Join us now for the chapel hour coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Our speaker today is Reverend Bill Lytell, pastor of Gospel Baptist Church in Bonita Springs, Florida. The title of his message is Don't Feed the Dolphins. The text is from John chapter 8, verse 34. Take your Bibles, if you will. Turn to John chapter 8, John chapter 8. And verse 34, John 8, verse 34, Jesus' words, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. My brother and I fish quite a bit. Not as much as I'd like to. They allow me to have one day a week off. And many of those days I work, but once in a while I get off Go out into the boat where I have the privilege of living in South Florida where the water is very close and where the hurricanes come by also. I have that privilege. And we went out one day fishing and I noticed a dolphin, often called a porpoise, came up beside the boat. And it's rare to see a dolphin more than just up and down as they come to breathe. And the dolphin came up and he stuck his head up. And you know, they are mammals. And so you, uh, they kind of look at you, you know, they give it, they turned his side and put his eye on me. And they're, they have good vision and one of the smartest of those kind of creatures. And he just sat there and I've never seen that. I've never seen a wild porpoise stationary in the water. So I kept fishing and I hooked a trout and as I brought the trout in, I noticed that he went down and, you know, that bothered me a little bit. And I hurried up and got the trout in, and there he comes up right beside the boat, and he looks at me. And that one eye, you know, just put the one eye on you. And I thought, well, what do you want? Took the trout off, threw him back in, boom. He had the trout. I thought, what in the world? I couldn't get rid of that porpoise. I mean, he was mine. He was my pet all day long. In fact, that's not good, because wherever the porpoise are, the fish take off. And so that was an unusual experience for me, once actually in a lifetime experience. My brother and I, as I told you yesterday, we lobster down in Key West, go to the Marquesa Islands, which are uninhabited, all the way to the Tortugas. Sometimes in diving area, they have little signs up and the pathways that you make in the back country. And it was a couple of years ago that I went through this area we had gone through. We've been doing that for 26 years consecutively. And so we know the area fairly well. And I went by this one sign, and it said, don't feed the dolphins. And it had a circle with a line through it. You've all seen one of those, right? Circle with a line through it. This is a way to say no, but don't feed the dolphins. And I passed that sign maybe 20 times before I told my brother, I said, we've got to stop. I've got to read the fine print on that thing. Why wouldn't they want you to feed the dolphins? So we stopped and read the sign. And it was a warning sign not to feed the dolphins because if you fed them, you would eventually cause their untimely death. And I thought, how in the world can feeding them hurt them? I mean, wouldn't it be helping them to be able to, you know, off their laborious way of catching fish and have to hunt all day? But feeding the dolphins is actually terminal to them. What does feeding the dolphins do? It does at least five things. Let me list these for you because they have a spiritual application. I believe it was Barnhouse said years ago, I read an illustration book, and I'm all through illustration books all the time. He said that everything in nature illustrates the truth of God. That makes sense to me because God made everything. Now, those things are not God, but they're a reflection of who he is. He's the architect of all we see. The robin has some truth that you can learn from the robin. Right now in Florida we have tens of thousands of robins. I mean, just more than we've ever had in the time I've lived there. And I always felt how smart the birds were compared to humans. Anyway, there's five areas that you can learn that feeding the dolphins harms them. Number one, By feeding a dolphin, they lose their natural desire for what God has provided for them. Number two, when men feed dolphins, they stop being content with the normal way they hunt and feed and eat, and it changes their God-given pattern. Thirdly, pretty soon, they become content with only the abnormal and the normal is no longer appealing to them. Fourthly, they begin to expose themselves to dangers that they never would have ever considered allowing themselves to get close to, like that dolphin that came up beside our boat, was exposing himself to being hooked by my fishing hook and also being hurt by the propeller of my boat. Normally, a dolphin, as soon as they sound you and find out where you're at, they're gone. They're out of the way. But a dolphin that has replaced the normal with the abnormal exposes himself to abnormal dangers or unusual dangers. Fifthly, They stop exercising normally and socializing normally, which leads to their early death and changes their family outcome. The bottom line is, though it seems harmless and even helpful to feed a poor dolphin, feeding them eventually destroys them. With this in mind, let me talk to you about a biblical application of don't feed the dolphins. Jesus said that whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin. The word servant means a slave of sin. Sin is an aberration. Sin is an abnormal, I'm going to call it a disease, but I don't want to get into that really, but it's like an infection. into a healthy universe. When Adam and Eve sinned, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in unbelief, sin entered the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. And something abnormal came into life that began to destroy man. And you and I have an enemy, and it's called sin. And I want to try to, just a few minutes this morning, define what this being a slave of sin is all about, so hopefully you can avoid becoming a victim of sin. There is one sin that I've noticed in the Bible that is just emphasized over and over again. I consider it to be maybe the number one danger Especially, I say young people, but I hesitate because I see this happening in all the realm and all the different ages of folks. It's the sin of immorality. Sexual immorality, called fornication in the Bible, the Greek word pornia, is rampant in our society today. We are drenched in sensuality. At everywhere we look is sensuality. The four laws that the early church adopted in the Council of Acts 15, it's interesting to me that porneia or fornication was one of those four things that they warned the early church about. In Romans 1, verse 29, in the sins of the reprobates there, it says they're being filled with all unrighteousness and fornication or porneia, which is all sorts of immorality. Fornication or pornea is a sin against our own body. Not like any other sin, it is defined as destroying our own body. The Bible says to flee fornication. That doesn't mean just, oh well, I'm going to move out of the way. That means flee, brother, like somebody called out fire. Flee that way. It's one of the major sins of the children of Israel. 1 Corinthians 10 says, neither let them commit fornication, as some of them committed. It's defined as one of the works of the flesh. Galatians 5.19, now the works of the flesh are manifest. Which are these? Now, he could have used any order. I believe in the order of the Bible. That it's a divine-inspired order. He starts out with sexual sins. Adultery, number one. Number two, fornication, which is translated often immorality. of all uncleanness and lasciviousness, which all four of those have to do with sexual immorality. It is one of the works of the flesh. Interesting in 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, it is defined as sanctification. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification. Well, what is that? That you should abstain from fornication, or pornea, or immorality. I think I've said enough and gone over enough verses. There are many other verses that warn against this. Why are there so many? So many serious, carefully placed, so thoroughly placed warnings going on in this area of immorality. Why? Because it changes the normal to abnormal. which changes your whole natural, God-given plan for success and happy life on this earth. The laws of God, contrary to possibly some of your thinking, are made for us so that we can prosper. You read Deuteronomy 8, 6, and other places in the Pentateuch, and it says, if you'll obey these things I've given them to you. Why? That you may live That you may have a happy life. That you may have a joyous life. My way, God is saying to us, is the best way. It's the normal way. It's the way to survive, live long, and prosper in the land, as He says. But sin causes folks to accept the abnormal as normal. I went to my doctor and I had broken my eardrum about 15 times on this side from diving and not clearing my ears right. And my eardrum was just a mess. It had a hole in it that wouldn't heal. I was out of diving for the rest of my life. I went into a doctor who was a born again Christian. And he was a specialist in replacing eardrums. I didn't know they could do that. And he had been, I think he had three specialties. He had gone to school for 12 years to learn to do this surgery. And I went to him and I said, Doc, can you help me? And he looked at me and said, I can replace your eardrum for you. But it's pretty radical. I'll have to cut your ear, move it forward, take all the tissue out of the canal, drill through your head. That was the hardest part. drill through your head, and I'll have to replace the eardrum. I have to take all the old eardrum out and take some connective tissue behind your ear there, and I will place it where the eardrum, and it'll heal, and I'll put everything back. And by the way, one of the worst things, he said, you'll do this while you're awake. I said, hello? I said, while I'm awake? He says, I have to do it while you're awake, because there's too many nerves that run down through that area, One that controls the one side of your face. He said the other one controls half your tongue. If I cut those nerves which are invisible to the naked eye, he says you'll never use a half of your tongue again and half your face will be paralyzed. He says that one out of 500 of these fails. Well, you may think one out of 500 are good odds, but I don't. Especially if you're the guy going over the knife. So he did this surgery for me and I successfully can hear today, about half. When my wife talks, she sits on this side. I don't know why. I just don't seem to pick it up. But I wasn't going to do that surgery. I walked out of his office and said, I'm not going to do that. That's too risky. And the man said one thing. He said, you know, I had some sinus problems, too. And I got a lot of problems. You want to hear them? No, you don't. But I had some sinus problems, and he says, I need to do that surgery on your sinuses before I do the ear. I said, oh, man, two surgeries? He said, yeah. He says, you don't breathe normally. And I said, Doc, I'm 40-some years old. I breathe normally. I ought to know if I breathe normally. He says, you don't breathe normally. You've accepted the abnormal for the normal. And I thought, nah. You know, you never believe anybody until they tell you something. So I walked out of his office and said, I'm not going to do it, Doc. I walked home and that kept repeating. That phrase he said kept repeating in my mind. You've accepted the abnormal for the normal. You've accepted the abnormal for the normal. And I went, maybe this is not normal. And you know that's exactly what sin will do to you? The devil lays out something in front of you and he says, this is great, this is good. And it's abnormal. You accept it. And then you begin to believe after a while that the abnormal is normal. And you become a servant of sin. Because you've accepted the abnormal for normal. It's enslaving. Well, in this case, I decided I wasn't going to accept the abnormal for normal. And in biblical terms, I repented. And I went back to the doc and I says, I repent of that whole thing. He was born again Christian. I said, I'm going to let you do it. And he did it. And I'm standing here this morning going, I can breathe out of both sides. I didn't know that was possible. I've done ministry with coke addicts, cocaine addicts, not Coca-Cola. And a cocaine addict will sit across my desk there, teeth rotted out of their face because every spare dime that they spend, they spend on coke. Their whole world, they've lost their wife, they've lost their children, they've lost their very good jobs. Some of these coke addicts were CEOs, they were leaders in their group. They were smart, intelligent, they still are smart and intelligent people. But they're a wreck when they come to me. And they stand in front of me, I say, what is it about coke that makes you do it? And he says, look Bill, he said, the first time I did coke, he says, it was so phenomenal, past anything I'd ever experienced, abnormal. that he said, they say it's not addictive, and he said, you know, physically I don't think it is addictive, but mentally it kept working on me. Man, I'd like to have that feeling again. Man, I'd like to have that feeling again. It's like a hundred times better than anything you've ever experienced. And then I started reading about it. And what coke does is it goes into your body and releases in an abnormal way the endorphins that God has given you. But God never intended for your endorphins to be released in a hundredfold way. Just little by little. But when you take cocaine, it releases them in all of them. It releases into your bloodstream. You get this phenomenal, unbelievable high, and then it goes away. Then what happens? Like the dolphins sitting out by my boat. He thought, you know, I think I'm going to go. I like it. I don't like hunting for that food. I think I'm going to go over there and buy that boat where I got some free trout the other day. And I think I'll just sit there and wait for some more free trout. He's hooked. And the coke addicts, let me just say this, young people. Don't you ever let anybody ever talk you into taking coke one time. Not one time. Because it only takes one time for the devil to put that hook in your mind. And when you accept the abnormal then, the normal never will seem right to you. You've been damaged. You've been wounded. And there are consequences. Oh, forgiven you can be. But that abnormal will change you. That addiction will cause abnormal behavior, abnormal spending, abnormal emotional habits, abnormal exposure to dangerous places, abnormal eating habits. Coke addicts often will buy Coke instead of food. Abnormal lack of exercise, abnormal social behavior, abnormal life expectancy. And brother, pornography, immorality, fornication are just as addictive as Coke. That's why, what do you think the pornographic industry is trying so hard to get to this group here today? They're trying to reach you through billboards and reach you through the email. And most of you ever had email. You know what that's like. They bomb your email thing. They're coming in with programs behind yours, loading up your addresses, trying to get your buddies' email addresses. They're after you! Why? Because they know that if they can get you to taste of the abnormal, that they can change your life. And by the way, it's not change for the better. It's change for destruction. It's change to ruin your marriage, to hurt your relationships, to take you out of the ministry. You say, preachers get into that? Yes, preachers get into that. There's other areas of don't feed the dolphins. Don't feed the dolphins. Don't feed the lusts that are well up in you to go the easy way. to take the shortcut. Do things God's way, young people. Do things the way He asks you to do them. And sometimes they seem hard. You know that dolphin, he's got to go out every day. He's got to go hunting. He's got to catch fish. Wouldn't it be easier just to go up to the place where they're cleaning fish and just get the scraps off the devil's table? It may be easier at the beginning, but it'll unwind you and destroy you. Oh, if you can get this today, that God loves you and has the best plan for you. He has the absolute best formula for your life. And yet the devil and his forces of darkness are out there, and they're glitzy, and they're shiny, and they're attractive to the lust of the flesh. Don't feed the dolphins. Don't do it. You'll kill them. and you'll kill yourself and you'll be addicted. Whosoever commits sin is a servant of sin. A lot of times these ladies, and I've seen in marriage counseling I do, ladies will come in very dissatisfied with their husbands. And I can't imagine why any woman would be dissatisfied with a man. Can you? We're so lovable. But they come in I begin to talk to them about it and they say, Preacher, I'm addicted on romance novels and soap operas. I just, you know, I look at those soap operas and I visualize myself as one of them ladies and that man comes in, he's thin, he's lean, he's mean. Oh, he's handsome. Of course, one thing about soap operas that always bothered me, even though I didn't watch them much, when do those people work? You can't get into that much trouble if you've got a job. But these ladies, just imagine with me that she watches this handsome man and all of the innuendos and the beautiful women, and she kind of vicariously sits in front of that TV, or reads a novel about it, and she escapes in her vain imaginations what the Bible condemns, not to hurt us, but to help us. And she emotionally escapes, and then the old man comes home. I mean, the man comes home. I mean, he's an auto mechanic. God bless auto mechanics. Praise God for them. But he stumbles home after all day of work, greasy, sweaty, smelly, hair uncombed, matted from a full day's worth of work. His face is shiny from accumulated grease. His shirt stretched out around his waistline because he had too many fast food macaroni and cheese meals. Instead of whisking you up and throwing you back in his arms and kissing you passionately, he grunts, You're not fixing that same old thing again tonight, are you? Tomorrow at one o'clock she turns the TV on and escapes again. Or she opens her romance novel again. Or she puts in her chick flick. And what she does is replace the normal with the abnormal. And you have a setting for a divorce there. You have a dissatisfied person that's getting vicarious satisfaction for an imaginary thing that's not real, off something God says you shouldn't be satisfied. In other words, you shouldn't go to the abnormal, brother. You go out and be satisfied. And whatever state I find myself in, the Bible says be content. Brother, you know a sister, if she loved that man and helped that man, He may lose weight, you know, go on to Atkins or something and be a better husband. Don't feed the dolphins. Don't feed the dolphins. Well, Brother Bill, I'm addicted. I'm addicted. Well, let me help you. First, repent of eating at the hands of the devil. Secondly, be willing to go through the withdrawal symptoms that you will have to go through to get off an addiction. Any kind of addiction is accepting the abnormal for the normal. Be willing to go through the withdrawals that you will have to go through. The Bible says the righteous falleth seven times and riseth up again. Years ago, as a teenager, I smoked cigarettes. The hardest thing I ever quit in my life was cigarettes. I mean, I'd get before God and say, God, take them from me. I'd hate them. I'd hate them. And I'd go out and buy a pack of cigarettes. A few days later, I'd smoke one cigarette. The Holy Spirit would deeply convict me. I'd throw the whole pack out. I kept the local bums in cigarettes in that area. throwing out one cigarette less a pack. A hundred times I failed. And finally I got on my face and said, God in heaven. If I quit, if you'll not leave me or forsake me, I'm going to quit these dastardly things. I'm going to get off of them. But God, if I fail a thousand times, I'm just going to get back up again and try again until You see fit to deliver me. And David, didn't he say, my sin is ever before me? Sometimes God doesn't release you right away so that you'll remember how hard it was to get off those addictions so that you'll never go back to them. And God teaches us a lesson by that. Don't feed. The dolphins. Don't do it. If you're an addict, don't ever go back and eat at those hands again. Do something radical. Some people have had to get rid of their TV. That sounds fanatical, Brother Bill. Well, Brother, if you're addicted, I tell you what I tell alcoholics. Alcoholics don't go anywhere where they serve alcohol. You already have a weakness. You've already been hooked. You already have a propensity for that. Stay away from any place that you smell the alcohol, see the alcohol. You're weaker than the average person who's never been an addict. Brother, if you're an addict to some TV thing or porn thing, you need to get off the Internet. You need to get rid of the cable. You need to get a TV with rabbit ears. You know what I'm talking about? At my house, I've got a TV, brother, with rabbit ears. I get five channels, not too well. I don't have cable. Maybe you can have cable and it'd be alright with you, but I can't have cable. I'd be sitting there surfing. Two minutes a channel, a hundred channels. And rather than going to God, or rather than doing something else more beneficial, I don't do it. Stay away from it. Fourthly, don't allow yourself to have a bunch of idle time if you have an addiction. Whatever it is, don't hang around those who eat at the devil's hand. Don't hang around those who do what you used to do. And lastly, hang around normal folks. Hang around normal folks. I mean, you said, well, Brother Bill, who are normal folks? Folks who trusted Christ. Folks who committed their lives in God's table, who are not hung on the abnormal thrills and imaginations of the world. but are practical, real, satisfied with what God has provided in life. Oh dear one, if you give in, if you give in to an addiction, to the abnormal, you will miss out on what God has for you. You will miss out on the dream God has for your life. God has a dream for your life. A plan. And you know what? We're God's guys. He provides. With God's dream comes God's power. But when you get out of God's dream, then you don't have that power to fulfill it. Don't give in. Your potential is so great. Your life in Christ can be so helpful to other folks. Don't feed the dolphins. Don't feed the dolphins. Whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin. Our Heavenly Father, may today the Spirit of God take this simple message and somehow through this channel, you could open the eyes of some dear folks here today. Father, in a group this large, as a preacher who's been around a little while, I have to say there's some folks addicted in here. There's some folks struggling. May God, You help them to come free. Help them to realize what's happened to them. They become a servant. A slave of sin. Oh God, release some folks. Free some people. For a cassette tape containing yesterday's and today's messages by Rev. Lytle, send a check for $6 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.