Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, everyone. Mark here. Welcome to the Mark Clark podcast. Hopefully you are doing awesome today. We are diving into a topic that is crucial, but for some, very uncomfortable. It's lust and adultery, this massive theme throughout the whole book of proverbs. Amazingly, and now, I know you didn't probably wake up going, I hope we can talk about lust and adultery today. But trust me, it's one of the most important practical issues in all of our lives and discussions that we can have.
Mark Clark [00:00:24]:
So in this episode, we're gonna explore why the book of Proverbs constantly brings these issues up and why God isn't shy about them, even if you and I are about addressing them. And so we'll talk about how lust can start super small and then grow to an appetite and ultimately lead to destruction in our lives and relationships. And we're also gonna discuss practical ways to fight these temptations in our modern, tech saturated world. So grab your bible, let's open up to the book of proverbs, and let's get real about navigating these challenges with a lot of wisdom and a lot of grace. And I will say as we launch into this episode that this podcast is part of a larger podcast family, a network called the Thrive Podcast Network. And so go over and check that out@thrivepodcastnetwork.com. or text podcast to 56316 and you'll get all the info. There's a great pod over there called Better Days, and it is hosted by my friend Wesleytown.
Mark Clark [00:01:17]:
And Wesley is a super smart guy and has just a story of his own life coming out of a lot of pain and a lot of suffering and talks a lot about pain, suffering and mental health. And so that is going to be super relevant to a lot of you out there. So go on. Apple podcasts. And the podcast is called Better Days. And it, as well as this podcast, is part of the thrive podcast network, which we are so glad to be a part of. Okay, let's jump into the book of Proverbs and this amazing topic. Let's get going.
Mark Clark [00:01:45]:
The reality is, this is one of the most important topics we can talk about in life, and this is what we love about the book of proverbs and why we're teaching it. Why would you talk about such a topic when we got together as a teaching team and said, what are the huge topics that the book of proverbs constantly comes back to? Lust and adultery actually comes up over and over and over again in the book of proverbs. And we love that, because what that says is that contrary to us, who like to kind of be shy about stuff and sweep things under the rug in the church, God isn't like that. God actually goes in the Bible. I'm going to talk to you about stuff that is real life. And the reality is sex and lust and marriage and adultery is the same stuff of everyday life. That's actually how we function in the world. And it's a vastly important topic.
Mark Clark [00:02:42]:
It's important for you, it's important for your marriage, it's important for your relationships, your dating life, your single life. And it's important for the culture that we live in. This topic that God lays out, because here's what the church has historically done. It's got up and taught everybody that we should be ashamed about it, we should bury it. We shouldn't really talk about it that much. As one writer has said, the youth group talk on sex has been, it is vile, nasty, dirty, and wrong. So save it for the one you love. And that is not how the Bible approaches this topic.
Mark Clark [00:03:19]:
The Bible wants to lay out a really beautiful, flourishing, orthodox full vision of sexuality for your life. We're not going to have time to deal with all that. We're going to touch on that a little bit. But specifically now in regard to the question of lust and adultery. I remember the couple was sitting across from me in my office, one of many couples that I pastored over the last 20 years. And he was looking down at his feet, ashamed. She was looking down at her feet, ashamed, embarrassed. The marriage was falling apart.
Mark Clark [00:03:55]:
The kids didn't know what was going on because he had cheated. Now, how had he cheated? It hadn't jumped from nothing to I met someone. That just happened. It had started with the secret sin of lust. It had started with him scrolling the Internet and beginning to explore things. And then he would start to test it with people and push the boundaries. And over and over again, he sought out this lust, and it began to feed on him like an appetite. And sooner or later, he tested it out in real life.
Mark Clark [00:04:32]:
This is exactly what tends to happen and why God warns us, why the Bible goes out of its way to warn us against the reality of lust and where it can lead in our life. It can traumatize our life so much. So if you have your notes, let's look the first fill in. And I'm going to follow the fill ins. This is going to be heavy tonight. All right. I can already feel it, everyone. Like, every time I say the word lust, it's like, don't move.
Mark Clark [00:05:05]:
Because if I move he'll know it's me, guys. I already know it's you, man. That's part of the sermon is it's you, it's me, it's everybody. That's the point. We're going to get there. But here's how we've kind of mixed this up in the context of the church in our life. Here's how quickly we can recognize the ecosystem that is sex and lust, ourselves, our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with others, our relationship with God. And all of those things are interconnected because the Bible constantly talks about, even when David talks about his sin with Bathsheba, he says, first, did I sin against you? That your sin against other people is a sin against yourself and its sin against other people, but ultimately it's a sin against God.
Mark Clark [00:05:54]:
And so what happens is it's such an ecosystem that we don't know where one begins and the other ends. Timothy Keller, who is a pastor in New York City, talked about doing ministry to university students in Manhattan, these progressive kids. And he would sit down with them and they would realize that they had come from some town, you know, in Arkansas or something, you know, where pastor Kevin comes from. Wherever I, they raise cows and, you know, marry one of the 20 girls in their town that's not their cousin. And they would get to New York City and they would begin to rethink their views on God and on sexuality. And they would say to Tim, you know, I got here and I believed in God. But then I went to New York University and I rethought God because I went to a philosophy and a psychology class. I realized God doesn't exist.
Mark Clark [00:06:43]:
Ergo, I started sleeping around. And he would often point out the fact that that wasn't always the chronology, that if really, if you think about it, he would make these students realize that you got here and started rethinking your sexuality. You started rethinking what you wanted to do in regard to sleeping around. And once you started down that route, then you rethought your view on God because you didn't want God and his word to have an authority in your life anymore. So you choose to take your own sexuality and become your own God and wrap it up in yourself. This is the ecosystem that is our life. The hidden motives behind things, where we even can deceive ourselves into thinking certain things is fascinating. And so look at, number one, the reality of lust.
Mark Clark [00:07:31]:
Look at proverbs 23 to 25. Here's what Solomon says. And it's interesting because Solomon is the son of David and Bathsheba. And if you don't know the story, david, of course, cheated on his Own wife with BAThSHEbA. And then her husband died, and they had a kid, and that kid died. ANd Solomon was then another son that they'd Had. ANd here he is giving us teaching on the very thing that he's a product of. And he screams at us from this ancient time and says, guys, you got to understand, this will ruin your life.
Mark Clark [00:08:05]:
Lust and adultery will destroy you. So here's what he says. For this command is a lamp. This teaching is a light, and correction and instruction are the way to life. We've constantly said the proverbs is getting you to have life versus death keeping you from your neighbor's wife, from the smooth talk of a wayward woman. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. Now, oftentimes, of course, the church has done a disservice and gone see all those women out there trying to get you boys, you know, and you've heard these preachers get up and go. I was in my car, and I was at a red light, and I looked over, and this vixen, she wanted me with her eyes, but I kept myself from her.
Mark Clark [00:08:55]:
And you're like, whatever, pastor. No one's ever wanted you, right? You just have these dreams of these women hunting you down. You know, the point isn't that women are out there hunting everybody, and you need to be careful. It's both women and men. Okay? That's the point, is that lust, and if you add, it's not just a male problem. Of course, lust, for those of you wondering how many copies 50 shades of gray has sold, it will tell you that women have a great capacity for lust. They just cover it up. When they're reading that book on the beach, they put a Jenny Allen book cover or something.
Mark Clark [00:09:34]:
On the problem of God. I'm reading the latest Beth Moore Bible study, and they're like, oh, christian. All right, so, see, you knew his name. I caught you. So these women and these men all lusting, and this is part of life. Let's define lust. When we objectify another person for our own personal pleasure, when we look at someone and go from they are beautiful to then fantasizing about them, that's lust. It could be a real person.
Mark Clark [00:10:03]:
It could be someone online. It could be someone in a movie. Whatever it is, it becomes a way of life for some people, and it derails them. It goes from looking at someone as the image of God, someone we need to serve and love, to dehumanizing them and thinking about them as someone who can serve you in your sexual passion and lust versus you loving them and serving them and seeing them as the image of God. And God constantly warns us about this way of life. The ten Commandments. Moses comes down the mountain, gives the ten Commandments to Israel. Don't do this.
Mark Clark [00:10:38]:
Don't do that. And the last one is, don't go after your neighbor's wife. Do not go and sleep with another man's wife. Jesus then updates it, and in the sermon on the mount, gives one of the craziest passages in regard to this topic and what our culture actually needs to hear. Because oftentimes we look at the Old Testament as if it's hard, but then Jesus comes along and he makes things easier, right? We're like the Old Testament. That's rough. Man can't eat no, selfish, can't get no tattoo, whatever. But then Christianity comes and it's all, whoo, it's loosey goosey.
Mark Clark [00:11:13]:
No big deal. We can all get away with stuff. Here's Jesus. You've heard that it was said, do not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Uh oh. So I don't even need to sleep with her? Nope. If you thought about it, you're guilty of adultery.
Mark Clark [00:11:35]:
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. Wow. Jesus is not making this easier. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. It sounds like he's pretty serious, because, and here's the hard part about this. Jesus holds up this amazing teaching, and it's really hard to follow this in our life if we're dead honest, because we're visual creatures, right? We look at, we look at Vista. We are made as aesthetic creatures. God made us who love looking at stuff.
Mark Clark [00:12:16]:
And, you know, when you look at Chris Hemsworth, no one goes, ah, he's a dog. He's just scientifically good looking. That's just an objective fact. He's Thor. No one goes, ah, Thor, not my type. It's Thor. When you go to the grand canyon, you look out at the Grand Canyon and it's a thing of. It's a thing of beauty.
Mark Clark [00:12:41]:
And we're made to recognize beauty, and that's actually healthy to look at someone and say they're beautiful. My wife and I talk about that all the time. It's when it tips from an appreciation of a kind of beauty to actually fantasizing about them, that it becomes lust. That's the difference. It's the difference between money, which is a neutral thing, then tips over to greed. And the difficult part is trying to figure out when that is. And so Jesus warns us, and he goes, the result of a life spent with lust will end in hell, literally in eternal life. But it will start to work its way back into your life now.
Mark Clark [00:13:29]:
It will start to break you apart. And I have shepherded many families and watched them as now the money gets divided because the divorce happens and the house gets divided and the kids go to different Christmases. And hell, in a sense, starts to work its way into the present scenario because there's a disconnect of relationships and pain because they fell to this temptation. Now, the reality is, I just want you guys to feel this. Lust is a part of all of our lives because we all are sexual creatures. That's the way God wired us. That's the way he put us in the garden. And he said, sex is a good thing, right? When he put Adam and Eve in the garden, he didn't even put clothes on them.
Mark Clark [00:14:22]:
He was like, hey, guys, Adam, Eve. And that's why all the drawings are awkward in your Jesus storybook, kids Bible, because the tree just happens to be there at the right, you know, whatever it's like, because they're buck naked. That's how awesome God is, guys. And if you're a skeptic and you're like, Adam, don't you want to know the God who loves sex so much that he made Adam and Eve the first people naked and he would just have a good time. And at the first command he gives these naked people is, what? Be fruitful and multiply. What? That ain't gonna happen by having sex once a month with the lights off. That's gonna happen when it's a normal, healthy thing in their life. And he's going, I want you to fill the earth.
Mark Clark [00:15:20]:
This is how much I love sex. And this vocation that you have as human beings to do it so much. He understands our happiness. And what he's setting up in Genesis one and two is exactly what all the stats tell us today. All the sociological stats tell us that the people who are maximized in regard to their sexuality, the people who are having the most sex and the best sex are married couples. It counters all the data that goes out there, that when we watch tv shows, you know, and they live in New York and, like, watch friends, and they got. They're sleeping with different people every week. And you think, man, that looks like fun.
Mark Clark [00:16:05]:
Variety is the spice of life. Actually, they're having less sex and less good sex. The best sex is being had in the midst of a couple, in the context of their marriage, because they've learned each other and their security and their safety. And ten years in, you're having better sex than you did in the first ten years. That's the way it works. And God knew that, and he set it up. So right from the beginning, he said, guys, the only context for sex is right here. Man, woman, marriage, that's it.
Mark Clark [00:16:33]:
Anything outside of that, either before it or outside of it, during it, he's saying, is not what I designed it for. It's not how you're going to flourish. It's not how you're going to have ultimate happiness in this life. And so the reality, though, is this is a temptation for all of us. In ancient times, the temptation was not to go sleep with someone. In modern times, you can get lust anywhere. Any billboard, Internet, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok online. Lust is a way of life.
Mark Clark [00:17:07]:
It's everywhere, right? You can't escape it. You guys go on CNN or Fox News websites, whatever, and you're just trying to look up, you know, the latest stuff about balloons and there's like a half naked person there, like, here, click this and get your whatever. And you're like, I'm just trying to figure out whether World War three is happening and there's sex being thrown at you everywhere. I. You innocently go on Google and I want to figure out how to make hot cross buns, right? So unless you are going to detach fully from technology, move up to Auburn, read by candlelight and make your own buttons, unless. Unless that is going to be your life, then you have to figure out how to win this fight in the midst of the temptation of life, because the temptation is not going anywhere. For any of you who have a phone, you can look at anything you want at any time. So the question is going to be how you fight it.
Mark Clark [00:18:28]:
And we're gonna get there. In Adam and Eve's story, they're in the garden, and it says that the fruit was pleasing to the eye. And then the derangement began. It was pleasing to the eye. It was something that, it was almost lust. And so here's what I wanna say about that, guys, don't beat yourself up about it. It was true about Adam and Eve, and it's true about every single person in this room, we're wired for sexuality, and so there's a deranged version of it. And that's the constant battle until you get to heaven.
Mark Clark [00:19:07]:
So just admit it and just be like, okay, this is life. I'm in the constant battle where I need to be aware at all times of this fight. Why? For two reasons. Because a, your sinful nature, you are born not perfect, but you are born with a proclivity toward sin. And so we go online. We engage. Instead of turning away, we engage the lust. We feed it.
Mark Clark [00:19:34]:
And then something in us starts to grow. It's like an appetite. And here's what you have to understand and why Jesus is so saying, don't let your mind go down this route. It's all what modern psychology is proving to us today. It is all what modern science is proving to us today. That your brain has plasticity. And neuroscience tells us if you put something in your brain, it starts to carve out an appetite for that thing, and then your brain actually starts to create. It's malleable, your brain.
Mark Clark [00:20:08]:
So it begins to actually say, give me that. So it's like a sport. Like, if I pick up golf and I start a golf swing, and I swing once, it's no big deal. But if I go hit 200 balls a day, what starts to happen is my brain actually enlarges and starts to go, give me more of that information. Or if you play music, the more you play piano, your brain functions in a way so that you can do it faster and you can do it more efficiently. Your brain actually starts. And so what happens when you feed it images from online? It starts to go, give me more. The appetite grows, and it wants more and more and more.
Mark Clark [00:20:48]:
So you start out with a sinful natuRe. That's why you struggle with this. The second reason you struggle with this is because we live in a culture that will constantly give you the temptation toward the sin. We live in Babylon, guys, right? We do not live in the promised land. We live in BAbYlon, where every moment, every website, every tv show, every radio show is constantly pumping you with temptation. And the KEY ThInG is to recognize and not be naive about that temptation. My friend ONE day came home and he said, hey, listen, man, I've been really struggling with lust in my life. And I got together with these dudes, and one of the dudes handed him a book called every man's battle.
Mark Clark [00:21:31]:
And EVERY man's BattlE is this book about, you know, how to try to fight off lust and whatever. And it opens up this story about this guy crashing his Mercedes or something because he's watching some girl run down the road or something. He can't take his eyes off her. And he crashes his car. And so my buddy throws it down on his bedside table. He hasn't read it. And he goes to work, and he comes back home, and his wife is standing at the door with the book when he gets home from work, and he's like, hey, what's up, baby? She's like, who gave you this? And he's like, uh, I don't know. Tom.
Mark Clark [00:22:02]:
Tom. We're never hanging out with Tom again, I'll tell you that. Tom's a perv. What do you mean, Tom's a perv? Have you read this book? You don't think like Tom, do you? No. Tom's a perv. What are you talking about? That's all I know about Tom. She'd never read anything like it. She'd never been exposed to the concept.
Mark Clark [00:22:23]:
There's a naivety sometimes with us in the church to not recognize that this is a struggle. But Jesus knows it is. And that's why he says, I know it's going to be your fight. That's where I'm starting with y'all. And I'm just telling you how to get through it, because the question is going to be not can you get access to it, or can you be exposed to it, but whether you want to be. And the only way to fight lust. And I'm looking at you, Orange county, walking around with your bathing suits on half the time, down at the beach with all your money and your flashy cars. The only way to defeat this sin is to want to defeat it.
Mark Clark [00:23:21]:
And some of you don't want to defeat it. You want to play with it a little bit. And this is the difference between Christianity and religion, is religion will tell you what to do. Christianity comes in, and the gospel, when it starts to affect you, starts to change what you want to do. And so here are some stats of the world that we face. $3,000 is spent on porn every second on the Internet. At least 30% of all data transferred across the Internet is porn related. There was an average increase of 24% in traffic during the global quarantine periods.
Mark Clark [00:23:59]:
Amidst the COVID pandemic, more than 50% of people engaging in online pornographic interactions admitted to losing interest in sexual intercourse. Porn sites receive more regular traffic than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined. Each month, 51% of male students and 32% of female students first viewed porn before their teenage years. The first exposure to porn among men is twelve years old. On average. Within the church, 64% of christian men and a high percentage of christian women say they watch porn at least once a month. Here's a couple overall interesting random facts. The overall favorite time for viewing is 11:00 p.m.
Mark Clark [00:24:43]:
on Sunday nights. Pornhub ranks in the top ten visited sites globally, with 42 billion visits a year. There are an estimated 370 million pornographic websites on the Internet. It is easier to access than fast food. It's an industry trying to convince you that it is harmless by its ubiquity. The more that it's normal, the more they think it's harmless. But it's not harmless. Any stat will tell you that it's directly tied to sex trafficking.
Mark Clark [00:25:18]:
So here's the fight that we live in. Brian Walsh says this. The crisis of Christianity is that the christians, by and large, accept the empire they live in as normal. Christians should feel disjointed and out of place in a civilization like ours. The practicing Christian should be like a Martian. He or she will never feel at home in this world. If the Christian does feel at home, something is drastically wrong. That's why Jesus says, the battlefield for this is your heart.
Mark Clark [00:25:53]:
And some of you are sitting here right now and you're like, man, I'm addicted to this. I'm privately, secretly struggling with this. I'm too far down the road. I'm a complete mess. I want to tell you. Jesus says, no, no, no. Every day is a new day where you can start again. Every day is a new day where I, by the power of my spirit, will actually help you transform and defeat this sin.
Mark Clark [00:26:17]:
And even science tells us the same thing. It talks about plasticity and it says, one scholar says this, within a year or two, recovery of these shrunken areas, or enlargened areas, go back to normal volumes, so we know that the brain can actually heal. That's the hope, guys. Some of you are feeling shame and guilt as I talk about this topic. I don't want you to feel shame and guilt. I want you to know there is a way through Saint Augustine. In his book Confessions 300, 400 AD, one of the great theologians in the history of the church, in his book Confessions, talked often about his struggle with lust. And he said, these words, give me chastity, but not yet.
Mark Clark [00:27:10]:
I was afraid you would heal me too quickly of the disease of lust, which I prefer to satisfy than suppress. My point in saying all this is, guys, no shame, no guilt. We are all in this together. That's the way you were wired. It's the fallen world we live in. It's something that you should have the freedom to talk about and wrestle with people about, because even Jesus says this is going to be the human struggle. Okay, the second point. So that's the reality of lust.
Mark Clark [00:27:47]:
Whoo. Okay, let's take a break here. It's quiet. All right. Okay, here we go. Secondly, the consequences of lust. Listen to what the proverbs say. This is why I love the proverbs.
Mark Clark [00:28:05]:
They are so practical. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man's wife. No one who touches her will go unpunished. But a man who commits adultery has no sense. Whoever does so destroys himself. Blows and disgrace are his lot, and his shame will never be wiped away. The point is, it's dumb. That's where it's not just a.
Mark Clark [00:28:41]:
It's actually stupid. Remember, the name of this series is the road last. What? Stupid. It's stupid to cheat on your spouse, because all it does. It sounds really hot. This is gonna be great. This is gonna be passion. This is gonna be awesome.
Mark Clark [00:29:00]:
And all you did was scoop a bunch of hot coals into your lap. And I think there's a reason he uses that imagery. He doesn't just say scoop it onto his foot, it says his lap. He's like, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Don't check the commentaries on that point. I just made that up. It is stupid because it's short sighted. Adultery is short sighted.
Mark Clark [00:29:31]:
You're not thinking about the joy you're gonna have with your family in ten years if you can just not do this sin. You gotta hold on. Short sighted. I interviewed a couple that define their life by being swingers one day and their significant others. Their spouses were at home, they were on a date with each other, and they weren't even exclusive to each other because they went around with other people. And I said, how does this end? And they said, I don't know. Never really thought about that. How is this going to affect your kids? I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:30:04]:
Never really thought about that. The problem is, is that when you. When you cheat, what you're doing is. And when you lust, you're actually kicking against the givenness of the way the world was set up. Remember, that's when we talk about proverbs. It's like you're kicking back against the universe and the way it was set up for your flourishing. And it's just kicking against it and kicking against it. Marriage with kids and a job and a life and a family and a social world, and what you're doing is going to, what's the thing that will take all that down? And so you're kicking against it.
Mark Clark [00:30:39]:
It's like kicking against two plus two equals four and going, I think it could be fun if it equaled five. And it was fun for a while when you're sitting around joking about it, but sooner or later you're going to have to do your taxes and the universe is going to kick back at you and say, this is not the way things were set up. One man, one woman. In the context of marriage, variety is not the spice of life. Variety will destroy you ultimately. So there's a couple ironies that take place, or contradictions. If you're a skeptic and you're saying, well, I don't want to actually be a Christian because of the Bible's sex ethic, I know lots of people. Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkin, Bertrand Russell, great philosopher, last generation atheist philosopher.
Mark Clark [00:31:32]:
These are the reasons a couple of these guys cited for not being christians, because the Bible is too exclusive. It only lets you have sex in the context of marriage. And I would say, man, we are now in a position culturally where we're getting confused because we have kicked back against the givenness of things. And so the sixties revolution, wherein sex could be shared with anybody and it didn't really matter, has now resulted in the oppression of people at the workplace and the mistreatment of women to such a point. Now that cancel culture is swinging back and holding people accountable so that in certain workplaces, you're not allowed to make eye contact for longer than 30 seconds with someone of the opposite sex because we're getting confused. We don't know what things are anymore. Another way that we're confused is Jesus in the sermon on the Mount talks about adultery of the heart. It's exactly what our culture loves.
Mark Clark [00:32:30]:
See, here's what our culture has said. Sex isn't legitimate unless it involves a romance. Even in the context of marriage, it must be romantic or it's not legit. But we all know if we've been married, it ain't like that, right? We watch these movies and it's raining and people come up out of the rain. They're like, up against the wall, and it's always fantastic. And you're like, my goshen, why is that like that for them every time? Because sometimes sex isn't about the romance and the feel. It's about a commitment that you've been in for 50 years. And there's covenant, and there's ways that you love and serve one another, and that's just how it is.
Mark Clark [00:33:11]:
But we've set up the game where if it's not romance and it's not based on your feeling, then it's not, right. Well, then we get confused when we go to the grocery store, and I. And you haven't slept with your wife in two months because you know the baby's causing issues. And you see the woman in aisle six, and she's got her flashy eyelashes and her lululemon pants, and she had a shower today, and Celine Dion's playing on the speakers, and your heart starts to pound for this woman or this man. Whatever. Flip it around. He's wearing lululemon pants, his eyelashes, whatever. Be careful not to follow how you feel.
Mark Clark [00:34:03]:
It can derail your life. Your feelings are oftentimes not a good indicator of what you should do. There's all kinds of confusion. What about the idea that if you're here right now and you don't believe in God and you don't believe in the Bible, you don't believe in Jesus? We're glad you're here. One of the challenges would be, but do you believe adultery is bad? 80% of Americans believe adultery is bad. And in that moment, what you've done is you've believed something that God believes. You actually agree with God about adultery, which maybe raises the question about what else could he be right about? And so we have the consequences of lust being it can destroy our lives and the lives of those people around us. And lastly, the freedom from lust.
Mark Clark [00:34:50]:
My son, keep your father's command and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Bind them always. Where? Orange county. Say it loud for me. Bind them where you did better than these guys love you. Orange county. Fasten them around your neck. When you walk, they will guide you.
Mark Clark [00:35:11]:
When you sleep, they will watch over you. When you awake, they will speak to you. Second Timothy two says, flee. Also, youthful lusts pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Jesus says, pluck out your eye. Remember Joseph in Genesis? Potiphar's wife starts coming at him, and what does he do? He doesn't just go, hey, let's poke this around a little bit and see where it goes. I know this girl at the office, and her and I kind of connect emotionally. I don't think it's going to go anywhere.
Mark Clark [00:35:36]:
I'll just play with it for a bit because it feels good. Joseph goes, Potiphar's wife's like, get over here, Joseph, you tigere. And Joseph goes, me? And he leaves his clothes in her hands and he runs naked out into the street. Jesus Christ tells you to cut your eyeball out. And you can't delete that app from your phone because you have not waged war yet on the sin that will destroy you. You are afraid to. You want to play with it a little bit. You are not a revolutionary.
Mark Clark [00:36:15]:
You are weak. You are not someone serious enough yet to do the thing it's going to take to get your life cleaned up from this sin that can derail you. Here's something we got to understand about ourselves. Celebrate recovery, which is this great christian ministry that deals with addictions and habits and hang ups. A bunch of you go to it. It has this acronym called Halt. You guys will know about halt. And for those of you watching this or listening to this or here in the room, and you're going, how do I defeat this sin in my life? Because I'm secretly dealing with it.
Mark Clark [00:36:56]:
Halt. Super helpful. Here's the four moments when you are most of weak toward temptations like this. When you were hungry, angry, lonely and tired. Those are the moments that you've got to go. I have to go to war with that so that I don't fall in to this sin. You got to create boundaries in your marriage. You have to safe proof your marriage and your mind from these things that will derail your life.
Mark Clark [00:37:26]:
I had moments in my life. There are apps that I delete when I travel because I know myself. I had couples come to me and Aaron when we were new in our marriage and we planted village and we were having all these people come around us all the time. And we had to go out for some meals and say, what are the boundaries that you guys are going to set up in your marriage? What are the things, Aaron, that you don't like that mark does? And sometimes I'd argue against him. I'd be like, that's irrational. I'm the only pastor here. We're reaching all these people. I mean, it was 1200 people started coming to this church before I hired a second pastor.
Mark Clark [00:38:02]:
So what do you think I was doing? I was meeting with everybody, every young person coming to Christ, and they wanted to come and confess all their dirty sins. And I'm preaching to them and pastoring them. And then it's like, dude, that's kind of awkward, man. And the fact that Aaron, it bothered her was enough. This couple said, for you to stop doing it. And I went, oh, sometimes it's just enough that my spouse wants me to do it. And so you set up boundaries in your marriage. You set up rules, things that will protect you.
Mark Clark [00:38:37]:
Intimacy in the context of your marriage. First Corinthians seven, make sure to help protect doesn't always protect. There are a lot of marriages, statistically, that even in the intimacy department, are doing very well and the person still cheats. It's not always the math equation, but first Corinthians seven says it's certainly we in the one thing that we can control in that regard is the intimacy and the health of the intimacy life, then we need to do that. In 2010, there was a national Sleep foundation study, and it said the highest percentage of people said the reason they weren't having intimacy with their spouse is because they are too tired. I mean, you saw that one coming. Cause it's a national sleep survey. So you're like, this is not coming out of thin air.
Mark Clark [00:39:22]:
They're too tired. We are a on the go kind of culture, wouldn't you agree? We're constantly on the go. We got five kids, and they're in ten different sports, because they're really gonna make it. You got school, you got work, you got social media, you got all these things, your super mom and super dad, and you're too tired. And there's nothing more lame than intimacy when you're tired. So some of us don't have major marriage problems, guys. We have busyness problems. And you don't even need marriage counseling.
Mark Clark [00:40:04]:
You need to just organize your life better. All of these things are part of what it looks like to fight. But here's the reality. Do you ever wonder why Jesus said, here's the number one commandment. When someone said, what's the most important thing? They said, what was Jesus answer? The number one thing we have to do. Love God. And we go, oh, that sounds like something like Jesus would say, but you know why he did it? Because Thomas Chalmers, years ago, 16th century scottish preacher, wrote a sermon. It's the best sermon I've ever read in my life.
Mark Clark [00:40:38]:
It's called the expulsive power of a new affection. And here's what he argues. You can't just stop doing a sin. It's too hard, it's too fun to do that sin. The only way you ever dispossess the heart of this kind of idol or affection, to love something more than you love the sin. You can't just dispossess the heart of one sin. You have to replace it with something you love more. The only reason I ever stopped smoking was because I fell in love with Erin.
Mark Clark [00:41:16]:
And she didn't like it. Still took five years, but I loved her more than I loved smoking. See, some of you, you're just trying too hard. Too hard, too hard. And what the gospel says is it doesn't only teach us how to live rightly, it forgives us and empowers us when we fail to do so. The gospel of Jesus says, for that sin that you feel the shame and the guilt for in this room right now, jesus died for it on a cross. And he said, it is finished. Stop crucifying yourself.
Mark Clark [00:41:54]:
I got crucified for you. I bring all the freedom in the world to bear, to take the shame and the guilt away from you so you can live in power. Because tomorrow is a new day, guys. You can actually defeat this. I'll end with this. When I started village church years ago, there was 100 people, the church at the time. And I remember I was preaching on this topic, and I got up and preached and didn't realize that that day there was a guy sitting in the crowd who was having an affair and his wife. And unbeknownst obviously to everybody else, that was the one day that she decided to visit our little church.
Mark Clark [00:42:42]:
And it was just, you know, people had heard about the church a little bit. It's meeting in this little elementary school gym, and she comes in and sits down, and he sees her at the other side. And the entire time I'm preaching about this topic, and he's like, how is this possible? And he starts to feel the squeeze. And at the end I said, if this is something in your life, deal with it in front of the Lord and deal with it, whatever reconciliation you need to do. He didn't even have to, because by the time they got home, his wife looked at him and said, are you cheating on me? And then he confessed. And that was ten years ago. And they are married today and flourishing because when the light shone, the freedom, it opened up in their marriage. People around them started being healed of their own emotional problems, and God used it.
Mark Clark [00:43:37]:
So God uses you not because of you, but in spite of you and the mistakes and the things that are happening right now in your life. God will redeem that. Forgive it, say it is finished, take the shame away, and then use it to set other people free. That's the beauty of it. So let me pray to that end, Father, that I know for many of us this is a constant fight. And I pray super practically right now, Holy Spirit, that you would give us power to win so that when we stand before you one day, we will not be perfect. But we have the righteousness of Christ. And if there's those right now that just need to accept Christ for the first time, accept that forgiveness and take on that power, that in this moment they would pray to do that to receive you, Jesus and your forgiveness and your righteousness being applied to them versus them trying to earn it in front of you, Lord, do that among this church, do that.
Mark Clark [00:44:37]:
Set people free super practically today, so that we are living for your glory and the good of people, that we could be free the way that Jesus envisioned us to be free. In Jesus great name, we pray to.