Has Porn Already Broken My Future Marriage?
00:00:00.000 | I know some of you are driving around and maybe cannot see the title of today's episode.
00:00:07.840 | It's a sensitive one, just a heads up.
00:00:10.680 | Today we field a question from a listener named Ben.
00:00:12.600 | Pastor John, thank you for this podcast.
00:00:15.240 | Beginning as a 10-year-old, I became addicted to porn videos.
00:00:18.560 | It was my primary battle for the next seven years.
00:00:21.760 | There have been wonderful victories along the way, but I also know these videos are
00:00:25.380 | unrealistic and perverse.
00:00:28.040 | Models designed for sex must be a lot different than what I've seen, but what I've seen is
00:00:32.180 | the only model I know.
00:00:34.080 | As I look forward to marriage, I fear that what I watched has already patterned my expectations.
00:00:39.020 | What advice do you have for me?
00:00:40.380 | Is there any hope that I will experience loving, godly, healthy intimacy in marriage?
00:00:45.440 | And what can I do now to ensure it?
00:00:48.020 | The answer is, there is hope for a loving, godly, healthy intimacy in marriage if, in
00:00:59.200 | God's mercy, a cluster of miracles happen in you and in your future wife.
00:01:08.360 | I'm talking about spirit given, subconscious transformation of your instincts, what you
00:01:16.180 | unthinkingly do, and conscious steps you can take together with this woman that you might
00:01:24.840 | fall in love with based on God's Word for guarding your relationship from sin and for
00:01:31.700 | deepening and purifying your experience of intimacy.
00:01:35.080 | So yes, there's hope.
00:01:38.520 | This will not be automatic.
00:01:41.420 | Just because you're a Christian, you must pursue these miracles.
00:01:46.160 | One of my concerns in even addressing Ben's question or talking to him directly in this
00:01:52.220 | way is that I can't tell from his question whether he has gotten victory over this or
00:02:01.280 | not because he says, "There have been wonderful victories along the way."
00:02:09.800 | That doesn't sound like—and maybe he just didn't choose his words carefully—but
00:02:15.520 | it doesn't sound like the pornographic videos are behind him, but that he keeps returning
00:02:22.000 | to them, perhaps with less frequency.
00:02:25.200 | That's not going to do.
00:02:26.720 | You can't set your sights that low, Ben.
00:02:30.320 | And if there's any woman listening to this who is considering marriage, you should ask
00:02:36.600 | a man point blank the last time he looked at anything pornographic, and you should insist
00:02:44.600 | on victory never to look at pornography, not simply infrequent exposure.
00:02:52.880 | Too many people today think that pornography is just inevitable.
00:02:57.320 | It's a given and that marriages should just cope, just adapt to it.
00:03:02.960 | I think that's like saying poison is inevitable, and I'm just going to get used to taking
00:03:09.100 | poison.
00:03:11.280 | Here's my suggested path toward hope, Ben.
00:03:14.760 | First, humble yourself by admitting that for the rest of your life, those seven years of
00:03:21.680 | poisoning your mind are going to have consequences that you are responsible for and that will
00:03:29.240 | require unusual self-abasement in relation to your sexual expectations and your wife.
00:03:38.880 | Here's what I mean.
00:03:40.160 | The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6, 18-20, "Flee from sexual immorality.
00:03:47.680 | Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have
00:03:53.920 | from God?
00:03:55.080 | You are not your own."
00:03:56.080 | What a powerful statement.
00:03:57.880 | You are not your own, for you were bought with a price, namely the blood of Jesus.
00:04:04.180 | So glorify God in your body.
00:04:06.760 | So no longer is your body and its sexual desires and its engagement with your wife, no longer
00:04:16.400 | is it vulgar.
00:04:17.400 | It is holy.
00:04:20.000 | The body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, and Paul says that, that, knowing
00:04:28.320 | he's going to give instructions one sentence later in chapter 7, verse 3, how a man and
00:04:35.000 | his wife should have sex.
00:04:37.560 | Sexual relations in marriage are not vulgar.
00:04:40.720 | They are pure in Christ.
00:04:42.720 | So Ben, if you are a Christian, your perversely distorted brain belongs to God.
00:04:51.600 | He bought you.
00:04:52.600 | He knew what he was buying.
00:04:54.120 | He bought you body and soul by his blood.
00:04:58.080 | You are not your own.
00:04:59.920 | He bought you so that he could indwell you, and the one who indwells you is explicitly
00:05:06.120 | called holy, and that is your calling.
00:05:09.600 | Be holy because you are bought to be holy and indwelt by the Holy One.
00:05:17.080 | Now comes these astonishing words in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 3, "The husband should give his wife
00:05:26.040 | her conjugal rights," that is, he should give her sexual satisfaction, "and likewise
00:05:33.960 | the wife to her husband," same, sexual satisfaction, his conjugal rights, "for the wife does not
00:05:42.200 | have authority over her own body, but the husband does.
00:05:47.640 | Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does."
00:05:54.960 | And he's speaking specifically about sexual intercourse.
00:05:59.520 | In those marriage bed moments of intimacy, that's the law he lays down.
00:06:06.040 | Now that's a mysterious and wonderful and paradoxical thing to say, right?
00:06:11.020 | Just when a man thinks he can do whatever he pleases sexually with his wife, because
00:06:16.400 | he's got that authority, Paul says that she can do whatever she pleases sexually with
00:06:22.240 | her husband, which very likely will include informing him that some of the things that
00:06:26.760 | please him do not please her, thank you very much, and she would like it if he wouldn't
00:06:33.040 | do them.
00:06:34.640 | Now you see how paradoxical this is?
00:06:37.560 | This is very much like Paul's command in Romans 12.10, "Outdo one another in showing
00:06:45.520 | honor."
00:06:46.520 | How do you do that?
00:06:47.520 | Like, "I'm going to beat you.
00:06:48.520 | No, I'm going to beat you.
00:06:49.520 | I'm going to show that I honor you more.
00:06:53.200 | No, I'm going to show that I honor you more."
00:06:55.360 | Which in the marriage bed means, "Outdo one another in seeking to maximize each other's
00:07:04.000 | pleasure."
00:07:05.720 | Each other's pleasure.
00:07:07.920 | Or another way to say it would be, "Each of you strive to find your greatest sexual pleasure
00:07:17.280 | in the greatest sexual pleasure of your spouse."
00:07:21.120 | Now Ben, with regard to your history, what this means is that you will not assume that
00:07:29.480 | you know best the acts of intimacy which will bring your wife greatest satisfaction.
00:07:35.760 | You will assume that your mind is distorted.
00:07:39.920 | In fact, all of us should assume that.
00:07:42.640 | That's why there should be a lot of talking.
00:07:44.800 | Therefore, you will be especially humble, especially hesitant to put your immediate
00:07:52.440 | desires forward as a guideline for what happens in the marriage bed.
00:07:57.800 | This is why I said miracles will have to happen in your heart and her heart.
00:08:03.480 | And that leads me to the next part of your path toward hope, namely that you, perhaps
00:08:09.480 | even more than most husbands, though we all need it, will need to talk with her very frankly
00:08:16.840 | about what pleases her.
00:08:20.320 | You will have acknowledged to her very early in your relationship, before the marriage,
00:08:28.040 | all about your history sexually.
00:08:30.960 | Before your marriage, early in the relationship, and you will admit to her that you probably
00:08:36.640 | do not have the best instincts and inclinations when it comes to the most healthy ways of
00:08:41.480 | sexual intimacy in marriage.
00:08:43.520 | She will need to know all about this ahead of time so that she can decide if she's going
00:08:49.640 | to take a risk on you.
00:08:51.080 | Don't you dare hide this from her, spring it on her after you're married, and know then
00:08:57.200 | there's no way out.
00:08:58.360 | That would be very disingenuous, dishonest, evil of you to do that.
00:09:04.280 | And then the two of you in marriage over time, if she's moved forward with you, will learn
00:09:11.560 | to talk.
00:09:12.560 | You'll learn how to talk.
00:09:14.520 | And from your talk, you will learn a kind of unspoken language, a kind of delicate signaling,
00:09:22.600 | so that there emerges over time a natural rhythm of intimacy that both of you find sweetly
00:09:31.100 | and deeply satisfying.
00:09:34.440 | And let me mention one absolutely crucial feature of this satisfying intimacy.
00:09:39.720 | I think it would be fair to say that every mature, healthy woman in marriage wants to
00:09:47.400 | enjoy her husband and wants to be enjoyed by her husband, but not used by him.
00:09:56.860 | So what's the difference between your wife being enjoyed by you and being used by you?
00:10:05.100 | I'll put it in one sentence as best I can and then mention three ways to make it a reality.
00:10:12.800 | A woman will feel properly enjoyed by her husband rather than used if she can tell that
00:10:21.740 | he is delighting in her body and her person as one.
00:10:29.420 | If physical enjoying and personal cherishing are united, it will be crystal clear when
00:10:38.900 | and how the husband is enjoying her body.
00:10:42.960 | But it needs to be made clear that in this enjoyment, he is cherishing her person.
00:10:49.580 | In other words, it's pretty obvious to a woman when he's enjoying her body.
00:10:54.900 | It may not be as obvious to her that he is cherishing her person.
00:10:59.060 | So here are three things that contribute to this, this beautiful sense of not being used
00:11:07.740 | but being enjoyed by both the cherishing of a person and the enjoying of a body.
00:11:15.520 | One is words.
00:11:17.500 | He may not be a poet, but he can say to her in the moment, "I love you.
00:11:24.500 | I want no other.
00:11:27.140 | My eyes and my hands go after no other with the desire to do what we are doing now.
00:11:36.380 | You are precious to me.
00:11:39.100 | I cherish you."
00:11:42.540 | He can say that.
00:11:44.020 | He can say that.
00:11:45.420 | Words matter.
00:11:46.740 | Secondly, eye contact.
00:11:49.940 | Don't either of you give the impression that as you move toward the height of delight,
00:11:57.980 | you lose personal contact and float into some dream world abstracted from the person in
00:12:04.900 | your arms?
00:12:06.700 | Open your eyes.
00:12:08.460 | Look as deeply into your spouse's eyes as you can, down into the very soul, and say
00:12:18.460 | with your eyes, "You, you only, you only, and forever you."
00:12:27.140 | And finally, and this is true for everyone, but especially, Ben, for people with your
00:12:33.100 | background, through all the communication and experimentation, build that beautiful
00:12:40.900 | garden of pleasure with a hedge around it made out of her glad desires and permissions.
00:12:52.860 | So set your face, Ben, in these next years to pursue holiness and purity and deep transformation,
00:13:00.940 | and there will be hope for you.
00:13:03.660 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the very open and honest question, Ben.
00:13:07.460 | You can ask your own open and honest question to Pastor John, or you can browse all 1,600
00:13:12.660 | of our past answers, or you can subscribe to the podcast.
00:13:15.060 | You can do all of those things online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:13:21.500 | Well we live in a fog of triviality.
00:13:25.220 | Everything is funny.
00:13:26.700 | Nothing is sacred.
00:13:27.820 | Everything is irony.
00:13:29.940 | So how can we rise above the trifling effects of the culture all around us?
00:13:34.180 | That's the question on Wednesday that we will be addressing.
00:13:36.300 | It's an important one, very important topic.
00:13:38.620 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:13:39.620 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:13:40.860 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.
00:13:42.220 | We'll see you then.
00:13:43.060 | [END]
00:13:45.060 | 1. What is the Holy Spirit?
00:13:47.060 | 2. What is the Holy Spirit?
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