1585. Don’t Let Pet Sins Become Killer Monsters

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University we'll hear from Reverend Rand Hummel who is director of the Wilds of New England Christian camp in Deering, New Hampshire.

Today's message was recorded at Ministry Chapel, a special chapel session for those BJU students who are called into the ministry. Turn to the person next to you and say good morning. Say buenas dias. Say good to talk. Say hey y'all doing alright son.

Those are the five languages I know okay. All right if you've ever worked at the Wilds of New England would you please stand. I'm going to embarrass them a little bit. Just stand real quickly if you've ever worked. Look around. Look around. These are very special people and they are great.

They really are. You come say standing. You come to the Wilds of New England or go to one of the other camps. I promise you it'll change your life but all these camps that were represented don't waste your summers okay. You learn so much and maybe you'll even end up like Joe and Lindsay back there. Fall in love.

Isn't that sweet. Hey you're looking to find your next your husband your wife just go to camp. You'll usually find okay have a seat. Have a seat. Thank you. You may be seated.

Seriously don't don't waste your summers really okay. All right. How many of you know exactly how many days till Thanksgiving? Let me see your hands. How about how many days before you get to go home? Well good.

You haven't figured out. Very good. I'm proud of you. Well I do have a question. How many of you miss your mom and dad?

Let me see your hands. How many of you miss your little brother and sister? How many of you miss your dog or your cat?

Yeah that's what I thought. There's like 20 of you mom and dad. Maybe 18 brother and sister and 140 on the other one. How many of you have dogs in your house? Let me see you have dogs.

Let me see. I may have like a chihuahua or something. That's not a dog. I'm serious. Rat family.

I promise. How many of you have cats? Anybody have cats?

Oh why? I don't get I do love cats. It normally depends on the way they're cooked but I do like them. Well seriously what what happens when you feed a stray pet? Well I promise you that thing's going to stick around. We've had a number of them come by our house so we find them on the road and they're going to stick around. You're going to love them and you show them a little bit of attention. Give them a little bit of food.

They're not going to disappear okay. They can get bigger and stronger. I always wondered why God didn't just make kittens and puppies okay but he makes dogs and those other things okay. It demands your undivided attention. Come on. You do love your animals. Okay this is gross but how many of you ever literally your cat, your dog, your iguana, your hamster, you literally kissed it on lips.

Anybody here? You're weird. Weird.

They do. They demand your undivided attention. It's amazing how you end up loving them. Now they say pets look like their owners.

I don't know the owner on this one but whoo. Anyway it becomes a habit. They just want to eat more and more and more and more and it is.

It just becomes part of your life you know and it will cost you I promise you. I mean even a bag of dog food is like 30 bucks or something now you know. Now obviously I didn't come here to talk about your pets at home.

The question is this. What happens when you feed a pet sin? Now I'm going to tell you why I'm preaching this message. Christmas is coming and I can tell you of 11 churches right now in New England have no pastors because like Satan's taking us down before we even get there and there's some sins that just grab a hold of our hearts and honestly a pet sin is like it's no big deal. It's not that bad. One time won't hurt. It's not a big problem okay.

It's not as bad as other people do and we justify these things until they do the same thing as a pet. They're going to stick around since I find the law when I want to do good. I mean that stinking thought, that greed, lust, the anger. It's always there. It won't leave even though I wanted to leave.

I'm in Bible college and why is it I go to bed at night and still have to struggle with the same thing. It's going to stick around. It's going to get bigger and stronger. His own sinner iniquity shall take that means capture like a soldier the wicked himself and he'll be incarcerated Holden with the cords of his sins. It's like being captured during the days of nights and thrown into a dungeon and shackled to the wall. Literally that's the cords of sins and it's like you think you're going to die that you want to break free and you can't. That's what these sins will do. It demands your undivided attention. No man can serve two masters.

He'll love the one and hate the other, be loyal to the one, despise or look down on the other. Do you want to hear this in plain life this verse? So you go home at Christmas time, you're tired, you sleep for about four days. Then one night you're up checking some scores.

You're tempted to look at porn and you give in. This is the translation of this verse. You ready? Hey God I just want you to know for about the next maybe 30 minutes or so I'm gonna love this and at least I'm gonna act like I hate you. I am. I'm gonna be loyal to this and to me for at least a half hour to me you mean absolutely nothing. That's what this verse is saying and in regards to greed and lust and all these debilitating sins and temptations you've heard me say before I already know what you're gonna do two years from now. Guys I know what you're gonna do regarding porn two years from now. You're gonna do what you love and if you love your God and you love the people you're serving and maybe the relationship in your families you're gonna do right but if like you love you, you're gonna give into it.

You will. You can't serve both. Comes a habit. Well they promised liberty. They become servants. Total slaves to this corruption of whom a man has overcome. He's brought into bondage. He said it's so hard to live for God.

No it's not. It's not hard to get up in the morning and warm your heart with the Word of God. It's not hard to go on a walk and pray.

It's not hard to memorize scripture. I'll tell you what's hard. The way of the evil man, the way of the wicked is hard. The way of the transgressor when you girls have to go to your dad and cry and say dad I'm pregnant and I don't know what to do. Or you can't go through a day without longing for wickedness.

That's hard okay. So it will cost you. Every man's tempted. We live in a wicked world. That temptation takes a hold and you know what brings forth death. What I'm saying is these pet sins that don't seem like a big deal.

They will become killer monsters. You want to be in the ministry. That is so wonderful. I mean when I just heard you singing show us Christ. Wow that was just and I know that's our hearts desire and we're willing. Spirits willing.

Don't ever forget that this flesh is so so weak. So I'm basically going to give you four illustrations warning to be so careful. Just one puff. Officials say adolescent cigarette use is up significantly in the last decade combined with Juul, snorting, snorting hot chocolate. The only good thing is you get chocolate-covered boogers.

That's the only thing I know about that. You know why it's a problem? Because even something like what's it's no big deal. It's a cigarette. It's a joint.

It's just this big. It's not going to affect me that much. It doesn't. It's a pet sin. Seems like it's not a big deal. It does open the door to let you be accepted by friends but you have to ask yourself do those friends have a heart for God okay.

But it opens the door to many many other other things. Know you're not that you're you're the temple of God. How many of you are Christians? Let me see your hands okay.

Wow. I do a lot of counseling as you know and when I have to counsel kids who are self-destructive whether it be eating disorders or cutting with the cutting. Almost every time and I take them to the Word of God and show them how we're to glorify God in body and in spirit and that God wants us to grow holy and all these. But I normally I end it this way.

I do. This is very unique but I'll say hey now when you go home from camp sometimes Saturday I want you to go to Walmart and buy two or three cans of black spray paint okay. And then Sunday before you get to church you can go Saturday night or sneak in real early Sunday and I want you to sneak in I want you to take that black spray paint and I want you to spray all over the pulpit and all over the choir loft and the walls up front. In fact if you want to you can go along to pews and the hymn books.

And every time I say that teens look at me and go I can't do that. I said why? I said because that's God's house.

I say what? No you're not that your body is a temple the Holy Ghost which is in you. Guys your body is not yours to mess around with with the drugs the alcohol the sex it's not yours. Glorify God in your body and your spirit. Guys we've been bought with a price.

I promise you you start into this stuff. Sticks around. Two independent researchers of major studies compared nicotine heroin cocaine and alcohol get this they rated nicotine as the most addictive and the strongest in creating dependency amongst its users. They go to carrot sticks and patches and rapid breathing and all kinds of stuff just to quit. One shared that she was so addicted to cigarettes she got rid of everything two o'clock in the morning just needed a cigarette actually went down the street to the dumpster pulling out trash bags digging through them see if she could find even part of a cigarette but that somebody had left.

That's sad sad. I was counseling in Pennsylvania it was at a mental institution patients I'm sitting with boys 25 26 mind blown on drugs we had a little bit of receptivity to what I was saying just a little and then the the workers came around they got one cigarette a day and and when they gave the boy the cigarette he got all excited you know and he put it in and they actually lit it for him and I've never seen anyone smoke so I mean four drags and boom the thing was gone. It was like he got scared because it was only one that day.

He's 24 so when he puts it in his hand he starts pounding he spit on he broke it open and he kind of made like a black paste and then he started licking it off his hand. Sat in rooms with parents whose kids are coming off highs it's almost like they're deemed possessed. I'm telling you guys no one has ever ever become enslaved to drugs who refused to take the first puff. It is a pet sin that will become a killer monster in your life. Curiosity killed the cat.

Curiosity into sexual matters will kill you. Will. Jeff check around look around before you flip a channel or go to a different website. Jeff look around before you start scrolling.

What does God say? I will. Say those two words with me. I will. No I said two only two.

Your mom and dad can't do this one for you and neither can your teachers and neither can your accountability partners and neither can your friends. I will. Guys this is a decision that every single one of you here right now you need to settle in your heart. I will set no wicked the word wick is Belial sometimes capital be a name for Satan it means the worthless or worthless one. I refuse to allow anything worthless before my eyes. You say Rand I'm not doing it. I'm not involved in the sex. They're doing it on the screen. They're doing it in the movie.

They're doing it on the YouTube channel. They're. Look at the next phrase. I hate to work at them to turn aside. And even when you choose to be involved with immorality first Thessalonians 4 you're also defrauding cheating somebody else out of their purity. Talk about selfish.

Whoa. So never cling to me. I'll never cling to me. I'll never become a habit in my life. We're not dumb.

You're not dumb. They say that pornography is more addictive than most of the heroin that's on the market today. You think Peter wrote this yesterday. Having eyes full of adultery totally addicted cannot cease from sin beguiling where it means cheating unstable souls.

Last five guys I dealt with that were big time addicted to porn all started at the age of 11. That's an unstable soul. A heart they have exercised.

Gymnazo. To covetous. Thou shall not covet. Goes way back to even Exodus 20 doesn't it?

Covet what thy neighbor's wife whether she is living next door in a magazine or on a website. Sin guys. Sin. What will happen? Sticks around. Comes to college with you. It goes home with you.

You basically carry it in your back pocket. It gets bigger and stronger where you always said I can control it. I can say no now you're not sure.

It demands your undivided attention. You get to the point where I really don't care. Well mom says dad said I don't care what my future wife says. I don't care. I don't want to get caught because I won't be embarrassed because the consequences.

I don't care. Becomes a habit. You can't go a day without looking. And I'll tell you what it'll cost you. It'll cost you everything that you love. Will.

Everything. So I'm in my office. Young mom.

Couple kids. I'm talking to her husband on the phone. Why? He's a friend of mine. Pastor. He's in prison because he couldn't keep his stinking hands off other people's kids. You think he woke up one morning said I'm gonna throw my family away in my ministry. I'm gonna go and molest a couple kids.

No way. When he was 11, 12, 13 he started peeking around sneaking around. Then at 15, 16 he never quit. At 17, 18, 19 goes off to college. Now he has more freedom.

Nobody's watching. He keeps looking. He gets into his 20s and every single time his flesh cries out he says yes yes yes yes. Till the biggie comes and he can't say no. The last I heard that guy's got another 15 or 20 year sentence. Did you know that no one has ever lost their family and friends in testimony to the evils of pornography who refused to take the first peek?

No one. It's a pet sin to become a killer monster. Just one kiss.

Now Princess Bride is the greatest movie ever. And of all the kisses, okay, I understand it. You know what I mean when I say kiss.

In fact I understand some countries have this thing called Arouski where the men with big beards come up and kiss you on the lips. This is the will of God. What's God's will for my life? Your sanctification. That you abstain from all sexual sin. And every one of you guys know how to possess your body. You know when the feeling starts to arise. You know when you get in a situation. You know!

But you need to know this to the point where you can honor God in sanctification and others in honor. Not in passionate lust. As you see at the end of the verse, you guys that go home and get involved immorally, you're acting like an unsafe person.

Yeah. Nobody talks about STDs. They don't want to. We hear a lot about AIDS, but we don't talk about syphilis and gonorrhea and herpes. Guys, if the girl is so stinking selfish that she would sleep with you, she's probably been that selfish with somebody else who's been with somebody else. Same thing for the guys, girls. By the way, girls, if a guy insists on being involved physically with you, he doesn't love you.

He loves himself. You say, Ren, how do you know? If you truly love somebody, you will never ever do anything to hurt that person. Flee fornication. Every man sins, and without the body, he commits fornication and sins against his own body. In my mind, I'm thinking I'm going to run out of time, I know, but this is such a burden because I'm in office when you guys come crying. Say, Ren, I blew it. You can choose your sin, but you cannot choose the consequences of your sin.

You got it? And you lose all confidence. I'm just, I don't even hardly, other than you look at the scripture, God tells us what to do.

You've been bought with a price. Just love each enough to double date, triple date, go in groups of 50 or 60, do whatever you need to to stay pure, okay? You don't have to do this.

You don't, okay? And again, if you go home, girls, your boyfriend is like really big time wanting to be involved. I'm not being mean, but guys, you have to be honest.

If he wants to be involved physically, you can mark it down, what he's watching and thinking when he's all by himself. Because if it never starts in the mind, it doesn't come out in the body. And I'm telling you, being involved physically is a pet sin, and it will.

You'll become a killer monster. No one has ever gotten pregnant, contracted an STD, contemplated abortion, or broken the parent's heart by keeping their hands off of each other and refusing to be physically involved. No one.

One more. Nobody likes talking about drinking either, do they? Kid comes by, he's 15, man, you can't prove to me that the wine that Jesus made was non-alcoholic. I said, dude, how old are you? I'm 15, do your parents want you to drink?

That's what I'm asking. You can't prove, I said, stop, how old are you? 15, your parents want you to drink. Children obey your parents, get out of here, okay? And by the way, I can't prove you, I wasn't there, I'm not that old, okay? I have been told that it was alcoholic, but you had to drink like 78 gallons in one day in order to get drunk from it, okay?

That's not the question, not at all. Usually you start drinking because you want to be accepted, it has nothing to do with the alcohol. I want to be liked, I want to be accepted, I want to be loved, I want to have friends, and these friends, you go to the party and you say, I'm not going to drink the beer, I'm just going to hold it, or maybe I'll pretend and touch my lips with it, and it's just because it makes me a little bit cool and so forth.

God has a lot to say about this, sometimes you look at these passages in Isaiah, even the word woe, woe, this is like bad, this has consequences. Who hath woe, sorrow, broken hearts, contentions, babbling, fighting, those that are consumed with alcohol. Once you start drinking and you say yes to your friends, it's almost impossible to say no the next time.

You've already done it. You want to be accepted, you want to laugh at you, it gets bigger and stronger before you know it, you're drinking by yourself and nobody else is around, I promise it will cost. But I've never preached this message when I haven't had somebody want to argue with me, they didn't grow up like I did.

I was raised by my grandparents and my grandfather was a very, very heavy drinker. So you want to argue, first of all, I don't want you to tell one of our counselors named Tim. He's the only Christian in his family, his parents thought it'd be cute to get his 14-year-old brother drunk on Christmas Eve, got some hard liquors, got him drinking, he fell asleep, they went to bed, Tim went in another room, he couldn't stand it.

About the middle of the night he heard a strange noise, he went back in the living room, his brother was so drunk he was laying on his back vomiting he would have suffocated himself if Tim hadn't been there to roll him over. Don't ask Julie. Julie said, Ran, the wilds is my favorite, favorite place all year round.

I look forward to it for six months and then I remember all the fun I had for six months. She came to Bob Jones University and a friend literally started fishing with her dad and led her dad to the Lord. They started sharing the book of Psalms together and she was home for her little sister's graduation party. She said, Ran, we were walking across the road to where the party was on the other side of the barn and we heard a strange noise and the truck comes flying around the corner of two drunken teenage boys. All I remember is dad pushing me against the bank. They hit my dad and I raced over and grabbed his head, he smiled at me and he died. And within context, did you know seventy-two percent of all aggravated rapes are alcohol related?

Honestly, no one has ever gotten drunk destroying their own lives along with many others by refusing to take the first drink. It's 1135, I want to finish with this. I want to teach you three words, please get these. If your three-year-old brother comes to you, picks his nose and offers it to you, what do you say? Three words, no thank you. Say it, no thank you.

Let me tell you the power of no thank you over no. Hey, you want beer? No. Are you scared?

Your mommy's gonna be mad at you, you don't think you can handle it? Or, hey you want a beer? No. Oh, you think you're better than us?

Both of them put you on the edge. Hey, you want a beer? No, thank you. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm good.

No, thank you. I'm good. Really? You don't drink? No. Why? I could tell you if you want me to. I want to know.

I grew up watching my grandfather throw my grandma across the room and smash things. I promised God before I knew it, the Bible said that I would never get involved in that stuff. No, thank you. I want you guys to enjoy what I've had the privilege to enjoy for 41 years, serving God and loving kids. But you throw it all away because of this stuff. Sin is stupid too, it is.

So don't let these pet sins become killer monsters. God bless you, you are dismissed. You've been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University by Rand Hummel, camp director of the Wilds of New England. You can learn more about Rand and also subscribe to his daily meditations by going to RandHummel.com. That's R-A-N-D-H-U-M-M-E-L dot com. If you're looking for a college, please consider Bob Jones University, where our Christian liberal arts education will prepare you academically and spiritually to reach your highest potential for God's glory. For more information about our more than 100 accredited undergraduate and graduate programs, visit bju.edu or call 800-252-6363. Thanks for listening and join us next week for more Chappell messages from Bob Jones University on The Daily Platform.