How to Not Ruin Your Life- A Practical Guide

Welcome to Clearcast. I'm your host, Tim Dukeman. I'm here with, of course, Pastor Dave and our producer, Martin. And Clearcast is a ministry of Glen Road Church in West Indianapolis. And so today we're actually going to talk about how to guard yourself against fornication and adultery and talk about why the Bible spends so much time warning us about the adulterous woman. And so, Pastor Dave. I know you have eight boys, one still on the way, but are any of them dating yet? No. No, they're not dating, not currently. We have talked about it a lot at my house. There are a number of ways in which they are out of step with their friends, and this is one of them, is that they're not dating. So I've got three teenage sons, 16, 15.

13. Well, maybe there's a reason 16 year olds don't have to be dating. I don't know. Yeah, I see. Well, that's the age that you know everything. So that'd be the time to date. Yeah, that's right. It's all downhill from there. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've talked to them about when I described dating to them, I know we're, we're going to get toward adultery and these types of things. But when I talked to them about dating, I said, you know, dating is like the impulses that lead you to into a relationship. God put in you, and they're good. Though they're corrupted by default, they're good. They get really destructive when they don't have a natural outlet, meaning that the relationship can't progress toward physical intimacy, which I think should go without saying with a teenager, but kid in high school, I mean...

I suppose you could argue and say, well, the 18-year-old in their second semester who doesn't want to go to college and is about to get married, okay, fine, granted, point taken. There are exceptions. You probably don't have one. Yeah. Most of the kids that are dating are not planning to get married later, immediately after they get out of high school. Right. And so what I've said to my kids is dating is like starting a car and a manual car and putting it in first gear and starting to drive down the road. but not being able to shift it into second or third gear. And yet it's supposed to perpetually go faster and faster. And so when you, you know, if you're going to drive, you know, five, 10, maybe 15 miles an hour, you can do that in first gear starts to get a little loud when you get into, you know, 15 more plus miles an hour, but you can do it. But if you try to get on the highway in that car, like you're just going to blow up the engine because it's not designed. You need to shift. Right. And relationships have,

That same component, like they need to be able to shift in formality and in seriousness. Right. And when they're not able to, the pressures don't subside and it often leads to fornication. Yeah. When I worked with youth groups, I would always tell the kids, if you're not ready to be married two years from today, you should not be dating today. Yeah. It reaches a point in every relationship where you either need to get married or break up. And that's the fork you're at in the road. And I think there's something really broken about these people who date for seven years. That's not healthy in a lot of ways. No.

No. I did not happen to be in this particular service, but when I was in a particular part of the denomination and there was a guy that had dated a lady for years and years and years, like maybe 10 years. Oh, my. And he was there at that service with his girlfriend. We're talking a couple that are like now in their 30s or something. He's still living with his mother. And the speaker for the event, a religious event, was a psychiatrist. And there was a Q&A where people could put anonymous questions in. And somebody, as some kind of a sick joke, had put in there, what would you tell somebody who was still dating the same girl 10 years later? And he answered very transparently that he thought maybe he needed to see a doctor. And just having no idea that the person was actually sitting in the congregation. Oh, dear.

They had to be dying. I don't know. It was, it was an insane. Well, that's a mess for a number of reasons, but yeah, for sure. But yeah. So yeah, I think that fornication and we're just, we're just completely surrounded by it. And the expectation, even a lot of ways within the church is that it's okay. There's not going to be a lot of, a lot of firm resistance to fornication. Yeah. And so I think when you're talking about, how to guard yourself against adultery when you're married. Because if you ask anybody, like, hey, do you, what would you, what are your thoughts about adultery if you were married? Like, how do you think that would affect you? Like, everyone would say, like, if there's anything I could avoid, I'd want to avoid adultery. Myself, my spouse, like, I would, that would be the most devastating thing that could happen to our relationship. And it's like, okay, well, it seems to follow then that figuring out how to,

avoid that would be really important. And so, fornication is the predecessor to adultery. Really, they're both predicated on a lack of, there are other things that go into it, but a lack of self-control, a lack of faith and trusting God to provide for you, impatience, selfishness, there's all kinds of things that can contribute to it. But I'm surprised when I meet a couple that has made effort to be pure and to not be sexually involved in some way that has set up boundaries to prevent sexual sin before they get married. I'm always arguing and advocating for that pretty forcefully and strongly with dating and engaged couples. Because I find that they just...

No one's been teaching them in this area how to avoid the dangers. And really, I've come to think that fornication and adultery, sexual sin, are the most destructive sins that you can commit. They will leave the worst fallout and destruction. Open that up a little bit. What do you mean by why are they so much more destructive than other sins? Well, in part, it has to do with, I mean, just the sexual act, the intimacy, the knowledge of it. I mean, you might forget. There's a lot of things that time can kind of soften in terms of your memory. But sexual sin seems to, it just never seems to, the memory of it, whether it's the guilt or the shame or the pain, that does not seem to go away or lessen over time.

Well, what does Paul say? He says, every other sin is without the body. But this sin is, a man who sins in this way sins against his own body. Yeah. And so, and you think of what sins that, I mean, what other sins can you commit that have such a devastating effect? I mean, this, I mean, the Lord, the Bible says that God hates divorce, and yet adultery is one of the two and probably the primary reason that God gives to say, like, The marriage may end in divorce here because it's so destructive, and it's very hard to come back from, and it leaves such devastation in its wake. Yeah, what I think about is the procreative aspect of sex makes this different because if you think about whether fornication or adultery, a lot of times that ends in a pregnancy, and then you have a person who didn't exist before this act.

And so there is that permanency there of that person now exists because… No other sin would create, would bring an eternal being into existence. Right. Yeah. And so guarding yourself against it, it seems to be the type of sin that gets a hold of you more quickly than others. It's harder to shake. So you said earlier that there were… You were always impressed when you met a young couple that were taking steps to guard against this sin, and it's the most destructive sin. And so what are like three things that you would say just right off the top, or if there's more or less, things that you would see as the prime ways that those young couples guard themselves against this kind of sin that you look on and say, that's admirable? You mean like a dating couple? Someone who's not married? A dating, an unmarried couple, yeah. Things that would be admirable.

Physical boundaries, and what I mean by that is that they've actually discussed and agreed upon what the limits are. And in saying that, I don't mean to say, oh, well, if they both agree that making out on the couch in the dark and touching each other all over is acceptable, then that's okay. That's not what I mean. But I mean that they— That they have reasonable boundaries that prioritize holiness. Yeah. I mean, I said to one of—I got a really strange look from one of my kids. we were talking about this. And I told them, I said, you know, you won't miss anything if you don't kiss your wife until your wedding day. Like, you will not miss out on anything good by waiting. And they just looked at me like, what? Like, I had a third eyeball. And I'm like, I'm just telling you. Like, you can fall into sexual sins. Like, I can tell you that there are people who regretted the kissing before they were married. And I've never met the couple.

That regretted the not kissing before they were married. So take it for what it's worth. Listen, please. So when I'm saying physical boundaries, I'm saying, yeah, there should be very little physical contact between the man and the woman before they're married. Not just before they're engaged, but before they're married. One of the rules or sort of litmus tests I'd give them is like, would you do that, whatever it is, In front of her father or in front of your pastor. There's a really funny story. When Vanessa, my wife, and I were, the night I was proposing, one of the boundaries we had set up was that we would never be alone by ourselves together. So what that meant was we would never hang out in her apartment when her roommate wasn't there. Her roommate was rarely there, so we just...

We're like, well, we'll just never hang out at your apartment. I will come pick you up. I'll drop you off. But I'm never going to set foot inside your apartment. It's just we can go somewhere else. And we would go somewhere else, a public place, and it would just be the two of us. But you're much less likely to be tempted when you're sitting in a public space on a college campus than you are if you're alone in an apartment and you know there's no one around. Anyway, so the night that we were going to propose, we went through our normal routine. I went and picked up my wife.

from orchestra practice and we had dinner and then we went over to um the imu the indiana memorial union it's basically just the commons where people hang out there's chairs and tables and just places to sit down study whatever and i said let's go for a walk so we would always just sit in the commons area and so we took the elevator up to the top floor of the tower the hotel and then took the stairs up to the the the very very top floor and there's nothing up there except like old rooms uh old uh like lounge rooms and stuff there's no people i actually wanted to go onto the roof but the roof hatch was locked and so i couldn't get onto the roof so we went into this old study had a fireplace there's no fire but a fireplace and leather couches and a beautiful view of the city and all this nice stuff and we were the only people the only people there and i was waiting for her to kind of get the hint that something

out of the ordinary was going on, which she was getting, but the out of ordinary thing was that we were alone. And she asked me, she was very uncomfortable because we had agreed that that was something we weren't going to do. And so she's like, what in the world's going on? And I'm just kind of like trying to, I'm going to propose. So I'm trying to play it cool. I'm like, well, let's just sit down. And she's like, no. And I'm like, yeah, come on. It'll be okay. Just for a little bit. Just come sit down. And I was waiting for the light to go off.

In my mind, I was waiting for her to be like, this is really out of character. Maybe something's going to happen. Maybe something's going on. That didn't happen. Oh, no. And so eventually, I got her to sit down in the room. Because I was afraid at one point she was just going to walk out and leave. Leave me there. And I'm like, that would be a different type of engagement story. It's not that she was angry, but she was just like, this is not what we talked about. And eventually, we were just sitting and talking, and she said, given my past especially, there was a reason for us to have these boundaries. And she said, if we had a daughter, would you let her do this? Like go alone, be alone with a guy sitting alone in some dark room where there's nobody going to come by. And I said...

I'm left being like, under normal circumstances, the answer is no, I would not want this to be what they were doing. But I couldn't say that because, so I said, well, if I trusted the guy and he had a good reason, I would allow it, which just completely did not compute. And so then she asked about a similar question with regard to that. to the elders or the pastors or someone that we were close to, father figure. And she's like, what would, you know, would you tell, you know, fill in the blank, Joe, would you tell Joe about, you know, us being alone up here together? And I was like, yeah. And again, she's like, what she didn't know is I'd already told Joe. So Joe already knew that I was going to be proposing.

And was very excited about it. How long did it take you to actually do it? I'm like imagining this extremely awkward. It was very, I felt very awkward. And he's just waiting, you're just waiting for the awkwardness to pass. Well, I'm just waiting for her to not get up and walk out and to figure out how to get the ring out of my pocket without her noticing. Oh my goodness. Anyway, eventually, she never did pick up on that there was something going on. And so then eventually I, I just had her stand up. We were sitting on the couch. I said, stand up. Turn around. So she turned around with her back to me. And I got down on my knee and I got the ring out. And I turned her back around and I asked her to marry me. Said very sweet things. And she didn't know what was going on. She didn't see it coming. It was really sweet. And she said yes. And lots of happy. And we immediately left.

It's like we're not going to hang out and celebrate up here because that probably wouldn't be a good idea. So we left and we went to a Chili's and graded papers for a class that she was teaching. I graded the papers. She admired her ring and called all her friends. You know what? This just shows your age. Because nowadays we have to have a drone operator and a videographer and a photographer to be there. To take the pictures, to catch that special moment. Yeah, we're older. Your reactions are good enough. We're also on a budget. But yeah, that was, and so we had these boundaries. And it's not like, well, show me the chapter and verse. And I was just like, I have not been perfectly pure in the past, and I want to be pure going forward. And so we're going to follow, we're going to impose these boundaries on ourselves. We've never regretted it.

The boundaries that we put in place, they were helpful. They set a good trajectory. And it provided a security and a framework for us to relate in a way that was really helpful. It also took away the physical component of our relationship, of the relationship, so we could actually evaluate whether or not we wanted to marry the person, one another. Without the pressure of having been entangled physically. Right. So number one, the number one thing is setting physical boundaries to avoid fornication. I think that's important. I think that's probably the top of the list. Yeah, I think having some boundaries. I think being involved with other people. Engaged couples, dating couples, it's like they pair off and then they disappear.

And you do have to spend some time getting to know each other. I'm not – dates, that's all good. Great. Do that stuff. No one has to be told to go on a date when they're dating. But you need to spend time with other people that know you, that know both of you. One of the things that makes me nervous, this is – we're supposed to be talking about fornication and adultery, and here we are talking about dating, how to get toward engagement and marriage. But it's all – it is – They're all interrelated. It is related. Yeah. And so what I want to see is that the people – that are involved in her life get to know him and the people involved in his life get to know her. And I think that that's really important for that to happen in a church context. If you go to different churches where your church gets to know the person you're dating and vice versa. Well, it's kind of like when we've talked about entertainments, you were saying you can't just say, well, we're not going to do entertainment. We're not going to have entertainments because something will come in and fill that void.

make it something healthy. So you're saying it's probably not just enough to say, we're never going to be by ourselves. Well, then what are you going to do? If our topic today is avoiding fornication and adultery, guarding ourselves against the strange woman or the adulterous woman, and you need to fill your life with things that help guard you. So when you're in a context where you're getting to know each other and also Her friends are getting to know you. Her support group is getting to know you. That creates another barrier, doesn't it, in helping to guard the two of you against sexual sin. Yeah. And one of the things that the friend group or the peer group or the church, one of the things they will be keyed in on is whether you behave differently when you're around your boyfriend or girlfriend. Yeah. Because all of a sudden, if all your guy friends are hanging out and all of a sudden you bring your girlfriend around and all of a sudden your behavior is completely different, they're going to notice it.

And they may be like, man, what's she doing to you? Or they may be, I mean, I suppose it could be a change for the better, but I'm thinking of it in terms of a change for the worse in terms of like you get really insecure or really timid or really bossy or really controlling or whatever. Those friends and family are going to see that from the outside and say, wait, your behavior changes. Why is it changing when you're around that person? It should change. You should get like, more happy, more cheerful, more excited, more serious about life. There's lots of changes that should take place, but those changes are what family and friends are going to see. And so those are the things that I like when I see in young couples. They're the things I also advocate for before people are dating and once they are, start dating. These are things you need to be working on and giving your attention to.

I also think it's really important to recognize that other people are going to be able to see things that you can't necessarily see in the moment about your relationship. And so if you're flying too close to the sun in terms of your boundaries or if it's just not a good fit or there's a dark side to the person you're dating or whatever it is, all those things are absolutely – That's right. And the thing that I want to make sure is stated clearly is that fornication completely short circuits your ability. Like it's in the best of cases, the things you're saying are true that you don't see everything just clearly because you are excited and all interested, but there's fornication. It completely short circuits your ability to evaluate the person at all. Yeah. You just don't because all of a sudden the defining feature of the relationship is the sexual. Where do we have to go and what do we have to do to get alone together?

And away from the watching eye. So taking a little bit of a turn, but what do you say to a young guy that's like, well, this conversation is totally not something I need because I'm not even dating. I work at Subway or Jerry's Philly Subs where we just ate. He's like, I don't even have a girlfriend. Now I'm going to be going to Pizza Hut tomorrow night with my coworker and her and I are going to hang out. maybe go to my house afterwards and watch a movie, but we're just friends. We're not dating. What do you say to a young guy like that? He doesn't have any need to hear your words about dating boundaries and all that stuff, right? Before I was a Christian, back when I was in high school, I remember talking about going to prom and stuff. And people were like, oh, we're just going as friends. And I just remember, even as an unbeliever, being like, that is the biggest load of crap.

That is just not true. It may be true for you, but it's not true for the person you're taking. One of you likes each other. And one of you is hoping this goes well, whatever well in your mind would have entailed. And so I do not support, endorse, agree with, or like platonic relationships, friendships between men and women. Certainly not when you're married. I think we'd all kind of say, yeah, yeah, that's probably not good. But when you're single, I'm left being like, this is a dating relationship. There is sexual pressure that exists. The only time I would say that's not the case is if it's like your sister, a family member, where it's like, oh, you want to go out to dinner with your sister and then go back to your house and watch a movie? Yeah, because in that relationship, there's not sexual tension. But when you put a man and a woman together and they're alone and they're having a good time together, there is going to be some sexual tension.

I look back at everything you're saying right now with just so much chagrin at myself because I had a chapter of my life with a lot of friendships, a lot of friendships, phone calls, text messages, and just platonic friendships that weren't headed anywhere, weren't going anywhere. And do you think that put me at a unique risk? What are the downsides of that kind of thing? Well, the downsides are that you've... end up in the upside is you actually realize you like each other and you start dating the downsides are some sort of emotional codependence some sort of oh i never experienced just kidding joke yeah i mean it's just gonna become it's like we're gonna be friends except that there's things you don't talk about in mixed company once you're married you're like there's things you just don't talk about in front of your wife or she doesn't talk about in front of you that If you didn't know, you learn what's appropriate and what's not. And it's not because I don't trust my wife or love my wife. It's like she just doesn't want to know about that or hear about that. She doesn't find that interesting or funny, depending on what it is. But you put a young man and a young woman together and all of a sudden she's telling you all her woes and you're telling her all your woes and we're getting all emotionally close and we're hugging because it's sad and it's hard. It's like there's a lot of dependence being created.

Really close to... Now, maybe it doesn't end up in some sort of fornication. I suppose that's possible, but I just can't imagine that kind of relationship going on for very long without there becoming some pressure on one side. And maybe the other person's completely... oblivious to it. I think there's a lot of danger. I mean, Proverbs warns against the naive one that lacks sense. And it's like, yeah, I think young men who want to spend a bunch of time with girls just as friends is a young man lacking sense. Like, you're going to get yourself in trouble. And it can go one of two, because on the one hand, sometimes the young man is the young man lacking sense, and a woman comes and essentially pursues him sexually and And catches him, internet. And then I've seen young guys that do the same thing. Yeah, it's an interesting thing you said. We had a men's group a month or so ago where we were talking about this. And one of the things that we were studying was Proverbs 7 where the woman is described, the seductress, the adulterous woman, is described as pursuing, boisterous, rebellious, seizing him, grabbing him. And one of the points that I made, and I think we have to get in our minds, is that there are bad actors in this world who are women.

That every sexual deviant is not a man. That there are women actually who are out causing harm and destruction and doing it on purpose and not doing it as a function of desperation or having been put up to it, so to speak. But it's what they do. We were just talking before we got on air about the Ashley Madison website, which is like, that's what it's set up for. It's set up for women to be able to Pursue relationships with married men. And vice versa. Yeah. And so this is not a foreign concept, but I think men... So I guess to the women, I would say, I mean, it may be simple and there's a lot more nuance and more to be said about it, but initially, read Proverbs 7, look at what that woman's like, do not become her. Do not become a woman who preys on men, especially on weak men. That's what she's preying on, is a young man who is naive, who lacks sense, who's a fool.

or at least acting very foolishly. Don't be the kind of woman. A godly woman would see that kind of guy and would not want much to do with him because she's like, this guy's not going to be able to provide what I'm interested in or what I need. But to the young men, I'd say there's women out there who want to destroy your life. We've industrialized this with OnlyFans at this point. OnlyFans is basically that on a big scale. What if she's just, she, Like I can hear the young man right now saying, but Pastor Dave, you don't understand. She's not like that. She's had a really hard time in her life. She's been hurt. Nobody's treated her well. And you want me to be the next guy to walk away and leave her with no relationship, just leave her alone, walk away from her. It's going to hurt her feelings. It's going to be damaging, and I feel bad about that.

are you really telling me to do this? Are you really telling me to delete her phone number? Oh, yeah. Telling you to run away from that girl. Wow. That's hard. Yeah, it's hard. But it's also, there's this idea, I think, in Christian circles. I didn't grow up in the Christian world. And so all of the... sexual sins and stuff that are curious to Christian young men. I grew up in a place where there was no shame in talking about it or pursuing it. It was lauded. It was cool. It was how you moved up the social ladder, so to speak. And so all the stuff where it's like, oh, well, we need to... Well, I don't know. It's like we were just out in the open and doing it because no one told us... There was nothing wrong in that society. And so what I find with with young men, especially ones who've grown up in a Christian context, is this, I call it, it's not my phrase, but I've heard it, and I use it, white knighting. That guys want to come in and they want to save the day. They see this girl that's been hurt and harmed and abused and taken advantage of and chewed up and spit out, and all she needs is a man who's going to understand her, help her, and lift her up out of this misery and this pit that she's in.

What typically happens in that situation, what I'll say is what's generally true of the man who tries to do that is he is a very weak, insecure man, and he's in fact intimidated by stronger women or healthier women, that he actually is afraid of them. And so he goes and he doesn't think of it or conceive of it as praying, but he goes and finds a very weak woman with no capacity to resist and maybe no desire to say no. And then says, well, I'm going to do is I'm going to come in and I'm going to help her. I'm going to fix all her problems. And what I've watched happen time and time again is he becomes her next problem. And in other words, that's with him being the culpable, the initiator and all that stuff. But if you were to follow the storyline of Proverbs 7, he becomes the next victim. He becomes the one who's taken in. Our house is full of bones. Yeah.

And so she's praying on him. There is a woman. There's a woman that that man is attracted to, and that woman is also attracted to that weak man. And so what I'm saying is when you're preparing for marriage or wanting to get married, apart from loving Jesus and following him, the next biggest decision you're going to make in your life that will have the most profound impact on your whole life is who you marry. And I don't think... You should want to marry someone who's got bags and bags of trouble with them. And I'm hearing in my own head, I don't remember who wrote the article about, turns out guys don't want to marry, guys want to marry tattoo-free, debt-free. Debt-free virgins without tattoos. Yeah, and I'm like, okay, here I am. Yes, actually.

That's the truth. Well, does that mean it's okay? Why is there a double standard and why do men get to go and sow the royal oats? I'm like, well, they don't around here. Not without consequence. I'm not actually trying to advocate for any double standard. I'm actually trying to advocate for consistency where both sides are pure. Neither side is pure. And it's worth fighting for. One thing you've talked about before is there's forgiveness and repentance both for the praying man and the praying woman. But the The point you've tried to make is that the white knight is not actually God's way of salvation for the woman who has a problem in Syria. And a woman who would want to do the feminine version of that in rescuing men from their problems, that's not actually God's way of rescuing them from, like, you know, to put it in a nutshell, you are not.

The one called to rescue the opposite sex from their troubles. And I think you've even told a story before about you and your wife coming to a, before you were married, to that counseling session where they basically said you guys needed to get some space from each other because of the danger. I don't know. Can you unpack that a little bit? That story reminded me of the. I mean, yeah, we dated for a while and then eventually sought out counsel. about the relationship and I wanted how to progress forward. And the counsel from the pastor and his wife, who Vanessa had become very dear to, they just said, your relationship is all messed up and you guys need to break up. There's not good gonna come out of this. You're building on a very rocky relationship. And it didn't feel that way.

But they said, look at where you came from, look at the sins that have been a part of your life. And they're talking to me and saying, you need to get clear of this. There's a codependence that's going to be very destructive if you guys carry on. You need to get distance, space, the dust needs to settle, and you need to sort out your faith and your... whether you're a Christian, speaking to me, and all that stuff, completely apart from this girl. And it can't be done otherwise. And so that's what we did. Another pastor, as we were talking about that, described our relationship as being an idol to each of us. And what he meant was all of our hope, all of our joy, all of our futures was all pinned to this relationship working out. And really helpfully, he said that is...

One of the surest ways you can ruin a relationship is to expect it to produce something that it's not made to produce and can't provide for you. Only God can provide that for you. And so you've swapped out God for this idol, and it's going to go poorly for you. Wow. Those were helpful things for people to say to me. What I think about is that we have biblical instruction on who ought to help a troubled woman, and it's a Titus 2.1. The Titus II woman is the one given that job, and we ought to be able to recognize that something can be a duty of the church broadly, but not yours. And maybe someone else has been given that job. And with that, if the person you're dating is actually marriage material, they will be happy to learn from a Titus II woman instead of you or an only godly man in the church instead of you.

you should be seeking out the kind of person who wants that type of instruction and wants someone to come tell them what they're doing wrong. Yeah, I think you can't. I mean, the simplest way I've found to say it is just you're not God, and you can't save people in relationships, and you end up with comforting someone when they're grieving or sad turns into fornication or adultery really a lot quicker than you think it would. And so when you get two people or one person that's really needy emotionally, they're going to be really needy physically as well. Yeah, yeah. And the fact is they're going to have been – you're not going to be the first person who felt some compassion, wanted to help them, and ended up being the next chapter of harm. Yeah. Pastor Dave, you don't even do like counseling sessions with women by yourself, right? No. And you're a pastor.

No, no. I mean, if I'm going to – at least in our church, if there's work that needs – if there's conversations and counseling that needs to be done with a woman in the church, the first line of defense is just my wife or the women, the elders, the women of the church who are helpful will actually just take the work on. Now, maybe that that woman will – both my wife and I will talk, you know, we'll have a conversation and stuff, but my wife's going to be the one that's maintaining a lot of the relational day-to-day checking up type of stuff. I mean, if I, if we, there've been times where my wife and I have been in that environment and there'll be a, there's a group text where like, I'm not even texting with that girl, that woman directly. There'll just be all three of us. So she can ask me questions. I can answer them. That's fine. My wife's privy to everything that's, that's going on.

And what I find is if people are not willing to have that help, if some guy finds this poor woman that's in such a bad spot and he wants to help her, and it's appropriate, it's that he would have some impulse to want to help. The help he would be able to offer is, hey, my church can help you. There's women at my church who can help you. And if the woman truly wants help... She'll accept that as help. She'll be glad to have that help. And if she's like, no, no, I just... I want to talk to you or I just, you know, you're so whatever. Whatever flattery comes out of her mouth. There's something else she's wanting. Yeah. She's a Proverbs 5 woman, wittingly or unwittingly. Yeah. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey and are smoother than oil is her speech. You know, insecure, naive men are really susceptible to a woman's affirmation. Right. And her eye contact. And so.

Yeah. So you're saying, it sounds like you're saying that getting married doesn't fix all these problems and mean that I have a wife at home that, you know, since my sexual needs are met by my wife, then I can develop platonic friendships with the girls at work. I mean, this is almost too cheesy, Martin. Yeah. Like, no. Well, I'm not trying to softball here for you, but... Understand people are stupid. Men are stupid. Women are stupid. And there is somebody listening that has a friendship. And they're married, and they tell themselves it's okay because they're also friends with their wife. Or there's some, like, I'm saying what kind of boundaries should somebody set? You said, like, you all set boundaries to not be alone together while you were dating before you were married. But then what kind of boundaries does a young man need to set?

Is that just a dating rules? No. Boundaries? What kind of boundaries should we set as married men in relationships? Yeah. I mean, it's, I think all, at least my thinking on it has all sort of been informed by what's called the Mike Pence rule or before that, the Billy Graham rule. Oh my goodness. So, which is just that like, we realize the risk and the danger, which is not to say the man can't control himself or all he ever thinks about is sex with every woman he's in a room with or anything like, that's not actually what I'm. Right. I'm not saying that's the right motivation for these rules. I'm saying it's just an acknowledgement that there is the potential for danger and people lie and that you would do well to avoid getting into a situation where that potential exists. And so I don't have any private communications, sustained communications. There are times where...

I just had a lady from the church call me yesterday and was asking me about an outlet at the church. Right. We were plugging stuff in and we didn't work. So it's not like a wooden legalistic, like I will never ever. But I also know that her husband was sitting right next to her while she called me and it was like we were on the phone for four minutes. And my thought was when I picked up the phone was, huh, why is she calling me? She never calls me for anything. She must have a question. So I answered her question and we said goodbye. So that type of stuff does happen. I don't refuse.

But if she said, I need to come in and I need to talk to you, there would be someone else around. We'd at least be sitting in a public place where other people in the church can see. On a Sunday morning, I would go talk to a woman at the back of the sanctuary. People are milling about and ask her, if we've been in counseling, I might ask her, how are you and your husband doing? Are you guys getting along? Yeah. Whatever the issues are. And her husband may not be standing there. My wife may not be standing there. But there's 50 other people standing there. And the interaction is two minutes long. And so some people might say that's a violation of the Billy Graham rule. I'm like, okay, well, then it's a violation of the Billy Graham rule. But it's not a violation of biblical wisdom. No, I don't think so. In my mind, the Billy Graham rule is just a shorthand way to describe.

biblically wise interactions between the sexes. And there are always edge cases where you go, well, this, the issue is you don't turn those into a license for dangerous. No. And you have to be honest. I mean, there's the adulterous woman, the seductress in Proverbs 5, Proverbs 7 is identifiable. And there are women, if you have wisdom as a man and you care about these things. you will learn to see what that woman looks like and you will avoid her. And you would not answer her phone calls and you would not respond to her texts directly. And you would not say, hey, how are you doing in the back of the church? Because it may be a very different context with her. And so there have been times in ministry where I've gone to my wife and said, I need you to handle this. Take care of this. Yeah, Jenny's, you need to go deal with, go help Jenny.

And it's not this conspiracy about Jenny. I would tell Jenny that. I'd say, Jenny, I need you to talk to my wife about that. Like, I don't talk to – she would know. And it's like it's not actually particular to you. But if there's – the more vulnerable, the more weak, the more intimate or difficult the situation we're dealing with is, yeah, you need to stay – we need to stay away from that, that sort of situation. Because you think, oh, I want to help out the harm and stop the destruction. It's like, well, but what if you – through your foolishness or, or just actual, just sinful, sinfulness make a bad situation much worse. Right. I think it's better to avoid that. And so there are limitations to that need to be in place for that kind of, those kinds of interactions, because I don't think men are, men are not immune to temptations. Like if you remember, I asked at the beginning, like, do you think that people who end up in adultery, like that they wanted to, that they thought this is,

this is fine and good and normal. What most people say when their relationship's gotten to that point is, I don't know how we got here and I never thought that this was going to happen. And you're like, okay, but it did. So let's trace out how it happened. And a lot of times it's just, it was a discounting of the danger or some sort of pride that says, well, I will be able to resist. those situations when they arise. And I think that's not what Scripture told you to do. Yeah, I think – the thing I think about is with like how you're going to approach avoiding sexual sin is there's a reason that the speed limit is 25 miles an hour in a school zone and 70 miles an hour on the interstate because the risk is so much higher in the school zone. And like people can say, well – I've driven through a school zone at 90 miles an hour five times and I've never hit a pedestrian. And it's like, okay, yeah, but if you do that enough times, you will. And I think that we should think more about as we're approaching these relationships, opposite sex relationships or interactions, what's my speedometer reading here? Like how much...

What danger am I in? And we should try to think about that intensively. That makes sense. And just keep the speed lower. Right. Well, I think one of the things, I think one of the best ways to protect yourself against adultery if you're married has got to be cultivating a relationship, an intimate relationship with your wife. And by intimate, I don't just mean having sex all the time. I mean a close, vulnerable relationship where you're known and they're known. Honest, yeah. Yeah. Where those things are... Where everything's out on the table. Where you say, we're working on building something here. And it's actually enjoyable. What I have found is that when you work on your marriage, when you and your spouse actually work on building your marriage, you both enjoy it a lot more. That if one of you works on building your marriage, it breeds a lot of frustration and anger. And if neither of you work on building your marriage, you end up divorced. And you might end up divorced anyway, even if only one of you works on it because of the other one's lack.

If you're speaking to men and they're like, well, what do I do to avoid it? I'm like, go home at night. Get out of all of the other stuff you're involved in online, the things that are taking your attention, and be with the woman that you loved enough to marry. Spend the time with her. Talk to her. Get to know her. Tell her about yourself and your life and your day and your worries and your fears. and your frustrations and your joys and ask her about hers and talk about the past and talk about the future and talk about the kids and talk about whatever it is that you're interested in. But spend that time with her. You'll find out that it leads to greater physical intimacy, which is a big help. Right. Yeah, I think the tendency we have is to want to spiritualize these issues so much.

And say, well, just read your Bible and pray more. And, like, you should. Those are important things to do. But also, like, if you are married, like, drink water from your cistern. Just do it. It is very, very important. And the risks of adultery go down drastically if you are regularly drinking from your own cistern. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it's simple. But I think, you know, let the – I don't remember exactly how it says. Let your wife or the wife of your youth's breast satisfy you at all times. It's like – Pour yourself into that relationship. Don't spread yourself out over a bunch of relationships and certainly not with other women. And stupid things like, oh, well, they're just, he doesn't understand me. I've heard a lot of women say, he doesn't understand me. I've heard it so much as to think that it might just be a systemic problem. And if you stop trying, you'll reap what you sow. So if the husband stops trying to understand, he would actually agree. He'd be like, I just don't understand her.

She wants to talk all the time, or she wants to talk about all the same stuff all the time. Yeah. Or... Welcome to married life. Well, and here's the thing, dude. You're not nearly as interesting as you think you are. Like, she's probably just nice enough to not tell you how boring you are and how uninteresting a lot of the stuff that you're interested in actually is to her. Like, she's much... more gracious in the relationship where you're like, well, it's just boring. That's where we talked about that. And it's like, well, you're also not good at cultivating and sustaining relationships. So maybe you could learn something here. Maybe there's a benefit to the inefficiency of talking about it more than once. It's not actually about the destination. Nope. There's not a point to the conversation. The conversation is the point. Well, yeah, but as long as you don't mean that in a derogatory way, and the reason I'm reacting to it is because I,

I'm, I like efficiency and I like, I like, let's talk about it quick. Let's, let's figure it out. Let's move on. Let's make a game plan. And once that, you know, if we can't do all that, or if that's done already, what else do we need to do? And it's like, relate. Yeah. And, and so actually have that connection. Yeah. And I mean, men, you'll actually, here's the thing. The reason you don't enjoy it is because you don't good at it. And the only way you're going to get good at it is by practice. If you, if you decide that what you're going to do, is lust after strange flesh, instead of working on it, you will destroy your house. Yeah. You will destroy your house. The Proverbs 6.32 says, the one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense. He would destroy himself. He who would destroy himself does it. And so if you're like, well, it's hard and it doesn't make sense and I don't know how to do it, it's like, well, yeah, that's right. So learn. The other option is destroy your house. Yeah.

There's corollaries with women and the ways that they can destroy their house and be so unpleasant toward their husbands that he doesn't want to make effort. And what that woman will find out is that men will pay attention to her if she pursues them physically and is needy with them. But if she's willing to be needy with a stranger and not with her husband, then she's an adulterous woman. She's a seductress. And it's not all her husband's fault that she's behaving that way. Wow. Yeah. And so you have to, in marriage, to protect yourself, to protect your marriage against adultery and yourself against fornication before you're married, you have to take ownership for yourself and stop making excuses for, well, this other person did this thing or this thing happened to me in the past or really all of that. While it may be true, it is not an excuse for the choices, the proactive choices that you're making. And so you ought not to give any...

quarter to that or any room or latitude to those justifications because you will reap what you sow and it will be destruction. What I think about too with the man who feels like his wife talks too much, a lot of times what's going on there is that you're not being vulnerable enough with your wife. You're not being open with her and she's reaching out to you to try to make a connection. That's what's actually happening in those interactions. And it's because you're not taking steps to be proactively open with her and share your life with her and your hopes and dreams and desires. And that's the thing that she's going for. And she's just trying to prod that out of you sometimes. And I think that's a lot of what the men who get frustrated with their wives, they just need to try to understand what's going on in those interactions and live with her in an understanding way.

yeah yeah absolutely i think you have to have the humility of to realize like you're you've got a lot of growing to do and your wife's trying and you need to be trying and that there are real threats out there to from that come from within you and from outside of you from other people that would destroy you and that satan's behind those those temptations and those uh those people and that you you have to resist them you have to get away from them run away from them and it's like well So you're telling me that the woman who flirts with me at work is a problem, and what am I supposed to do? And I'm like, I don't know particularly, but you may need to quit your job. Yeah. Wow. I mean, I'm not saying that has to be the absolute first step. But it has to be on the table, you're saying. I would probably go file a complaint with HR. I would address it head on. Yeah. I would probably try to make that woman feel really uncomfortable. Don't flirt with her and then go...

Right, yeah. Report to HR. Right. Start with doing, be a man, man up, confront or deal with in whatever small way you can on a personal level and then escalate. Yeah, but the first thing is I would do is tell your wife what's going on. Yeah, for sure. Tell your wife, say, hey, there's this woman, she's, you know, this is trouble and what should I do? And if your wife's like, well, I think you should report to HR or if she's like, I want you to find a new job. Better to have that discussion now than in six or eight months when the sin's gotten hold of you guys in some way and now she's reporting you for something you did and now everything's really falling apart. Yep. Sin destroys people because they don't do basic, because we're sinners. We do. We refuse to do the basic things to keep ourselves from fornication, adultery, and the sins that come to destroy us.

I think a lot of this conversation really comes back to we have too low a view of the sinfulness of our own hearts. That like ultimately we think that like a lot of these sins that we talk about like fornication or adultery are sins that other people would commit, not sins that we would commit. Yeah, it's hard to plot out the course of your own destruction because that's not where you want to go. But lots of men end up there. Yep. Lots of women end up there. Lots of marriages end up broken and falling apart because they took steps to get there.