Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - The Path To Moral Compromise With Harry Walls and Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Jonny Ardavanis is the Lead Pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, TN and the President of Dial In Ministries. He formerly served as the Dean of Campus Life at The Master’s University and as a Camp Director at Hume Lake Christian Camps. Jonny’s heart is to see people understand and love the Word of God and more so, to love the God of the Word. Jonny is married to Caity Jean and they have two precious daughters.In this episode, Jonny Ardavanis sits down with Pastor Harry Walls, Vice President of Student Life & Campus Pastor at The Master's University, and discusses the path to moral compromise.Watch VideosVisit the Website Pre-order Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

Harry, thanks for sitting down. I wanted to talk to you about Proverbs chapter 7 in regards to sexual immorality. I think there are so many people today, men and women included, that struggle with sexual sin. And I would look at Proverbs 7 as one of the hallmark passages in the scripture that provides you with warning lights in regards to maybe temptation and different factors like that. And that really displays on the stage of scripture what the fool does as he encounters temptation and ultimately indulges in that temptation. And I've heard you walk through it before and it's been so impactful for me and for many others, but maybe just walk through

Proverbs 7 and you have such distinctive maybe principles that you've gleaned in that regard as we approach the topic of sexual sin in particular, but help us there, walk us through your kind of what you've done with Proverbs 7. Yeah. No, thank you. It is a big deal. And I think convictional clarity about the reason why Proverbs 7 sits there is because eight times in the book of Proverbs, wisdom says through Solomon, who ended up experiencing some of the effects of his own moral failure. He says the consequence of this is very, very high. It leads to death, leads to destruction,

leads to catastrophic loss. And so Proverbs 7 is given in the context of the consequences, which is how Proverbs 7 ends. It basically says the people that are impacted by the immoral woman, immorality, ends up in the place of the dead. The dead are there. And he says that many times. perspective that says, you know what, if I don't learn how to deal with sexual temptation in a way that I triumph or I succeed, the consequences are catastrophic. And I think if you start with, hey, I got to get this, like this is going to kill me

or kill everybody around me. And that's another conviction is that the pain is not just your loss. It's the pain of those involved with you when you fumble the ball morally. It might be a spouse. It might be a child. It might be a church. It might be a business. The ripple effects of failure in the battle for moral integrity are not just losses that you incur. They're losses that everybody who's in your sphere of influence, they incur. And some of them feel like absent a miracle are irreversible. I've heard children say to a father in front of me, I hate you. I'm never going to forgive you. I've seen guys and gals suffer incredible pain as a consequence of learning that they've been betrayed. And I'm going to argue that the greatest pain I've ever seen is not the loss of a life. It's the betrayal of a trust. So, the reason why this matters

is because it matters. And that's why there's so much time dedicated in the Proverbs 5, 6, and 7, chapter 2, chapter 9, chapter 23, all talk about this priority, integrity, moral integrity. So the way I see Proverbs 7, it's a morality play. It's a father to a son. It begins with an exhortation, five verses. I call it prevention, where Solomon says to his son, I want you to keep my words. I want you to treasure them within you. I want you to keep my words. I want you to treasure them within you. I want you to store them.

I want you to memorize them like cash in the wallet. When you need these words, you have them. You don't have to go looking for them. You have them stored in you. He says, keep them and live. So it's not just store them, but apply them. And keep them as the apple of your eye. Basically treat them as precious. Prioritize them as precious.

Apple of the eye is the precious part, the most vulnerable part. Take care of the word of God you've stored. Apply it and treat it as precious. Hang it about your neck. Rehearse it. Remember it because we're inclined to forget the truths that the Word of God reveals. Treat it like a, let wisdom be like a sister. Wisdom comes from the truth, the Word of God.

And it's wisdom applied as truth applied. And he says, understanding, treat it like an intimate friend. And I say, basically, the Bible, make it your companion. Yeah. Build a relationship with it. Don't just make it a book that you look at in the morning and maybe in the evening or on a Sunday, but build a working relationship with it so you could call, it's like my brother, it's like my friend, it's like my intimate companion. And then it says this in verse five, very powerful revelation, And they will keep you. The Word of God.

These words you've stored, these words you've applied, these words you're rehearsing, these words that you're building a relationship, they will protect you. That word keep there is protect like guard from the foreigner, which is the immoral because of culture woman, somebody outside the covenant group of God that lives morality in a way that people of God do not, meaning they don't have it. They keep you from the foreigner or from the adulteress who flatters with her words. So if you're going to stay away from the immoral woman who's a personification of immorality, could be an immoral man if you're a gal. The truth is, this is what will protect you. So I like to say the secret, the key that Solomon's touching on with his son is saying yes to the word of God before you have to say no to the flesh and temptations from the world in which you live. Say yes to the Bible. Why? Because the Word of God warns you like a sensitive conscience. Says, Harry, you don't need to be here. Turn that off. You need a new set of friends. It's your conscience informed by the Word of God, Psalm 19, by them, referring to the commandments of God,

your servant is warned. Warnings are worth everything if they warn you of danger that destroys. So you need the word of God to warn you. Two, the word of God satisfies you. Job said, I desire your word more than my necessary food. David said, my soul is satisfied as when I like marrow and fatness, the best kind of food, Hebrew idiom, steak and lobster tail. My soul is satisfied with the richest food when I meditate on thee, O God, in the night watches. Well, you meditate on the word of God. You get to know God. It satisfies the soul of the person of God.

And guess what? You're not attracted to lesser things because you're satisfied with the main thing. So big idea, moral integrity matters. The Word of God is a preventative that protects and satisfies. It warns and it causes you to have an affection for God that is greater than your desire for lesser affections. There's a Puritan pastor who wrote a book called The Expulsive Power. The expulsive power of greater affections. So if you love, if I love my wife enough, every other competing affection

is not desirable. It just doesn't matter. I'm not interested. So there's a proverb, Proverbs 27, 7 says, the sated man, that's the satisfied man. I just date a Thanksgiving meal man, is sated man loathes honey. Honey is a Hebrew idiom for the richest of food. I am repulsed by the richest of food. I loathe it because I'm sated. Now, my favorite food group is Krispy Kremes. And the only time Harry Walls is going to ever loathe a Krispy Kreme is if I'm so full that to eat anything will just make me sick. That's what the Proverbs are saying. If you're satisfied, you loathe the things that the world would call good, honey, because you're already satisfied with the life of God and the things of God. So say yes before you have to say no.

And then it goes on to say unto a hungry man, any bitter thing is sweet. So if you're famished, rice cakes look good because you're so hungry. So that's how it starts. And I like to say prevention, an ounce of that is worth a pound of cure. So say yes to God before you have to say no to the flesh, because you'll be able to say no to the flesh. Because dealing with the flesh, like that's why the Lord's prayer is lead us not into temptation. Why? I don't want to be in temptation. Temptation is challenging, destructive, whatever. So keep me out of trouble. Then he goes on to paint this picture. He said,

all right, it's like he says, son, I'm going to tell you how to prevent it, the path to moral compromise. And I also like to say good people do bad things. And I mean good people, Christian people who have a heart to please God. Good people do bad things, rarely intend to, but they do. So why do they? And this is the path. The rest of the passage is a morality play, a picture, an illustration of why a simple man, you called him a fool, but Proverbs actually calls him simple. And simple's different than he's dumb. Simple means he hasn't made up his mind. He hasn't thought it through. He's simple because he's morally seducible. He doesn't have conviction.

So he's going to talk about a guy, a young guy, who's simple in the sense that he doesn't have clear moral convictions. And he's going to tell a story about what happened to him and the consequences, the why and the what. So if you're looking at Proverbs 7, the first thing you're going to learn is I'm going to tell you a story about a guy I saw. I'm looking out through the lattice of my home, and I'm looking through the window treatments, and I see this guy. And I like to take away from that, I learn lessons from life, son. Wise people learn lessons from other people, not going through what they went through, but watching what they did and the consequences of it so they don't have to live it. And Proverbs 24 talks about the same thing. I'm going by this guy's field, and it's overgrown with thickets, and I meditated and reflected and I said, you know, man, a little slumber gets you this.

You become an impoverished man. He said, I looked and I reflected. So I learned by what I saw. So good people do bad things. They don't look and learn. They don't learn lessons from life. They're like bugs to a bug light. They keep running in even though three bugs ahead of them

were zapped by the bug light. And it seems like we don't learn what we could learn. So the first step, why good people do bad things, the path of moral compromise, is you don't learn lessons from life. Number two, you don't make up your mind ahead of time. I just referred to the – he said, I saw a young man lacking sense. I saw a simple man.

The word simple is open door. He's not made up his mind. He could go this way or that way. He's open-minded. He hasn't made up his moral convictional standards ahead of time. So he gets in this situation without a moral compass established. Therefore, he's influenceable. He's vulnerable.

So here's what I would tell you. Before you ever get to the place where you have to decide, you decide in advance what you will do and won't do when you get there. Because you'll get there. There'll be a challenge. There'll be a temptation. You'll be invited to that party. You'll be invited to go to that place. You need to decide ahead of time, no, I'm not going. Because if you wait to the time, you're going to make bad decisions. In the crucible of uncertainty and vulnerability, you'll choose the wrong thing. So one, learn lessons from life. Two,

choose ahead of time what you will and won't do time, wrong place. So he went by the way of her house. And Proverbs 5.8 says, stay away from her house. Don't go near the door of it. So here's the other thing good people do bad things do. They put themselves in harm's way. They flirt with fire. They go to places that no good thing happens. Hey, I'm going to Vegas. And I know all Vegas is not evil, but Vegas is known for something for a reason. And there are certain things you know that if you go to a club or certain kinds of places or you hang with certain kinds of people, you're putting yourself in harm's way. You're going near the door

of her house. You're in her neighborhood. You're vulnerable to her influence. Next thing it says is he went out at dusk, in the twilight, in the dark. And it says in the pupil of the night, the darkest part of the night. And I take that next verse to say, no one else gets you in trouble? Deceived by the darkness. The darkness which suggests that nobody will know. Job 24 says the adulterer waits for dusk because he thinks no eye will see me. Isolation and a lack of accountability created by the darkness. Nobody knows. Like me in my house with my computer screen open, nobody's around. There's no accountability.

That's symbolic of darkness. There's nobody here. There's no light. Guess what you are? Vulnerable. Guess what he was? Vulnerable. Because no one will know.

So part of why good people who do bad things do them is they don't have accountability. They don't turn the lights on. I would want people to know where I am. I would want people to know what I'm doing. I would want to be in places where I can be seen. Yeah. Because this guy waited till it got really dark.

Implied in that is I'm in the wrong place and I am in the wrong time. I'm in a time where I actually come to believe the deception. No one will know. And God says, I'm not mocked. What you do in secret, I'm going to declare from the housetop. 521 Proverbs says, the eyes of the Lord behold the evil and the good. There's no place you can go where God doesn't see you. And I'm old enough to know that there's very few places on planet Earth that you can go and not be discovered. People find out. I mean, there's all kind of promises on the Internet of anonymity, you know, incognito mode and every other kind of private mode.

Don't believe the lie that no one will know. That's what people who get in trouble believe. The next thing that you got to get from this passage, and maybe it's the heart of it in terms of understanding something about immoral temptation, it's aggressive. They underestimate and do not anticipate the aggressiveness, the availability, and the appeal of immorality. Because what it says in that passage is this woman, this harlot. Comes to him, yeah. Well, comes to him. Yes, comes.

She seizes him. She kisses him. She persuades him. Says she's by every corner. It's available. Everywhere you go, she is. You can't escape it. There's not a corner in the city.

She's aggressive. And she's available. And she makes this appeal because the biggest part of the passage in this morality play is a descriptive declaration or description of what she offers. Hey, I've offered my peace offerings, therefore I have food, I've got fragrance, perfume, I've got the houses ready, the husband's away. Let's have satisfaction tonight together. Immoral woman making a powerful appeal through a very visual graphic temptation. Now, here's what I believe you need to take away

from this passage for sure. Yes, you can put yourself in harm's way. Yes, you can fail to learn lessons from life. But whatever you do, don't overlook the power of the proposition that is coming. You don't have to be looking for it. She's looking for you. There's no safe space or place. She's by every corner. There's no computer, anything where you're totally safe. There's no part of the city or culture where you're not exposed to potential temptation. Don't put your

guard down. You're living, I like to say, you're living in Baghdad or Iraq or the Middle East. You don't know where a bomber is. You don't know where a sniper is. You don't know where an enemy is. You just got to be alert. You got to put your armor on. You got to get ready and you have it up and your eyes open. I'm not saying paranoid. I'm saying smart. So that's the heart of the lesson when it comes to, hey, she's coming. And she's coming when you maybe least expect it with powerful persuasions and aggressive actions. The other thing I take from the passage is good people do bad things, overlook the obvious, because this girl's dress says she's dressed as a harlot.

She's got boisterous and rebellious. Her attitude is obvious. Her attire is obvious, and her actions are obvious. She's that kind of girl. And I find that people, good people, Christian people, oh, I didn't know she was that kind of girl. I didn't know he was that kind of guy. Because when you're in that kind of zone, you're not objectively aware. You're vulnerable by your infatuations or your subjective misconceptions. So I like to tell people, invite accountability, enlist objective observers to help you see what you can't see. And so that passage is very vivid about a guy

who hadn't made up his mind in advance, puts himself in harm's way, wrong time, aggressive proposal. He overlooks the obvious that she's this kind of girl. And then you're seduced by her piety because she said, I offered peace offerings. Basically saying, I'm a Christian. I'm a religious girl. Yeah. And I think you can be disarmed by devotion or apparent piety. Your guard's down. Hey, that's a good Christian guy. That's a Christian girl. She comes from a good home. And you just, or I'm at church, or I'm at youth camp, or wherever, at a Christian school. So, you're deceived by the profession, but the actions deny the profession. So, you want to look for the actions, not just the verbal expressions. And so then it says he's – suddenly he follows her.

I just think people who do bad things are inclined to be impulsive. And so they follow their impulses. They're not – they haven't learned to buffet their body, make it their slave. And so there's this – and I think this is where you can learn self-discipline before you have to use discipline. It's like working out. You work out so that you're strong enough when you're challenged to actually succeed. And then I think they're exposed by ego in the sense that five times in that passage it says she flatters. You know, the adulterous woman who flatters.

She flattered him. She said, hey, I came out to look for you. I came out to seek you. I sought you earnestly. I was looking for you, and it uses the word flattery, which means to inflate with words, tell Johnny what he wants to hear so that I get from Johnny what I want. It's manipulative speech, but it's inflate you speech. And I think people who have identity, really a sense of confidence and identity, am I worth anything? Girls can fall victim to this. I'm not confident in who I am. I need this person to validate who I am. So this guy tells you what you want to hear in order to take from you what they want, but they are not authentic or sincere. They're deadly, manipulative, and they're predatory.

You know, it says in Proverbs 6, verse 26, they hunt for you like a predator hunts for you. They want to use you, and they tell you what you want to hear. And then finally, you overlook the consequences. He's like an ox to the slaughter. He does not know that it will cost him his life. So he goes like an ox to the slaughter. Do ox know that this is the last day? Does the ox know that when he goes through that door, his life is over? Suddenly he follows her and he doesn't know it will cost him his life. And I just think people don't, they underestimate the slaughterhouse of sin. So Harry, just maybe circling back from the beginning, you talked about first saying yes

to the word of God before we have to say no to temptation. And then you say there's this perspective offered where we see these principles. I think you had seven. Can you maybe just reiterate those real quick? Number one was? Yeah. You don't learn lessons from life. Don't learn lessons from life. You don't make decisions in advance, right? You don't decide what you're going to do and not do ahead of time. You flirt with fire. Number three.

You go by her place. Number four, you're deceived by the darkness. You think no one's going to know. Yeah. Yeah, I go out in the dark in the night. Number five, you underestimate. You do not anticipate the appeal, the aggressiveness, and the availability of sin. Yeah. Okay? You do not anticipate the power of that proposition.

Okay, that's number five. You overlook the obvious. Yeah. Okay? Her dress, her behavior, her actions. Yeah. Okay. That's number five. You overlook the obvious. Yeah. Okay. Her dress, her behavior, her actions. Okay. You're exposed by your ego. Okay. That's the flattery. Yeah. And I guess there was eight because number eight would be that you're disarmed by their devotion. Yeah. Right. She looks like a religious girl. I offered my peace offerings housed in that is, huh, it's a good girl. Yeah.

And then the final one would be like just not aware of the consequences. Well, inclined to impulsivity. I want to add that. I just think suddenly he follows. The Hebrew word is the blink, in a blink. Yeah. So it's like he's holding up. He's holding up until he's not holding up because he's inclined to be impulsive.

Okay. He's not learned to buffet his body. He's not learned to buffet his body. He's not learned to say no. Listen, if you have to learn to say no when you can say yes, so you can say no when you have to say no. Like I call it going to the buffet. If I don't learn to discipline myself by saying no to the many, many options, many, many times, like I could eat more, but I shouldn't eat more. So I'm saying no when I could say yes, so I can say no when I have to say no. Tracking with me? And then they do not consider the consequences. That's helpful. If you're listening, I'll put those points in the show notes with the appropriate and respective verses. But, Harry, thanks so much for your input. It's a sobering thing to hear.

And I've heard you teach on this passage before. But it causes you to take inventory of your own life and even to see kind of the areas that you're vulnerable. What are ways you flirt with fire? You know, even like I think through that in my own life. Like what are ways that maybe you're underestimating the sneakiness of sin? Sure. That it may be palatable to you. It may be culturally acceptable.

It might not be explicitly sin, but it's flirting with fire and it's slippery slope because it's near her house. It doesn't say he kicked open the door of a brothel. It says he was just walking down a street where he shouldn't have been. Maybe this will be, maybe I'll see something. It's not a wrong street necessarily. You could say this is a good path and he's kind of compromising in that regard. So Harry, thanks so much for your input. Sobering, convicting, and necessary to hear because the Bible is full of warnings. And the warning we have here is a picture of a man who ultimately is destroyed. Yeah, and so, well, thank you. And there's nobody immune, Johnny. There's nobody

immune. So, he that thinks he stands, take heed, lest he fall. So, it doesn't matter if you're a pastor or a parent or that guy or girl that's really doing good. Yeah. It says that many strong men has she cast down, many good people, people that should have had the strength to succeed. They didn't. Yeah. And if David can go down, man after God's own heart, anybody can go down. Yeah. Well, that's really helpful, Harry, convicting.

So thank you for your time and your input. Yeah, my, that's, that's, yeah, that's really helpful, Harry, convicting. So thank you for your time and your, your input. Yeah, my pleasure. Good to be with you.