ministry.

So please, if you have a chance to jump out there and make an order off christianbook.com. And so, Roy, what we were talking about is we were saying how Balaam and Balak, you know, got into that situation where Balak wanted to pay off Balaam and use the gifts that God had given him to curse Israel. And of course, we know the account when he was on his way and the donkey that he was riding, a mule that he was riding, saw the angel of the Lord and the mule went around the other way. And when the mule went around the other way, Balaam struck the mule and then the angel of the Lord moved into the way of the rider again. So all of a sudden the mule went around the other way. Now what's interesting about this is when we talk about and read that story in Numbers 22 through 25 of chapters, what we miss out is the eyes of Balaam was not open. But the eyes of the mule or donkey was open.

And later, later, God opened up the eyes of Balaam so he could see the angel of the Lord with the fiery sword. My point here is this, Roy, is that we are blind to the things that the Lord put in front of us because we are allowing ourselves to compromise where we stand with our Christian values. And so we are blinded to that. But others who are around us who are holding to those values, they are true. And so God is showing them things, whereas the individual who wants to continue hold to his own values or position that is contrary against the will of God, we are blinded. Well, and that individual that's holding their personal views and in connection with their Christian views, they're running a parallel run, right Will?

They've got things paralleled. I'm going to hold on to these things, but over here I'm going to think about things the way God wants me to think about. I'm going to walk it out in this portion, but over here I'm going to hold on to these things because that's what I personally believe. And we know that's wrong because you can't be double standard.

You can't be double edged. You have to die to self and follow Christ or choose to walk away from Christ. Run in the middle of the road and we know how God feels about being lukewarm, right? It's going to spew us out.

You've got to either be in or out. And Will, you make the point earlier about this whole crossing of the thought processes and what the church is, I guess, you know, starting to kowtow down to and some of these issues. What happened at Sodom and Gomorrah for our listeners that maybe don't know the story? What happened at Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, you know, that was a city of immorality. And of course, God brought judgment upon the city because of where they stood. Now, what's interesting, though, about what God said in the 15th verse here in Revelations is he said, repent. So that's what the people of Sodom and Gomorrah didn't do.

They didn't repent. And as a result, he said, I'm going to come quickly and I'm going to fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Now, notice them is those who are holding on to their own values rather than looking at what God said and turning away from compromising yourself with the world. And he says, I'm going to come quickly and I'm going to judge them with the sword out of his mouth, which is the word of God. But on the other token, Roy, he said, he said that if you overcome, he's going to give that person to eat the hidden manna. So he's going to give them the hidden manna.

He's going to give them and allow them to see things that other people cannot see because they're holding on to those values. Well, it's a lot to process. It's just a lot to process.

And folks, I know that it comes pretty heavy, you know, and it's a challenge to most of where everybody stands is the fall of Christ. You've either got to be all in or all out. It's that simple. All in or all out. So don't compromise whether it's on this topic or any other topic, whether it's drunkenness or thievery or lying, all those things.

You need to be solid. And, you know, we're all going to make mistakes. God forgives us. All we got to do is repent and continue to move on in the journey. So we thank you for joining us today. We've got just about a few more seconds.

Will any parting words? Well, I just want to thank God for the listening audience. And we certainly want to continue this because we do have other verses, Roy, that we want to talk about.

And so absolutely. And we want to we want to make sure that we don't allow anything to get away from us. We want to make sure that we don't allow anything to get away from us that we want to bring up to the broadcast.

Because I think there's something for everyone when you listen to the word of God. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches, and the public. Check us out on our website for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com.