Is the Lust of the Flesh Sinful?

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:15

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, and we have a guest, a guest who's actually been on the program before, so a repeat guest,

00:24

Dr. Jared Moore, Pastor Moore. I know you're pastor of Cumberland Homestead's Baptist Church.

00:30

So if that's okay, I'll call you Pastor Moore. How you doing? I'll be great. John, thanks for having me, man.

00:35

It's good to be here. I appreciate your ministry. You know, you have stood. I appreciate fellas that are willing to stand when it costs them, and I know it's cost you in the past to stand on, well, the

00:49

Bible, what, like, it's crazy, like, in SBC and evangelicalism, if you teach what was taught by everybody, you know, 10, 15 years ago, you're like a pariah now.

01:03

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. And I, same with you. I just appreciate that you're willing to take a stand.

01:08

I know this has cost you to some extent as well. I know even looking for places to put the book out, which we're going to talk about today,

01:16

The Lust of the Flesh, the big, I'm assuming you reached out and we won't maybe name names unless you want to, but some of the big publishers and, you know, they weren't probably that interested,

01:24

I'm guessing. Well, publishers did not think they could sell it. Really?

01:31

Yeah. That was the big thing. Publishers did not think that they could sell it because of the content and subject matter.

01:39

You know, folks, they didn't, they, you know, what's popular right now is kind of a halfway point between LGBTQ affirming and total rejection.

01:56

That's kind of what's popular right now. You know, the - Well, I was going to say, these publishers that you've probably reached out to,

02:03

I mean, they are publishing books on the topic because they'll publish books by authors like, you know,

02:10

West Hill or, you know, I don't even know who all the names would be, Nate Collins or, you know, whatever. They'll publish these books because, you know,

02:18

Greg Coles, they do what you just said, but a book that contradicts that narrative, they just, they don't think they can sell that.

02:26

That's interesting to me because it's the same topic. It's just coming at it from a more biblical perspective. Yeah, and I think that folks were surprised at who was willing to endorse it.

02:37

I mean, when you look at the endorsements, it's as good as any, I mean, as far as names, it's as good as any other book that you're going to find on the subject.

02:49

Yeah, I know Rosaria Butterfield endorsed it. Who else endorsed it?

02:54

Bigger names, just so people know. Mark Jones endorsed it. Also, Gavin Peacock endorsed it.

03:06

Mark Coppinger, James White, Scott Christensen.

03:13

You know, all these fellas are legit authors and theologians, you know?

03:20

Yeah, well, freegracepress .com, I know you told me is the place people can go to find it, and right now that's the only place it's available, so don't look for it on Amazon or Barnes &

03:30

Noble. Go to freegracepress .com, and you can order a copy of Lust of the Flesh by Jared Moore, and you know, this is a needed book.

03:39

It's one of, I don't know if you've read books where, I've seen a few like this, where they start off and the book says, you know, this is a book that never should have been written, right?

03:47

And it's kind of like the author's, you know, doing it because they're like, I have to do this.

03:53

I feel compelled to do this. I think God maybe even wants me to do this, but this really wasn't necessary.

03:59

This shouldn't have been necessary because this is just obvious stuff, and I feel that way about your writing, just reaffirming what

04:06

Christians have believed for a long time, and now it's being challenged in circles that it wasn't before, in evangelical reform circles even.

04:15

That's the crazy part to me, and so I want to take people on a journey this morning a little bit through history and through the texts.

04:24

We've talked before on this show, so I know we might cover some of the same ground, but I think we're going to cover some new ground as well, and I think it'd be good to start with the

04:34

Bible, and what does scripture say about this? And so I know you sent me two clips.

04:41

Maybe to get us started, we'll play one of them, and then we can play the next one.

04:46

I think maybe it'd be good to start with Sam Albury. The conference that he was speaking at, I feel like I've seen this.

04:52

Do you know when this was from, the clip we're about to play? 2019,

04:58

I'm not sure what conference it was, though. Okay, so this is from 2019. This is Sam Albury, who

05:04

I know has been involved with Living Out, but he's one of the premier speakers on same -sex attraction, and he goes to some of the most conservative churches, believe it or not.

05:16

I remember when I was in Lynchburg, he came to a very known as a conservative reform Baptist church in the community, and I had people even in my classes who were just loving it, and going and seeing

05:27

Sam Albury, and so here he is in 2019. Sex attraction, in and of itself, sinful.

05:34

I think this is a common question that comes up. If you could address that, that'd be great. Thank you, so glad that you are able to engage with these topics.

05:44

Thank you for submitting questions, and I say that having seen some of the questions, and they're hard, so I say thank you through gritted teeth with some of those.

05:55

That first question is very, very significant, and it's sort of on topic for this evening, but certainly, as I was mentioning earlier, talking about same -sex attraction being part of my own journey, what

06:07

I was meaning by that was as a teenager, I became increasingly aware of romantic and sexual feelings towards other men, became a

06:17

Christian then when I turned 18, and so then a significant part of my discipleship was what does it mean to bring those experiences under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and obviously, a key part of that is honoring the teaching of Jesus about the godly and appropriate place for sex being within the covenants of a marriage between a man and a woman, so I knew

06:42

I would have to say no to those desires in order to be a faithful follower of Jesus.

06:51

Is same -sex attraction a sin? Sounds like it only requires a monosyllable to answer it, and I hate answers that always begin with, well,

07:04

Webster's defines, but we need to be very clear on what we mean by attraction. Some people use the word attraction to mean the capacity, what some people would call the orientation.

07:16

Is it a sin to have the capacity to be attracted to people of the same sex?

07:23

And I would say on that issue, I don't think it is a sin. All of us will experience certain forms of temptation.

07:32

Virtually all of us will experience certain forms of sexual temptation. We don't tend to choose the particular form temptation takes.

07:43

What is our responsibility is how we respond to temptation, and the Bible is very clear that we need to flee sexual sin.

07:52

So the Bible makes a distinction between temptation and sin. Jesus, in the Lord's Prayer, says, deliver me from temptation, but forgive us for our sins, so that the experience of being tempted is not in and of itself a sin.

08:12

It is, however, a reflection of the fact that we have a fallen nature. That we're even tempted in these ways is a sign that we're not the way we're meant to be, that we have the capacity to be tempted.

08:25

In that sense, it's a sign that we're fallen. The temptation itself is not a sin. If we indulge the feeling, even only within the privacy of our own minds, that is a sin.

08:37

Jesus says in Matthew 5 that if someone looks with lustful intent, he's committed sexual sin in his heart.

08:45

So it's not enough to say, well, I've got the feelings, but I'm not physically acting. Jesus says, actually, if we are mentally acting, that is a sin.

08:55

So temptation isn't a sin, but indulging feelings and fantasies, looking with a certain intent, is a sin.

09:04

So even before we've begun to physically do anything, we've already committed a sin.

09:09

And by the way, that teaching of Jesus convicts every single one of us.

09:15

Every single one of us is a sexual sinner. And it's the flip side of something good, that Jesus regards your sexual integrity as being so precious that it is not to be violated even in the privacy of someone else's mind.

09:32

And theirs is so precious, it's not to be violated in the privacy of your mind. All of us have fallen very, very far short of that.

09:42

Okay, well, Pastor Moore, he said no to the desires, right? He said it's a sin to indulge, but capacity is not a sin, and we don't choose the form of sin that tempts us.

09:56

So what do you have to say to that, biblically speaking? It sounds pretty good. Yeah, the gift of discernment, to be discerning, you have to be able to tell the difference between truth and almost truth.

10:09

And Alberry is presenting almost truth. And it's just, it's empty rhetoric.

10:15

He can turn a phrase. I mean, what he describes as the capacity to be tempted, the

10:22

Apostle Paul calls his flesh in Romans 7. That's the closest thing, biblically speaking, of the capacity to be tempted by evil.

10:31

So let's look at Romans 7 together just briefly, what Paul says about his flesh in Romans 7, 8.

10:39

But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness, for apart from the law, sin lies dead.

10:48

Paul's essentially saying in Romans 7 that he thought he was a pretty good person, obedient to God, until he heard the commands of God and realized that his heart is evil.

11:02

Right. His heart sprung up when it heard the command and produced covetousness. So he doesn't say it produced a capacity or it produced something that is sinless or something that isn't sin.

11:15

He says it produced covetousness. So Alberry seems to be saying that there is some sort of pre -desire, some predisposition that is before covetousness.

11:27

Paul doesn't say that. Right. Right. There is no, you know,

11:32

Paul says the flesh is sin. And Alberry, if he argues, you know,

11:37

I don't know if he argues that the flesh is sin, but he says the capacity is not sin. Well, if you keep going through Romans 7,

11:44

Romans 7, 9 says sin came alive and I died. Romans 7, 11, for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me.

11:54

Romans 7, 13, it was sin producing death in me. Romans 7, 17. So now it is no longer

12:00

I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Romans 7, 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

12:08

Romans 7, 20. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but that sin that dwells in me.

12:14

Romans 7, 23, the law of sin that dwells in my members. Romans 7, 25, with my flesh,

12:21

I serve the law of sin. So he calls the capacity sin.

12:29

That's the first issue, is that Alberry is using non -biblical terms to describe, you know, he's trying to get out of sin through rhetoric and turn a phrase.

12:43

Yeah, and you know, you got me in trouble last time we were on the podcast a little bit because you identified all these evangelical leaders who are saying some, they may phrase it differently, but they say essentially the same thing that Alberry is saying here.

12:58

They carve out a category that you don't see in scripture for a non -sinful capacity or desire or whatever word they wanna use, inclination that it's not sinful, but it produces sin somehow.

13:14

And I thought in our discussion with Doug Wilson, there was a, right around the halfway point, you had asked him that question.

13:22

And a lot of things clicked for me at that point because I thought, well, that's a good question. How can sin arise from something that's not necessarily sinful?

13:32

How does that work exactly? Like, what are the mechanics of it? I'm open to hearing an explanation, but all I keep hearing are there's this category and it's internal temptation that's not technically sin, which is much different than the way

13:46

Eve and Jesus were tempted. So, I don't know if you have anything to add to that, but for those who are not familiar with the background of our discussion here, maybe it'd be helpful to explain a little bit of the differences between the temptation that Eve and Christ had, and then the temptations that Sam Alberry is talking about here.

14:09

Yeah, so first, Alberry with him talking about Jesus, notice that he goes from same -sex attraction to talking about Jesus, first off.

14:18

So, he's comparing having an inner desire to commit sodomy with Jesus's temptation, first off, which

14:30

Jesus, in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, the devil offered him food, angel protection, and to be the king of kings.

14:38

He offered him objectively good things. He tried to tempt him with objectively good things because he couldn't tempt him with evil.

14:46

You know, the devil goes to the old David with lust, laziness, adultery, murder.

14:55

He goes to the new David, or the true David, with food, angel protection, and to be the king of kings, all good things that either

15:03

God was going to give Jesus during his earthly ministry or after the cross. And so, to be tempted like Jesus, we have to be offered a good thing through an evil means.

15:14

And if we reject the evil means, we've been tempted like Jesus. But desiring to sodomize someone in any form, or inclination, or whatever, your pre -desire, or whatever you want to call it, is pure evil.

15:33

It is not good. It is not something that has good in it. It is turning

15:38

God's design upside down. So, we have to call it what it is, and you're not being tempted like Jesus when you have an inner inclination toward evil, right?

15:48

So, to be tempted like Jesus, it would be like someone coming to you and you're wanting to provide for your family, and so they say, look,

15:56

I've got this, you know, you sell these drugs for me, or, you know, you go do this immoral thing, and you say, no, wanting to provide for your family is good, but rejecting the evil means 100%, you know?

16:12

Would be, you've been tempted like Jesus, and you have not sinned. But when you have an inner desire towards evil, an inner temptation towards evil, you've already begun to sin in your heart.

16:24

That's what is happening with Eve in Genesis 3, 6.

16:29

That's what's happening with what Jesus is describing in Matthew 5, where he's talking about lustful intent.

16:38

That's what Paul is talking about in Romans 7. That's what Paul is talking about in Romans 1, when he's talking about the passions that these men turned worship upside down, and so they turned creation upside down, their sexuality upside down, had passion for one another, and exchanged the natural use of the male or female for unnatural use.

17:06

And so, in most cases, Christians are not being tempted like Jesus, they're being tempted like David or Peter.

17:14

What do you say, I know you already covered this in the book, but there was one author, and I can't remember which author it was, you can tell me, who made the argument that when

17:23

Eve was tempted, the things that she was tempted with were actually objectively good things. The fruit was good, right?

17:29

And she just wasn't supposed to eat it because of this command of God, and that was the problem, but it wasn't necessarily wrong for her to look on it with desire.

17:39

And I know you kind of, you smashed that argument, but I think people need to hear that because it's compelling for,

17:46

I think, a lot of evangelicals today. Yeah, so in Genesis 3, when

17:52

Eve is talking to the serpent, she begins by telling him, we can't eat the tree, we can't eat of the forbidden tree, we can't even touch it, or we're gonna die.

18:01

And then the serpent says, has God really said? And he says, no, it's gonna be good for you.

18:07

And so she then starts to see the tree the way the serpent told her to see it.

18:15

And then she starts seeing that it's desirable and good for food and able to make her wise, and then she eats.

18:24

So for Eve, this is something Augustine argues about Jesus, that in order to have an evil inclination, because he is perfect, he would have to will the evil.

18:35

He would have to create it in his heart. And that's the thing what people don't realize is that if Jesus had an evil inclination, he would have to fall in his heart in order to have it.

18:50

And the same thing with Eve. Eve argued in my book that she fell in her heart before she ate with her lips, because she ate it in her heart before she ate it outwardly.

19:02

And by willing the desire in her heart, she rendered her fall certain. And Doug Wilson says that, well, he argues that, this is in an episode on Man Rampant with Sam Albury, he argues that Adam could have reached for the forbidden fruit, touched it, and said, oh, what am

19:22

I doing? And pulled back and humanity wouldn't have fallen, even though there would be some level of misbehavior in the garden.

19:31

I'm just like, what in the world kind of argument is that? He's definitely mistaken on that.

19:38

Because in order to desire the forbidden tree, Adam would have to create the desire. And something that the person, the author that you mentioned was

19:45

Melinda Selmes, and she's a Roman Catholic author, writes for Spiritual Friendship with Wesley Hill's ministry that he started.

19:55

And she argues that it was the beauty and objective beauty, the goodness of the tree that tempted

20:04

Eve. But that's not what the text says. The text says the serpent tempted

20:09

Eve. It was not the goodness of the tree. Like, why does the serpent have to be introduced in order for Eve to be tempted, if the tree, its beauty could have tempted

20:21

Eve? Right, right. No, yeah, that's a good point. And I remember the clip you're talking about, and I think the point you made was, well, what's this category of misbehavior that isn't sin?

20:34

That doesn't make sense. The scripture doesn't talk about this non -sinful misbehavior. If it's misbehavior, it's sin, which

20:40

I think is fairly straightforward. But there does seem to be an incredible amount of pressure and just an incentive to categorize certain sins especially as somehow arising from an arena that's not sinful.

21:00

And I think on the same -sex attraction issue, it's obvious to us there's a political thing going on here and trying to make evangelicalism palatable to our overlords.

21:11

But we sacrifice so much that I don't think on the front end we realize we're sacrificing to get there.

21:19

Why don't I play, unless you have something else to say, this Rachel Gilson clip, and then we can go from there.

21:26

So I'm actually happy that he asked that question because I'm gonna piggyback off that.

21:33

I read the definition of covenant to be an agreement, especially by lease, deed, or other legal contract.

21:39

I have gay married parents because gay marriage is legal in all 50 states now.

21:45

So I guess my question is where should I be in terms of my support of that marriage since it is the covenant of marriage?

21:53

Should I be looking for, should I be supporting a divorce even though God said he hates that as well?

22:00

Or should I be looking for them to kind of, I don't know,

22:07

I don't know. No, I think it's a great question. We know that the laws of our country don't match what

22:17

God's laws say. That's fine, we don't live in ancient Israel, we don't live in the New Jerusalem, we live in America.

22:23

So we respect the laws of the land. As we think about, and especially like your parents, like you love your parents.

22:30

I'm sure you see them all, like, I mean, we also get annoyed with our parents, right? Let's be real, right? But you see them as full people, like you see, which is good, like we should be seeing all the people in our life as full people.

22:42

So when we think about, I don't know your parents, I'm not gonna speak too particularly into it, right?

22:48

But as we think about the question of people in a same -sex marriage who maybe come to know the

22:56

Lord. This is a real situation that I've encountered in my life. I met a woman recently in St.

23:03

Louis who was actually in this, she was in a marriage to a woman and was processing what to do because she had come to the

23:09

Lord, but her wife hadn't. We need to recognize in this situation, right, that these are some very tender things.

23:17

And if we just walk around being like, I've got some great ideas, like you don't know anything. You don't know anything about what this relationship has been like, the joys that it's provided, the heaviness is provided, like we never approach these situations with swagger.

23:35

If someone is a trust, if we've got a relationship where they're trusting us to speak in and trusting us to draw near, we wanna listen really carefully.

23:43

Like with any person, discipleship is going to be a process.

23:50

And so I'd say if someone in a same -sex marriage comes to know the Lord, it's not like, okay, what we gotta deal with first is your same -sex marriage.

23:59

Like our discipleship is our whole person. When we come to Christ, there are a lot of things that need attention, that need forgiveness, that need healing, that need adjusting.

24:10

But I do hope that over the course of discipleship for someone in that position, they're gonna have a chance to examine what the

24:16

Bible says about sexuality. And they're gonna have a trustworthy person to walk through with them what that means for their life.

24:24

When you're a child, especially when you're in that weird stage where you're like, for the first time, an adult child relating to adult parents, that's weird, right?

24:32

It's just weird. You used to be five and they were old and now you're like old but not as old. If you're a parent relating to someone in that situation, you've already got that strange dynamic on top of something that is theologically and emotionally really heavy.

24:46

So I would say as their son, you love them and help them in whatever way, right? You love them as you try to follow the

24:54

Lord, as they try to follow the Lord, to come around the scriptures together and figure out what's going on. I do think that it's pretty normal for someone who comes to Christ to see, oh, this isn't the way

25:09

God designed to use my sexuality. They don't have to negate all the good things that they've experienced with the person that they've been in a relationship with to recognize that God says something else about sexuality.

25:24

They might end up making a very big cost. I mean,

25:30

I've known some people who decide to stay in that relationship legally but to live celibately, to break off having sex.

25:39

That has happened with some couples who both come to Christ. I've known some couples where one person came to Christ and decided that in order to honor the

25:48

Lord, he needed to be celibate and his partner decided, his husband decided to leave him.

25:54

I mean, Paul talks about this reality in 1 Corinthians 7. Sometimes if a spouse comes to know the Lord, the other spouse can't abide it and they leave and then that person is free.

26:05

But sometimes it will mean, yeah, sometimes it will mean getting a divorce. God hates divorce. He does.

26:11

It breaks that image of marriage just as surely as anything else. What's interesting is though God hates it, it is still sometimes allowed in the context of a broken world.

26:26

I think it's really challenging, for example, to read the end of Nehemiah. If you're not familiar with Nehemiah, it's like after Israel had been sent away, exiled for their disobedience and they're being brought back to the land and they're told like, you were exiled for disobedience, be obedient, be obedient, draw near to the

26:44

Lord. This is beautiful thing. No, okay, I gotta stop, I gotta stop. It's not a sermon on Nehemiah.

26:51

But even if they come back to the land and they renew their vows and they draw near to the Lord, they end up marrying these foreign women, which is expressly what

27:00

God told them not to do. The Jewish people needed to stay a unique whole so that when the seed of Abraham came,

27:07

Jesus, he would be able to fulfill the promises about him. They needed to stay a people.

27:14

It was very important. And they disobeyed and they got into these relationships and what

27:19

Nehemiah did is he broke up those relationships. God doesn't love divorce. Sometimes the consequences of our sin are extremely complicated and very messy.

27:33

It means we can't be simplistic people and we cannot be proud people and we can't be people who just have these little set answers.

27:39

When we're walking alongside real human beings, we need to really meet them where they're at.

27:46

We need to be whole people. There's this really interesting thing, Matthew 7 .1, you may know it.

27:52

It says, judge not lest you be judged. So sometimes we make that sound like I'm not ever allowed to say anything about anyone's morality, which is really weird because in that paragraph,

28:06

Jesus talks about us correcting each other. Judge has two

28:12

English meanings, right? It can mean to make a judgment between guilty or innocent or it can also mean to discern, like I need to judge what classes

28:21

I'm gonna take next semester. Jesus is not calling us to not discern. He's calling us to not think we have the power to declare whether someone's guilty or innocent.

28:30

We don't have that power. God has that power. But we do have the responsibility to help each other. Later in that paragraph, he says, why are you trying to help your brother with the speck when you have a gigantic log in your eye?

28:41

And sometimes the way we represent it is as Jesus said, take the log out of your own eye and sit down and shut up.

28:48

That's not what he says. He says, take the giant log out of your eye so that you can help your brother with his speck.

29:00

If you are really excited to be someone who runs around pulling people's specks out, you shouldn't do it. Do something.

29:07

Okay, make it stop. That was a long clip, but she just kept getting worse. Man, where was that?

29:16

When was that? That was 2019 and she works for the ministry called Crew. Oh, that was at Campus Crusade event or Crew.

29:28

Crew, is that Campus Crusade? Yeah, Crew is formerly Campus Crusade. They changed the name to Crew because Crusade was offensive.

29:37

Wow, so man, so you don't have swagger. You have little set answers

29:43

I'm hearing. From Rachel Gilson, if you say, we gotta work on this first.

29:51

I mean, I'm thinking of someone who, let's say struggles with like a sin, obesity.

29:58

Well, not that that's a sin, but the gluttony and it's led to obesity and it's obvious that that's a problem in their life.

30:05

I can see a Christian saying, well, once they get saved, there's gonna be all kinds of sins they have that will be corrected as Christ does a work in them.

30:13

So don't be the spiritual police and go after every single one immediately because you can't. But if it's a sin, like if it's something that's, like they're living in consistent sin, it's killing them.

30:28

Christians have a responsibility to say something in that case, even if it's gluttony I picked that sin because it's a sin that's often not talked about.

30:36

But in this case, I can't see, it's like the most obvious thing in the world.

30:41

If you're in that kind of a relationship, I just can't see that as like, well, he's got a tendency towards, he eats a little too much.

30:49

It's like, it's this much worse. It's like so much more obvious. So that's just my take. But I'd like to hear what you have to say since you wanted to play that clip.

30:57

Yeah, I just wanna point out and expose Rachel Gilson for the false teacher that she is.

31:04

This clip was 2018. She legitimized same -sex marriage.

31:12

She even, she said it was a divorce if, you can only get a divorce if you're married, right?

31:20

It's not a divorce if it's a same -sex marriage because there's no such thing as same -sex marriage biblically.

31:26

God has, you can't become one flesh with a same -sex person.

31:32

It's impossible. Because when you look at Genesis 2, you know, a piece of Adam is removed from him to make

31:40

Eve. So he's missing something from his body. She's missing her body.

31:47

And God brings the two back together to become one flesh, which is the sex act of a male and female in the covenant of marriage.

31:55

And what God has joined together, let not man separate. The two shall become one flesh. That cannot happen in a same -sex marriage at all.

32:04

God hasn't designed it that way. So she legitimizes same -sex marriage in that clip. She has never publicly responded to that clip.

32:14

She's memory -holded, which is just like a politician. I'm so sick of evangelical leaders publicly teaching heresy.

32:25

And that's heretical teaching to give legitimacy to same -sex marriage. Teaching heresy, and then when we raised

32:33

Cain about it back in June, because she was teaching at an SBC event, me and other pastors raised

32:40

Cain about that. And she released a statement that she affirmed biblical marriage.

32:47

And she never has addressed this clip. She's never addressed her false teaching publicly where she legitimized same -sex marriage in that clip.

32:57

She said that it was God hates divorce. Well, in the context, he's talking about divorce of marriages that he has joined together, right?

33:09

Male and female. He's not talking about same -sex marriage. I mean, that one clip alone should disqualify her from ever teaching anyone, ever teaching

33:22

Sunday school. She should not, until she publicly repents. But today, you can literally teach heresy, and it can be on video, and be four or five years ago.

33:38

And you can just memory -hole it and act like it never happened, just like a politician. Who are you gonna believe, your own eyes or Rachel Gillison's statement on marriage that she's released in the past year?

33:51

But I think it's, I think, do I even have to say what's wrong with that clip?

33:58

Not really. There was something that caught my attention early on before she said all of that.

34:03

She said, we respect the laws of the land, even if they contradict what the

34:09

Bible says. And the context is the law that profanes marriage.

34:14

And so we, I don't know what other conclusion to reach other than, well, we kind of, we let the

34:20

Obergefell decision stand, and we just, we have respect it to some extent. We don't challenge it,

34:26

I guess. And that seems to be the useful purpose that her teaching serves, is it does help evangelicals make peace with the regime, in their minds, at least, that they can somehow, that they can exist in a state of a non -threatening state.

34:45

And so they won't be censored by the IRS or something like that. I mean, I don't know that she's thinking through all those implications.

34:53

That just seems to be the pressure and where it's coming from. And I think that was an admission in the beginning.

34:58

Yes. So think about that, like in American history. Yeah. Think about the big sins of American history, right?

35:07

Think of chattel slavery. She would not be teaching or opposing the law of the land in that day.

35:16

Jim Crow laws. She would not be teaching against those, right? Like these people, she's like Andy Stanley.

35:24

They won't talk, they don't come against abortion publicly. They don't come against, like they don't come against same -sex marriage publicly.

35:32

And which means that the big sins of the culture, they're just gonna lay down and accept and try to, like you said, make peace with the regime, make peace with Antichrist, if we're following what the

35:46

Apostle John says in 1 John 1, 1 John 4, where he literally calls those who deny

35:51

Christ are Antichrist. Right. Yeah. And I'm sure,

35:57

I haven't looked into it, but I'm sure Rachel Gilson, like most evangelicals in elite circles, will lionize abolitionists and MLK and these figures that are viewed as heroes now, and because they did not respect certain laws, they opposed certain laws.

36:17

But yeah, in our own day, it's clear to see where the pressure's coming from and why.

36:25

So I think maybe we've been going more than half an hour. Maybe it'd be good to switch gears now and talk a little bit about the reform tradition, because many of the

36:34

Christians listening are interested in that, or the Protestant tradition, really. I think when you talk about reformed in your book, you're talking about historical

36:43

Protestants in the context of breaking away or trying to purify the

36:49

Catholic church. So you're viewed today as maybe a niche or just, you're not in the mainstream, but at one time in our circles, theologically, your view was the accepted view by pretty much everyone.

37:06

That's the thing your book shows, which I think is so valuable. In one of the chapters, you show

37:11

Augustine and then you show, in detail, then you show a number of the reformers, some of them

37:17

I had not even heard of, who all agreed with the position that you advocate on concupiscence.

37:23

So do you wanna give us maybe a survey of that and then what changed? Yeah, sure.

37:28

So up until the 1500s, as far as confessionally, doctrinally, virtually all

37:38

Christians believe that evil desire is morally culpable sin. The Roman Catholic church, even at the

37:44

Council of Trent, argues that original sin is morally culpable sin. That's why you have to be baptized as an infant to take that original sin away, or you go to hell.

37:53

I mean, that's what they argue at Trent, where Protestants and the Roman Catholics disagreed was not what sin is concerning original sin.

38:03

What they disagreed on is what sin is in Christians, whether it's in the baptized or in those who have faith.

38:14

For Roman Catholics, they argued that once the baptism takes the guilt away, so concupiscence no longer has guilt, and it can no longer produce guilt unless you willfully submit to it.

38:29

So they believe that sin changed in the baptized. But Protestants argue that no, sin remains the same in the baptized, it's just imputed to Christ.

38:41

We're no longer held accountable for it. Christ is held accountable for it, and we receive his righteousness.

38:47

And so that was the big difference. It wasn't over what sin is. But then today, the modern

38:52

Roman Catholic church today has a semi -Pelagian view on the doctrine of sin. They believe, they argue it's not just in the baptized that original sin is not morally culpable, but they argue that in everyone it's not morally culpable, unless you submit to it.

39:11

And so it's strange today, but the Council of Trent would say that modern Roman Catholics are heretics.

39:17

If you go back and you read the Council of Trent, 1540s, 1545 to 1563,

39:25

I think, but if you go read just the confession that came out of that, and what the smoking gun, if you will, at Trent is that they produced two forms on the doctrine of concupiscence.

39:39

The first form had Augustine mentioned, and it had Aquinas mentioned, right?

39:45

Both of them arguing that, because they're Augustinian monks that were still in the Roman Catholic church.

39:51

They were the minority though at that point, because they all were becoming Protestants. But they were arguing that the relic of sin,

40:02

I can't remember which one it is. I think it's Augustine that says relic, and then one says the material.

40:12

But both Aquinas and Augustine, or Thomas is better to say, because Aquinas is where he's from.

40:22

But Thomas, both of them were mentioned, but then the argument came from those who were dominant that if there's still the relic of sin in Christians, how can there be any form of sin left in Christians and God not hate it?

40:39

So God would still have to hate the Christian. And so they removed that, and what actually ended up being published from the

40:46

Council of Trent, it removed both Augustine's quote and Aquinas' quote. But the

40:52

Roman Catholic catechism that came after that put,

40:57

I believe, put Augustine back in there. And so they were less, they were more favorable to Augustine, whoever wrote the,

41:08

I think it was the Pope. The Council of Trent commissioned the Pope to write the Catholic catechism that came out of the

41:17

Council of Trent, and he put Augustine back in there. But he still got

41:22

Augustine wrong because he argues that sinful inclination becomes lust at a later date, like it's not lust itself.

41:33

But Augustine argues that from the beginning, from the beginning, lust is lust, like it doesn't become lust at a later date.

41:44

No, no, no, it is from the beginning in your heart, lust. Does that answer the question?

41:49

Well, that was a development too with Augustine, right? Because you show that he changed his view from his earlier sermons to his later writings and sermons.

41:59

Yes, I believe so. Even his interpretation of certain passages, like the one we just read, actually, from Romans 7.

42:08

So then you have Calvin and Luther and Zwingli, and then a whole bunch of Melanchthon.

42:14

You talk about everyone, and they all adopted

42:19

Augustine's view, essentially, on this issue, that the stirrings of the heart, even the initial stirrings are lust.

42:28

The Westminster Confession, you go through a number of confessions, catechisms, et cetera.

42:35

So the question, I mean, historically, I don't know if anyone's traced this, but the question I had from a history angle is, okay, so this was universally understood, what happened?

42:45

Is it the last 20 years? Has this been 200 years? I mean, you talk about Spurgeon, you talk about this view being passed down to Archibald Alexander and all these people from the 19th century who also carried it.

42:58

Jonathan Edwards in the 17th century, or rather 18th century.

43:03

And so, where was this lost? I think it was lost in the

43:09

Enlightenment and ever since then, because we started looking in the mirror instead of looking at the word.

43:17

So people say, well, how can I be held accountable for something I didn't choose? Which that's men looking upon the outward stuff.

43:25

Like we're thinking of human courts where you're only judged based on your actions, what they can prove, right?

43:33

But God looks upon the heart and that's what we've gotten away from. Basically, we have practiced a theology from below or anthropology, and that's all revoices.

43:43

That's all these people arguing for gay Christianity. All they're doing is practicing anthropology.

43:51

They're surveying a bunch of people and saying, how do you feel? They're constantly talking about their feelings, constantly talking about their attractions.

43:59

Whenever, biblically speaking, our job is to read the word and to believe it. And so concerning anthropology, we're to believe what the

44:08

Bible says concerning us, not what we feel. It doesn't matter if you feel like you're sinning or not. That is not, you're not gonna stand before your feelings one day.

44:16

You're gonna stand before God. So we'd better read his word and believe it.

44:22

We are who his word says we are. And sin is what God says it is, not what we feel it is.

44:30

That's right. There's a clip I wanna play. Before I do that,

44:35

I just, I had a thought. We've been doing on the podcast, a series on liberalism, which of course, this is an enlightenment kind of inspired thinking that we all now just accept as true.

44:48

And I wonder to what extent evangelicals, even conservative ones are very impacted by liberalism.

44:55

And I mean, even the slogans, like you can do everything you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.

45:00

It's wrong to violate anyone's choice. All of these things, even the diversity is our strength and all of these things kind of coalesce together to create this situation where man is autonomous and any obligations that are not of his choosing, whether that is national borders or labor relationships, or even now your gender, these obligations cannot be forced upon a person because they should consent.

45:29

And consent is the God that many of us worship. And I guess we saw that in Ohio last night, didn't we?

45:35

With two issues, really. It's not just the abortion issue. It's also the marijuana issue, that you can put anything in your body as long as you consent to it.

45:45

And I know that we don't take that in the evangelical world as far as people in the world, the world system do, but I think we're impacted by that.

45:57

I think we have an aversion to anything that would be an unchosen obligation. And so it just, that's my theory that, and I think that lines up with what you're saying, that as the enlightenment and liberalism kind of rose, this view on concupiscence kind of waned.

46:18

There is a clip I wanna show you though, and I'll get your reaction to it. These are a number of Roman Catholic apologists, modern

46:24

Roman Catholic apologists and priests, all talking about this topic of concupiscence.

46:30

And I want people, as we're listening to this clip, think about your evangelical teachers who talk about this issue, especially when it comes to same -sex attraction, and whether or not it sounds like what you're hearing from these

46:44

Roman Catholics. In paragraph 1264, just for the folks who may not know what that says, it says, yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, the tender for sin,

47:11

Fomus Picati in Latin, right? Since concupiscence is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent, but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.

47:22

Indeed, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The Catholic Church Catechism states, homosexual persons are called to chastity.

47:32

By the virtues of self -mastery that teach them their inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach

47:42

Christian perfection. The church is not saying that the desire is a sin. See, actions are sins, desires are not.

47:49

Because you can't be charged with a sin for something you didn't choose, something you can't be in control of. But once we have these attractions to whatever, then

47:57

I need to choose how I behave. So is concupiscence a sin? See, the Protestants confused concupiscence with sin, you know, that original sin is in us, and we are still in sin, and concupiscence is proof of it.

48:15

It's sin in us, you see? That's wrong. So it's not a sin in itself.

48:23

Sin comes from the will. That's a very important point. All right, well, a number of Roman Catholics there,

48:33

Tim Staples, Catholic Answers folks, we had a priest at the end there.

48:41

And it sounds like, actually, the priest at the end was arguing against the historic Protestant position, not, he doesn't realize that modern evangelicals are saying something very similar to what he's saying.

48:52

What's your reaction to that? I don't know if you've seen those clips. They wrongfully assume that the will is not involved in concupiscence.

49:03

The way that Paul describes his flesh, he says in Romans 7, 24, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

49:13

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh,

49:20

I serve the law of sin. So Paul talks about his flesh as he is willfully involved in his flesh.

49:30

They mistaken, and Augustine gets this right too. Augustine says there's a difference between mindfully involved and not mindfully involved.

49:40

But both are sin. Your will is involved. They're confusing the will with the mind. Because how could you have an evil inclination if the will is not involved?

49:52

How could that happen? So the flesh is willful.

49:59

Your will is involved. And the only evidence you have to say that it isn't is your personal experience.

50:06

You don't think it's involved, so therefore it's not. Can the will feel like it's involuntary at times?

50:12

That's the question, I guess. Yeah, I think so too. It can feel, but it gets back to what does the

50:19

Bible say versus, well, I don't feel like I chose it. And John, something that's interesting, man, is when people talk about their same -sex desires, or even desires for lust, heterosexual lust or whatever, they talk about personally,

50:37

I experience same -sex attraction, like I'm experiencing lust, trying to disconnect themselves from the volitional reality that's occurring in their heart.

50:50

They're trying to downplay it. Because no one talks about whenever they wanna worship God or whenever they wanna do something holy, they never say,

50:58

I'm experiencing a desire to please the Lord. No, it's always, I wanna please

51:04

God. Right, they take credit for that one. Yeah, they wanna take credit for the righteous inclinations that the

51:10

Spirit is producing. But the flesh, oh no, no, that's not my fault. That's an alien that's inside of me, or like I'm possessed, or I mean, if you're not desiring, see, the reason why

51:22

I push so hard against this is because in order to turn from the flesh, you have to first take responsibility for it.

51:31

You're the one desiring this. It's not somebody else. And the whole point is that, yes, you do want whatever the flesh is wanting, or it wouldn't be an issue.

51:40

The flesh will only tempt you with what you find to be tempting. And the reason why it's recurring is because you have not repented.

51:49

People say, well, I've repented. And then they'll, on this subject, same -sex attraction, they'll say, well,

51:54

I do repent. I repent all the time. But then they constantly talk about, I have a lifelong same -sex attraction.

52:03

Those two cannot go together, repentance and lifelong same -sex attraction.

52:10

You have to, you gotta first quit talking about yourself. That's really a big issue. If you go listen to Revoice or listen to these people, like Alberry, they're constantly talking about their feelings, talking about their attractions.

52:23

And the key is to talk about Jesus. The only way you're gonna overcome your sinful inclinations is to quit running to the mirror, quit talking about, well, am

52:34

I experiencing this or am I desiring it? Did I do this or is it happening to me? You're constantly looking within to try to discern whether or not you're sinning.

52:44

Just open the Bible and is it obedient to God if not it's sin. And the remedy to sin is to run to Jesus Christ, not to the mirror, but Alberry, Revoice, Rachel Gilson, Rebecca McLaughlin, Tree Week, Dean and Sarah, Jackie Hill Perry.

53:06

I mean, literally all of these people send you running to the mirror to try to figure out if you're sinning or not, rather than opening the

53:14

Bible and saying, this is sin because it's not obedient to God, run to Jesus and be healed. You know, the purpose of the law is not to send us running to the mirror to self -justified.

53:24

The purpose of Jesus's temptation is not to send us running to the mirror saying, I'm like Jesus. It's to send us running to Jesus for salvation.

53:33

Anyway, I'm a preacher, so. No, it's good, keep going if you want.

53:38

I have some practical questions that you can take it shorter as long as you want to on.

53:44

These come from, a lot of them from objections to our previous video that we did, man, a year ago, something like that.

53:52

But conditions is the first question I have regarding conditions. Can there be things in one's life?

53:59

There was someone who reached out to me. There's actually a few who did with different situations, but one in particular said, look,

54:05

I was raised in a home where I had someone abusing me, and that particular person was, and I'm trying not to be graphic on the podcast here, but for lack of a better term, stimulating me in ways that are only appropriate in a marriage scenario.

54:25

And that stimulation is a biological response that now has been kind of bred into me through my circumstances where I had to, when

54:35

I became saved, try to overcome this, but it was extremely difficult, and it's still something that,

54:44

I think maybe the word used was struggle with, but it's something that I'm aware of that I have, and it's simply biological.

54:52

And my response at the time was, well, I think there can be conditions that will make sin more difficult to overcome, but that doesn't mean that you're off the hook as if it's strictly biology and that's all that's going on.

55:06

So what would you, how would you counsel someone in a scenario like that? Yeah, it's a category area to call something the

55:14

Bible calls sin biology. That's the first thing.

55:20

You have to call it sin. You have to quit saying that it's biology. Again, that's talking about your feelings.

55:25

You may feel like it's biological, but it's ultimately sin. I mean, if the same thing happened to Jesus, he would not be responding the way that you are because he would respond in a sinless way.

55:37

We know this because when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. And so people, they wanna categorize things like that in a different category.

55:48

But if it's biology, then you're free in Christ to just live according to your biology.

55:55

But it's not biology, and that's why you're feeling shame and guilt. You're not responsible for the abuse that happened to you, but you are responsible for the desires in you that are contrary to God.

56:06

And you have to take responsibility for those desires. That's the first step in overcoming them and rejecting them.

56:12

It's similar to someone who says, well, I was raised by a sadomasochist, and now

56:18

I can only consummate my marriage if I participate in some form of sadomasochism.

56:26

No, no, no. You are who God says you are, not who your flesh says you are. You have to reject those desires that are contrary to God, in this sense, trying to get pleasure from pain.

56:38

And you have to reject those desires. It might be reject them for a long time before you are able to be sexually aroused in a way to where you can consummate your marriage with your spouse.

56:50

And this can be a very challenging thing for marriages where that person can't perform. We'll put,

56:56

I don't know what word to use, but they can't consummate if they aren't aroused in particular ways because they have so polluted their minds or their minds, they pollute, they allow their minds to be polluted.

57:10

And so, I mean, this is a practical thing pastors now, I think, have to deal with more and more, especially with pornography as prevalent and now as violent as it is.

57:21

Where do you even start? This is discouraging for the wife if the husband's like this, which often

57:26

I know that's the case, but it doesn't always have to be. And they just think that there's something in them that's wrong, what can they do?

57:34

And they just want their husband to be attracted to them. I mean, there's people listening right now,

57:39

Jared, who I'm sure have this experience to some extent. And I'm sure you've had to counsel people like this.

57:46

I mean, what do you say to them? Yeah, you would have to look at their daily lives because in order to overcome things like that, you have to essentially starve yourself sexually, starve your vision, starve the things that you see.

57:59

I would cut out all electronics, all participation until you were starved in such a way that you long for God's good design.

58:10

And then you cultivate desires that are in lockstep with God's good design. You know, it's the equivalent of someone who eats dirt.

58:17

They're eating dirt, they love dirt, all they've known is dirt. They get saved and they realize

58:22

God has provided fruit and vegetables and meat. And we're telling them, look, no, this tastes better.

58:28

This is what you were designed for. Stop eating the dirt. No, no, I don't want to eat dirt. No, you were made for better things, right?

58:35

Look at what God has designed you for. Look at what he's designed your body for. And you cultivate desires that are in lockstep with God's word.

58:43

And so I would encourage the person so to where your mind is in lockstep with God's word, thinking of distinct feminine beauty and distinct masculine beauty.

58:53

And so the way that God has designed males and females to be males and females for his glory and to see in that in your spouse and recognizing that beauty.

59:05

And that could be the beginning of a sexual attraction for your spouse based on something that God calls good.

59:15

That's good. And so that's what I would pursue. And if you're single, then you pursue the marriage covenant, the goodness of the marriage covenant and wanting to consummate in that covenant, right?

59:27

That's what you're aimed at. Like I tell my boys, I've got three boys and I'm telling them their bodies are telling them to get married.

59:34

I don't tell them your body's telling you to have sex. It's not, it's telling you to get married according to God's design.

59:40

Find a spouse, consummate the marriage. That's good. And I want to get to that too, because I think that the whole dating courtship, that inner period there between marriage and, well, maybe we should just do it now since we're already on it.

59:54

We talked about this a little bit before, but this is something I'm going to be honest. I still, I don't know if I have hangups, but I have to like think through it because maybe it's the way

01:00:05

I'm wired or maybe, I don't know what it is, but you talk about in your book, there's a quote where you say something along the lines of, you know, you weren't created if you're a male to have a desire for women.

01:00:19

You're created to have a desire for your wife, right? And the difficulty

01:00:24

I think is that in this period where you are trying to find a wife, you can, there's an attraction that you can feel for multiple women.

01:00:36

And that's one of the things that I guess, not multiple, but what I mean is like, you can be attracted to one person and then realize that you don't really know them.

01:00:44

Maybe that's not the person. And then you'll date or court another person. And right, so you, oftentimes we'll get to know a few different people before you land on, this is the spouse, this is the one

01:00:54

I'm in a covenant with. And there can be various levels of attraction in that process. Can any of that attraction be non -sinful?

01:01:03

Can there be a recognition of beauty or, you know, qualities that you like, but it's not, you're not violating any future covenant that you're gonna make with your spouse in that process.

01:01:16

Because the reason I'm asking is this is such a challenge for teens today and 20 somethings in a culture where we just hook up now, right?

01:01:30

And in the church, we're fighting about dating and courtship and like, it's all confused.

01:01:35

So give us some guidance on that. Yeah, sure. So it is a good thing to notice the beauty of an opposite sex person.

01:01:46

If that is in a, you're not wanting to consummate with them, right?

01:01:54

You're not wanting, it's not lust. It's not the beginning of the lust of the flesh. In other words, if you were in the garden of Eden, you would say that person's beautiful.

01:02:03

I mean, we assume everybody'd be naked, right? Like, I mean, everybody, there wouldn't be any clothes.

01:02:09

You'd have an entire population in the world. Everybody's naked and yet no one would lust, you know?

01:02:17

And so, you know, when you're looking for a spouse, Paul says you're supposed to look for the good works that are in alignment with God's word, that that's what true beauty is.

01:02:28

Yes, there is physical beauty as well. But we, the way that in part of our culture, we shouldn't even be aware of our future spouse's breasts or body or figure before we're even married.

01:02:47

That's just the culture we live in. This is something peculiar to the West because of the clothes that people wear.

01:02:55

Like even when we're talking about attraction, it's very much because of where we live. I mean, if you live back in Bible times, you would not be aware of your spouse's figure before you got married.

01:03:07

I mean, a little bit, but nothing like today, right?

01:03:13

Nothing like is present today. So I think we have to encourage folks to find the godliest person they can to marry.

01:03:23

And it is okay to desire to consummate that marriage one day but to desire to consummate it now is the issue.

01:03:33

That's a good distinction. I think that helps a lot to say, hey, it's okay to want to do that in the future in that covenant, because that's what

01:03:42

God wants. I was thinking though, as you were talking about the figure thing, Jacob, who he desired

01:03:48

Rachel, but not Leah, and it talks about Leah's eyes were dim. So there was something physical there, at least in the facial features, that attracted him.

01:03:59

I mean, obviously that's a story that's not necessarily instruction for us, but that does seem to be the natural way that people find themselves together.

01:04:12

They're attracted to each other. And that is part of the recipe. Like all these other qualities, of course, should be priorities and maybe higher priorities because God says they are.

01:04:22

But I just don't see a way to get around, the physical part's gotta be there somewhere, in a non -lustful way somehow.

01:04:32

Right, so that's the key. Okay, we're in agreement then. A non -lustful way, as long as you aim that towards the covenant, like God is telling me to cut a covenant with this woman, you can't aim it towards sex.

01:04:47

It has to be, these desires are for the covenant, to cut a covenant with this person.

01:04:54

Because otherwise, if it's not aimed at the covenant, then what happens if it doesn't work out?

01:04:59

Then here you have desired to consummate a marriage with a woman you're not gonna marry.

01:05:05

And now you're gonna marry somebody else and you marry that person, but you've still got all this previous desire for consummation.

01:05:13

I mean, God can heal, you can repent. You know what I'm saying? But you're gonna wish that you had not desired to consummate that marriage with somebody else.

01:05:22

That's right, yeah. No, that's good. What about dreams? Okay, someone has a dream, sexual in nature.

01:05:31

You think of the young man who is just starting to experience puberty and has a dream.

01:05:39

And the question has been whether or not these dreams which don't arise from at least something that seems voluntary because you're sleeping are in fact sinful.

01:05:54

Now, I've always confessed if I ever had a dream where I did anything wrong. If I killed someone in a dream,

01:06:00

I can't remember doing that. But if there's anything that I feel guilty about, I just confess it. But there is a strong teaching, because I've heard it from many quarters in Christianity, at least this assumption that you're not on the hook for dreams.

01:06:12

So what do you think? Dreams, sinful, not? Who had the dream? Yeah, you did.

01:06:20

So you're responsible. I mean, you can say I'm not mindfully involved, but it's the same way with the flesh, right?

01:06:27

We're talking about ourselves to try to get ourselves out of sin when we should be talking about Jesus. I just assume we're sinning more than we realize, because we have a savior.

01:06:38

Why do we need to try to figure out, oh, I'm not responsible. Why are we trying to self -justify?

01:06:45

Because that's what this boils down to. We're trying to say, well, I'm not responsible for this. I'm not responsible for that.

01:06:51

I'm not responsible. Literally, we're the ones who are having these desires. They're coming from our heart. If we were in the garden, we wouldn't be having these nocturnal things, these emissions.

01:07:00

We wouldn't be having these dreams. If we're in heaven, we're not having these dreams. I just assume that we're responsible for it.

01:07:08

And I don't try to discern where and what happened to make me responsible, or why

01:07:14

I'm having this dream, or my flesh is evil. That's why, it's like a little devil inside of me.

01:07:21

It came from the devil. In Adam and Eve, it came from the devil, and ours came from Adam.

01:07:28

So anyway. So you're not someone, maybe we can land a plane on this since we've been going over an hour, but you're not someone who, that stereotypical kind of puritanical, always looking out for where sin is, right?

01:07:41

And navel gazing to find out where's the sin so you can try to destroy it. Like you're living your life in a normal way, understanding that it's messy, that people sin, and that's what

01:07:50

Christ, that's why he died. That's what the gospel's for. And so you're applying that then to your own life and the lives of others under your care, not reaching out to condemn immediately.

01:08:03

Because I do see this stereotype, and I've actually experienced the stereotype myself, because it exists, of people who they might even have, this is what the

01:08:14

Bible does say, but then they're almost robotic. They're not even human because they're so, again, they're obsessed with themselves.

01:08:20

They're always looking at themselves. And where did I sin? And oh man, I got to cut that out now. And looking to Christ, I think, takes a lot of that burden.

01:08:29

Well, it takes all the burden, right? Yeah, he's the only one who can take the burden away. You have to say,

01:08:35

I mean, it's good to say, well, the Bible says that's sin. I had that inclination.

01:08:41

I'm responsible. I run to Jesus. I reject that sin. And I seek to cultivate desires that are in agreement with God's word.

01:08:49

But at the end of the day, I sleep like someone who's saved, right? I sleep like someone who has, sin has been imputed to Christ, and he's literally taken, he's expiated my sin.

01:08:58

He's taken it all away. He's propitiated God's wrath towards me, and he's satisfied it eternally, and given me his righteousness.

01:09:06

It is his work that saves me, not my own. And so, yes, I seek to live out of his work, a godly life.

01:09:14

But where I fall short, I rest in Christ and not the mirror. I don't need to self -justify.

01:09:20

I don't need to make excuses. I have a savior who intercedes for me. And you do too, listener, if you're trusting in Jesus, you need to believe all that the

01:09:29

Bible says concerning you, that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So you're not the

01:09:34

Amish. You're not a monk. You're not trying to live outside the world. So you don't have to, you know, you're living in it, and you're experiencing the temptations that come your way, but you're going to Christ and fleeing to him.

01:09:48

Amen. So that's the goal. That's the goal for every Christian who's listening. So they can get the book, and I would recommend, even if this is something you think you have a handle on, it's a good book to get just as a reference, because there's so many good pieces of history, and then pieces of also biblical exegesis in it.

01:10:05

You can go to the website, freegracepress .com, and get Lust of the Flesh by Jared Moore.

01:10:13

And if you want to give it to your friends or do a study, it seems like a good book for a book study.

01:10:18

You could just take a chapter a week, discuss. Is there, there's not like an accompanying Q &A type discussion manual, is there?

01:10:25

No, okay. There's not, but if folks have any questions or critiques or comments, they can find me on Twitter at Jared H.

01:10:33

Moore, and I will do my best to help in any way, or even if you want to complain or whatever,

01:10:38

I'll do my best to respond. Yeah, I appreciate that. So all the complaints, don't send them to me.

01:10:44

Jared H. Moore on Twitter. No, send them to John. Send them to John. I'll get them anyway, but no,

01:10:50

I appreciate the openness there. So people can find Jared Moore on Twitter. He's also got a

01:10:56

YouTube channel. You can type in Dr. Jared Moore on YouTube, and he is the pastor of Cumberland Homesteads Baptist Church.

01:11:03

If you're in the area, what area is that? Where are you? It's at Crossfield, Tennessee. So it's right in middle Tennessee.

01:11:09

Yeah, my brother was looking at that. He wanted to move there, I think. So I don't know what's happening with that, but anyway, beautiful area.

01:11:17

Well, God bless Pastor Moore. Thank you once again. John, thank you, brother. Keep at it, man.