Brandon Baptist Tabernacle

Pastor Bailey: Thank you once again for tuning in to the cherishing scripture podcast. I'm joined here today around the table with Jeremy Boggs right across from me here. Behind the camera, our sound engineer, and youth spectacular extraordinaire, Zachary Taylor.

Jeremy Boggs: He looks so great today, by the way.

Pastor Bailey: He does man it’s too bad he’s hiding behind the camera.

Jeremy Boggs: He’s got his hair nice and up and a nice button up shirt.

Zach Taylor: Are we playing two truths and a lie?

              (Group laughs)

Jeremy Boggs: Works the tongue huh?

Pastor Bailey:  Yeah, I got to point out your drink here. Turn that around, so everybody can see it. Body Armor.

Zach Taylor: He got convicted about Cheerwine.

Jeremy Boggs: Actually, so I bought a bottle of wine last night, so I can make sure that I had it for today (laughs) and I left it at home in the fridge.

Pastor Bailey: Nice.

We keep talking about Cheerwine they should just sponsor us. (laughs)

Pastor Bailey: Its good stuff. That Body Armor, to me is 10 times better than Gatorade.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah, when you first told me about these, I was hook.

Pastor Bailey: That is the best flavor right there. That orange mango flavor.

Zach Taylor: I like blackout Berry. That's my favorite.

Pastor Bailey: Yeah. You can get them once in a while Publix, you know, like 10 for $10, or something a really great deal. They are a little expensive, but they're delicious. I think it's more natural to.

Jeremy Boggs: Yep.

Pastor Bailey: So, we're diving back into Galatians. And we're in chapter number five, we've been talking for how long? I don't know, man, we've I've lost count how many podcasts we've done out of Galatians. When we started all that time ago, in the book of James, it was more of a trial run for all of us. So now we've got our legs under us. We've got the faithful few that are staying with this thing and marching forward with it and making our way through these books. And it's looking pretty good. I think. Hopefully the listeners are getting help from it. That's what matters, right?

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah. And a lot of people this morning came to me and talked to me about the one we did last week about love. And they really liked that one thought it was a little different than what we've been saying and sounded really good.

Pastor Bailey: That’s good. That's a blessing. So, you can catch us on YouTube. You can catch us on some of the other podcasting formats. They're all there you can search for Cherishing Scripture Podcast, Brandon Baptist Tabernacle, some of those words that get you to it and hopefully enjoy. If you're on YouTube, like and subscribe that always helps, helps our algorithm and so forth. So, we're diving in at verse number 19, chapter five. And we have this long list three verses long this list that is known as the works of the flesh. The Apostle Paul, it's actually what we would call doctrinally a juxtaposition because you got the works of the flesh verses 19, 20 and 21. He puts it right alongside of the fruit of the Spirit, in verses 20 to 23. So, we have worked with the flesh versus the works of the Spirit. The next few podcasts that'll be our, our subject matter here. Verse 19, ²⁰ Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, ²¹ Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. That's a big power hitting list.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Pastor Bailey: That’s pretty strong.

Jeremy Boggs: When they start threatening, not having the kingdom God or bring that up, you're going to miss the kingdom of God always hits me hard.

Pastor Bailey: Yeah.

Jeremy Boggs: You know, I like I still can't get over that when Jesus told the guys that if you were going to continuously look back, that there's no room for you.

Pastor Bailey: You’re not fit for the kingdom of God. I think the key word there is continuously.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Pastor Bailey: You know, I think that there are some things here that it's best for us to understand. He's talking about habitual sins. You know, a person who, well of course, we come to chapter number six, and he talks about making a mistake and how does he say that? Let's see if I can find that really, really quick. If a man be overtaken in a fault, chapter six, verse one, you would your spiritual restore such in one of the spirit of meekness considering the selfless though, also be tempted so you can be overtaken in a fault. And that means that you could potentially as a believer, stumble and fall make a mistake and become an adulterer, a fornicator, unclean, lascivious, the list is long here, but I think you get what I'm saying. I think what he's what he's getting at here is there can't be continuous uninterrupted, habitual adultery, fornication.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Pastor Bailey: That's the key. Of course, it's still a sin, whether you do it one time or whether you do it a dozen times. It's still a sin. But he starts out here with adultery. So that's where we'll begin. It is a work of the flesh. It's a manifestation of an undisciplined spiritual man. Adultery specifically is sexual sin. In wherein the vows of marriage have been broken. That's different than fornication. The second word there, adultery is that it's the Scarlet sand. You remember reading, you guys might have read that at school, The Scarlet Letter. That's the Scarlet a marked people back in those days who committed adultery, because they broke their marriage vows. So, we have people that fit that description that are claiming Christianity. They're claiming to be righteous before God. What's interesting about this, this list to me is where it's located in Galatians. It’s kind of situates itself right in this discussion about the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit. And he's talking about the works of the flesh, in terms of the Judaizers. So apparently, these Judaizers had this religious look liturgy that they followed after you know, and if you're if you're with us, this is the way you behave. But they were ignoring sins like adultery. Same way with the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23. They were and Matthew five, six and seven, they were ignoring the sins of the flesh.

Jeremy Boggs: Right.

Pastor Bailey: And they were using this religious camouflage to sort of gloss it all over so it didn't look so bad.

Jeremy Boggs: Remember when Jesus kind of expose them that though he said, even though you don't actually commit the actual act, but if you commit it in your heart, you're already guilt.

Pastor Bailey: The man other man looks upon a woman in his heart, he's committed adultery. So, the word for adultery, I looked that up. It's a word that let me pull up here again, it's one of those sexual words in the Greek language, it has that root word Keya. And this one is moicheía. And it's actually a feminine word in the Greek language, but it's literally referring to the breach of marriage vows, the breaking of marriage vows, and that can come in several different forms. You know, there's a big debate about those things. But adultery is on the blacklist, it's forbidden. Not a spiritual subject at all. To consider adultery, I preached this message one time when thou shalt not commit adultery, and thou shalt not commit things that lead up to adultery. You know, we all here of course, Jeremy, you're still not married. But there are obvious things that people can do that lead up to adultery, you know, things that they need to, I need to be warned, you know, that if you do this, this and this, and this, it's going to be an environment conducive for adultery. This is why I don't counsel women alone. And, you know, this is why I don't I don't ride in cars with women alone.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Zach Taylor: Right. I do that.

Pastor Bailey: My mom, my daughter, my wife that's different. Maybe even a daughter in law, that's different. But I'm not ride with a church member.

Zach Taylor: That's the same philosophy I have. We have a lady in our church that I take home, sometimes, if we're doing a podcast or something, I'll take her home. And always try to ask someone, because even though she's older, clearly older, I won't be caught alone in a vehicle with them because I mean, all it takes is one person saying something that's just untrue.

 Pastor Bailey: That’s right.

Zach Taylor: I have the same policy at school with girls, they come into the classroom, if they come into my classroom, and they're the only one in there, I'll typically try to go to the restroom or something, and I'll pull myself out of the room.

Pastor Bailey: Smart move.

Zach Taylor: I'm not in there and that's something like you said, because it’s one of those things that can lead to it and most of the time, it's, it's something that it's, it's not like a huge you just out and commit adultery one day, a lot of times, when you see these things play out, it's a little step and a little step and a little step.

Pastor Bailey: That’s exciting right.

Zach Taylor: It's the person, they're used to being alone. Then the person comes up and puts their hand on their shoulder. And then next step, next step, next step, and next thing, you know, you're there.

Pastor Bailey: Yeah, and, you know, in my counseling experience, down through the years, there are a handful of things that go along with adultery that are almost in every case, one or two or three, or maybe half a dozen of them. One of them is exhaustion, believe it or not almost every counseling case of adultery that I've dealt with in the past, either one, the husband or the wife, or both, were experiencing incredible exhaustion. And it was as if you know that that sexual sin was an outlet, or sort of a relaxing thing, you know, for them to kind of disconnect from what was exhausting them. Maybe it was their family plus career plus church plus, you know, this plus that, so strangely adultery as in my experience with counseling people Almost always goes along with exhaustion and then there are other the foolish things, you know that we do. You can't help from getting exhausted. But there are other foolish things, you know, let your guard down. One thing that has been common in almost every counseling case also is couples began to co-counsel one another. You know, you're having problems in your marriage, we're having problems in our marriage. Let's get together and talk about it somehow or another that turns into an indecent relationship that becomes adultery.

Zach Taylor and Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Pastor Bailey: And I've had some severe cases before in counseling with people that they couldn't understand. You know, what, how it happened? You sit down, ask them what happened? I don't know. I don't know how it happened. It just happened. The devil setting us up to for sure.

Zach Taylor: I'm fairly certain I know where you stand on this but just to get your opinion on it. You would also consider in this because, as Jeremy said, When Jesus spoke, he said, if you've committed it in your heart, you've committed it already. So, you would include in this umbrella of adultery, you'd also include pornography?

Pastor Bailey: Well, you know, that's interesting, because the next word fornication is the Greek word porneía, which is where we get the pornos. It means to, pornos is the is the word for sex in Greek grapha, which is the second half of the word porn pornography is, is the word to write. So, pornography in its original format was writing about sex. And that was the way you know, girlie magazines and picture books and all that kind of stuff that started so many years ago? Well, now, pornography has become an interactive, digital sin that, you know, almost anybody can get. It can be accessed on almost any smartphone or computer or laptop, or tablet.

Jeremy Boggs:  it's almost become accepted to like part of, like, almost normal for some people.

Pastor Bailey: Right.

Jeremy Boggs: You know, we've seen a lot of like, like these, a lot of these celebrities now are starting these things where they, they'll show they'll give you photos of their body and just to pay. I mean, it's normal now. And my question is, how do you how would you counsel somebody to break habits of those? And I've seen a lot of stuff on like, a lot of videos on YouTube of people talking about I think Todd Friel did something on it once about it, how to break habits of it. But I'm interested to see what you would think.

Pastor Bailey: Yeah. I mean, you know, there's been different methods, people have used accountability partnerships. One of the most effective ways that I've seen in the past is by using software, filters and things of that nature that, you know, site blockers and things that they can install on digital devices, those can be very effective, because you can network your whole family into the you know, so that, you know, your sisters are receiving a report on or your mother is receiving a report on or your wife is receiving a report on what you're viewing, those can be very effective, and then the whole, you know, accountability partnership, where you have people who just sit across the table from you and ask really hard questions. I've used that in the past. I've had pastor friends of mine that I was really close to, and we were accountability partners for one another, and I remember on numerous occasions where, you know, an accountability partner, friend of mine would say, Are you being faithful? Are you being true to your wife? Are you being you clean in your private life, so on and so forth and you either tell the truth, or they force you to lie.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Pastor Bailey: And so there, there's that kind of methodology. But look, I got to tell you something. The chaperone of the Holy Spirit is the most effective thing that has been given us granted to us. That is an ageless accountability partnership that prevents these kinds of things.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Zach Taylor: That's what I was curious on. Because I know especially with ladies, I've heard different stories of this. That they do. Group in if a husband is addicted to pornography. I think it's isn't that actually the storyline in the movie fireproof? I don't think he actually committed adultery.

Pastor Bailey: I can’t remember.

Zach Taylor: But I think he was just addicted to pornography, but I  think it's kind of along that same sentence where, in their mind you have committed adultery in your mind by watching these things, and picturing it as yourself.

Pastor Bailey: Yeah, it's a pretty sorted world and a pretty sorted conversation, you know that people have to have. James Dobson, he said that the darkest years of his life were when the Senate, the United States Senate commissioned him to be the front man to investigate pornography among young people. And he started investigating child pornography and all of those types of things. And Jim Dobson said that it was the darkest season of his life, and he was not a pornography addict. He was just investigating it, trying to find out, you know, what, the ups and downs and ins and outs of all that lifestyle was? And of course, you know, child pornography is has become a major problem. A major, major, I was in, you know, when I was in the working in law enforcement, one of our sergeants wound up being arrested. I mean, the FBI came in and busted the department, and he was looking at child pornography on in his police cruiser, on city owned computers, laptop computers. So, there's and it I don't know what it is about that there's nothing appealing about that to me.

Jeremy Boggs: When I was in high school. Our PE coach was actually arrested for same thing, child porn. Literally, they came in and took him right, right in front of us all.

Pastor Bailey: It's wicked. You know, there's nothing appealing about it, I don't understand it. But there is something in the minds of some men that have to have that they the victim, the imagined victimization of a child is appealing to them for some reason, and I don't understand it. But it is a chain that has to be broken if they're going to be set free from those things, but the word fornication pornea, is intended to be understood as the general term, you have sexual sins, that's just called pornea or fornication, but then you have the specifics that could include insist that could include fornication outside of marriage, that could include bestiality, if you can imagine how wicked that would be, that is condemned in the Old Testament, by the way, penalty of death. It was a problem, there was a problem. So, there was that then there's, you know, a host of other that rape, all of those things are included under the word fornication. So, he starts with a specific adultery. But then he moves to the uncleanness of fornication, which is a huge problem. third, and fourth words, I don't know how much further we'll make it. But third, and fourth words are uncleanness and lasciviousness and uncleanness is just a very again, it's a very general term, it's talking about impurity, it could be referring to either physical impurity or moral impurity. So, this is again, one of those ethical term’s kind of, it's always translated same way unclean or uncleanness. In our New Testament, it's an interesting word because it's acatharsia and catheter, or cathartic is the route and that's, that's the word, you know, if you have a catheter in your arm, they're bleeding out, or they're trying to draw blood or something of that nature. Or if you have, you know, if you have some kind of a, you know, you have to have a catheter at the other end of the body. Yeah, that's so that they can, you know, catheter arise out impurities and things of that nature. So, catharsis or catharsis, in the Greek language, it literally is referring to purging out the uncleanness or purging out the impurities. Well, this is acatharsia, which is a negation, that means you are not purging out the uncleanness you're not getting rid of the poisons. So that builds up and becomes a contaminant kind of poison inside of our spiritual man. In the last word is lasciviousness. Just a couple of minutes left here. Another one that I found interesting, it's kind of a mysterious word, but it's referring to physical vices, it's licentiousness. Sometimes it's translated filthy. Sometimes it's translated wantonness. And there's different ways there, but the word is, is again, referring to it Could we have a reference to a greedy lifestyle. Or to just another way of just saying an unclean life.

Jeremy Boggs: Yeah.

Pastor Bailey: But again, we have to emphasize this its talking about habitual stuff.

Zach Taylor and Jeremy Boggs: Right.

Pastor Bailey: It's not talking about a slip up, you know, I don't want some listener to say, Well, wait a minute I committed fornication. Does that mean I'm going to hell? You know, I've slipped up and it had an unclean thought or an unclean month or whatever? Does that mean I'm perishing and going to hell in my sin? You can't lose your salvation. That's not what this is teaching.

Zach Taylor: Right.

Pastor Bailey: What it is teaching, those of you are a habitual, uninterrupted fornicator and that is the governing drive of your life. Don't plan on going to heaven.

Zach Taylor: Yeah. And I kind of you mentioned, you called it the works of the Spirit. Actually, when I preached on these seven or eight verses here. When I spoke to the young people, I gave them the illustration of the garden, because they use the fruit of the Spirit, and I just referred to it as the fruit of the flesh. Because I think like you mentioned, it's not a onetime thing. But if you have planted a tree, so to speak, of adultery or fornication in your life, it's something that keeps happening in reoccurring time over time. It's not just a onetime thing. And I definitely agree with you there. This isn't just an accidental thing, or a onetime slip up but this is rather a habitual lifestyle.

Pastor Bailey: I think so.

Zach Taylor: Because it even mentioned later and we'll get into them in another podcast, but it talks about, you know, murderers, or drunkenness, not just a one time getting drunk, or revellings. So, these are things that are mentioned as like habitual things that keep happening.

Pastor Bailey: Yeah, real deal stuff. So, we'll get into idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strives, seditions and heresies. Possibly next time. That's a long list. He's not finished, then you got envyings, murders, drunk drunkenness, revellings and such the like. So, we have, we're almost out of time this time, but that's going to let us get into some pretty, some pretty in depth talking on this thing next time. So just a quick reminder, you can catch us on all of the podcasting platforms. Those are all available out there, you can go and search for Brandon Baptist tabernacle, or the Cherishing Scripture Podcast. They're all available. We also now have a radio version of the cherishing scripture radio ministry, which is something that I'm doing alone, but you guys would certainly be welcome to get included in that. That's kind of a sermon thing out of our church here. So, there's that airing on a couple of internet stations and some radio stations. We also have the website, www.Brandon Baptist Tabernacle.com. There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of preaching and teaching. I'm not exaggerating, it's there. It's categorized and, and it's chronicled there by book Matthew, Mark, Luke, john, Acts, Romans, First Corinthians, you click on the book, and there they are. So, take advantage of those if you like. We'll be back next time the three of us Lord willing together, and we're going to continue our study in the book of Galatians. Thank you for being with us Cherishing Scripture Podcast.