The Lust of the Flesh: An Interview with Dr. Jared Moore

To the Ruled Church podcast.

Christ the King and the Local Church

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy.

It's a monarchy.

Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

The Ruled Church podcast. What's up, Eddie?

Hey, man, how are you doing, Deer Slayer?

I kill one eight-point buck, and now I'm the Deer Slayer. Eddie, are you disappointed?

I'm disappointed that I haven't killed an eight-point buck.

You could have shot a deer the other day,.

But you're not.

I could have shot, yeah, I had three yesterday evening in front of me, but they were does, so I let them go.

So, no, I was asking if you're disappointed about our guest today.

Well, you know, you teased me with Dr. Moore, and I thought it was, you thought I would think Russell Moore, but I was thinking Dr. Jeff Moore, but it's neither of us.

It's Beth Moore.

Oh, yeah.

No, welcome to the Ruled Church podcast. We have a special guest this morning with us, Dr. Jared Moore. Say hello, brother.

Hello.

Jared, tell us a little bit about who you are.

I was saved when I was 17 in a Southern Baptist church, and been in ministry since I was 19 in the SBC, and so I'm 42 now, so it's been 23 years. I have a PhD from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in systematic theology, and I'm married with four children.

I'm a lightweight compared to you, man.

No way, brother. We're grateful to have you on. Before we talk about, get into why you're on the show today, I was just gonna mention this. I saw some stuff on social media, and actually someone sent me a video too of Louisiana Baptists.

I guess it was yesterday or this week maybe, but they shot down another equal protection resolution. It's like people just don't understand this concept. Like if a child is a child, if a pre-born child is a child, then biblically, constitutionally, morally, all these things, they deserve equal protection under the law, and it's just like, it's a big whiff, and I was really frustrated to see people try to use parliamentary procedure to try to push it out.

When the SBC does stuff like that, when these guys use Robert rules in order to try to silence people, I find that so unbecoming. So I'm kind of throwing that out there. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on that.

Well, I'll just say, I think both in that issue, dealing with equal protection and in the conversation we're about to have surrounding Dr. Moore's book, I think in both cases, a lot of it comes down to people, sometimes they have a misunderstanding of certain concepts, and then some of it is, their mind immediately goes to the half percent chance of some really strange coincidence, and they say, well, we've got to protect the person in that really rare circumstance where in their mind, they think might justify something.

And there is no justification, obviously, for taking unborn life or for holding to immoral positions on sexuality, either one of those. But I think oftentimes people conjure up some really far-fetched scenario, and then they say, well, if we say this, then we're going to endanger that.

And they're not actually dealing with the real reality that's in front of us, which is the death of babies.

The Lord doesn't call us to not murder babies. He calls us to holiness.

Yeah, yeah.

It boils down to, man, I think that it just reveals that most Southern Baptists can be deceived, and most Christians can be deceived based on a turn of phrase, because it's all empty rhetoric. It's all being, because they even present the way that Grant Leatherwood, president of the RLC, has argued this.

He says, we're not going to indot mothers, but we're not talking about indotting mothers. We're talking about indotting murderers.

Right, that's right.

And that, but he's not going to say, I'm not going to indot a murderer.

Yeah.

But that's what he's saying. And it's just so frustrating that emotion, it doesn't matter how unbiblical something is, if you can turn a phrase to make it sound godly or loving, then people will take it hook, line, and sinker.

And something that's happened in the SBC, the way the platform works is, it doesn't work like a local church, which is what it should work like. Like, Alan, if you tried to silence members who disagreed with you on something as far as biblically, or it just wouldn't fly in a local church.

You could not get away with doing what they do on the platform. Even how they, I was thinking about this today, like the way the platform works, like with the microphone system, they could easily, I was thinking how hard, you've went to a mic, how hard it is to speak at a mic and not sound like you're drunk because of the echo.

Yeah.

And the platform does nothing to try to level the playing field between the person at the mic and the people on the stage.

Of course not, yeah.

Because you could put a box around that or give people headphones, or you could do something to where they would not, to where the discourse would appear to be equal. Right, at least in how it sounds.

But I think it boils down to rhetoric. We are deceived by turn of phrase rather than what does the Bible actually say? So God's gonna hold mothers who abort their babies accountable for murder. So why would we as Southern Baptists not agree with God?

And even that phrase that you mentioned, that Brent Leatherwood said about, we don't want to indict mothers, but even that admits, if they were mothers, that admits that those were children that were murdered.

Yeah, that's right.

Even that, even saying mothers, well, you've just admitted that what has been done is we murdered children.

Yeah, it's like Jesus sometimes says, you have said so, you know, like, yeah. Here's the deal, this is coming out on a Tuesday. It's kind of weird, Eddie, because normally we record so far in advance, but this is actually gonna come out next Tuesday.

We're releasing it on a Tuesday because we want travel time with Thanksgiving and such. We want people to listen to this. And we just wanted to have Jared on. I think what he's done in his work here is important.

And I think it's something that we need to talk about. We are losing this battle in a big picture, evangelicalism, but I refuse to say that we're gonna lose the war. Of course we won't. But I want to push back on the common rhetoric that's out there when it comes to same-sex attraction.

I can't remember, Jared, how long we've known each other. I know that we've been closer in the last few years, conversations, group chats, and seeing each other at the convention and those sorts of things.

And so I do wanna tell you publicly, I appreciate you, brother. Also, I know we've already kind of left this conversation, but let me give a quick shout out to Brian Gunter. I appreciate what he's doing in Louisiana.

And I want that brother to stay faithful, stay strong, pray for him, pray for Louisiana Baptists who are trying to be on the right side of this, the biblical side of this issue. But in terms of Jared, he is a fellow author now with Free Grace Press.

He's recently released a book. The title is The Lust of the Flesh, is that right?

That's right.

A number of years ago, I think, I say a number of years ago, two years ago, or maybe a year, a year and a half ago, it's 2022, Anaheim. There was a man, and I'm not worried about bogging down in names and all that, but there was a man who preached at the pastor's conference of the Southern Baptist Convention who said that he didn't think same-sex attraction was a sin.

And we really tried to push back on that. And the convention, and even the current president of the convention, they all folded on this. And we have completely whiffed on this issue. So talk to us a little back, give us a little bit of detail about what this book is, The Lust of the Flesh, why you wrote it.

Concupiscence, Original Sin, and the Definition of Sin

Yeah, so it's kind of a long story, but I'll give you the short version. So this book is a lay version of my dissertation that I wrote in seminary dealing with this subject on the big word is concupiscence, but it just means evil desire, right?

So desire that's a result of original sin that's in Christians. Is that sin? And I argue that it is, and that church history has argued unanimously that it is. And it's only due to semi-Pelagianism, the notion that we're sinful, but our will determines whether or not we're sinning rather than God's moral law.

So biblically God's moral law is the standard for holiness, for obedience. And anything that doesn't measure up to that standard is sin. But these guys, a lot of the Revoice Movement and the Sam Allberry's and those guys want to ground sin in the will, what you mindfully choose.

But the Bible does not ground sin in the will. The Bible grounds sin in what God has said. Anything that doesn't equal what God has said, commanded, anything short of that is sin. So when Jesus said, you must love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself, He meant it.

Anything that does not rise to that is sin. So anything in us contrary to God is sin. And Wesley Hill was getting real popular and he was arguing that he's washed by Christ and he's waiting for the redemption of his body in his first book.

But as time progressed and people began asking him questions, he started saying that, well, I can sanctify my same-sex attraction. And the way that he argues this is he separates his same-sex sexual attraction from his same-sex attraction, arguing that he rejects his sexual attraction, but that there are non-sexual, non-genital aspects of his same-sex attraction that can be sanctified.

And he argues to turn these to same-sex friendships. And so that's the big push of Revoices, the big push of Wesley Hill, that gay Christians need to go find a same-sex friend and form these covenant households with them.

And some of them even advocate for cuddling, for holding hands. It's insane. Like it's just, it's the same thing. It's still acting on same-sex desires, which are results of sin, which are a result of the flesh.

They're produced by the flesh. It's just acting on them in a less heinous way. It's essentially an argument for unrepentance.

We have some guys and girls that listen to our podcasts who are not, I know that they're not up on all the social media stuff. When you say Revoice, they may not even 100 know what that is. So bottom shelf stuff here, Jared, one of the biggest arguments that I hear is Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, or Hebrews, is it Hebrews four?

He was tempted in all things like us, yet without sin. So the biggest argument I hear is, no, no, no.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

You have to draw a line between temptation and sin. So when it comes to same-sex attraction, same-sex desire, a person who says that they are a believer and is attracted to a person of the same sex, how do you explain the argument and the biblical pushback here of, no, they haven't framed this right.

Anyway, I'll give it to you, brother.

Temptation, Hebrews 4:15, and Christ's Sinlessness

So I spend a chapter in my book going through every example of Jesus. Hebrews 4 .15, Luke and Matthew four, where he's tempted in the wilderness, his temptation in the garden of Gethsemane, and his cry of dereliction from the cross.

And so first off, let me just say this, I'll be blunt. Desiring to sodomize someone is not you being tempted like Jesus.

Yeah.

Number one.

Right.

That should be common sense.

Yeah.

You know, when you look at the wilderness temptation, the devil offered Jesus objectively good things. He offered him food. The text literally says that he fasted and was hungry.

Jesus was.

He was hungry for food. So the devil goes to him and offers him, tells him to turn a stone into bread. He offers him food. He offers him angel protection, and he offers him to be the king of kings and Lord of lords.

Those are all three things that God is going to give Jesus either in this life or after the cross. And so being tempted like Jesus means that we're offered a good thing through an evil means. And if we reject the evil means, we have been tempted like Jesus.

But the devil, when he tempted the old David, so Jesus is the true David. He tempted him with objectively good things, but when you go back and you look at David's temptations, the devil offered him laziness, adultery, murder, lust, all objectively evil things.

And so the question comes is, why did the devil only bring good things to Jesus? And it's because of who he is. He is only good. He can only desire good things. But if you read the text, it's like machine gun fire.

In Matthew four, the wilderness temptation, Jesus responds immediately with scripture to the evil one. And he doesn't contemplate. Jesus desired those things from his father. He did not desire them from the devil.

And then in Hebrews 4 .15, if you read the book of Hebrews, the whole point of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus is better than us. It is not that people are trying to look at Jesus's temptation and self-justify.

I'm being tempted like Jesus. Instead of looking at the cross and Jesus taking their sin away, they're looking at his temptation. Jesus was not tempted so you could look at his temptation and self-justify yourself.

That's not why he was tempted. He was tempted to show you, yes, how to overcome temptation, but that you have to overcome temptation from your heart. You can't even have desire an evil thing from your heart.

Hebrews 4 .15 is talking about Jesus being truly human and truly tempted. The whole chapter is about him being our high priest, our truly human high priest. He's able to sympathize with us and represent us because he is truly human and truly endured temptation.

But if you believe that Hebrews 4 .15 means that he was tempted in every possible sin under the sun, then you have to believe that not only was he tempted with what you're tempted with, but things that you aren't tempted with, like the most evil, heinous things that mankind has done, that Jesus was tempted with those things.

And here's the thing about temptation. You can't have temptation without it being tempting, without having an inclination or desire towards it. And something Augustine talks about with Jesus is that in order for him to desire evil, he would have to will the desire in his heart because it doesn't naturally spring from his heart like it does with us.

He doesn't have any flesh or original sin. And so Jesus would have to choose to desire something wicked and evil in order to desire it. And so there are two types of temptation. Temptation from within, like James 1 describes, Romans 7 describes, where we tempt ourselves.

And that's the beginning of the lust of the flesh in our hearts. And then there is the temptation like Jesus, where you're offered something good through an evil means. Like you need to provide for your family and someone comes to you and says, look, you sell these drugs for me and you can provide for your family.

If you reject the evil means, it's good to want to provide for your family, but if you reject the evil means 100%, you've been tempted like Jesus. And so I want to send people running to the resurrected Savior to be saved and cleansed instead of running to the mirror and trying to self-justify by saying, I'm like Jesus.

No, you're not. And that's basically the whole point of the Bible.

Wow, yeah, amen, amen.

Eddie?

Yeah, so if I'm hearing this right, a part of what's happening is the way that people are defining attraction. Is that right, Jared? A part of it is the way that people are misdefining what attraction is.

I mean, possibly they're trying to get out of sin through rhetoric. Like if I just define this right, Eddie, you look like Mark Driscoll, by the way.

Oh, don't say that. I've never heard that before.

Wow.

It's like I'm talking to Mark Driscoll. It's freaking me out.

Oh, man, the Mark Driscoll of Marshall, Arkansas.

Oh, wow.

Isn't he in Arkansas?

No, he's in Arizona. No, he's in Arizona.

Marshall First Baptist.

I'm sorry, man.

That's okay.

Looking at you.

You have to cut that out, Quasimodo.

I will not cut that one out.

So the reason why I ask that is it also seems to me like in this area of, like you were talking about temptation, maybe a part of the problem is people misunderstanding the distinction in sin. So many people, they have a misunderstanding of that because they misread James chapter two.

In James chapter two, James mentions how that sin to transgress the law makes you a transgressor of all of it, right?

Yeah, you're right.

But because of that, people then say, well, sin is sin. And so they equate the sexual morality of heterosexual lust as being exactly the same thing. As same sex attraction or homosexual lust. And I think we would have to say, especially from Romans one, well, they're not exactly the same.

There are distinctions in those. They're both sinful and we're not trying to give a pass for the heterosexual center either. But we do wanna say that there are distinctions in sin. And maybe that's at the heart of it because a lot of just traditional, the average evangelical does have this concept in their mind, well, sin is sin.

Yeah, sin, I mean, they're right in a sense, sin is sin, but there's more heinous sin. Sin is sin as far as the atonement of Christ takes care of all sin. But sin is different. I mean, we would agree that hating someone in your heart requires atonement just like actually murdering someone, but murdering someone is worse.

Right.

Like there's a distinction there, but also it deals with the commands of God. So God has literally designed mankind for marriage. According to Genesis two, he literally, the way that he designs female, Eve, he took a piece of the man and formed Eve.

And so a piece of the man is missing in Genesis two. And she's also missing her body that she used to be a part of. And so when the Bible talks about them coming back together and becoming one flesh, that's something only a male and female can do.

Right.

So literally all sexuality, biblical sexuality, I don't like using the term heterosexual just because it's got a lot of baggage. But whatever is going on between Adam and Eve, the sexuality there is literally God designed.

And yes, it is fallen now, but it can be made holy because God has designed it. He literally commanded for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, hold fast to his wife.

The two shall become one flesh. Like that is, I mean, literally God says, what God has joined together, let not man separate. So God is still joining marriages together. There is a holy beginning for heterosexuality and a holy end.

But for homosexuality, it has an evil beginning and only an evil end. Like these two are not the same. Not to mention it's God's design. It's upside down. And that's something else concerning repentance.

Whenever we call people to repentance from homosexual sin, we're calling them to live according to God's design. It's not like we're calling them to live contrary to God's design. It's that I compare it to someone who's eating dirt and they love dirt and that's all they've known.

And oh, dirt's so wonderful. And then they get saved and we're like, no, God gave you fruit and vegetables and meat and deer meat, amen. Yeah. Tasty deer meat. I had some this past Sunday, it was great.

But he gave you these things and they're like, no, no, no, I wanna return to the dirt. You're like, no, you were designed for these things.

Yeah.

And go ahead.

Well, I think that's good. And I do, I really appreciate what you said earlier about getting the homosexual to the resurrection of Christ. Like this is about hope for their soul and true redemption. And so what would you say, I kind of gave a blast earlier in the abortion debate because I don't think anybody would ever say it that way.

But in the same sex attraction debate, people say, and I think this came from J .D. Greer, you correct me if I'm wrong, that God has called us not to heterosexuality but to holiness. Is that from J .D. Greer?

That is from Jackie Hill Perry, Dan and Sarah.

Okay, okay.

So

And I'm sure J .D. has said that too.

Well, my apologies to J .D. If I thought maybe he was the original. So tell me

It was Ed Litton.

Yeah.

Tell me about that statement. For the person that is same sex attracted and they've come to Christ and they have on one side, this person that says, now, listen, God hasn't called you to heterosexuality but to holiness.

But on the other side, they've got Dr. Jared Moore. What's he gonna tell them?

Well, first off, there's no such thing as a homosexual. Even the word homosexual implies ontology as if this is who you are in your very DNA. So they've got to quit calling themselves a homosexual. They've never been a homosexual.

Romans 1 says that the men exchange the natural use of the women. It doesn't say that they were born a particular way. Back in the 70s, psychiatry separated sexuality from biology. People started self-identifying or saying, I am my attractions rather than I am my biology.

And once we separated sexuality from biology, now today they separate literally sex or gender from biology. And so it's just a natural progression to what we've already sanctified in the church. And I'm saying, no, when you get saved and you were living a homosexual lifestyle, you now need to live according to God's design for your body.

According to the sexuality, he says in his word that you are, you are a heterosexual. According to, I mean, whatever Adam and Eve are in the garden, male and female, and for one another, that is what every single male or female on earth is.

And when you get saved, that is what you are. You are not who your feelings say you are. You got to quit talking about yourself, quit focusing on yourself. And you've got to talk much of Jesus, got to focus on Jesus.

You are who Jesus says you are. It's similar to like, I get so aggravated. If someone says, you know, my feelings are telling me I'm worthless. They go, somebody goes and quotes the Bible and they say, look, the Bible says you're fearfully and wonderfully made, don't believe your feelings.

But when someone says, oh, I'm gay.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, well, listen to your feelings. No, no, you are who God says you are. You do not listen to your feelings. You are a male or female and biblically speaking, this is something else. I don't believe anyone who's obsessed with their attractions or constantly talking about their attractions has the gift of singleness.

They should be pursuing and cultivating desires for biblical marriage. They should desire to cut a covenant with an opposite sex Christian. So what I'm encouraging folks to do is to turn from every desire in you that's contrary to God and instead build up and cultivate desires for opposite sex marriage because that glorifies God.

Find the godliest opposite sex single person you can and pursue him or her for marriage. And aim your sexual desires at the covenant of marriage.

Yeah.

You know, I tell my sons that their bodies are telling them to get married. It's not telling them to have sex. Biblically speaking, every sexual desire or inclination that a man has according to God's design is meant for the pursuit of the covenant of marriage.

You know, Ephesians 4 .28, I had this thought the other day. Ephesians 4 .28 says, let the thief no longer steal but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Now imagine taking a thief, you know, or we'd even maybe diagnose them as a kleptomaniac or whatever, imagine taking them and say, now listen, God hasn't called you to generosity. He's called you to holiness.

Yes.

Well, wait a second. What's happened with the thief is we've moved him away. So there's two parts here. Number one, he's no longer a thief, but it doesn't stop there. He doesn't go from being a thief to now he's not a thief.

He goes from being a thief to being generous.

Yes.

That is the power of the gospel. The gospel comes in and now has transformed his desires, moved him away from self and selfishness to now he's not going to steal with his hands, he's going to give with his hands.

And this is the greatness and beauty and glory and wonder of the gospel that we proclaim. So you apply that to the homosexual, it comes in or, you know, forgive me for adding into that term, but you apply that to the person who says, hey, I'm attracted to people of the same sex.

So the message that we offer, we're offering this big gospel that takes you not from no longer not being attracted to people of the same sex, but moves you beyond that, right? To back to what God has designed, like it's a restoration.

The gospel restores us to the garden and then some, right? Because it doesn't just take us to, obviously it doesn't just take us to the position where Adam is even greater, because now we're in Christ with imputed righteousness and declared righteous based on his word.

Anyway, I just had that thought and I think it's relevant and pertinent.

I was just going to mention, Jared, you know, you were mentioning the way that people arguing for this bifurcation between the sexual same sex attraction and the kind of platonic, I guess they might say, same sex attraction.

And even in hearing you mention that, I had not heard it described that way. I've not really been in that literature, but you know, it sounded to me like it would be the same thing as you got a young man who's been, you know, he's been in the sin of pornography or fornication and then you tell him, you should go get a female roommate.

That's what you should really do. And you guys should, you know, live your life together, you know, celibate. Well, you're throwing him into a situation where he is going to sin. He's going to sin because that's not, that's not at all going to lead him to righteousness as opposed to what you ought to tell that young man is he ought to seek after the Lord.

And like you were saying, pursue a godly relationship with a young woman. And in the same way, we need to be telling these people that are seeking these ungodly relationships, no, you need to turn and seek the type of godly relationship that you were created for, like you were saying with Adam and Eve.

I would like to ask one question. You were mentioning the issue of the term homosexual. And I think that that's really helpful what you were sharing. So this kind of leads into this whole issue with that modern word and our Bible translations.

And we know how that has been dealt with with the, is it the 1946 project or something like that? I'm not real sure, but how arson of coitus has been translated. Do you think that it would be better if our English translations translated that differently there in 1 Corinthians 6?

I mean, I, biblically speaking, I'm fine if it's translated homosexual because it condemns it totally, biblically speaking. But because folks look at it and say, well, it's just condemning homosexual behavior.

Well, no, it's not. If it's a desire, if it's a sin to do it, it's a sin to want to do it.

That's right, yeah, that's, yeah.

And so I don't have an issue with it being translated homosexual because that's the, I think it's accurate. I mean, I think it's a faithful translation because you would call it something similar. You're trying to use the vernacular of today.

But I mean, I like it because it condemned, our society uses that term homosexual to refer to ontology and the Bible condemning even ontological homosexuality, I like, is biblical because they can't say, well, it's just condemning homosexual behavior and not homosexual or same-sex attraction or, but these guys, you know, these guys like Wesley Hill and Nate Collins who are involved in that revoice, they're trying to sanctify, you know, something I argued in my dissertation is why are they not telling young gay men to go find an opposite-sex friend instead of same-sex friend?

Like they're not arguing for opposite-sex friendships. They're literally telling gay men to form households. And Wesley Hill has a testimony where he had one of these gay covenant friendships with a guy and he says it was non-sexual but that the guy ended up marrying a woman and Wesley had his heart broke, broke his heart, which should have been a scandal that should have disqualified him from ministry.

He fell in love with the dude. You know, you can't do that.

Right, right.

Like that should be disqualifying, but no, we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he can't sodomize someone. You know, I'm just, I have no mercy for, because if a man was married and fell in love with a coworker, everybody would be saying he's disqualified from ministry, at least for a time.

Yeah, yeah.

And that happened, I mean, think about the same situation happens. A pastor has a young secretary, she's single, you know, and she gets married and he says, boy, it really, that really hurt me. You know, just, that really broke my heart.

Like, what, what?

You know, like, whoa, whoa. You know, like, you're not gonna allow that, you know? So yeah, I think that's right. And I think, you know, getting back to this, again, just to be clear, we're not talking about the act.

The act of homosexuality is absolutely sin. What we're trying to press home here, for those listening and trying to wrestle with this, the desire of, to be attracted to someone of the same sex is in itself sin.

It's not temptation to sin, it is in and of itself sin. And if we don't get that right, then we ultimately strip the gospel. It's interesting, it's starting a podcast, we talked about abortion, but it's interesting how similar some of this is related.

If you don't call the taking of the pre-born life murder, then you have stripped away hope for redemption. Jesus came not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous. And so if you say to the homosexual, so your desire, oh, that's fine, your desire is fine.

Okay, what are they being redeemed from, right? So it's critical that we get this right. All of us agree at 1 Corinthians 6 is clear. The gospel is for those who claim to be homosexuals. The gospel is for all sinners.

So it's not that we're trying to keep the gospel from people. It's that we're trying to give the gospel to people. And if you don't, but if you don't get this terminology right, then you ultimately strip away the hope.

So anyway, I don't know, rambling there.

The only way to deal with sin is to define it as sin. So these people, if they're caught in this and they're defining it not as sin, they're trying to define it as something other than sin. Well, you can't repent of what's not sin.