Don't Sell Times of Intimacy With God at Such a Cheap Price

This one is really sensitive. And I'm going to say things that probably in mixed company, I don't know, maybe some of you will feel uncomfortable, but just don't make eye contact with me then. I'll just stare at the ceiling while I do this one, stare at my notes.

But I want to talk about this one, just because this is such a place of battle, struggle, falls, failures. Three to four years ago, God saved me. Since then, I'm a changed man in so many ways.

But one particular sin has barely changed, the sin of masturbation. I've been heavily addicted since I was 12. I'm 23 now.

I've had some small victories, but I keep falling back. Honestly, I still feel like I am a slave to that sin. Does that mean that the Son has not set me free yet? Or even worse, that I'm not saved? I know.

As a pastor, I know from I'll Be Honest. I know from, I've mentioned this before, Ruby and I were at a Piper conference, Randy Elkhorn was speaking. He said something about the fact that, do you remember the percentage? Some really high percentage.

Was it like 70%, 80%? It was over 50%, whatever it was, of pastors had viewed pornography. And he was saying it a little bit at a time, where you're kind of feeling this thing heighten. And then he added, this week.

We are in the first generation where we're trying to raise children. Like I'm in the first generation of trying to raise children with Internet exposure. I was talking to Victor Sigler the other day, and there's others who are roughly my age.

We are the first generation trying to figure out how to raise our children with, I mean really with something that families have never had to deal with before. Never. Was there pornography when I was in high school? Yes.

But you had to go to some smutty magazine store. I mean, it just wasn't available. It wasn't accessible.

We have television, the Internet, our cell phones, we have devices. See, it's like living in a house where behind that closet you have naked people. Behind that closet you actually have naked people having sex.

Behind that closet you have filthy, foul-mouthed, bunch of heathen. You have closets. And the kids can just accidentally go in there, or purposely go in there, and stay in there.

I mean, I once heard the story likened, the TV was likened to bringing a man in your house and letting him sit over in the corner. And he spits out foul language, he says crude things. And it's like, that's what happens when we watch TV and we're exposed to lots of the things that we're exposed to.

You would never allow that guy to sit over there in the corner and just use God's name in vain and spit out profanity and take his clothes off and have your kids accidentally walk around the corner and discover it. But we'll do that on the TV. But now with the Internet.

I mean, at first it was cable TV, but look, I've really been thinking lately, this technology came, in one respect it came fast, but in another respect it came like the frog being boiled in the water. It came in these little increments. And what's happened is, we've been boiled.

And it's almost like I'm recognizing this, Christians, to be consistent with what Jesus said about gouging that, I mean, rip that right eye right out of your head. I'm recognizing that we probably are going to have to come to a point, something pretty radical is going to have to be done. I know we're not talking all about pornography and TV from this guy.

This guy is talking about the sin of masturbation. Now listen to what he says, I feel like I'm changed in so many ways, but when it comes to the sin of masturbation, I feel like I'm a slave to that sin. Does that mean that the Son has not set me free yet, or even worse, that I'm not saved? Now that's interesting.

See, in one way you could look at this and say, well wait, if you're saved, that's the same as Jesus saying, the Son sets you free, you're free indeed. But you know, I think we would all have to admit, that we all go through sanctification processes. Like, I know when the moment God saved me, He took my filthy mouth away just like that.

There were other sins. They were gone. But then there were some, they weren't gone just like that.

There was all out battles, fights, and some things that I probably, even now, need to fight more than I have. Does He mean that the Son has not yet set Him free in the way that the Son sets everybody free who's saved? Or does He mean that the Son, that He may be saved, but God just hasn't freed Him? I would be cautious to talk too much like that, because what it sounds like you're doing is blaming Him, that you're still sinning. But at the same time, we do know that God allows some people to mature faster.

God gives some people victory faster. So, I can understand sort of what He's saying there, what He's struggling with. Sanctification at different rates.

Sometimes we go through seasons as individuals, where God really works on us, God really grows us. God gives us personal revival. Or takes us through deep places, valleys of humiliation, where there's really radical change.

I guess when it comes to this thing of masturbation, I think the first thing is that an individual has to be convinced that it's sin. Now, He says, one particular sin has barely changed, the sin of masturbation. I think it's important that I'm going to approach this from the standpoint of being a Christian, which that's basically how Jesus approached people.

He didn't so much say whether people were in or out. He didn't say, you're lost or you're saved. He came to people.

Isn't it interesting? I mean, again, Jesus just spoke ways that we wouldn't speak. Like He says to somebody, go and sin no more lest a worse thing happen to you. We would never say that! He said things like that.

He didn't say to the rich young ruler, you know, you're saved or you're lost. He basically said, well, one thing you lack, you go do this. Go do this and you'll have treasure in heaven.

You come follow Me. That's how He talked to people. So I'm going to talk to this guy the same way.

We're told to flee from youthful lust. But see, here's the thing. If you're going to run, you really have to believe something's poison.

Like, you know, if you think you're in a crowd and somebody throws a stick of dynamite in there, if you look and you make eye contact with it, you recognize that thing is going to blow up and I better run away from that thing as fast as I can. But see, if you're not really convinced, I mean, somebody threw a rock there and it's like, why is everybody... I mean, I don't know. I think there's a place where we need to be convinced.

And I've talked to some Christians that I know are not convinced. And I would say this, and I'm not trying to be funny. I'm not dealing with this lightly.

I can tell you this. When I have gotten poison oak or chiggers, I remember getting poison oak when we lived out in Thornwood. I would have the children take a brush and brush it.

It felt so good. The idea of somebody giving you a massage, is that sinful? The idea of somebody scratching an itch. So, I mean, when we come to masturbation, is that in the same category? You see, the thing is, when it comes to sexual stimulation, everything that we gather from Scripture seems to indicate that that is something that should be dedicated to marriage.

That's the flavor of Scripture. But if you're wrestling with it, is it right? Is it wrong? This is what we know for certain. This is what Scripture deals with very plainly.

It deals with this reality that explicitly Jesus says, if you lust... Now, it's dealing with a man lusting after a woman, but obviously we recognize that the inverse is just as applicable. But if you lust after a woman in your mind, and here's the thing about this type of activity, that that goes hand-in-hand with it. The masturbation goes hand-in-hand with thinking about somebody else.

And that we know. Matthew 5, we know Jesus says, you look with lustful intent, you look with lust, you've committed adultery with her in your heart. And He immediately goes into saying, gouge out that right eye.

And the next thing He says, again, this sounds so works-oriented, but it's the way Jesus spoke. Gouge out that eyeball, because it's better for you to receive life. It's better for you to enter the kingdom.

It's better for you to be saved. It's better for you to have that eye gouged out than keeping it and perishing. What's that all about? Is that how we talk to people? That's how Jesus spoke to people.

But here's the thing, if we're going to flee from something, we really need to believe it's poison. You need to believe it's something to run from. And I can tell you this, if what goes hand-in-hand with masturbation is lusting after somebody of the other sex or somebody of the same sex, I can tell you this, you're committing such a sin in your heart that Jesus says that if that's not cut off, plucked out, taken care of, dealt with, you perish.

Okay, that is worth fleeing from. That's something that we should definitely run from. And the thing is, as I was thinking about this today, I thought, within God's people, they hear the Lord's voice.

My sheep, they hear my voice. And I would just say, I think that most of God's people, if they're honest, they hear the voice just like this guy that they feel conscientiously it's wrong. They feel a sense of shame.

They feel a sense of hollowness. But I think that that's the first thing. There needs to be a real being convinced, this is something I need to flee from.

This is something that's dangerous. This is something deadly. This is something God hates.

This is something that because of things like this, the wrath of God is coming. This is not something to toy with. And yet, we have a lot of people and a lot of professing Christians very much toying.

Now, is it that they're not toying? That they're really doing all-out battle? Perhaps. I think that what has happened is the Internet... what you have to hear is what Scripture says. Make no provision for the flesh.

That's what Paul said in Romans 13-14. Make no provision for the flesh. And you know what the Internet does? It provides.

It's like a fire. It's just waiting. And you don't even have to be looking for it.

It'll come after you. It'll find you. And all it takes, we are such image-oriented, especially guys.

And all it takes is seeing that. You talk about setting your mind on things above or setting your mind on the things of the Spirit. You get these images in there.

Some of those will never leave you your whole life. It's amazing. It's amazing.

You can see this image for a split second. Why can't I look at a page of Scripture and have that burned onto my memory like that? But something like that, it will. It'll burn.

It'll etch its way in. I think what we have is we have something on our phones and something on our computers that is so ready to make provision for the flesh. And what happens is we end up feeding that part of ourselves that Jesus is telling us, Paul's telling us not to feed.

We need to be convinced this is something we need to run from. The next thing we need to be convinced about is that we actually are what Paul says we are. You know one of the reasons that he says we can't continue in sin? He says, how can we who have died to sin still live in it? You know, he says in Romans 6.11 that we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin.

And then he says something else. In Romans 8.12, he talks about the flesh. Somebody read Romans 8.12. Do you have it? So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, but we are purporting to the flesh.

We're debtors not to the flesh. You know what that means? You don't owe the flesh anything. You're dead to sin.

You don't owe the flesh anything. It's got nothing on you. You're dead to sin.

You're not a debtor to the flesh. You know what that means? You don't have to pay it anything. It has no rights on you.

But you've got to be convinced of that too. You've really got to be convinced. You have to be convinced because the devil will be right there and tell you nobody has victory over this.

Haven't you seen all the people who have been disciplined out of the church? Nobody is getting victory over this today. And you've heard all the stories, all the people that struggle. You hear about all the people that write in to I'll Be Honest that are struggling with this.

You've heard repeated letters of people who are struggling with different kinds of sexual sin. Nobody gets victory over this. And you know what? The devil will happily keep you blind to the people that do have victory over this.

Lots of Christians have victory over this. And you know what? It's not always getting married. Lots of single people have victory over this.

But you have to count yourself dead to sin. I think being convinced, this is bad. This is something to run from.

Being convinced you're dead to sin. You're not a debtor to the flesh. But then being given to fight.

Being given to go after this. That's key. And we've got to think about how do you fight? But I think that that's something that we have to deal radically with.

We know from the days of John the Baptist until now, what? There's a radicalness to this. We need to fight the good fight of faith. We need to put the armor of God on.

We need to do everything. That's what Paul says. Do everything that we might stand in the evil day.

And what are the things that we are to put on? Breastplates of righteousness. Helmets of salvation. Shields of faith.

I mean, we're to arm ourselves. And this is all out battle. And so, we really have to be convinced.

This is something to run from. We have to be convinced we're dead to sin. Victory is very much possible.

And we have to be convinced to fight. And we need to arm ourselves with... I've been thinking more and more, Christians are going to have to get to the place where they do some radical things. We're in the first generation now of trying to raise our children.

I think there's going to have to be amputation. I think we're going to have to... What has happened is, I'm afraid that Christians are being sold a bill of goods. That we have to have these things.

We have to have these things to communicate like everybody else communicates. We have to have these things if we're going to be on Facebook. We have to have these things if we're going to email.

We have to have these things if we're going to stay on top of communicating with other people. And see, what happens is we justify it because of some perceived good... I think the thing is we have to be honest with ourselves. You know, you can use dynamite to create good things, but if you're constantly blowing your feet off with it, you should probably give it up.

And I think that's much like the Internet and much like using email and much like using social media that we have to be honest with ourselves. If we're able to use the computer and use our cell phone for good, but when it's no longer good, then we have to be honest. Because what does it mean to gouge out an eye? What is Jesus saying? And does that not have application to our phones, our computers, our pads, our Internet, our televisions? It has everything to do with technology.

If that technology is causing us to on a regular basis feed the flesh, then we need to be honest and we need to get rid of it. I mean, one of the armor of God that is there the very last thing is all prayer. That's the way it says in the King James Bible.

I've actually been wondering that too. How much are the churches actually praying against sexual sin? How much is that happening? How much are people really radically doing the things that need to be done? But, you know, one of the things that I came across this week as I've been reading John, and you know I read, where it says, Jesus loved Lazarus and Martha and Mary. There's a text in John 11 that says that.

He loved them. Have you ever read how the angel addressed Daniel back in Daniel's prophecy? Yeah, greatly beloved. Have you ever thought, I want to be that one.

I want to be that one that God talks about that way. I mean, I was thinking about Jesus walking down the road and He's coming back to Martha and Mary when He's about ready to raise Lazarus from the dead. And you know, Mary was weeping right before it says Jesus wept.

And you know that was tied to His love for them. His love for her. And I was thinking, right before He was traveling, He was passing people on the road.

He didn't say He loved them like that. Anyways, as I was reading that, I was thinking about I want to be in the inner circle. I want to be where the Lord comes.

I want to be the disciple whom Jesus loved. I want to be Martha, Mary, Lazarus. Because I take that as an extreme love.

That's Jesus really loving in a way that He often doesn't love many other people. I was thinking about all the people He passed on the road, walking there to where the tomb was. And He wasn't giving them the same kind of attention.

And you know, I was just thinking about that and I was thinking, I want to walk with the Lord. I want it to be when the Lord walks in the cool of the day, I want Him to come walk with me. I want that.

It's not like I don't want it for you, but I want that. And there's a Scripture that says that we should keep ourselves in the love of God. And you know what I'm convinced is that if we've been saved, if we've been bought by the blood, we have access.

And what I read in Scripture is that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. And I've heard somebody say before, Christians, each Christian has as much of God as he wants. You know when I read a text like that, draw near to God and He'll draw near to you, I suspect that's right.

Keep yourselves in the love of God. A sensible sense of God's presence, of God's manifestations, of God's love. Why am I saying all this? Because this really has to do with this.

How do you keep yourselves in the love of God? You know one of the problems? Well, you know this. You all know this. Whether it's sexual sin or whether it's any other sin, sin doesn't heighten the reality of God.

Sin separates. Sin grieves the Spirit. Sin makes us feel distant.

Feeding the flesh makes us feel hollow and apart. Now, sometimes when we've been in that place and we come to the place of breaking and we confess the sin, it's like He shows up just like that. And there's other times where we may fall and fail and mess up and we expect Him to withdraw, but He only comes and immerses us in His love.

But you know there's this reality that we're supposed to keep ourselves in the love of God. And certainly when we're sloppy, when it comes to the Internet, when it comes to TV, when we're sloppy, when it comes to sexual purity, that's not keeping us there. We're not in that place where we're experiencing His love.

You know, I've read where Spurgeon has said, and I know it was the same with Lloyd-Jones. Lloyd-Jones had experiences and he was very hesitant to talk about them. Spurgeon said that it was almost, I don't think he used sacrilegious, but it was almost inappropriate.

He felt like giving too many details about some of the experiences that he had with the Lord would be like a man telling too many details about intimacy with his wife. It was just inappropriate. And he had those.

He had such encounters that he just felt that they were too sacred. He just didn't speak about them openly in a profane way. And I think we should all want that, but the thing is if we're going to get to that sacred ground where we know the shining of His face in special ways where it's like, wow, He's meeting me in a very choice way.

If you think about it, across the whole city of San Antonio, there are people right now who are most doing that, keeping themselves in the love of God. There are those people who are most drawing near to God and experiencing His nearness to them. There's one person in this city right now who's closest or who's having the most amazing experience from God.

And then there's degrees, but there's that person who is most experiencing fresh revelations, revival of soul, refreshing, and on down. And it's kind of like Jesus coming there that day out of all the people that were there, all the people in the crowd, all the people He passed on the road, it specifically says, He loved those three. I mean, you could say that.

That person that's experiencing the closest, it's like they're the ones experiencing the voice of the angel. Greatly beloved. I want to hear that.

Sexual sin seems like it wrecks that. It wrecks it. It puts us in a cold place.

It puts us in a hollow place. It puts us in an empty place. So it's worth fighting for to get to that place.

We're not talking about any dry doctrine here. We're not talking about just any mechanical trying to clean your life up just so that you can attain this morality. That's not what this is about.

This is all about we've been saved because what Adam lost in the beginning is being restored. God would come and walk with him in the cool of the day. That's what was lost.

They lost God. They lost the intimacy. And Christ has come to give us eternal life that we might know Him.

And if anything is worth fighting the battle for sexual purity, it's this. Anything. We've got to be persuaded.

We've got to really be persuaded that wow, one little click of that mouse, one little fleeting physical sensation of pleasure, and look what you can lose. You may very well be saved. You may very well be headed in eternal glory.

But is that what we want? Do we want to live miserable? Do we want to live hollow and empty? Do we want to live grieving the Spirit? And look, if there's anything that we know to be true when it talks about drawing near to God and He'll draw near to us or keeping ourselves in the love of God or text dealing with not grieving the Spirit, we know that by our sins and by bad choices and bad decisions and making provision for the flesh, we can remove ourselves from that place. All you have to do is read John 14.23. I mean, Jesus specifically ties His manifestations of Himself to us to our being obedient, to our keeping His commandments and having His Word. That's what He ties it to.

It's like obedience and walking uprightly is very closely associated with Him manifesting Himself. I mean, look, our God is a triune oneness. If you grieve the Spirit, you grieve the whole Godhead.

God can be grieved and that impacts the relationship. We have to be convinced of that. Don't sell out.

Don't sell the kinds of intimacy, the times of intimacy that could be had here for something so cheap, so trivial. Don't sell out. Don't sell intimacy with God at such a cheap price.

Anybody want to comment any more on that? The pure in heart will see God. And I am convinced that that truth is not only for the future. It's for now.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. I believe that that is a truth that applies to right now as well. And I think there's plenty of supporting verses in Scripture to support the nowness of that reality as well.

Didn't Craig touch on that and about Scripture that supports that text? I wasn't here when he preached that. One of the well-known psalms. What does Psalm 15 say? Anybody quote it? Right.

You send the hill of the Lord. Clean hands and a pure heart. There's something about purity even in this life.

It's not just enough to say, well, I've been washed by the blood. It's not just enough to say, well, I'm one of God's children. Those things are all true and those things all give us access.

But the reality is manifestation and closeness are undoubtedly tied to the purity of life that we lead. And you can't get away from those realities. Sin messes up your relationship with God even here.

Well, this is definitely a place that tests. It tests what people are made of. It definitely does.

But Scripture talks about putting to death the deeds of the body. There's violence in it. We put it to death.

And this is an enemy that does not want to die easy. Sin seeks to reign in our mortal bodies. And sin is strong.

And you can't do it by the law. You can't do it by rules and regulations. You can only do it one way.

Scripture says if by the Spirit. We need the power of the Spirit. We need to walk in the Spirit.

We need to figure out what that means. Definitely the power of the Spirit is unleashed as we are looking to Christ in faith. But I think one of the things too is that the flesh, you can feed the flesh at one point and have it break out at another point.

It isn't necessarily, you know, you go hang out in the mall and you walk by and then it's going to break out in some kind of sexual sin. The truth is, you can overindulge the body by feeding it too much and it may break out in sexual sin. You may indulge the body.

I mean, one of the things Paul said about his body was he sought to buffet his body. He sought to beat it. He sought to keep it down.

I mean, there's something about fasting. There's something about we have to be careful because Scripture speaks about a wrong type of asceticism. And yet, Scripture also talks about buffeting the body.

And so, I'm sure the one is more of a I'm trusting the asceticism. I'm trusting that I deny myself. I'm trusting that.

Over against the other is where I'm saying no to something so that I can get closer to the Lord. I'm saying no to something because I want to make sure I stay rightly focused. It's even like Paul's saying if you can say no to a husband or wife, why? So you can stay focused.

It's even where you have married people, they can abstain from sexual relations for a season if they're given to prayer, but that's for the sake of focus. When we fast, we're going to the Lord. We're going to our Father Who sees in secret.

And we're going after Him. It's focus. It's focus on the Lord.

Whereas asceticism is more focusing on my denial and kind of trusting that which bolsters my pride because I've done this thing over here. That's the difference between asceticism and a good type of denial of self. But we ought to be careful about being too soft.

I mean, it can be good to say no. It can be good to discipline your body. Yes, enjoy things, give God thanks for things, but I think for us to regularly come into seasons where we're denying ourselves, we're saying no to things so that we can say yes to God is very healthy.

Very healthy to say no to your body. Because you know what? If you basically live your life pampering your body, saying yes to its every desire, and then it says now I want sexual satisfaction, and you've basically lived your life saying yes to it all the time, now it becomes very difficult to say no to it. Lord, we know that Your Spirit has mightily blown through this land in times past and swept multitudes, perhaps millions, into the kingdom.

At least hundreds of thousands. First and second great awakenings, we hear of revivals that swept through America in the second great awakening. Revivals in the 1850's in Ireland.

Here in the United States. Lord, we know that Your Spirit can blow and transform and we pray that in our day there would be a purging, a cleansing, a blowing, a help. Lord, that's what we need.

We need help. The church needs help. Your people need help.

We need help. Help to fight. Help to win.

Help to be victors. Help to press on. Help to fight the good fight of faith.

Help to take the kingdom by storm and to be violent in our so doing. Lord, we need help. Help.

Help us. It's by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body. We need the help of the Spirit.

It's by that Spirit that we're led. It's by that Spirit that we fight this battle unto sanctification and strive after Christlikeness. It's through the Spirit, an almighty transformation by divine power that Your people make it and endure and press on.

It's life in the Spirit. We walk by the Spirit. We're a people that need the Spirit.

We began in the Spirit and we need to press on the same way. We would ask You, Lord, may the fruit of the Spirit be abundant. May it abound.

May the Spirit's power permeate the church. But bring help to us, Lord. Lord, we believe that at different times the Spirit has quickened Your people in greater degrees.

And we pray that in this day and this age that the Spirit would so react and counter what's happening with regards to the Internet and all this accessibility of that which is indecent and profane and unclean. Lord, may Your Spirit arise and so counter all that trash and all that filth with such power and purity that we would indeed have the church awaking and arising to this purity which goes hand in hand with beholding and seeing God. Lord, I pray that You would give Your people greater, deeper, more magnificent sights of God.

Lord, break through and show Yourself. Lord, I just pray that You would counter all this sexual temptation with such glorious revelations that's so overwhelmed to leave Your people hungering and panting for more revelation, more intimacy with their God rather than bodily, fleshly gratification. Lord, we're dependent on You and we look to You.

We need You. We pray for You to help us and we pray it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.