Tips to maintain purity

This is the second episode of the student podcast in which we talk about the discipline of purity. And it's especially important to recognize that the last week we talked about the biblical requirements and the reasons why this is such an important issue to talk about today, especially amongst men. And so, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to episode one on the biblical grounds for the discipline of purity, and then listen to this episode today on the practical nature of the discipline of purity in the Christian man's life. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to The Student Podcast. This is where two guys get together and we discuss and learn how to be students of Jesus Christ. So good to have you today.
So getting into now practical steps, he kind of makes a big leap here from the theological reality of David, or from the historical reality of David to the theological and practical application of today. He goes to 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 3 through 8. And you actually quoted from memory part of that, so that was good. And this lines up perfectly with what God says in Leviticus 19. What does God say there in 19 too? you shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy." Yeah, this is God's will for your life, your sanctification. Yeah, be holy. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you know, interestingly on Sermon Audio, I have a, it keeps track of, you know, what sermons people have listened to most, and the most listened to sermon is Holiness is happiness. It's from that part in 1 Thessalonians 4, that if we want to have happiness, we will seek holiness. And so the Christian must uphold the sexual ethic of scripture if they're actually going to be a christian that's kind of the premise of that whole section you cannot divorce sexual ethics from the scriptures and say that you're actually a christian and i think he's spot on with that especially in our day and age i mean you're up in iowa city uh you tell me for those for people who are rejecting the sexual ethic of scripture do their lives seem to line up with what holiness looks like no You know, and it did not work. It was so and kind of annoying disappointing and whatever but when at my previous job, it's like So I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm a Christian or they'd have a tattoo and I asked him like, oh, where do you go to church? You know so-and-so and yeah, you know a couple months later They moved in with one of my other co-workers.
Yeah, it's like Really? Yeah. You know, Facebook, Instagram, Christian, that's about it. Yeah. Well, there's a meme on Facebook that gets floated around different pastors. You know, a young guy walks into the into the pastor's office and says, I'm beginning to question Christianity. And then the next picture underneath that translated, I've decided to move in with my girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sad, but true. It is. It is.
Right. And so as we talk about how can we actually exercise the discipline of purity, if we're going to own the sexual ethics of Scripture as saying, this is for me, this is to God's glory, I need to follow Him, He's my Lord, I need to go where He tells me, how do we do that? And that's where He goes, first He talks, what's the first thing He talks about? He talks about accountability, at least in this version.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is mine too. Yeah. I doubt he changes all the headings, but accountability. Yeah. Who, who are you? You talked about, you actually have covenant eyes on your, on your stuff. Yeah. Who's your accountability partner with that? Yeah. Well, my wife is, um, and one of my brothers is, um, and so, yeah, try to, I, I do maintain regular accountability with my wife and then, um, yeah, some of my brothers as well. Yeah. Uh, yeah, mine, that, that was a huge step for me was for a long time.
It was pastor Micah, you know, he was my accountability partner and he got my covenant eyes report. And then when Olivia and I got married, I was like, you know what? I'm going to make Olivia my accountability. So is Micah and her. Yeah. Which I think the church in Eastville actually still pays for my account, which is fine. But I mean, I'd be willing to pay for it. But there are people I pay for now, too. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't really care. But having Olivia And I mean, it's real.
There was a time when we, let's see, that was 2010, we got married. No, it was probably 2011, because I just remembered it was winter time and we moved around that time. So anyways, 2011. There's no on the ground. I was in the library studying. I was in college when we were first married and I was in college for a lot of Olivia called me up and she's like you need to come home now and I was like, whoa Something's wrong. I mean, we'd only been married for like, by that time, that's only like seven months, maybe eight months, something like that. So I, you know, get on my coat, grab my bag, walk the mile home. And she's just in tears.
And she had gotten my accountability report and it said that there was something on there. And I was like, I swear. No, I didn't do that. I don't know what that is. And so this was before they did the whole screen capture and everything. So it was just, you know, IP addresses and web addresses and stuff. And I was like, I don't, I swear to you, I've never been to that website. I don't know what that is.
And so we called Covenant Eyes and talked with them and come to find out that what was going on is that on one of the sidebar advertisements, there was a pornography company who actually was renting out some of their servers so that ads could run through their servers to the sidebar. And so who knows what the ad was. I saw maybe it was leather belts or something. Roller skates, I don't know pick your right crazy advertisement, but because it ran through their servers it got flagged Just kind of like a background.
Yeah, and they were like, oh, no, you know and they explained to Olivia No, no, no this that this is what happened. It wasn't that it's perfectly fine and I could be getting all the details, right? I don't know exactly how it works. But but I just remember I like Olivia was really torn up and I'll never forget that moment that like if she ever came across my accountability report and that was that I would see how crushed my wife would be and it like it has been seared into my memory her reaction to that and I And so just having her as an accountant, so I'm really glad to hear that you have your wife as an accountability partner. Not all men are comfortable doing that, and I really challenge them on that. Other men will say, oh, I don't really need this. screen capture stuff or whatever.
And just kind of like, all right, well, why don't you just walk around with a loaded gun with your finger on the trigger all the time? Go ahead. I'll come talk to you when you've blown a hole in your foot. Because that's what you're doing. You know you have a problem with this, and you're keeping your hand on the trigger. And even if you don't think you have a problem, Paul says, take heed lest you fall.
This is a dangerous fire to be messing around with, and we have a loaded gun in our internet, whether it's a problem for us or not. Yeah, so I think accountability is a really important one. When I was with college students a lot, and this is one of the things, I mean, there was a guy that he had a real struggle with waking up and struggling with being tempted. I mean, it was like right away he was always tempted with this overwhelming desire to go look at pornography.
And so every morning I called him at 6 a.m. and I'd pray with him and, all right, how you doing, man? You can do this, all right. You up? Yeah, you got your Bible? All right, good. Talk to you tomorrow. But just trying to have that community to encourage one another, okay, you can do this, you can do this, walk in holiness.
Secondly is prayer. What does he say about prayer? I underlined his comment, pray daily and specifically for your purity. I think that's just like a really like, duh, challenge, but also like incredibly insightful and practical. Because I think just like, pray, Lord, keep me from temptation or, you know, keep me from the evil one, protect me. But like he says, pray specifically about this issue of purity. Yeah, and I think that is especially true for somebody who is struggling with this temptation or has, there's different levels at which somebody has more or less victory over different sins or temptations in their life. But especially for the man or woman, although this is disciplines of a godly man, but specifically for the guy who struggles with this, Praying for it daily keeps it on the front of your mind.
You know, Lord, I'm not strong enough in and of myself. I need your spirit. I need you, Lord, to lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil. And Father, I know that no temptation has overtaken me but what is common to man. But Father, when that temptation comes, it seems like I can't bear it. So Father, please give me the way of escape. Please let me bear up underneath it. And so I think that that's extremely important. The next one, what's he say, the next thing we can do is? Just a little bit more on that one.
Like, lust especially, but I think all sin in general starts with, or at least in the middle of it, there's this mentality of not being honest with God. And like, I know God's all-knowing, but I don't want him to know about this. And I mean, it definitely usually manifests itself in not being honest with others. But I think during the sin, there's this idea of, you know, like he says, any idea of God goes out the window, like God becomes invisible or whatever he said, um, and I think prayer makes you be honest with God about that.
Yeah. Like, God, this is an issue. I'm not going to pretend it's not, and I'm not going to pretend I don't have this, you know, like, um, anyway, No, no, that's true. Often we'll treat God like, oh, I don't want him to know about this sin. Or maybe that shows that we don't actually want to deal with it. Yeah. David tried that, and he says, bones burned inside him, just ate him up. It doesn't work. It's a crushing weight when you try to keep your prayers from the Lord about this. Yeah, it's true.
Yeah. But anyway, the next discipline he suggests is memorization of God's word. Yeah. How can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to your word with my whole heart I have sought for you that I might not stray from your commandments, right? Yeah. I'm sure I butchered that. That's probably like a little bit of NIV mixed with KGB. That's the Brian version. But yeah, that's a bad Brian paraphrase. I'm always quoting the SHV to Natalie, Simon's heretical version.
I'm sure there's something in the Bible about something that he said. You know, specifically with that one, that's actually our psalm of the month for our family, and so, you know, part of it is coming out of the book of Psalms for worship, and part of it is coming out of the New King James, and it messes me up all the time when I go from the Psalter to trying to say the actual Bible verses. You just need to memorize it in Hebrew, okay, Brian? That's the next step. you know i don't know that one in hebrew that would that would actually be a really fun one to memorize in hebrew i have psalm 1 and psalm 117 and psalm 23 down in hebrew okay that'd be a like verbally in hebrew yeah yeah yeah you know actually the kids and i put uh psalm 117 to hebrew in song in song and it's literally the exact same one you know um hallelujah hallelujah no no Hallelu, hallelu et Adonai, sh'bachuhu kol ha'omayim, ki gabar chassidu alenu, ve'emet Adonai le'olam hallelujah. So the kids and I put things in Hebrew and Greek. So this would actually be a fun one to do. I didn't think about that. But yeah, memorizing words. This was one of the things that I actually, I have this analogy.
You need to have fighter verses. short verses in the heat of battle that you're able to use. When I first became a Christian, this was a really, really, really big fight in my life. I mean, I was one of those who were, I was in the Navy, and I drank deeply of the world, and overcoming sexual sin was a huge deal for me. And I remember memorizing Matthew chapter five or Matthew chapter six about if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and cast away from you for it's better for your body to go maimed or one part of your body to go into hell.
Oh, now I'm messing up. Yeah. Yeah. So memorizing the scriptures was extremely important for me, though, because I just would have to tell myself, cut off your right hand, gouge out your eye. You know, and so just the pointed idea of what Jesus said, and I mean, I haven't had to review that whole section for a long time. I used to have the whole thing down in memory, and I would just say it to myself over and over again. Or, you know, I would repeat Job's covenant. I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully upon a maiden. Or, you know, flee sexual immorality.
And so, I needed not huge, I needed fighter verses, short verses that I could in the heat of battle just say to myself real fast rather than, so I called this Ehud's dagger versus Goliath's sword. You know, Ehud, the left-handed assassin, has a small little dagger. He's able to hide and he's able to go in and defeat his enemy. Goliath has a gigantic sword that's, you know, massive. And in the heat of battle, there's no way I'm going to be able to pick up Goliath's sword.
So instead of, you know, memorizing a whole paragraph worth of verses to try to use, I'm not going to remember 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 3 and following when that temptation is heavy. But I needed to have the assassin's sword. And even when Jesus spars with Satan, he doesn't actually quote full verses or even the full section. You shall love the Lord your God and serve him only. that's only half a verse. He gets to the point of what he needs to battle toe-to-toe with Satan. So if it was good enough for Jesus to be able to, now obviously he had the whole context in mind, but if I say, you know, gouge out my right eye, cut off your hand, Brian, Do I not have the whole context? It's going to be better for me to enter into heaven maimed than it is for my whole body to be cast down into hell.
And so my advice for young men or any age of man is memorize some of these verses, but I don't care which one it is. Whichever one sticks in your brain, that when it is hard, And you can easily bring it to mind It needs to be like a frontlet to your eyes. It needs to be written on your heart It needs to be tied to your hands. You know, you need to be able to when When you're tempted to have your eyes glaze over because your heart is about to be fixed on what you know, you shouldn't that should be like a breath of oxygen, just, oh, hold on, what am I about to do?
No, cut off my right hand. One of my biggest things is there's all sorts of sins in the Christian life that we're told to fight. But one of the most powerful verses in scripture for me is flee sexual immorality. Sexual immorality isn't something you play around with. No, you get out of dodge. You be like Joseph and you hightail it out of Potiphar's house. Doesn't matter if she's got your coat. Doesn't matter. Go. Get out of there right away.
How dare I sin against God. And so that's my whole thing with Bible memorization is this is extremely, I'll give guys five or six verses to work through and I'll tell them, you need to choose as you work through these verses, try to memorize all of them, but you're only going to really have one, two, maybe three that stick in your mind. Really grab on to those. Yeah, and that will help you to fight in your fight for purity is Having God's Word because you we don't it's not gonna be our own willpower It's got to be by the Word of God and by his spirit, right? and so I really think that memorization here is one of the big things for me that I I have seen most effective, both in my life when I was fighting sexual sins, as well as in other guys.
So that was like a huge monologue. I like preached a whole sermon to you, man. So I'll let you talk to us about the mind. What's the discipline of the mind there? Yeah. I think he's talking about just keeping your your mind mentally disciplined and mentally exercised.
He talks about, you know, did a purity course, and he had a principle in that course of don't go near, you know, and he kind of says what you're not supposed to do is sit on the couch all day and be surfing the internet, watching TV, playing video games. He says, one week you're going to watch more murders, adulteries, and perversions than our grandfathers read about in their entire lives. And so, you know, he says, you know, get it away from you. Don't, don't even go near.
I mean, he talks about like Job's covenant with his eyes. You know, how can I, let's see, I've made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze out aversion? um yeah so i think he said he talks about like how this really and he's right this sin starts in the mind um i remember i think it was kenneth stewart um from across the pond over in ireland um who was preaching and he said and i'm probably going to butcher this but he says once a temptation then a thought once a thought then an action once an action then a habit once i have it then a lifestyle it's a lifestyle then a destiny And it's just like, it was, and I probably got some of that wrong, but his idea, his, the logical conclusion was you start seemingly innocent with the temptation that comes and then you start entertaining that in your thoughts. And from there you can change an entire eternity. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's right. Um, So I keep this as a testimony to that.
So I'll hand this to you and you can describe what you're seeing there. got a page that says congrats dad but congrats is spelled c-u-n-g-r-a-d-s yeah and there's lots of seemingly angry faces drawn here that's what i would call them yeah so my one of my kids made that for me uh when when we had when i was just coming out of covid yeah um i'll let you open it up and and read uh what her what she was congratulating me for Congrats, you said a bad word. You're always saying not to say bad words Yes, somehow you said one now. I know I wish I did not live in the same houses. Oh It's just wicked and you know it wicked wicked wicked wicked apologize to God now sinner I am mad at you dad Wow Yeah Why I bring that up is we had been watching a whole bunch of, like when I had COVID, I had four goals. You know, Olivia was in quarantine and the rest of us had COVID. Was this this time or this? Yeah, this last time. And yeah, I've had it twice. Yeah. I remember the first time. Yeah.
And so, uh, The goals were have family worship with the kids, three meals a day, sermon needed to be done, and homeschool work needed to be done. But beyond those four things each day, I did not care. So if the kids got all their homeschool work done in two hours, Cool, you know if my sermon work was done fine. Yeah, you know because I wasn't meeting with anybody for counseling or anything like that Yes, and my workload was far less because I was also in quarantine with Kovats So anyways, we watched a whole ton of the Marvel movies. Okay, and why I bring this up is I I don't struggle with cursing.
I mean, I used to, I mean, like I said, I was in the Navy and so I had a sailor's mouth, but that sin has long been put to death. But just hearing these, you know, in the movie constantly, and I would tell the kids, oh, bad word, bad word, bad word, bad word, you know, and then the kids were saying something and I got mad and I said a bad word. And Debra made that card for me. Wow.
And so if we're constantly watching television that's exposing us to adulteries and sensuality and murders and And we want to act like it doesn't have an effect on us. We're fooling ourselves. Carl Truman in the book right behind me talks about the social imagination that happens when we just surround ourselves in a milieu and a culture that just ends up affecting the ways in which we think. We haven't consciously made a decision.
Oh, I'm going to behave this way or think this way. but when it just becomes part of what we expect as norm. we end up doing it. And so I think that's what he's getting at here with discipline of the mind. And I think that's a dangerous part. Yeah. It's impossible for you to maintain a pure mind if you are a television-watching couch potato. He first wrote this in, I think, the 80s or 90s. So you might say, if all you're doing is binge-watching Netflix, it's kind of hard to maintain a life of purity. He also picks up on coarse joking. That was a difficult one for me.
When I first became a Christian was this era when people would say, oh, that's what she said. I was just kind of like, no, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only what is good for necessary edification that you might impart grace to the hearers. You know, like, get that coarse joking out of your mouth. Stop the locker room talk. Use your lips to bring God glory.
And then he talks about hedges. In this, he's specifically talking about how men are to interact with women. Talk me through, I mean, this is essentially the Billy Graham rule, or we might call it the Mike Pence rule now. What is he getting at here? Yeah, he talks about discipline boundaries in your interactions with women, especially at work. So he talks about verbal intimacy and I think what he's talking about is just like sharing your heart.
I'm just someone who's not your spouse because that's Either knowingly or unknowingly kind of building this foundation of emotional intimacy Even before their sexual intimacy and so you're kind of already tripping that domino in your in your head Um, and then just physical intimacies like, you know, don't don't touch Oh, well, you know think of think of how you're touching other women. Um maintain maintain Physical discipline and then i'm just avoiding situations of being alone With them. Um, and then I guess lastly talks about flirting, um, even just jokingly.
Yeah, not not to mess around with it Is there a way in which this can become legalistic? Yeah, I think it can be. I think I've run into households that run it a bit more on the legalistic side, but I completely understand of erring on that side for the trust and protection of the family. So, yeah, I think so.
I really liked what he pointed out in my version. This is the third paragraph down. He says, whenever you dine or travel with a woman, make it a group of three. This may be awkward. Yeah. I have never found it a time when it's not awkward when I have to tell someone, I'm sorry, I don't go with a woman alone.
And so I try to decrease the offense as much as I can. And there have been times where we've had, I've been this rule. This is where I'm saying I'm not totally a purist on this one. But we'll stop it there for a second. Hello. Can you guys just come through the other door? We're running late. This will probably be two episodes worth. That's OK. But so yeah, so point in case, right?
A woman in our congregation, her husband dies. Do I give her a hug? Yeah, I gave her a hug. Your wife is having a real hard time with some serious weighty stuff going on. And I prayed with you guys. And are you a person who's okay with me giving you a hug? Not because I want to get a hug from your wife, but man, you guys were going through some really rough stuff. And I haven't even got to ask how that played out.
Or there have been times where it's, you know, If I don't give this girl a ride home, she's not going anywhere. And so picking up the cell phone and calling Olivia and saying, hey, I'm with, you know, so-and-so and we're leaving the hospital right now. I'm dropping her off at her house. We should be, you know, we're leaving the Quad Cities, but we should be to her house in, you know, the GPS is 27 minutes. And so Olivia is able to know, oh, okay, here. And we also have iPhones where you're able to put in, find my, and she's able to see exactly where I'm at. You know, if I'm lingering someplace or something, she would be able to be like, you know, ping my phone or something like, hey, you know.
But the point is, no matter what, even in the situations being totally transparent with both the person as well as with my wife. So there's, and this is, I can literally count on one hand how many, I can count on three fingers how many times this has happened in the 12 years of our marriage, you know. So it's not to beat the norm, but there are extremely rare circumstances in where it's kind of like, I'm not really loving that person if I stick too close to this rule, but I need to make sure that it is absolutely clear to my wife what's going on. So even though there can't physically be a third person present, there's an electronic means where it's absolutely clear what's going on.
And there's times where I've literally, one time where I literally just talked to Olivia on the phone the entire time, because I was like, Don't want to have interaction with it. Let's put I was trying to be kind to this person, but I it wasn't I Didn't want to have you know any sense from that person that like oh, I wanted to have an in-depth conversation with them While we are in a car.
Hmm. So yeah, it's awkward. Yeah, so what right? It's hard Yeah, so what I thank God that no matter what people might think about Mike Pence. Mm-hmm. I he didn't have the reputation of Donald Trump. And I found that, well, I won't get too much into politics, but the moral integrity of the vice president. I mean, it was so much so that, I mean, the news just picked it up and ran, you know, oh, Virgin Mike and stuff like that. And all they're making fun of him for this. But no one can bring accusations against him. because he lived his life on that principle.
Yeah. So, uh, yeah, I think those are really helpful. Uh, so there's just a couple more thoughts. I know we've gone long. Like I said, this will probably be a two volume, uh, two episode one, but, uh, what's he talk about being real? Yeah. I think he's just remembering, encouraging you to remember your own frailty with sin. And I wrote down first Corinthians 10, 12, which is Paul saying, take heed lest you fall. Yeah.
Um, Like don't overestimate yourself, you know, yeah Yeah, absolutely, you know, that's Being honest with yourself about who you are being honest with God about who we are Yeah And then lastly he talks about divine awareness. What was he talking about with the discipline of divine awareness? You know, I'll be honest. I wasn't entirely sure He talks he brings up Potiphar's wife and then he puts another one Aside from those verses, he himself didn't elaborate on it. I wrote down Psalm 139. I wasn't sure if he was meaning like, be aware of God always knowing you and seeing you and watching you. But I don't know what your thoughts were on that. No, yeah, you're on the right path there, right?
So his point is, Joseph, when he's tempted or when Potiphar's wife is trying to tempt him to have an affair, he doesn't say, you know, oh, you know, this would be against my reputation. Oh, this might lose me my job. Oh, I'm not really that attracted to you. No, there's this girl I'm really interested in. No, no. What is his reason? What is the way in which he lives his life that keeps him from succumbing to this temptation?
And that's why he quotes what he says in Genesis 39, 9. How then could I do such a wicked thing, he said, and sin against God? It's not ultimately a sin against Potiphar. It's not ultimately a sin against himself. It's not ultimately a transgression of Egyptian law, even though all of those would be true. But it's how could I sin against God? I've been working through R.C. Sproul's book, The Truths We Confess, and by the way, it's on audiobook. Yeah, it's like 36 hours long or something crazy like that, but that's going to be in my church newsletter.
But he talks about when we have a divine Reality, when we actually think of God as being our God, and we have him at the forefront of our minds, not just his word, but who he is at the forefront of our minds, it makes sin that much more sinful. Because when we're living our lives in the face of a holy God, everything not holy makes us cry out, woe unto me for I am a man of unclean lips. And so that's where Joseph was, you know, how can I sin against my God? Do we live in light of the face of God?
And I really think that that's where it's a good place to leave off this chapters. Sexual sins often happen in the dark. Mm-hmm in secret places Where people aren't privy to see, you know, that's even a whole argument that happened at the Supreme Court case Why should it matter what people do in the privacy of their own homes?
Because the Lord sees everything The Lord knows how we treat our wives. The Lord knows what's going on in the depths of our hearts. Jesus, that's why he drills down on it. It's not just adultery. Right. When you go do it. It's a heart issue. Yeah. Yeah. But it's your heart before the Lord. Well, I think we've gotten about 17,000 things to, uh, we could probably keep talking about this for hours. But, uh, I just want to pray. Is that okay? Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.
Father, I thank you so much for the work of your spirit. Father, we pray. God, we plead with you to give us men of integrity. Lord, we pray that you would let Both Simon and myself be men who would walk before your face. Lord, I pray that you would make us men. who would seek in body and in soul to bring you glory. Father, we plead with you for the state of the American church that you would raise up pastors and men who would hate sexual sin. Not just hate the sexual sin of those out there in the community, but Father, we would take stock of our own hearts and we would put to death the sinful desires of our own flesh. Lord, we pray that we would love our wives and be satisfied in them. Father, we pray that you would let us be men who have the discipline of purity, that we would be filled with prayer, that we would be filled with your word, that we would walk before your face, always knowing our sinful proclivities, our desires towards the things of this world. Lord, we pray that you would help us to flee from sexual immorality. Father, please, Let your church not fall into the sin of Balaam. But let us be on fire for Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
All right, man. Well, next time we are, what's the next chapter? Is it marriage? Discipline of marriage. Marriage, yeah. All right. Well, that's going to be, whoo-hoo. That'll be good. That one we could talk about for 16 weeks, too. But I'm looking forward to that one also. Thanks so much, Simon. I really appreciate it. Yeah, until next time. Yep. All right. Bye.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Student Podcast. Feel free to go over to the website, sharonharpc.org backslash student and find more information and other shows. Also, don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We appreciate it. Have a great day.