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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
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Is it possible to lose salvation if I'm struggling with an addiction to pornography?
Well, that's a heavy first question there, Jared One.
Welcome back to another episode of q and a with Chris. We are here with Pastor Chris. Hi, can we do this every Friday? If you want your question to be talked about on the show, we would love to ask it. You can do that. Submit a question anonymously by going to dad tire.com/question, and we will get your anonymous question answered on the show as soon as we can.
We'll dive right in here with the first question. Is it possible to lose salvation if I'm struggling with an addiction to pornography?
Well, that's a heavy first question there, Jared. Um, so I'm gonna, I, I'm gonna be very particular about the language that the question asked. Okay. And I'll answer it thus, which is. Um, if you're struggling with pornography, what I would see is a battle between the flesh and the spirit that Galatians Chapter five talks about, and I think that's an important characteristic of any kind of sin that we're experiencing.
MacArthur puts it this way, he says. When I was a young man, I sinned more and hated it less, and now that I've grown up, I sin less and I hate it more. Hmm. There should be, I think what Romans chapter seven talks about Paul uses as language of a battle within. That the aim, which he goes on to talk about in Corinthians, is to put to death the old self.
Um, I, I beat my body and make it my slave that I might finish this race in Christ, but particularly in Romans seven, he says, why do I do stuff I know I'm not supposed to do? And then why do I refrain from doing the. Things that I know is very clear that I'm supposed to do for when I read the law and I understand the gospel, these things should be changing in me, and yet I still find in myself a desire to do the old way of doing things.
He finishes that whole section by asking the simple question, who can rescue me from this body of death? That's what I hear the questioner asking. Whoever they are is this notion of what am I supposed to do when I, when I'm still in my mortal coil, but my mind and heart knows that I should be following Jesus?
So, uh. Here's where I would say I would, I would bring concern. If you know that you have an addiction to pornography, but you're treating it like a headache rather than like cancer, I would have a little bit of a concern. So if you've got a headache, you take some ibuprofen, you go to bed and hope it gets better tomorrow.
If you've got cancer, you need a doctor, you need a, you need something transcendent. If you've call, if you've used the word addiction. And do you think you're gonna fix it just with sheer willpower? You're probably wrong. And recognizing that it, it would be difficult, I imagine, again, assuming you're a father who's writing this or a mother, which 35% of internet pornography uses right now are female.
So this is no longer a male issue, but it's just a person issue. Um, the imagine. Your son, imagine you had an addiction to cocaine and the um, CPS comes and takes your kid away and says, you don't get your kid back until you kick this addiction. Would you carry around cocaine in your pocket? Would you give yourself access to it?
Would you keep it hidden? But you're gonna get drug tested. So there, someone's gonna know, this isn't like a hidden thing, someone's gonna know that you're doing it. What would you do? What steps would you take to get rid of something that's forbidding you from seeing the person that you love the most of?
Anything else? Um, that is. I think a lot of times what I'm looking for when you ask the question of is this a salvation issue? I'm inclined to immediately say no because, um, there is no sin. That's so great that it outdoes the grace of the cross. But if you've just started going, this is an addiction. I hope I get rid of it someday, but I'm just gonna keep doing my own thing, I would just be a little bit nervous on the capricious or cavalier.
Um, what, what casual nature of can I keep doing this and still be saved? That doesn't seem a lot like lordship to me, and it doesn't seem like repentance. Repentance is not feeling bad about something. It's not saying sorry for something, it's metanoia in the Greek. It's to change the way that you do something.
So if you have a pornography addiction and yet you wake up tomorrow doing the same thing and the same patterns and the same times with the same amount of um. Uh, eyes on you or accountability, then I would go, do you really want to get rid of it? It seems like more of a headache than a cancer to you. And the Bible talks about sin like cancer.
It talks about it like leprosy. It talks about it like a trap, a snare. James Chapter one 19 talks about. So if you really think that it's costing you something eternal and yet you're treating it, uh. In the prescription you're giving yourself is, I hope I wake up tomorrow and it's gone. I would just say, maybe you're just not given the gravity to sin what it deserves.
So I don't mean to make things, salvation issues that aren't. I do though also want to speak truth and say, um, where's the battle? Where's the Russell? Are you really repenting of it? Or do you think a daily, sorry about that thing yesterday is gonna cut it? I don't think that's what the Bible means by repentance.
Wow. So good, man. Uh, and I just wanna say that in the dad's hired community specifically, we have seen so many men. Um, take this as serious as cancer and confess their sin. Constantly find other guys that they will hold them accountable to, and they are finding freedom. We saw that our, at our dad's hired retreat just a couple months ago.
I'm hearing stories daily, um, of guys who are. Who are finding freedom in this because they're taking it seriously. So if you're not part of our dad's tired community, definitely jump in and um, there are a bunch of dudes there who would love to. Well, lemme do one more thing, Jared, with that, which is Jesus, not only does he not abolish the law of the Old Testament, he takes to the next level, which is, what does he say?
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Now that's remarkably appropriate for what we're talking about. Obviously if we're talking about pornography and masturbation, but. Um, I don't think we can just laugh at that and go, oh man, he's really serious. But what he ends up saying is, it's better that you walk into the kingdom of God on one leg, with one eye and one arm than it is for you to be forbidden from it because you let something else rule and master your life that wasn't Jesus.
So one of my favorite things. Um, that I'll start with if I'm ever counseling someone through an addiction like this is, I say, um, give me your phone and go get a flip phone instead. And if their first reaction is no way, then I'm, I go, well, I don't even need them always to do that. There could be other cases, but that teaches me that if I told you you're dying of cancer and you need to get a flip phone to be cured, no one's gonna go, yeah.
But then how am I gonna check sports scores? Right. Like, or, um, if you want your son back. You wanna kick this addiction, then you need to throw away all the cocaine that you have. Anyone that goes, I don't know, it's like, well then you're not ready to actually change. Wow. If it's an addiction, that means that you go to it, even in light of adverse consequences.
So you need to, um, I love this. Sorry. That's such a long answer, but No, that's good. Um, when you read The Odyssey and you, uh, these. These characters, he's going past the island of the sirens. And the idea is that when the sirens call, it's like these mermaids, but they murder you. Uh, so he's steering the ship, right.
You know? And so they sing this song and um, as he sings, what happens is boats turn and then crash in the island and the mermaids go and, and take them. And so he, knowing this, he ties himself to the mast. He plugs his ear with like wax from a candle, and then. He says, no matter what he commands his guys do not let me go.
And so he sails past the island of sirens and he's like, let me go. You have to. And but he forces himself when he starts to say, I. Need protection from this. But then on his way home, he finds the most beautiful harp player in the world on the, in his journey and brings him on the boat. And so when the sirens come the next time, instead of tying him to the mast, he plays the beautiful music of this harpist and he finds it more beautiful than the island.
And so that's kind of, I think for a lot of people where you need to start your porno, pornographic addiction journey. You start by getting rid of it completely until you learn how beautiful the music. Wow. Of freedom is in Christ, and then that begins to be what motivates you more so than just being tied to amast.
Wow. So that's been helpful language. Yeah. So beautiful dude. Um, this person asks, are Bible stories like job allegorical or literal? And how can we tell the difference in those passages of scripture? One of the key ways that you can do it is, um, Jesus makes reference of a lot of Old Testament characters and he doesn't, um.
Suggest that they are allegorical. So he talks about Jonah, he talks about his burial on the ground being the sign of Jonah who what just like was buried in the belly of the whale for three days. So the son of man will be buried in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights. Um, the second thing is you can understand by the type of literature it is.
There's obviously a lot to that when you start studying Jewish literature and Hebrew customs and everything, but. Job doesn't present itself as a mere allegory. It wouldn't shake my faith if we ended up finding out that it was an allegory, but it shouldn't be read like that. Point blank. Um, the Bible should be taken literally unless we have a really good reason to suggest that it isn't.
And without that idea, we should take it at its face value. So what would be an idea? Uh, if it starts with the kingdom of God is like, and then a parable is being told or a poetic language of the Psalms that talks about the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. You know, so it, there's suggestions to help us understand that.
But unless the Bible gives us a good reason not to, we want to take everything literally. Why? 'cause at the end of. The day if we take it, literally, it doesn't change anything. But the problem is if we take it figuratively, it can become a slippery slope to know, well, where do we start and where do we end?
And that can be problematic when you're interpreting scripture. So unless it has a good reason, you should interpret it literally. Hmm. Uh, this person asked, what does the Bible say, if anything, about friendships between men and women, specifically outside of marriage? I am gonna ask you to give me an assist on this one, Jared, but, um.
Yeah, this is what we would call an anachronistic concept. It's a big word, but what it means is the idea that someone in Jesus's day and age was having crossed gendered close friendships is a little bit, um, like asking the Bible, what does it say about dating? These are newer concepts in human history that like a guy and a girl who are just friends would go out to coffee and it is even more.
Culturally repulsive in Jesus' day and age that a married man and a married woman would be seen in any case as together with each other or alone. It's part of what makes Jesus' story. I. In John chapter four with the woman at the well, so extremely counter-cultural is because the Bible lets us know that they were alone.
It lets us know that she's has been, at least historically promiscuous, had five husbands, and then she's living with a man who's not even her husband. And then Jesus shows up who numerically is guy number seven in her life, which is kind of a cool background idea. But then in the midst of all of that. We recognize that the Bible wants us to know that that was both strange and rare and unique and had all of the, all the semblances of romance to it.
And yet Jesus is the first man that she's met that doesn't want anything romantic from her. So it's leading us to that culminating moment where a well was a very commonplace for men to meet women because. Gathering water was the woman's responsibility. So single men, guess where they went? Where Samson and Moses and Jacob and all found their wives was at the well.
Oh, G tender. Just the, well, yeah, it's, that's right. Ancient tender. I don't know how tender works, but that, yeah, it's the first thing that came. Um, hinge is the new thing, bro, if you're not on hinge. Okay. Anyway, um. That's actually our sponsor for today's episode is huge. Find your loved one on 15% off probably.
Yeah. So that would be, um, there's a wisdom piece to it and I'll let you speak to this a little bit. I don't. Know of any pastor I've ever met. If you start going down the list of what I know and who I've counseled through extramarital affairs, through adultery and through all those things, um, it just seems like such an awful, awful, terrible idea that, um, I don't wanna make the Bible say what it doesn't say, but you also have to recognize the Bible doesn't say this.
'cause it wouldn't say this because this wasn't taking place. Yeah. So. Like the Bible doesn't say anything more than two hours of screen time on the iPad is a problem now, but we can derive principles from it. So Proverbs chapter seven talks about the, um, putting yourself in a compromising position and situation.
But let me just tell you, from someone who counsels marriages on a very regular basis, including those headed for divorce and those with extramarital or other, it's just, um, it is an awful. Terrible idea. Yeah. To do that. So speak to that a little bit. 'cause I mean, you, you run the dad tired community too, so I, I can't imagine how many stories that you're privy to.
Yeah, yeah. But just a wisdom piece on that. So Lela and I always just say that we have there, we've said this from the start of our marriage, there's no exclusive opposite sex friendships. Um, that's just like, that's a, that's a rule for us to stay wise. I, she doesn't have friends that are guys that are.
Outside of any dude that I know and I don't have friends, uh, who are women that are outside of who she knows. Uh, and then also just from a very like. Just speaking as a dude here, um, I don't trust dudes. Yeah, I, I think probably a woman could have a friendship with a guy. Uh, and I know a lot of women, I've heard so many women say, and, and in my opinion naively say, um, I can be friends with a guy.
That's probably true. Um, but I don't trust a single dude, not one who can just be friends with a girl. Yeah. Well, and what's funny too is you give a piece of wisdom like that and everyone has the exact same response. Let me do a little experiment with you, Jared. How many legs do humans have? Oh, uh, two.
Uhuh. I met a guy one time when I was in college and only had one leg. That's what this conversation sounds like to me. Right? Like should men and women have exclusive opposite sex relationships in marital context? Uh, no. It's unhealthy and it leads to adultery. Uhuh one time, right? Like, you're making my point for me.
If you can name a circumstance, right, like every time you talk about, um. Anything in sports, there is an exception to it, but it's almost like the dumb and dumber conversation, right? Like what are the odds of a guy like you and a girl like me ending up together? And Mary Swanson says, not good to which Lloyd Christmas.
Jim Carrey's character says Not good, like one out of a hundred. And she says More like one out of a million. And what's his response? So you're telling me, I've gotta say, so you're telling me there's a chance. So 99.999% of circumstances where a guy is interested in a girl or a girl is interested in a guy for friendship exclusively, that that dis permits the other party from engaging in that.
Ends in affections that are inappropriate or a reality that brings out adultery or something extra marital. Mm-hmm. So you're telling me there's a chance it's it's foolishness at its core. So the answer is no. You should not be doing that. What does, or why does the call of Andrew and Peter and Mark one differ from the account in John one?
There's a lot of different reasons there. There's a, we have to remember that. Can you, for people who don't know either of those passages, can you give some context? Okay. So they're talking about the, there's a, there's an apparent contradiction in the text on a timeline of when, um, Andrew is called into ministry.
And so one says it's during or before X, the other one says it's after X. And so there at the surface it seems like some kind of a contradiction. Um, with any. Apparent contradiction, particularly in the gospels, there's a lot of things that we have to discuss and think about before we jump right to, oh, well then the Bible is corrupted or it's messed up.
Okay, so this is also like the book of John, I think records two angels at the Tomb. But then the book of Matthew says, one angel spoke at the tomb. Every gospel says that the sign over Jesus's head is slightly different. Um, you know, Hmm. Matthew, which is written to a Jewish audience, really emphasizes this is Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.
Other will, others will say, this is Jesus of Nazareth. Other ones say over his head, it was written the King of the Jews, which again, at its core, they could just be emphasizing different parts of that sign. But in reality, I think what's important to recognize with any of these questions is that, um, if I were to tell you that I wanted you to have a conversation or write a book about the character of God or something else, um, and give it to a women's prison, you would write a different, you would use different language and analogies and even timelines.
So, um, Luke. Says he's gonna write a detailed ordered chronological event to a man named Theophilus. So he's able to understand the complete story of Jesus. So Luke's gospel is chronological, but then Mark's gospel is thematic. So when Mark starts talking about blindness, he does all the blindness episodes back to back to back.
So he's demonstrating their spiritual blindness. And then here comes Jesus being crucified and resurrected. Mark is writing to like a Roman audience that prized. Um, action and immediacy. He writes the word immediately, 40 different times in his gospel. Mm-hmm. John's gospel is to a group that's probably stuck between, um, trying to be Jewish Christians, but sometimes rejecting the deity of Christ.
And so he begins with the prologue, which is, um, in the beginning was the word. The word is with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. So he begins with his point and Matthew is really trying to connect. A audience of Jews to Jesus as Messiah. So we wouldn't expect with all those different things, some writing chronologically, some writing in different, to be emphasizing the same parts of the story or even to be doing them in the same order.
So really just the next level, look at the reason behind why you would find what would seem like a contradiction can be really helpful. And then also to remember that these different gospel writers had access to one another and to the events. And so to think that they just. Had oversight here doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if they're trying to create a hoax.
If you're trying to create a hoax, wouldn't you have everything match exactly the same? Mm-hmm. I think it's part of the beauty of what First Peter talks about. Normal men, ordinary men write down what they saw and were carried along by the Holy Spirit. I. Hmm. So it seems like God actually permits some level of personal bias, right?
Like John's gospel. John says that he outran Peter to the tomb. How is that helpful in understanding the gospel of Jesus? Other than God wants us to recognize ordinary men who wanna brag about who's faster than the tomb, right? Like John calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, right? So it seems like God.
It's a level of the character writing to, to permeate the story, even insofar as they're talking about different things that they remember and that they recall and that stuck out to them, um, based on their audiences. So I think that's how it should be. Understood. Hmm. I'm gonna try to sneak in one more question here, even though we're running a little bit outta time.
But, um, in Matthew 5 32 talks about a woman, um. Who marrying a woman who has been divorced and that being adultery. Can you speak to that a little bit? For a woman, a Christian woman who has gone through a divorce and her ability biblically to get remarried. Yeah, just briefly, huh? Okay. So here, here's the 30 seconds.
The brief thing would be this, is that the Bible does make it clear that if you've been divorced for a reason outside of the death of a spouse or unfaithfulness or whatever, or if you've been divorced for any reason entirely, um, assuming that we're talking about the law of Moses, certificate of divorce kind of a thing, that it is adulterous then to get remarried now.
Just like anything else, it's not perpetual adultery. It is a breaking of a covenant that you have previously made. You have failed to demonstrate, and there's a lot of reasons for it, so I'm not blaming anything, but you've, you have failed to demonstrate the character of God, which is why marriage was given to us, that he's a covenantal God that makes no exceptions and does not ever cite irreconcilable differences for why he can't.
Um, covenant with his people. So when we have marriages that fail, we do in one sense, uh, commit sin that says, uh, we weren't able to make it through. And there's sometimes there's really great reasons. Sometimes there's bad reasons. So I'm not trying to stipulate on that kind of stuff. But then when we. Go on to someone else.
We've made a new covenant with someone that we didn't originally make it with, and so the Bible says, yeah, that's an adulterous thing to do. Now you get married, you have committed adultery. You are repenting of that. Particularly if you've, um, if you've had a marriage that has ended in divorce, that should be something you repenting of, Lord, I'm sorry that this happened.
Even if it wasn't mainly your fault, or if you think it's 60 40 something else, you still need to humble yourself and say, Lord, whatever responsibility I had in this, would you forgive me for those things? Then just like any other sin, those sins are forgiven and now you are able to move forward with grace and mercy in your life, and you don't need to live in a state of like, uh, perpetual, um, shame or embarrassment or any of those things.
So I think that would be a foreign concept to the New Testament text. That when we repent of something and that we, uh, are given forgiveness for it, that that's something that we need to bear eternally as a, a mark against us. So I would say that would be, yes, the Bible seems to indicate that that is an adulterous situation.
It doesn't need to be repented from, but then you, it's, it is not something that you need to eternally be every time you guys are consummating it or every time you're having sex, you need to go Uhoh. We did it again. So, um. Receive God's forgiveness, understand his correction, and then move on with what's happening.
That was a pretty heavy question and you did answer that in less than I think two minutes. So great job, uh, in case you are brand new to this segment. Um, Chris answers these questions. He has no idea what question I'm gonna throw at him at any time. He's never seen or heard these, so, um, that's what makes it kind of fun.
If you have a question that you'd like to toss Chris's way, dad tire.com/question, we would love to get to your question. That being said, thanks Chris. We'll see you next week. Thanks.