No Crisis Experience Commanded #5

The point: Be scared enough of any individual act of sin, knowing it can lead to a pattern and bring reproach upon Christ.

Martin uses the analogy of a 'line' between one or two sinful acts and a pattern of life to illustrate the danger of trying to define how much sin is acceptable before one is no longer a Christian, urging fear of any sin.

And Paul says, don't be deceived. Anyone whose basic moral and ethical character is such to describe him as fornicator, adulterer, covetous man, he is not a Christian. But now someone says, well, where is the line between an act or two acts and a pattern of life? I don't know and I don't want to find out.

9:05 - 9:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Move your feet and flee fornication; don't ask God to move them for you.

The story of Joseph fleeing Potiphar's wife is used as an example of actively 'fleeing fornication' rather than trying to witness or pray while standing still in temptation.

You move them. Flee fornication. Be like a Joseph. When Potiphar's wife is putting forth her overtures he doesn't try to witness to her.

28:22 - 28:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Move your feet and flee fornication; don't ask God to move them for you.

David's sin with Bathsheba is contrasted with Joseph's example, showing the consequences of not fleeing temptation but rather lingering and indulging the eyes.

And then he fled fornication. He fled it. Just the opposite of what David did. And he came up on that rooftop the moment his eyes caught the naked body of Bathsheba.

28:57 - 29:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop playing games with temptation; if a television program is a stumbling block, pull the plug and destroy it.

Martin uses the examples of keeping tempting magazines or watching stumbling-block television programs to illustrate how people 'play games' with sin instead of truly fleeing it, highlighting self-deception.

His neck may have been sore from turning back and forth. That's right. Just like some of you allow magazines to come into your house. The first time you look at certain things and you think impure thoughts Lord forgive me we shut the magazine but you don't throw it out or you don't tear the page out.

29:42 - 30:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Pastor Clark adds the importance of avoiding rationalization, particularly the 'yes, but' trap, where believers acknowledge biblical truth but then qualify it away, effectively…

Martin uses the analogy of smelling a skunk before seeing its carcass to illustrate how he can detect the 'smell' of rationalization ('my case is exceptional') even before the full argument is articulated.

And I was out running yesterday, 100 yards before I saw the carcass of the skunk. I knew he was there somewhere. I could smell him. Right up on Fairview Avenue.

40:52 - 41:05 Read in full sermon