RPF0501-Protect_From_Sexual

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00:00:14.320 | - Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,

00:00:17.200 | the show dedicated to providing you

00:00:18.480 | with the knowledge, skills, insight,

00:00:20.280 | and encouragement you need to live a rich

00:00:22.440 | and meaningful life now while building a plan

00:00:24.800 | for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:00:26.840 | My name is Joshua and I am your host.

00:00:29.560 | Today's episode of the show is going

00:00:30.800 | to be quite a challenging one.

00:00:33.400 | I had not intended to record a show this week at all.

00:00:36.840 | I've been working on delivering the beta version

00:00:39.320 | of the career and income guide

00:00:40.560 | that I'm working my way through.

00:00:41.840 | And I've been entirely focused on that

00:00:44.080 | and some of my end of the year plans.

00:00:45.440 | And so after episode 500, I was planning to take a break,

00:00:49.280 | but I feel I must record this show today.

00:00:52.120 | And so I'm doing it, but it's gonna be a difficult one

00:00:55.680 | and a very challenging one.

00:00:57.840 | Basically, my goal today is to share with you

00:01:01.040 | some thoughts and ideas about how to protect yourself

00:01:04.880 | and to protect your career from being,

00:01:07.840 | your entire financial life from being destroyed

00:01:10.960 | because of allegations of sexual misconduct,

00:01:14.920 | sexual scandal, sexual sin.

00:01:16.760 | That is my goal.

00:01:18.000 | Now, two quick upfront warnings as I begin today's show.

00:01:21.320 | Number one, most of Radical Personal Finance

00:01:25.120 | is consumable by the entire family.

00:01:28.240 | Today's episode is obviously related

00:01:31.240 | to adult topics and adult themes.

00:01:33.480 | So I would consider a show like this mandatory listening

00:01:37.520 | for any person of perhaps double digit age and older,

00:01:42.520 | but below double digits,

00:01:45.320 | this may be one that you should screen first

00:01:48.200 | and consider carefully whether or not

00:01:50.480 | this will be helpful to your children.

00:01:52.160 | So if you're accustomed to living

00:01:53.480 | or listening to the show with your children,

00:01:55.000 | I recommend that you skip to a different show

00:01:57.360 | and enjoy that one today

00:02:00.040 | and then screen this one privately.

00:02:02.600 | Number two, if you are one who prefers your discussion

00:02:05.760 | of financial matters to be completely sanitized

00:02:09.280 | of religion, references to God and scripture,

00:02:14.200 | any reading of any kind from the Bible,

00:02:16.260 | this will be a show that you will want to skip

00:02:18.400 | and move on to a different show

00:02:20.400 | because there is no possible way

00:02:23.060 | to accurately deal with matters of sexual conduct

00:02:26.800 | without recognizing the source of moral law.

00:02:30.580 | So if you are in one of those two audiences,

00:02:34.600 | I'll pause for a moment so you can leave

00:02:36.560 | and we'll continue with the adults in the room.

00:02:40.280 | I guess a third comment would be that in my mind,

00:02:43.320 | I frankly don't often know how to speak to these things

00:02:48.320 | in a mixed audience of men and women.

00:02:52.080 | So for today's audience, my concern is men,

00:02:55.200 | not so much women.

00:02:56.840 | I'll allow someone else who feels the grace

00:02:59.560 | to speak to an audience of women about these issues.

00:03:02.120 | I am not capable of that.

00:03:03.920 | So for today, I know that the main audience

00:03:05.800 | of Radical Personal Finance is primarily male

00:03:08.240 | and I do feel qualified to speak to men.

00:03:09.960 | I don't feel qualified to speak to women.

00:03:11.680 | So if you're listening in,

00:03:13.360 | just know that you're listening in

00:03:15.080 | and for the purpose of today's show,

00:03:16.880 | I can't accurately deal with these things

00:03:21.000 | in a mixed sex company.

00:03:22.960 | So feel free to listen in,

00:03:24.720 | but just recognize that from here forward,

00:03:26.400 | I'm intentionally speaking to men.

00:03:28.680 | Probably the first episode in 500 in which I have done that,

00:03:32.240 | but in today's episode, I believe I must.

00:03:35.260 | I did not intend, as I said, I think I said,

00:03:38.240 | I didn't intend to record a show today.

00:03:40.200 | I've been focusing on other projects, but I feel I must.

00:03:43.280 | And let me explain a little bit why.

00:03:45.800 | No doubt over the last few weeks,

00:03:47.040 | you have observed that

00:03:50.040 | people are crumbling,

00:03:51.840 | that careers have been crumbling,

00:03:54.600 | and it seems to be a tsunami

00:03:57.640 | of new allegations every day,

00:04:00.280 | of sexual misconduct, sexual abuse,

00:04:03.200 | just new allegations every single day.

00:04:05.360 | I saw a tweet as I'm recording this,

00:04:06.600 | it's Friday afternoon, November 10, 2017 at 3.17 PM.

00:04:11.600 | How's that for a timestamp?

00:04:13.520 | And I noticed a tweet yesterday

00:04:15.600 | from the front page editor of the Huffington Post

00:04:17.720 | who said that nine of the front page stories

00:04:20.960 | were with regard to explosive allegations

00:04:25.400 | of sexual misconduct towards well-known people.

00:04:28.640 | And in fact, they had 10 stories,

00:04:30.040 | but they had to bump one of those stories

00:04:33.360 | off of the front page

00:04:35.160 | because there were others of a bigger one.

00:04:38.200 | And what's been fascinating to me

00:04:40.320 | has been to watch these things develop

00:04:43.560 | in the media context.

00:04:46.920 | And I have watched this now, of course,

00:04:48.640 | with you, I'm sure, for the last,

00:04:51.000 | I don't know, has it been a week, month, a month or so?

00:04:54.320 | Been watching these things happening.

00:04:56.240 | And amazingly, there's been tremendous

00:05:00.480 | financial repercussions for the people

00:05:02.320 | who are experiencing these allegations

00:05:06.000 | and who are being,

00:05:07.320 | or is being alleged that they've

00:05:08.840 | engaged in sexual misconduct.

00:05:12.480 | And so there's been tremendous financial hardship.

00:05:14.400 | So of course, me being the host of "Rumor, the Daily,"

00:05:16.800 | I'm the host of "Radical Personal Finance,"

00:05:17.880 | I watch these things and I notice and I say,

00:05:19.160 | "Oh, I could do a show about that."

00:05:20.680 | And I've stayed away from it.

00:05:22.080 | I've really stayed away from it.

00:05:23.320 | And I've thought about the show.

00:05:25.280 | I've built the whole thing in my head,

00:05:27.120 | but I haven't wanted to do it.

00:05:29.080 | And the reason I haven't wanted to do it

00:05:30.320 | is because most of the people who have been exposed,

00:05:33.960 | most of the people who are receiving allegations

00:05:37.720 | from people that they've allegedly abused

00:05:40.240 | have been people that I just don't have much in common with.

00:05:43.880 | I don't have any significant scenario.

00:05:48.200 | And I have often felt like it would be wrong for me to come

00:05:52.160 | and if it's just somebody like Harvey Weinstein,

00:05:54.920 | a very liberal person involved in an industry

00:05:59.360 | that I don't think much of,

00:06:00.920 | that it would be wrong for me to just come

00:06:02.320 | and use him as an example.

00:06:04.960 | The Bible teaches in the book of Proverbs,

00:06:07.220 | it says, "Do not rejoice," where is it?

00:06:10.500 | "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.

00:06:12.560 | Let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.

00:06:15.120 | Lest the Lord see it and be displeased

00:06:16.840 | and turn away his anger from him."

00:06:19.440 | So I think it's very important.

00:06:20.520 | And I always try to make sure,

00:06:21.520 | I don't wanna be rejoicing when my enemy falls.

00:06:25.120 | I don't wanna let my heart be glad when somebody stumbles.

00:06:30.120 | And I'm deeply concerned with our current conversation

00:06:34.800 | because it seems as though that's the first inclination,

00:06:38.400 | or at least when you do a survey

00:06:40.360 | of the way people speak publicly in their Twitter feeds

00:06:43.400 | or in their Facebook feeds,

00:06:44.760 | it's almost like we rejoice when our political enemies fall.

00:06:48.080 | And I think this is such a destructive,

00:06:50.000 | it's just such a destructive standard.

00:06:55.280 | And I don't wanna be participating in it.

00:06:58.360 | I really don't.

00:06:59.200 | And so as these people have come out

00:07:01.720 | and these allegations have come out,

00:07:03.120 | I just felt like it would be in poor taste

00:07:05.180 | and wrong of me to attach it,

00:07:09.280 | to attack this subject.

00:07:11.440 | That is until yesterday

00:07:12.960 | when an explosive Washington Post article was published

00:07:17.440 | with allegations of sexual misconduct

00:07:20.320 | on behalf of Judge Roy Moore,

00:07:22.400 | a man who is running for Senate in the state of Alabama,

00:07:25.640 | a man who is widely touted as a Christian,

00:07:29.320 | a man who has been very vocal

00:07:31.840 | in his defense of his interpretation

00:07:37.000 | of biblical Christianity,

00:07:38.620 | specifically on moral issues.

00:07:40.960 | That has been a hallmark of his career.

00:07:43.440 | He was a judge in the state of Alabama,

00:07:46.680 | twice thrown out of office under ethics obligations

00:07:51.580 | because he stood up for what he believed

00:07:53.440 | is a moral situation,

00:07:56.040 | just a firebrand of a figure,

00:07:57.660 | and then an absolutely explosive article yesterday.

00:08:02.160 | And so I felt like one of the things

00:08:04.440 | that's very important to me is

00:08:06.620 | we should deal with the things that are near us.

00:08:10.780 | We should be the ones who deal with the sin

00:08:13.840 | that is in our circles.

00:08:15.200 | We have no right to go across town, as an example.

00:08:18.800 | We have no right to go across town

00:08:20.840 | and try to point out all of the problems in somebody else

00:08:24.280 | until we've dealt with the problems

00:08:26.640 | that are in our own life, in our own families,

00:08:29.060 | in our own local church, in our own community,

00:08:30.940 | in our own city.

00:08:32.320 | And I build this on Jesus' teaching.

00:08:34.560 | He said, "Don't go and point out the speck

00:08:37.360 | "in your neighbor's eye until you deal with the log

00:08:39.840 | "that's in your own eye."

00:08:41.100 | The idea is we can all see things

00:08:42.580 | that are wrong with other people,

00:08:43.880 | but let's not be those who just start

00:08:45.680 | with things that are over there.

00:08:47.420 | And so it was on that basis that I said,

00:08:50.020 | "You know what, I think that we should always be the first

00:08:54.060 | "to deal with the community that's near us."

00:08:56.460 | I've tried to approach it in this way.

00:08:57.780 | If I'm a financial advisor,

00:08:59.940 | I need to be the one who's dealing with the misconduct

00:09:02.780 | in the community of financial advice

00:09:04.600 | and bringing justice to that community

00:09:07.360 | to the extent that I can.

00:09:08.860 | It's not my job to go and solve Hollywood.

00:09:11.420 | I don't have any contact with Hollywood,

00:09:14.060 | but I need to deal with what's in

00:09:15.740 | the financial advice industry,

00:09:17.540 | or I need to deal with what's near at hand.

00:09:19.920 | And I think often, so often, we miss this,

00:09:22.160 | and it leads to just our aimlessly

00:09:24.180 | whacking about with our ideas,

00:09:26.100 | constantly just trying to find fault in other people.

00:09:29.700 | Yes, it's good to see those things.

00:09:31.720 | That's fine, but let's spend some time,

00:09:34.860 | let's not be so blind to the problems that are near us.

00:09:38.560 | And so if I expect the Hollywood community

00:09:43.560 | to deal with Harvey Weinstein,

00:09:47.380 | then I should be one to stand up and not be silent

00:09:50.660 | when there are allegations against somebody

00:09:52.860 | like Judge Roy Moore.

00:09:54.380 | I have a responsibility to speak clearly to the subject.

00:10:01.020 | Now, my concern is I don't know if, frankly,

00:10:04.420 | any of these people are guilty.

00:10:06.140 | I don't know if Judge Roy Moore is guilty

00:10:09.660 | of what is alleged against him.

00:10:12.120 | I don't know if Harvey Weinstein is guilty

00:10:14.940 | of what's alleged against him.

00:10:16.560 | I don't know if Bill O'Reilly is guilty

00:10:18.700 | of what's alleged against him.

00:10:19.920 | I don't know if Kevin Spacey is guilty

00:10:21.960 | of what's alleged against him.

00:10:23.040 | How would I know?

00:10:23.900 | How could I possibly know?

00:10:25.840 | All I know is what's reported.

00:10:28.380 | Unfortunately, I've lost significant confidence

00:10:31.260 | over the last five years

00:10:32.340 | in the way that things are reported.

00:10:34.540 | And I can judge based upon what's reported,

00:10:37.580 | and I can think, is this accurate?

00:10:39.200 | Is this thoughtful?

00:10:40.040 | Is this accurate?

00:10:40.880 | But I don't actually know what's happened.

00:10:45.020 | And I believe that one of the things we should do

00:10:48.160 | is continue our practice of believing

00:10:53.160 | that people are innocent until they're proven guilty.

00:10:57.300 | So I don't know if Moore or any of these people are guilty.

00:11:00.740 | It's impossible for me to discern.

00:11:03.100 | But I do want to see justice brought.

00:11:04.940 | And if they are guilty, I want to see justice brought.

00:11:08.700 | And if they're innocent, I want to see justice brought.

00:11:11.860 | And this is very challenging,

00:11:14.320 | because we need to make sure that we listen carefully

00:11:17.360 | to the victims of crimes and the victims of immorality.

00:11:22.260 | Unfortunately, I think most of us,

00:11:24.100 | we've been guilty in the past

00:11:25.980 | of not listening carefully to victims.

00:11:28.220 | When somebody says, "I've been victimized,"

00:11:30.360 | we should stop everything and listen very, very carefully.

00:11:34.700 | But I don't think we should believe every victim's story.

00:11:40.620 | We should look for evidence, and we should look for proof,

00:11:43.820 | and we should be open.

00:11:45.300 | And if there is guilt,

00:11:46.660 | we must follow through consistently with that guilt.

00:11:50.380 | Bible says in Proverbs 18,

00:11:52.180 | "The one who states his case first seems right

00:11:55.380 | until the other one comes and examines him."

00:11:58.860 | And so one of the things that's important

00:12:00.740 | is for us to hear fully facts and not jump to conclusions.

00:12:05.740 | We should hear fully facts, we should hear fully evidence,

00:12:08.860 | and then we should allow those

00:12:10.060 | who are close enough to the situation

00:12:11.920 | to seek to bring justice.

00:12:14.000 | No matter the cost, justice must be brought.

00:12:19.020 | Criminals, no matter whether we like them,

00:12:21.820 | whether we don't, I like Judge Moore.

00:12:24.180 | Doesn't matter.

00:12:25.300 | If he's guilty of that, I'll be the first,

00:12:28.060 | and I should be the first.

00:12:29.580 | I'll be the first to stand up and condemn

00:12:32.100 | and say justice needs to be brought.

00:12:35.160 | But we should also be careful.

00:12:37.480 | We wanna make sure that we have

00:12:38.660 | multiple witnesses of something.

00:12:40.620 | We wanna make sure that there's good evidence,

00:12:42.460 | and we wanna make sure that we don't just jump in

00:12:44.720 | with what's politically expedient,

00:12:46.660 | that we don't defend somebody without hearing facts,

00:12:49.680 | nor that we automatically come against somebody

00:12:52.620 | without hearing facts.

00:12:53.620 | And I fear so much for the coming decades

00:12:56.180 | because we're separating into these tribal groupings,

00:13:00.180 | and things that we would find utterly abhorrent

00:13:04.340 | if our political opponent did it,

00:13:07.020 | we jump to it when it gives us a place for power,

00:13:09.380 | and vice versa, and I think we're all guilty of that.

00:13:13.100 | And I don't wanna do that.

00:13:14.500 | The Bible teaches in the book of Exodus,

00:13:15.740 | it says you shall not fall in with the many to do evil.

00:13:19.820 | Do not fall in with the many to evil,

00:13:21.540 | nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit.

00:13:23.420 | Siding with the many so as to pervert justice.

00:13:25.980 | Even if you're one person standing against thousands,

00:13:29.900 | stand for what's right, no matter the cost.

00:13:32.920 | So, that's my heart to start with,

00:13:38.260 | is I wanna see justice brought,

00:13:41.460 | and I wanna see righteousness done,

00:13:44.220 | and the victims, restitution brought to victims

00:13:49.220 | if there are victims,

00:13:50.660 | but also I don't wanna see justice perverted

00:13:52.580 | for political expediency,

00:13:53.900 | and I think that's the danger that we face.

00:13:56.220 | So, let's be the first to check ourselves.

00:13:59.340 | And so, I ask you, if you are a conservative person,

00:14:03.940 | let's use this, I hate these words,

00:14:05.220 | conservative and liberal,

00:14:06.500 | but they're effective enough for now.

00:14:08.400 | If you're a conservative person,

00:14:10.300 | if you're on the political right,

00:14:12.060 | did you celebrate when Harvey Weinstein,

00:14:15.300 | a leading Democrat donor, and behind the scenes guy,

00:14:21.040 | on the left was found out and exposed,

00:14:25.500 | and these allegations come against him publicly,

00:14:27.420 | did you rejoice, did you celebrate?

00:14:29.580 | And if you're on the left,

00:14:32.120 | and have a tendency towards a liberal perspective,

00:14:36.320 | did you celebrate when you heard that Judge Roy Moore,

00:14:41.320 | an open, loud mouth bigot, according to some,

00:14:46.400 | was accused of assault?

00:14:48.100 | Did you celebrate when you said,

00:14:49.160 | "Ha ha, we finally got him?"

00:14:50.720 | I hope you didn't.

00:14:54.320 | In fact, if you're listening to Radical Personal Finance,

00:14:56.040 | I bet you didn't.

00:14:57.480 | I don't know how you could listen to this show

00:14:58.680 | and celebrate, but I know a whole lot of people did,

00:15:01.440 | and we need to be those who don't do that.

00:15:03.520 | We need to be those who seek for justice and for truth,

00:15:07.680 | no matter the cost, justice and truth,

00:15:11.980 | but not celebrate, don't rejoice when your enemy falls,

00:15:16.200 | and don't let your heart be glad when he stumbles.

00:15:19.700 | Now, that's a bit of preamble,

00:15:21.740 | and I didn't know any other way to start the show,

00:15:23.700 | but my major focus in today's show

00:15:25.780 | is just to talk about you and me,

00:15:27.820 | to talk about how you can protect yourself.

00:15:31.620 | And I guess I should, well,

00:15:34.160 | just to talk about how you can protect yourself.

00:15:36.300 | For the sake of clarity, here is my position, my worldview,

00:15:40.260 | and I'll state it very, very clearly.

00:15:42.160 | Sexual contact of any kind,

00:15:47.500 | between any people except one husband and one wife is wrong.

00:15:52.500 | That's the position that I hold.

00:15:57.580 | Sexual contact between any people

00:16:01.380 | except one husband and one wife is wrong.

00:16:05.280 | That's it.

00:16:07.740 | That is my entire outlook on human sexuality

00:16:11.820 | and what's appropriate.

00:16:12.920 | Now, I'll talk briefly at the end

00:16:17.220 | just about the very confusing situation that we face,

00:16:20.660 | but my hope is to help you avoid, excuse me,

00:16:24.260 | the confusing situation that we face in our modern era

00:16:27.020 | with very strange public sexual ethics.

00:16:30.940 | This is what is so strange to me about Hollywood.

00:16:34.340 | Seems like, I don't know, I don't watch many movies,

00:16:37.860 | I'm not that involved in that world.

00:16:39.580 | I watch it from a peripheral perspective

00:16:42.660 | and read the newspaper articles about it,

00:16:44.780 | but I'm not involved in Hollywood.

00:16:46.380 | But it sure seems to me like anything goes in Hollywood,

00:16:50.060 | or at least based upon what's recounted to me

00:16:52.380 | of modern popular Hollywood culture,

00:16:54.460 | it seems as though you can do just about anything,

00:16:56.780 | you can depict just about anything.

00:16:58.540 | And it seems like it's, whether it's in Hollywood movies

00:17:02.820 | or whether it's on HBO, I mean,

00:17:05.140 | from what I'm told, "Game of Thrones"

00:17:07.280 | is one of the most abusive, sexually charged

00:17:11.180 | and abusive shows on television.

00:17:13.460 | And yet it also seems to be one of the most popular shows.

00:17:17.280 | I don't know how an industry that puts out that

00:17:20.920 | as a product, selling that as attractive.

00:17:24.660 | From my understanding, it's not,

00:17:28.600 | when abuse, especially sexual abuse is pictured,

00:17:32.080 | it's not pictured as something that's abhorrent,

00:17:36.000 | which it should be.

00:17:37.200 | Should be, if there's going to be something

00:17:39.480 | that is questionable, it should be pictured

00:17:41.920 | as the evil that it is.

00:17:43.640 | And the art of the movie should come against it

00:17:46.040 | so powerfully that you walk away from it

00:17:49.160 | with a clear moral understanding, not an ambiguity.

00:17:52.040 | There should be no ambiguity whatsoever.

00:17:54.400 | And I'm constantly, I'm amazed at how this industry

00:17:57.000 | is stands up and is opposing all of these,

00:18:02.080 | words fail me, 'cause very strong ones come to mind,

00:18:06.480 | all of these people who are alleged of sexual abuse.

00:18:11.480 | I'm constantly, I'm amazed at that.

00:18:14.100 | It's just incredible.

00:18:15.720 | It proves out what the Bible says

00:18:18.200 | when it says in the book of Numbers,

00:18:19.520 | "Be sure your sins will find you out."

00:18:21.680 | And I don't know, I'm just amazed at how an industry

00:18:25.520 | that glorifies sexuality of every form

00:18:28.180 | and of every type with seemingly no limit.

00:18:30.720 | In Hollywood films, there's no limit,

00:18:33.080 | no limit whatsoever to what is glorified.

00:18:35.200 | And yet that's the industry that has been using

00:18:37.740 | to be blown wide open.

00:18:39.160 | And I'm so thankful for it.

00:18:40.680 | I don't care who brings justice or righteousness.

00:18:44.160 | I don't care who brings it or how it comes.

00:18:46.640 | I just want it to be brought.

00:18:47.840 | Anyway, forgive me.

00:18:48.840 | That's how I feel about it.

00:18:51.280 | So my concern for you is how can you protect yourself?

00:18:55.320 | What can you do?

00:18:56.600 | And I think this is very important

00:18:58.080 | because the higher you go in your career,

00:19:02.080 | the higher you go in your earnings,

00:19:04.760 | the higher you go in your place of prominence,

00:19:07.480 | the greater the danger for you.

00:19:11.740 | You know what, there are a whole lot of victims

00:19:14.540 | of a whole lot of abusers that would love

00:19:18.460 | to see their abuser exposed publicly,

00:19:20.580 | but because the abuser is not important,

00:19:23.380 | they don't have any notoriety,

00:19:25.440 | that abuser just goes on abusing.

00:19:30.260 | And it ought not to be so.

00:19:33.580 | That's your job and my job to be diligent where we are.

00:19:37.640 | But if you rise to a place of prominence

00:19:40.540 | and there's a place of public notoriety,

00:19:42.900 | then everything changes.

00:19:44.140 | You say, well, Joshua, I'm not in a place of notoriety.

00:19:47.220 | I'm not in a place of prominence.

00:19:49.740 | Well, guess what?

00:19:51.140 | This is the time to be careful.

00:19:55.280 | This is the time to be circumspect

00:19:57.300 | in your actions and your behavior.

00:19:59.100 | This is the time to protect yourself.

00:20:01.960 | This is the time to be careful.

00:20:04.500 | As we see in the allegations against Judge Roy Moore,

00:20:08.620 | who knows, you may go on for 30 years.

00:20:12.600 | All of a sudden, allegations from 30 or 40 years prior

00:20:16.820 | come up.

00:20:18.780 | You better make sure that doesn't happen to you.

00:20:22.380 | Now, I want to give you some suggestions.

00:20:25.060 | Some of these will be big picture

00:20:26.340 | and some of them will be very specific and tactical.

00:20:29.360 | Perhaps the biggest thing that you should consider

00:20:34.660 | is if you have the opportunity, you should marry

00:20:38.940 | and you should marry early.

00:20:42.380 | One of my biggest concerns about our current society,

00:20:45.260 | and this is true in every aspect of society,

00:20:48.540 | broader, secular society, it's very true

00:20:51.580 | within the kind of the modern evangelical Christian society,

00:20:55.740 | we've done ourselves a great disservice

00:20:58.260 | by allowing marriage to be painted and set up

00:21:02.780 | as a form of bondage rather than as a form of joy

00:21:06.980 | and something tremendous and wonderful.

00:21:11.160 | I've been wanting to do an episode for a while

00:21:13.780 | and I just felt like it was too important

00:21:15.600 | for me to do lightly and so I need to be very prepared for it.

00:21:18.780 | We want to do a series on marriage and money.

00:21:20.540 | I've had requests for it and it's so important

00:21:22.580 | because if you were gonna say, you know,

00:21:24.580 | the number one thing that you can do to get wealthy

00:21:27.240 | is frankly get married.

00:21:29.180 | The data on this, the sociological data on this subject

00:21:31.860 | is so crystal clear that marriage

00:21:35.140 | on every single metric of success,

00:21:38.860 | no matter how you look at it,

00:21:40.220 | whether it's purely financial, income-wise, wealth-wise,

00:21:43.040 | whether it's with regard to your children,

00:21:45.580 | on every single metric of success,

00:21:48.600 | marriage is the key.

00:21:51.620 | I call it the success sequence, right?

00:21:53.140 | Marriage is the key and one of the books

00:21:54.700 | that I read in January this year

00:21:56.080 | that just really blew me over

00:21:58.380 | 'cause it was ignorant of the data,

00:22:01.060 | I read Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart,

00:22:04.020 | "The State of White America, 1960 to 2010"

00:22:06.960 | and what was remarkable to me was the difference in classes.

00:22:11.740 | I couldn't believe it how the lower class,

00:22:14.700 | people have this idea, there's this cultural perception,

00:22:20.280 | if you follow modern culture,

00:22:22.340 | that among the upper class,

00:22:24.640 | marriage is the thing that is not in style.

00:22:28.420 | You can come and go very morally,

00:22:31.060 | anything is right, however you wanna live is appropriate.

00:22:34.540 | You can just do this as you like

00:22:35.940 | but among the lower class,

00:22:36.980 | well, a bunch of usually religious zealots,

00:22:39.740 | they gotta stay married and people get married quick

00:22:41.620 | and get married at 16

00:22:42.980 | and start pumping out those children, right?

00:22:44.460 | There's this cultural idea about this,

00:22:48.020 | especially among the elite.

00:22:49.900 | They have this idea,

00:22:50.740 | this very permissive attitude among the elite

00:22:52.500 | and those uneducated lower class,

00:22:54.460 | they just get married.

00:22:58.280 | That's the exact opposite of the facts.

00:23:00.260 | The facts are among the lower class in the United States,

00:23:05.120 | marriage has collapsed

00:23:06.580 | and has led to absolute poverty of all kinds

00:23:11.180 | and among the upper class,

00:23:12.220 | although the upper class preaches the most vociferously

00:23:14.940 | about the immateriality of marriage,

00:23:19.620 | about how it's not all that important,

00:23:22.220 | it doesn't really make that big of a difference.

00:23:27.160 | They marry at pretty much the historical rates

00:23:30.820 | and they experience great success.

00:23:34.020 | Now, someday I'll deal with that one,

00:23:35.820 | I'll cite data,

00:23:37.020 | I feel like I should do that one

00:23:38.520 | with good support right now.

00:23:39.940 | Go and research it if you disbelieve me

00:23:42.660 | but one of the best things you can do for your wealth

00:23:44.580 | is marry and frankly, marry early

00:23:47.580 | and one of the big reasons for marriage is sex.

00:23:54.300 | Sure, there's more to it than that

00:23:59.160 | but one of the big reasons for marriage is sex.

00:24:04.160 | Marriage is a gift from God to allow you to enjoy sex

00:24:12.020 | and one of the best ways

00:24:14.520 | if you're experiencing sexual attraction

00:24:16.680 | is get married so that you can enjoy sex morally,

00:24:21.280 | uprightly with your spouse.

00:24:24.940 | The Bible in 1 Corinthians chapter seven

00:24:26.940 | says this so crystal clear

00:24:30.260 | and unfortunately, I'm ashamed, utterly ashamed

00:24:35.260 | of many modern Christian preachers

00:24:37.400 | who hem and haw about the fact that marriage is for sex

00:24:41.000 | and they sit back and play this prudish game

00:24:44.080 | or this thing where they just wanna go along

00:24:45.960 | with everyone else and not recognize just the value of sex.

00:24:49.700 | Let me just read the Bible to you.

00:24:51.040 | 1 Corinthians chapter seven says this,

00:24:52.460 | now Paul is speaking to a Corinthian church.

00:24:54.920 | For context, if you're not a Bible reader,

00:24:56.720 | just a quick little bit of context.

00:24:59.160 | There are two in the New Testament in the Christian Bible,

00:25:03.480 | there are two letters that are collected.

00:25:05.200 | One is called 1 Corinthians

00:25:06.360 | and one is called 2 Corinthians.

00:25:08.640 | Now, some scholars believe

00:25:10.160 | that it's actually a total of four letters

00:25:12.920 | but they're listed in the Bible as two different letters

00:25:17.100 | and the Corinthian church is probably the example

00:25:20.680 | that we have in the Bible of the most dysfunctional,

00:25:24.440 | utterly awful church.

00:25:28.360 | I think most of us, at least me and many of you that I know,

00:25:33.940 | you think about saying the words Corinthian church

00:25:36.200 | and you hardly wanna call them a church

00:25:38.560 | because they're just so utterly dysfunctional and immoral.

00:25:43.560 | The town, and it's natural and normal,

00:25:46.860 | the town of Corinth was, as I understand it,

00:25:50.060 | a seaside town filled with every bit of immorality

00:25:52.660 | that a seaside town is filled with.

00:25:54.520 | And so the letter is written by a man named Paul

00:25:57.420 | who is one of the early Christian preachers

00:25:59.260 | and very influential.

00:26:00.220 | It's many of his letters that make up the New Testament.

00:26:03.420 | And so this letter is very, very practical

00:26:05.540 | and has a lot of careful, practical instruction

00:26:08.540 | about specific issues.

00:26:11.140 | So read from 1 Corinthians chapter seven, Paul says this,

00:26:14.300 | "Now concerning the matters about which you wrote,

00:26:16.740 | "it is good for a man not to have sexual relations

00:26:20.120 | "with a woman, but because of the temptation

00:26:22.980 | "to sexual immorality," and side note here,

00:26:25.820 | when the Bible uses the term sexual immorality,

00:26:27.940 | it refers to any kind of sexual activity

00:26:30.220 | outside of marriage relationship with a husband and wife.

00:26:34.500 | And there are a couple different words that are often used,

00:26:37.060 | the word fornication, sex before marriage,

00:26:39.060 | and the words adultery, sex with somebody who is married.

00:26:42.340 | But sexual immorality is an inclusive term

00:26:44.400 | of any kind of sexual contact outside of,

00:26:47.140 | between a husband and a wife within the context of marriage.

00:26:50.180 | "But because of the temptation to sexual immorality,

00:26:52.540 | "each man should have his own wife,

00:26:54.380 | "and each woman her own husband.

00:26:56.420 | "The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights,

00:26:59.500 | "and likewise the wife to her husband.

00:27:01.880 | "For the wife does not have authority over her own body,

00:27:04.540 | "but the husband does.

00:27:05.920 | "Likewise, the husband does not have authority

00:27:09.040 | "over his own body, but the wife does."

00:27:12.140 | And it says, "Do not deprive one another,

00:27:14.800 | "except perhaps by agreement for a limited time

00:27:17.160 | "that you may devote yourselves to prayer,

00:27:18.980 | "but then come together again,

00:27:20.800 | "so that Satan may not tempt you

00:27:22.640 | "because of your lack of self-control."

00:27:25.360 | So that's the scripture,

00:27:26.820 | and I'm gonna avoid some of the temptations

00:27:29.200 | to kind of preach and pull that whole passage of heart

00:27:31.560 | and show some of the important things.

00:27:32.900 | That's for context for a different show

00:27:35.280 | or a different occasion.

00:27:36.160 | But the basic message that I wanna emphasize here

00:27:39.000 | is that the basic purpose of marriage

00:27:41.320 | is to avoid sexual immorality.

00:27:43.320 | That's one of the basic things,

00:27:44.680 | that a husband and a wife within marriage

00:27:47.000 | can enjoy all of the pleasure of marriage

00:27:49.840 | and thus avoid sexual immorality,

00:27:52.800 | have a satisfying sexual relationship

00:27:55.520 | within the context of marriage.

00:27:57.440 | That's the point.

00:27:58.280 | That's one of the major benefits.

00:28:00.400 | Now, it's not the only benefit,

00:28:01.880 | but it's definitely not an ancillary benefit.

00:28:05.280 | It's definitely not a secondary benefit.

00:28:07.720 | And for Christians, there is nothing,

00:28:09.720 | there's nothing, it's not more righteous to be celibate.

00:28:15.920 | It's righteous to be married and to enjoy sex.

00:28:21.320 | One of the things in Proverbs chapter five,

00:28:24.080 | Solomon says, teaching to his son, he says this,

00:28:27.560 | I'll just read it in the original language,

00:28:28.720 | but it says, "Let your fountain be blessed

00:28:34.260 | "and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

00:28:38.260 | "a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

00:28:41.300 | "Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight.

00:28:44.780 | "Be intoxicated always in her love."

00:28:49.100 | I haven't called my wife a deer in a while.

00:28:50.980 | I should try that.

00:28:51.920 | I should tell her she's a lovely doe and see what it says.

00:28:54.900 | It's a little bit of cultural appropriateness

00:28:57.580 | to certain types of language.

00:28:59.620 | But again, I'll just read it.

00:29:01.060 | "Let your fountain be blessed

00:29:02.300 | "and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

00:29:03.980 | "a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

00:29:06.380 | "Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight.

00:29:09.580 | "Be intoxicated always in her love.

00:29:12.140 | "Why should you be intoxicated, my son,

00:29:13.960 | "with a forbidden woman

00:29:15.220 | "and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?"

00:29:17.940 | Now listen carefully.

00:29:20.800 | "For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord

00:29:23.140 | "and he ponders all his paths.

00:29:25.320 | "The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him

00:29:28.220 | "and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

00:29:31.420 | "He dies for lack of discipline

00:29:34.260 | "and because of his great folly he is led astray."

00:29:37.420 | I don't want you to die for lack of discipline

00:29:41.100 | and I don't wanna die for lack of discipline.

00:29:44.260 | And it's very important

00:29:46.220 | that we put discipline around ourselves

00:29:48.340 | to protect ourselves from committing sexual immorality.

00:29:53.340 | I was gonna say, and I forgot at the beginning,

00:29:56.300 | but the way that you protect yourself from sexual scandal

00:29:59.420 | and the way that you protect your career

00:30:00.820 | from being torpedoed due to sexual scandal

00:30:03.820 | is don't engage in sexual scandal.

00:30:07.540 | That's how you protect yourself.

00:30:11.660 | Now, unfortunately, that's not enough anymore.

00:30:15.260 | You have to avoid even the appearance of evil,

00:30:19.140 | as the King James Bible says in one translation

00:30:22.180 | from 1 Thessalonians 5.

00:30:24.900 | So every other translation, I need to look this up,

00:30:27.180 | but abstain from every form of evil.

00:30:28.500 | But the King James Version says

00:30:29.500 | abstain from the appearance of evil.

00:30:31.340 | So it's not enough just to not do bad things to people.

00:30:34.500 | It's not enough just to not commit sexual sin,

00:30:37.340 | but you have to avoid even the appearance of it.

00:30:39.040 | But it's a good starting place.

00:30:41.260 | And so you've gotta build around yourself

00:30:43.580 | walls of discipline so that you can stay faithful

00:30:46.900 | to your spouse.

00:30:48.420 | Now, if you're not married, be very careful

00:30:53.700 | and listen to some of what I have to say.

00:30:55.580 | And I'll talk in a moment about pornography

00:30:57.460 | and the temptations for those of you who are not married.

00:31:00.020 | But if you're not married, be careful.

00:31:02.500 | Now, if you're also not married and you're courting,

00:31:06.420 | court carefully, be careful.

00:31:09.020 | Put walls and fences around yourself to protect yourself.

00:31:12.340 | One thing my wife and I learned that we had to do

00:31:15.940 | during the time of our engagement,

00:31:17.980 | we had to be very, very careful

00:31:21.820 | not to put ourselves into relationships

00:31:24.900 | where the passions of the flesh would lead to sin.

00:31:28.120 | Once you start down that road, it is impossible to stop.

00:31:34.060 | And your only point of defense is don't put yourself

00:31:39.060 | in a situation where you're not protected.

00:31:42.960 | Be careful.

00:31:45.780 | Chaperones are a good idea, and it shouldn't be foisted

00:31:50.840 | upon you by someone else.

00:31:52.540 | It's something that you should put upon yourself

00:31:54.720 | to protect yourself.

00:31:55.880 | Be careful what appetites you feed.

00:31:59.180 | If you're gonna protect yourself from sexual scandal,

00:32:03.140 | you have to avoid sexual sin.

00:32:05.240 | If you're going to avoid sexual sin,

00:32:06.860 | you have to be careful what appetites you feed.

00:32:10.940 | If you feed the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh,

00:32:14.380 | your desire and your lust will grow.

00:32:17.680 | So focus not on feeding the lust of the eyes

00:32:22.580 | and the lust of the flesh for other people.

00:32:25.580 | Fill your appetite with your spouse.

00:32:29.240 | Feed your appetite for a fulfilling sexual relationship

00:32:34.020 | with your wife and give yourself fully to her.

00:32:36.440 | That takes work.

00:32:40.040 | It is hard, but it's worth it.

00:32:45.120 | People often have this impression and this idea

00:32:48.560 | that erotic fulfillment is easy and it's natural,

00:32:52.160 | and that's what's taught.

00:32:53.440 | That's what's taught by Hollywood.

00:32:55.520 | And these, I struggle so much, these cretins,

00:33:00.520 | these cretins are the ones who put forth

00:33:07.640 | the stuff that destroys people's lives,

00:33:11.120 | and it obviously has the same corrosive effect

00:33:13.680 | on their own life.

00:33:15.440 | And then they have the gall to say that somehow

00:33:17.700 | those of us who say, no, what you're doing is destructive

00:33:21.400 | because you're putting forth something

00:33:22.880 | that is destroying people's lives

00:33:24.800 | 'cause you're lifting up lust and things that are evil

00:33:27.960 | and putting them as good and painting them with good levels.

00:33:30.200 | Well, we're the prudes.

00:33:31.640 | Uh-huh, that is a bunch of nonsense.

00:33:34.120 | It's poppycock, it's stupid.

00:33:36.320 | If you feed on the lust of those cretins in Hollywood,

00:33:42.380 | you're gonna wind up acting like those cretins in Hollywood.

00:33:50.080 | So feed your appetite for a fulfilling sexual relationship

00:33:53.600 | with your wife and give yourself to her.

00:33:56.200 | Cut off as many external sources of temptation as you can.

00:33:59.740 | It's always hard 'cause you sound a little bit,

00:34:04.440 | what's the word?

00:34:08.400 | I don't know, overly zealous and whatnot,

00:34:10.900 | but I don't see how it is possible

00:34:12.860 | to consume much of modern entertainment

00:34:15.360 | and not feed those lusts.

00:34:17.400 | I don't know, I guess a Game of Thrones earlier,

00:34:19.760 | I don't know how it's, I hear, hey,

00:34:21.240 | lots of people like Game of Thrones,

00:34:23.120 | but I'm sorry, I don't want to model

00:34:25.400 | what I hear is modeled in that life.

00:34:27.440 | I don't wanna become an abusive adulterer,

00:34:29.320 | so why would I parade that stuff before my eyes?

00:34:32.960 | In the book of James,

00:34:38.200 | James, for those of you who aren't big Bible readers,

00:34:43.880 | the book of James is another book

00:34:47.900 | that's collected in the New Testament.

00:34:49.880 | It's written by a man named James,

00:34:54.880 | who is the half-brother of Jesus,

00:34:58.480 | the son of Mary and Joseph,

00:35:00.520 | and so he's the half-brother of Jesus.

00:35:02.320 | It's the only book that we have in the Bible,

00:35:05.160 | it's the only kind of record that we have

00:35:06.880 | of the brothers or even sisters,

00:35:10.120 | brothers and sisters of Jesus.

00:35:11.920 | So book of James, half-brother of Jesus,

00:35:13.960 | and he was not one of the 12 disciples,

00:35:15.600 | but he wrote this book,

00:35:16.440 | and it's actually my favorite book in the Bible,

00:35:21.440 | the one that I most enjoy.

00:35:22.620 | But in the book of James, chapter one,

00:35:26.220 | James says this, "Let no one say when he is tempted,

00:35:29.660 | "I am being tempted by God,

00:35:32.140 | "for God cannot be tempted with evil,

00:35:34.560 | "and He Himself tempts no one.

00:35:37.220 | "But each person is tempted when he is lured

00:35:40.740 | "and enticed by his own desire.

00:35:44.620 | "Then desire, when it has conceived,

00:35:47.380 | "gives birth to sin,

00:35:49.220 | "and sin, when it is fully grown,

00:35:51.080 | "brings forth death."

00:35:52.600 | Again, "Each person is tempted

00:35:57.780 | "when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

00:36:01.340 | "Then desire, when it has conceived,

00:36:03.620 | "gives birth to sin,

00:36:04.960 | "and sin, when it is fully grown,

00:36:06.520 | "brings forth death."

00:36:08.020 | There's nothing wrong with desire,

00:36:09.720 | but you've gotta make sure that you channel your desire

00:36:14.300 | in the right direction.

00:36:17.320 | Channel it towards your wife.

00:36:18.820 | Now, a little bit ago I said,

00:36:24.260 | that's not enough just to avoid evil.

00:36:27.380 | And in today's world, I believe that firmly,

00:36:29.460 | and I think there is sufficient evidence on all sides

00:36:32.540 | to demonstrate as to why that is so important.

00:36:35.640 | You've got to not only avoid evil,

00:36:42.020 | you've gotta avoid the appearance of evil,

00:36:43.740 | and you've gotta make sure that you give no place

00:36:47.060 | that any accusation can come against you.

00:36:50.180 | Now, you can't control if somebody accuses you,

00:36:52.740 | but you can control if there's any evidence whatsoever

00:36:58.560 | that could be questionable.

00:36:59.900 | My recommendation, don't allow yourself

00:37:06.180 | to be alone in a private, concealed place

00:37:11.180 | with someone of the opposite sex

00:37:12.760 | to whom you're not married.

00:37:14.100 | Don't allow yourself to be alone

00:37:18.100 | in a private, concealed place

00:37:19.860 | with someone of the opposite sex to whom you're not married,

00:37:22.460 | or I guess I should say,

00:37:23.540 | who's not your mother or your sister.

00:37:25.380 | Don't give place for it.

00:37:28.440 | Now, I was amazed.

00:37:30.740 | If you do this, and if you follow this,

00:37:33.220 | you can generally do this without ever anyone knowing it.

00:37:37.060 | And notice how carefully I qualified that.

00:37:43.000 | There's a place where you need to make sure,

00:37:45.840 | you're gonna be forced constantly to be in situations

00:37:49.280 | in which you're going to be together and alone

00:37:52.560 | with someone of the opposite sex.

00:37:54.520 | But make sure that you don't get put in a place

00:37:57.120 | where you're alone in a private, concealed place

00:38:00.480 | with someone of the opposite sex to whom you're not married.

00:38:03.140 | You'll stick out like a sore thumb

00:38:04.520 | and you'll be mocked mercilessly

00:38:06.640 | if anybody finds out that you practice this habit.

00:38:10.280 | But those same people who mock you mercilessly today

00:38:14.240 | are the ones who will tear you limb from limb

00:38:18.080 | if there's an accusation of any kind against you.

00:38:21.980 | So you're gonna be mocked either way.

00:38:24.240 | So you might as well be mocked

00:38:26.920 | for doing something that is good.

00:38:28.560 | You know, I think we all would like sometimes

00:38:33.200 | to be able to control what other people say.

00:38:35.480 | You've never been able to control what other people say.

00:38:37.800 | And I'll tell you what, if you wanna be humbled,

00:38:40.260 | just go on the internet and read what they say about you.

00:38:43.840 | Don't do it if you're not ready to be humbled.

00:38:47.240 | But you can't control what people say.

00:38:49.280 | You have no control whatsoever over what other people say,

00:38:53.520 | whether they say good things or bad things.

00:38:55.440 | You can't do that.

00:38:56.860 | The only thing you can control is what you do.

00:39:00.800 | And what happens is that there are always people

00:39:03.520 | who sit around and who all they do

00:39:06.240 | is consistently jab and tell lies.

00:39:10.340 | You can always find somebody telling lies about you.

00:39:14.140 | But the people who are serious,

00:39:16.260 | they'll look to see what you actually do,

00:39:18.220 | and they'll appreciate the things that you actually do.

00:39:22.340 | And it's very important that if you're going

00:39:24.360 | to be criticized, if you're going to face mocking,

00:39:28.380 | at least make sure that your actions

00:39:30.340 | and your reputation are with you.

00:39:35.620 | Again, reading from, this time I read

00:39:38.200 | from the book of 1 Peter.

00:39:39.720 | And again, for those of you who aren't Bible readers,

00:39:42.380 | there are two letters that we have

00:39:43.560 | that are written by the hand of Peter,

00:39:45.320 | or written in those days, most of the time,

00:39:48.100 | they dictated them.

00:39:49.480 | So Peter was probably the most prominent

00:39:54.000 | of the 12 disciples of Jesus when Jesus was walking around

00:39:58.220 | and followed by his disciples and teaching publicly

00:40:00.760 | there in the land of Israel.

00:40:01.880 | And Peter was one of his 12 disciples.

00:40:03.640 | And he was the one who, they say,

00:40:05.900 | oh, he's putting his foot in his mouth.

00:40:07.020 | And he was very, very, very, well, he wrote two letters,

00:40:10.220 | which are recorded in the back of the Bible,

00:40:11.460 | 1 Peter and 2 Peter.

00:40:12.660 | He also basically was responsible for the content

00:40:15.580 | of the book of Mark in the Bible.

00:40:17.940 | So I always think of the book of Mark

00:40:19.500 | as the gospel of Peter.

00:40:21.340 | But there's a little story behind that

00:40:22.780 | that you can research on your own.

00:40:23.900 | But one of these two letters, in the book of 1 Peter,

00:40:26.740 | this passage to me has been of great comfort

00:40:31.340 | over the years as I've learned how to deal

00:40:33.540 | with the fact that people are gonna mock me

00:40:36.000 | no matter what I do.

00:40:37.040 | And so how should I approach it?

00:40:39.480 | In the book of 1 Peter, chapter two,

00:40:41.720 | Peter writes this, he says,

00:40:42.560 | "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles

00:40:45.120 | "to abstain from the passions of the flesh

00:40:47.120 | "which wage war against your soul.

00:40:49.180 | "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable,

00:40:52.680 | "so that when they speak against you as evildoers,

00:40:55.360 | "they may see your good deeds and glorify God

00:40:57.760 | "on the day of visitation."

00:40:59.480 | And then a few verses later, Peter writes this.

00:41:01.400 | He says, "For what credit is it if when you sin

00:41:05.900 | "and are beaten for it, you endure?

00:41:08.140 | "But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure.

00:41:11.800 | "This is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

00:41:14.400 | "For to this you have been called,

00:41:15.700 | "because Christ also suffered for you,

00:41:17.640 | "leaving you an example so that you might

00:41:19.860 | "follow in his steps.

00:41:21.300 | "He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

00:41:25.060 | "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

00:41:28.480 | "When he suffered, he did not threaten,

00:41:30.760 | "but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly."

00:41:35.760 | You can't control what people say about you,

00:41:42.160 | but what you can do is live honorably

00:41:45.160 | and conduct yourself honorably.

00:41:48.400 | So be careful.

00:41:50.160 | And most importantly, since today's show

00:41:52.320 | is addressed to men, protect the woman

00:41:56.580 | that you're interacting with for her safety

00:41:59.100 | and for her good name, protect her.

00:42:01.820 | Now, here are some things that you need to be aware of.

00:42:05.360 | Just number one, you think it's a small thing.

00:42:07.840 | It's not a small thing.

00:42:08.960 | A classic blackmail scheme against powerful men

00:42:15.000 | has been to send a beautiful woman

00:42:17.640 | to that powerful man to seduce him,

00:42:21.360 | to put him into a compromising situation

00:42:23.520 | that is either actually compromising

00:42:26.920 | or just simply looks compromising,

00:42:29.980 | and then to collect evidence,

00:42:31.740 | maybe a picture taken by somebody else,

00:42:34.580 | thus setting up an opportunity for blackmail.

00:42:37.620 | This has been a consistent, consistent thing.

00:42:40.540 | You go study a little bit of spy history

00:42:42.780 | and you'll find that's a classic blackmail scheme.

00:42:45.480 | So the more you come to prominence,

00:42:48.940 | the more important that it is that you be careful.

00:42:53.060 | You never know, someday you might wind up,

00:42:55.820 | I hope not, someday you might wind up

00:42:57.800 | as President of the United States,

00:42:59.960 | and then it's gonna be, well, what's your reputation?

00:43:02.560 | And back to, just a moment, so this kind of practice,

00:43:07.560 | I think it's a very healthy practice.

00:43:09.040 | It's important for you and it's important to protect

00:43:11.440 | those with whom you interact, is to be careful.

00:43:13.880 | And don't allow yourself to be alone

00:43:15.640 | in a private, concealed place

00:43:17.120 | with someone of the opposite sex to whom you're not married.

00:43:19.080 | And it's not because you're somehow,

00:43:22.280 | you can't control yourself,

00:43:24.960 | although frankly, you can't control yourself.

00:43:26.800 | Better men than you and better men than I,

00:43:29.580 | when they allow themselves to walk down that path,

00:43:33.520 | just halfway, better men than you and I have fallen.

00:43:38.200 | It's not that, it's a matter of reputation.

00:43:42.160 | Protect yourself.

00:43:43.600 | So I was amazed, this created the big news of,

00:43:48.280 | when Mike Pence, it's called the Billy Graham rule,

00:43:53.160 | I guess in modern vernacular,

00:43:54.960 | 'cause Billy Graham would always

00:43:56.640 | kind of follow this practice.

00:43:58.120 | And so Mike Pence became known a few months ago

00:44:00.980 | that he followed this practice.

00:44:03.240 | And he was excoriated and destroyed,

00:44:07.800 | Vice President Mike Pence, he was destroyed in the press

00:44:12.280 | by those who say, this is despicable,

00:44:14.560 | this is the same kind of constant male patriarchy

00:44:19.200 | that women have to face and that women

00:44:21.280 | don't ever get an opportunity to get ahead

00:44:22.980 | because they're not gonna be there in the inside deals.

00:44:25.980 | And I was amazed after the Harvey Weinstein account

00:44:32.160 | to read a story about David Schwimmer,

00:44:35.280 | one of the leading actors on "Friends,"

00:44:37.240 | who some, a journalist wrote about how,

00:44:40.200 | or an actress, I guess, wrote about how

00:44:42.640 | David Schwimmer was such a good man that they were,

00:44:44.760 | she was, journalist, she was doing an interview over dinner

00:44:48.520 | and with David Schwimmer and he said,

00:44:50.280 | it was loud and they were having a hard time

00:44:51.840 | finishing their interview and he said,

00:44:53.280 | would you like to go up to my room to finish the interview

00:44:55.560 | and I'll make sure that somebody else is there.

00:44:57.760 | And she just thought that was so sweet and so thoughtful.

00:45:00.560 | It was sweet and it was thoughtful and it was important.

00:45:04.000 | We should honor David Schwimmer for that.

00:45:06.840 | But that's what these people will do.

00:45:08.760 | If they like you, they'll stick up and say, hey, it's great.

00:45:12.200 | If they don't like you, they'll say

00:45:14.080 | it's the worst thing ever.

00:45:15.600 | You can't change that.

00:45:19.080 | What you can do is, what you can do is protect yourself.

00:45:24.080 | So it's very, very simple, but make sure

00:45:28.280 | that you put the habits into place around the office.

00:45:31.040 | Make sure that you have a window on your office

00:45:33.080 | so you don't have a private office.

00:45:34.920 | Make sure that you leave the door open.

00:45:36.840 | Make sure that if you're gonna meet with somebody,

00:45:38.480 | meet with them in a public place.

00:45:41.280 | Make sure that you are open and up front.

00:45:44.580 | Bring somebody with you.

00:45:45.680 | If you need to meet with somebody in private,

00:45:47.560 | bring a trusted compatriot with you, a trusted confidant.

00:45:51.680 | There's always somebody available.

00:45:53.800 | There's always somebody available.

00:45:56.560 | And if not, if you need to talk privately,

00:45:58.560 | then figure it out.

00:46:01.120 | Anyway, I don't need to go into more and more,

00:46:02.640 | but figure it out.

00:46:03.640 | Be careful when traveling.

00:46:06.320 | One of the biggest challenges,

00:46:08.900 | especially for us as men, is traveling.

00:46:11.680 | If you're a person of prominence, personally,

00:46:14.440 | I don't think you should travel alone.

00:46:16.800 | Frankly, I wish that most of us

00:46:18.320 | didn't have to travel alone.

00:46:19.560 | But it's really hard to see how it's possible to do that.

00:46:21.840 | I still travel alone.

00:46:23.240 | But I hope to stop that pretty soon.

00:46:25.520 | I'm very much looking forward for when my oldest child

00:46:28.900 | is able to be quiet and controlled

00:46:31.080 | for extended periods of time

00:46:32.460 | so that I can take my children with me.

00:46:34.260 | Now, obviously, that fits into my goal of benefits for him,

00:46:37.440 | my oldest son, or my daughter when she's old enough.

00:46:39.800 | I want them to be with me in adult situations

00:46:42.040 | so that they can have perspective on the world

00:46:44.840 | that starts from an early age.

00:46:46.040 | But part of that's also for me.

00:46:48.280 | It's good protection for me to have my children with me.

00:46:51.200 | And if you are a person of public prominence,

00:46:54.240 | here would be one where I think

00:46:55.400 | you need to assess your situation.

00:46:58.560 | But if you're a person of public prominence,

00:47:00.240 | you should spend the extra money not to travel alone.

00:47:03.120 | Travel with your staff.

00:47:04.600 | Travel with a business partner.

00:47:06.220 | Travel with your children.

00:47:07.600 | Travel with your spouse.

00:47:09.120 | But make sure there's somebody there with you

00:47:10.680 | because traveling is tough.

00:47:13.000 | And it's really, really tough

00:47:15.840 | to maintain your faithfulness to your wife

00:47:21.840 | when you're on the road.

00:47:23.040 | Business travel, especially for many men,

00:47:27.840 | is the place where they indulge,

00:47:29.400 | and probably many women, I don't know, but for men,

00:47:32.260 | is the place where they indulge the lust of the flesh

00:47:36.960 | because they have a level of safety.

00:47:38.760 | You've got to avoid that.

00:47:43.160 | So when traveling, avoid difficult situations

00:47:45.640 | whenever possible.

00:47:46.720 | It's pretty lonely to be the killjoy,

00:47:51.600 | but it's worth it.

00:47:54.020 | It's pretty lonely to go home

00:47:57.740 | or to go back to your hotel room all alone

00:48:00.240 | when the boys are headed to the strip club

00:48:01.880 | for an evening of client entertainment,

00:48:04.480 | but go home anyway.

00:48:06.600 | It's worth it when you can walk in the front door

00:48:10.720 | and greet your wife with a clear conscience.

00:48:13.040 | It's worth it.

00:48:18.760 | One thing that helps me is I always look at my daughter.

00:48:22.680 | I have a beautiful little baby girl.

00:48:24.840 | And it's funny, actually, as I wrote these notes,

00:48:29.160 | she woke up from her nap a little earlier today.

00:48:31.200 | She woke up from her nap, and she was sitting in my lap,

00:48:34.240 | and I always look at my daughter, and I just think,

00:48:37.960 | every woman that's out there was once

00:48:40.720 | a daddy's little daughter, just like mine.

00:48:43.040 | Cute little pigtails in her hair,

00:48:44.840 | sweet, innocent little girls, never known anything wrong.

00:48:47.740 | That woman

00:48:51.000 | was once somebody's little girl, and probably still is.

00:48:57.160 | Somebody's little girl.

00:48:58.440 | Do I want my daughter being treated

00:49:02.600 | the way that these men are treating this woman right now?

00:49:07.320 | I find that's a very helpful

00:49:08.480 | and anchoring situation to be in.

00:49:10.600 | It's one thing to look at somebody

00:49:14.720 | playing the harlot in the street

00:49:17.920 | and be filled with lust for them.

00:49:20.480 | It's another thing to see them as somebody's little girl.

00:49:23.280 | I don't want my little girl in that situation,

00:49:26.520 | so why should I treat somebody else's little girl like that?

00:49:31.520 | If you don't have a daughter, consider a niece,

00:49:34.760 | or find somebody with a beautiful baby girl,

00:49:36.680 | and look at the innocence of a beautiful little baby girl,

00:49:40.400 | and recognize that those women

00:49:43.080 | that you're destroying with your action

00:49:45.400 | are somebody's baby girl.

00:49:48.680 | So whatever you've got to do to protect yourself

00:49:53.080 | when traveling, do it.

00:49:54.140 | Spend the extra money to meet someone at a restaurant.

00:49:57.540 | In today's world, especially in the modern business climate,

00:50:00.640 | I think it's best for you to keep your mouth shut

00:50:03.880 | about your reasons.

00:50:05.600 | Many women, especially many businesswomen,

00:50:07.880 | would be deeply insulted

00:50:10.120 | if you talk about your reasoning

00:50:12.880 | for why you want to meet them in a public place

00:50:15.960 | or something like that.

00:50:17.160 | Or many women, especially businesswomen,

00:50:20.400 | if you're going on a business trip

00:50:21.560 | and you have a female coworker with you,

00:50:24.380 | they will be deeply insulted

00:50:26.720 | if you open your mouth and say a word

00:50:29.760 | about why you prefer to go back to your room

00:50:33.920 | and dine alone in the evening.

00:50:35.520 | I try not to insult people,

00:50:39.120 | and I try not to make people feel insulted.

00:50:41.520 | So I think it's best for you to be reserved

00:50:43.840 | in telling them why you do something.

00:50:45.360 | I guess I've ruined it with recording a show,

00:50:48.120 | but I would never tell from traveling

00:50:51.440 | with a female business companion or coworker,

00:50:55.040 | I wouldn't tell her why I'm doing something,

00:50:55.880 | I'm just gonna do it.

00:50:57.360 | If you gotta be weird, fine, be weird,

00:50:58.800 | but just, you can be the loner if you need to.

00:51:03.600 | But spend the extra money, do whatever's necessary,

00:51:06.080 | and make sure that you protect yourself,

00:51:08.120 | protect your wife, and protect the people

00:51:09.680 | that you're working with.

00:51:10.920 | Avoid alcohol when you're traveling.

00:51:14.240 | Alcohol leads to poor decision-making and poor judgment.

00:51:17.800 | And don't risk it, especially when you're vulnerable

00:51:20.560 | when you're on the road.

00:51:21.920 | There's this constant cycle.

00:51:23.280 | You spend enough time in business hotels and business bars,

00:51:26.360 | and you will see this cycle again and again and again.

00:51:30.280 | Businessman, hard time at home,

00:51:32.600 | screaming kids, clamoring for his attention,

00:51:34.960 | tired wife, he's having a hard time at home.

00:51:37.760 | Well, when he's on his trip, he can hang out and be alone.

00:51:41.440 | He can be with the guys and have a good time.

00:51:44.000 | He's got beautiful coworkers that he can hang out with

00:51:46.120 | who are fun, who are smart, who are intelligent.

00:51:48.560 | And his wife is busy with the children,

00:51:51.040 | and she doesn't have fun things to say,

00:51:53.660 | but the person, the coworker at work

00:51:55.640 | has lots of fun things to say.

00:51:57.160 | And so we'll start having a few drinks,

00:52:01.080 | and we'll be having a great time,

00:52:02.640 | and one thing leads to another.

00:52:04.800 | And all of a sudden, you're in a situation

00:52:07.040 | that you didn't want to be in.

00:52:08.540 | Don't destroy your marriage,

00:52:12.540 | and don't destroy your financial life with your infidelity.

00:52:16.180 | You cannot say no when you're 50% down that road.

00:52:22.320 | You've got to say no when you're 0% down that road.

00:52:26.920 | So avoid alcohol.

00:52:28.720 | If you're with a bunch of people

00:52:29.960 | and abstaining totally is problematic,

00:52:32.160 | maybe you're the one entertaining,

00:52:33.600 | you're the one, different business situations are difficult,

00:52:36.880 | but if abstaining totally is problematic, have one drink.

00:52:40.160 | Here's a little tip.

00:52:42.720 | Have one drink with everybody.

00:52:44.720 | If you're in a situation that's problematic,

00:52:46.720 | have one drink with everyone,

00:52:48.400 | then go to the restroom, stop at the bar on your way back,

00:52:51.400 | and get yourself a Coke, put a lime in it from the bar,

00:52:54.320 | and keep that drink topped off from the bar directly.

00:52:57.560 | Gives you an easy excuse to avoid more drinks,

00:52:59.500 | looks like you're drinking a rum and Coke,

00:53:01.040 | and all the drunk people will never know.

00:53:03.080 | Drunk people are pretty stupid, so avoid it.

00:53:07.280 | Whatever you got to do, put those things in place.

00:53:10.200 | Avoid pornography of all kinds at all costs,

00:53:15.760 | and put fences around yourself

00:53:17.360 | so that you're able to stand when you're tempted

00:53:19.720 | and when you're alone.

00:53:21.520 | I was deeply addicted to pornography during my teenage years

00:53:24.280 | and it has caused me years, years of problems,

00:53:28.240 | and years of tears because of it.

00:53:31.560 | And it's probably, I'm convinced,

00:53:32.880 | it's the number one addiction in our modern world today,

00:53:35.760 | and it has deep, deep impact.

00:53:39.760 | Pornography at use and the associated masturbation

00:53:42.400 | with pornography puts grooves in your brain,

00:53:45.640 | pleasure pathways that are reliably associated

00:53:48.900 | with a perfect release at the end of the process,

00:53:53.100 | and those grooves go deep.

00:53:56.700 | Now they can be undone in actually

00:53:59.500 | a really short period of time,

00:54:01.780 | but pornography is so deeply destructive.

00:54:06.560 | I'm gonna skip the three-hour talk on this subject,

00:54:13.580 | but it's probably the number one destroyer

00:54:16.100 | of men and women today.

00:54:17.720 | It destroys everything good.

00:54:21.440 | Pornography destroys good sex between husbands and wives.

00:54:25.060 | It puts this picture of sex as the way

00:54:30.060 | that God designed it to be,

00:54:32.020 | a beautiful and intimate and caring,

00:54:34.620 | and it causes it to be,

00:54:36.460 | it gives men and women these weird ideas

00:54:41.740 | about what's normal.

00:54:43.180 | It's interesting, there's so much research

00:54:44.700 | that's been done about sexual practice among teenagers.

00:54:49.700 | There's so much research that's been done on this subject

00:54:52.780 | about sexual practice among teenagers,

00:54:54.300 | and there's all these teenage girls

00:54:58.580 | who are going and studying pornography

00:55:01.580 | to learn sexual technique

00:55:03.660 | because their teenage boyfriends want them to do

00:55:07.820 | what they're doing in the porn,

00:55:10.220 | and nothing, nothing in pornography

00:55:15.780 | is devoted to the sexual pleasure of a woman.

00:55:19.380 | Everything in pornography is devoted

00:55:22.540 | to the sexual titillation of a man with imagery,

00:55:27.420 | and it causes men to have these just utterly,

00:55:30.500 | just destroyed ideas about good sex.

00:55:34.660 | Now, you wanna rip your marriage apart,

00:55:38.220 | and you wanna talk about the financial impact

00:55:40.000 | of divorce on your life?

00:55:42.580 | Well, start feeding yourself pornography,

00:55:44.660 | or continue feeding yourself pornography,

00:55:46.860 | and then start treating your wife

00:55:50.860 | the way that you see a male porn actor

00:55:55.020 | treat a female porn actor.

00:55:56.840 | Your marriage will not last

00:56:00.060 | because your wife is smart enough to know

00:56:02.180 | that that is not the way that men treat women,

00:56:05.060 | or men should treat women.

00:56:06.980 | You wanna grow her love cold for you?

00:56:08.940 | Start treating her that way.

00:56:11.560 | Pornography will destroy your life.

00:56:15.980 | I've been there, I know, and I'm so thankful.

00:56:20.700 | I'm so thankful that God delivered me from it,

00:56:23.780 | but frankly, the impact is brutal to escape,

00:56:28.780 | brutal to escape, and even today,

00:56:35.660 | it's hard for me to do a show like this

00:56:37.900 | because it kinda puts me out there,

00:56:40.420 | and it says, "Joshua, you're taking the stand,"

00:56:41.980 | and I fear, I fear being put back into that place

00:56:49.300 | of fallenness, and it's only faith

00:56:54.300 | that allows me to even talk on this stuff publicly,

00:56:57.820 | but don't let it happen, and so, men, get help.

00:57:02.820 | Talk to other men.

00:57:05.100 | Talk, talk, get help.

00:57:06.520 | There are resources, get help,

00:57:08.900 | and the other thing that's just so utterly destructive,

00:57:11.020 | pornography destroys women.

00:57:13.620 | If you wanna cry, look at your little daughter,

00:57:15.980 | and then go and start reading about the women

00:57:18.180 | who are involved in pornography

00:57:19.380 | and how their lives are destroyed,

00:57:21.740 | and you call yourself a man,

00:57:23.900 | and you wanna portray yourself as somebody upright,

00:57:29.420 | somebody who desires for justice and righteousness,

00:57:33.460 | and you wanna destroy lives with your consumption,

00:57:36.900 | I'm preaching to myself

00:57:38.100 | 'cause I have to constantly preach to myself.

00:57:41.040 | Those old grooves in the brain,

00:57:43.220 | they can be relatively quickly, actually.

00:57:46.900 | They can be very quickly wiped out.

00:57:50.420 | They can be, but to wipe them out completely

00:57:56.740 | is very, very tough, so build fences around yourself.

00:58:01.460 | Don't stay gone from home long,

00:58:03.700 | and I'm focusing on traveling.

00:58:05.100 | If you think I'm overdoing this, either,

00:58:08.580 | I can't imagine, if you think I'm laboring too long

00:58:11.540 | on this travel thing, I would submit to you

00:58:16.100 | you might not have much experience

00:58:17.580 | in the world of business travel.

00:58:19.420 | But don't stay gone from home long.

00:58:20.980 | Schedule your itinerary so that you're home

00:58:23.580 | as quickly as you can be if you're alone.

00:58:26.060 | Schedule activities in your itinerary

00:58:27.820 | so you're not sitting in a hotel room bored silly.

00:58:30.460 | Don't give place to the devil.

00:58:32.260 | Don't give place to the flesh.

00:58:33.540 | Develop a routine for your hotel room.

00:58:35.780 | When you're checking in the lobby,

00:58:37.060 | cancel the adult channels in the lobby

00:58:38.740 | when you're checking in on the hotel,

00:58:40.500 | or walk in the room and unplug the TV first thing

00:58:43.220 | and lock the TV remote in the safe

00:58:45.060 | so you're not even tempted to turn it on.

00:58:47.580 | I've heard of some men who make a practice

00:58:51.300 | of walk in the room and immediately connect

00:58:53.620 | their phone or another phone, an iPad or an iPod Touch

00:58:56.740 | or something to the Wi-Fi, and immediately set up

00:58:58.980 | a video link with their home.

00:59:00.700 | Think about how that, if you wanna talk about

00:59:03.100 | your building love with your wife,

00:59:05.140 | just let her know you care, and that you're putting

00:59:07.140 | the things in place to protect yourself.

00:59:09.500 | So setting up a video link with home

00:59:11.020 | so it feels like you're there with your wife

00:59:12.540 | and your children, and gives you greater accountability.

00:59:17.340 | If the phone's a problem, take a backup phone.

00:59:19.780 | Leave your smartphone and your computer locked in the car.

00:59:22.900 | Take a dumb phone without internet access

00:59:24.860 | with you into your room.

00:59:25.820 | Whatever you've gotta do, put software on your phone,

00:59:27.780 | your computer, whatever you've gotta do, protect yourself.

00:59:31.260 | And the higher you go, the more you must protect yourself.

00:59:36.260 | You will develop, if you go on for success,

00:59:41.700 | and you come to a place of prominence, of effectiveness,

00:59:45.460 | you will attract to yourself a retinue of enemies,

00:59:48.700 | and you must not give your enemies even a shred of ammo.

00:59:53.360 | Now there's a lot more to it, I know,

00:59:59.540 | but one of the most, other things,

01:00:02.420 | one of the most troubling questions to me in today's world

01:00:05.980 | has even been how do you protect yourself

01:00:08.060 | from allegations of child abuse?

01:00:11.820 | This one's really just troubling to me

01:00:13.180 | 'cause it seems like the normal, natural things

01:00:15.820 | of life are kinda taken away.

01:00:20.380 | I care about some of the young boys

01:00:23.040 | and young men in my neighborhood,

01:00:24.980 | and I look at the men and I don't see any father figures

01:00:27.680 | in their life, and I wanna, to bring them along,

01:00:31.100 | and I wanna help them, and I wanna do things with them

01:00:33.940 | and to help them and to encourage them.

01:00:35.700 | And I constantly face this question of what do I do?

01:00:39.820 | We've become such a society

01:00:41.380 | that's so fractured just with allegations

01:00:44.020 | that it's hard for me to say even,

01:00:46.220 | okay, here are some boys in my neighborhood

01:00:49.460 | who have probably never been on a camping trip,

01:00:51.460 | have probably never been in the woods,

01:00:52.700 | have probably never gone hunting,

01:00:54.460 | have probably never shot a bow and arrow,

01:00:56.820 | who've probably never shot a gun,

01:00:58.360 | who've probably never, how do I do things for these boys?

01:01:01.280 | But yet there's such a destructive idea

01:01:05.440 | where everyone's looking for the homosexual predator.

01:01:08.220 | And I don't know the answers, I really don't.

01:01:12.340 | I talk with my wife about it, and I just say,

01:01:14.180 | how do we, it's tough because on the one hand,

01:01:18.620 | there's this total bondage

01:01:21.740 | where you try to walk up rightly,

01:01:23.980 | and on the other hand, if you even open your mouth

01:01:26.360 | and talk about the fact that you're trying to do this,

01:01:28.220 | and everybody says, well, you're a prude, and what?

01:01:29.700 | You can't control yourself?

01:01:30.700 | And they behave as though,

01:01:34.260 | they behave as though it doesn't matter,

01:01:36.240 | and you can just do whatever you want

01:01:37.720 | and live however you want,

01:01:38.720 | but then all of a sudden it turns on you,

01:01:40.360 | and now the next thing you know, you're being destroyed.

01:01:43.240 | It's deeply frustrating to me,

01:01:45.740 | and I don't know the right answers from some of that.

01:01:48.280 | I will not let the fear or the threat

01:01:53.260 | of these people who destroy everything,

01:01:56.120 | I will not let those people destroy

01:01:58.740 | how important it is that we sow

01:02:00.820 | into the lives of other people.

01:02:03.640 | I will not let my fatherly love and care

01:02:08.640 | for the well-being of a disadvantaged boy

01:02:12.600 | in my neighborhood,

01:02:13.720 | I will not let that become something that turns,

01:02:19.960 | and the whole normal cycle of life

01:02:22.680 | of elder people sowing into the lives

01:02:25.960 | of young boys and girls,

01:02:27.160 | I will not let that whole thing be sexualized

01:02:29.160 | by our culture that worships at the altar

01:02:31.160 | of erotic control.

01:02:32.480 | The number one most powerful thing

01:02:34.320 | that anybody cares about is ultimate erotic freedom

01:02:36.980 | until all of a sudden they turn on you and say,

01:02:38.480 | "Ah, it's not about erotic freedom."

01:02:40.720 | I will not let the normal things of life

01:02:43.940 | and the important things of life be destroyed by that,

01:02:46.560 | but I also don't know how to do it.

01:02:48.360 | I gotta figure out how do we deal with it?

01:02:52.720 | How do we deal with it?

01:02:53.920 | You know, when I was younger,

01:02:58.320 | there was a neighbor of mine,

01:02:59.800 | and I was talking about this the other day

01:03:02.360 | with my wife.

01:03:03.360 | There was a neighbor of mine who was this older guy.

01:03:05.960 | He was disabled from work,

01:03:07.480 | and just this older guy, country guy,

01:03:09.840 | and he was really kind to me,

01:03:13.440 | and he was the kind of guy,

01:03:15.360 | he was kind of foul-mouthed.

01:03:16.720 | He was a country guy, kind of foul-mouthed,

01:03:19.520 | smoked a lot, drank a little here and there.

01:03:23.040 | He's the kind of guy who I would probably

01:03:25.280 | never let my children be with him today,

01:03:28.080 | but my parents let me be with him,

01:03:29.560 | and of course they knew what was going on,

01:03:31.280 | but he was a good guy.

01:03:32.800 | He was the old-fashioned kind of just good guy.

01:03:37.040 | He wasn't a Christian,

01:03:40.920 | but he was just an old-fashioned good guy,

01:03:42.760 | kind of that moral, upright,

01:03:45.320 | but very country, foul-mouthed guy,

01:03:48.760 | and he was an older man,

01:03:49.640 | and I used to hang out with him for hours,

01:03:52.040 | and I would,

01:03:53.000 | I went fishing with him.

01:03:57.520 | I'd hang out and work in his garden with him.

01:03:59.360 | He was the guy who taught me to raise rabbits,

01:04:01.600 | and we'd work on rabbits.

01:04:03.400 | We'd butcher rabbits together.

01:04:04.880 | He was just this old country guy,

01:04:06.120 | and he taught me all kinds of interesting things.

01:04:09.640 | Never once

01:04:11.520 | did he try to teach me about anything inappropriate.

01:04:17.240 | Never once did he try to

01:04:19.200 | to do anything that was wrong in any way,

01:04:24.440 | and yet today,

01:04:25.600 | I don't think I would let my son hang out

01:04:29.160 | with someone like that,

01:04:30.000 | and I hate that.

01:04:31.080 | I hate that.

01:04:33.880 | I don't know what to do.

01:04:34.720 | I don't know how to solve these problems.

01:04:35.760 | Forgive me if a little bit of rambling here,

01:04:38.160 | but I guess the show has just been personal enough

01:04:42.640 | that I figured I would share that pain,

01:04:46.080 | so just protect yourself.

01:04:48.320 | Today, just to the allegation,

01:04:50.520 | proven or not, unfortunately,

01:04:53.080 | the allegation, proven or not, evidence or not,

01:04:55.600 | that allegation is enough to destroy you,

01:04:58.280 | and we've gotta figure out how to deal

01:05:00.480 | with this new reality that we face.

01:05:03.200 | Let me just kind of wrap this up to a close.

01:05:07.160 | One of the most important,

01:05:08.240 | I've done a lot of Bible reading here,

01:05:09.520 | one of the most important passages

01:05:12.560 | would come from Ephesians 5,

01:05:15.280 | and I think it gives us a clear place

01:05:16.920 | to put this subject to rest,

01:05:20.120 | but let me just read for you from Ephesians 5.

01:05:22.840 | If you're not a Bible reader,

01:05:23.720 | this is another letter written by the Apostle Paul,

01:05:27.880 | and he says this.

01:05:28.800 | "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children,

01:05:33.360 | and walk in love, as Christ loved us

01:05:36.080 | and gave himself up for us,

01:05:38.160 | a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

01:05:41.440 | But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness

01:05:46.400 | must not even be named among you,

01:05:49.080 | as is proper among saints.

01:05:51.520 | Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk,

01:05:54.960 | nor crude joking which are out of place,

01:05:57.800 | but instead let there be thanksgiving.

01:06:00.680 | For you may be sure of this,

01:06:01.880 | that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure

01:06:04.160 | or who is covetous, that is an idolater,

01:06:06.720 | has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

01:06:10.160 | Let no one deceive you with empty words,

01:06:12.000 | for because of these things,

01:06:13.160 | the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

01:06:16.760 | Therefore, do not become partners with them,

01:06:20.040 | for at one time you were darkness,

01:06:22.680 | but now you are light in the Lord.

01:06:25.760 | Walk as children of light,

01:06:28.080 | for the fruit of light is found in all

01:06:29.680 | that is good and right and true.

01:06:32.360 | And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

01:06:35.080 | Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness,

01:06:38.640 | but instead expose them.

01:06:41.400 | For it is shameful even to speak of the things

01:06:43.360 | that they do in secret,

01:06:44.840 | but when anything is exposed by the light,

01:06:46.520 | it becomes visible.

01:06:47.880 | For anything that becomes visible is light.

01:06:50.520 | Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper,

01:06:52.000 | "and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

01:06:55.060 | Look carefully then how you walk,

01:06:58.560 | not as unwise, but as wise,

01:07:02.240 | making the best use of the time,

01:07:03.840 | because the days are evil.

01:07:05.600 | Therefore do not be foolish,

01:07:07.240 | but understand what the will of the Lord is.

01:07:09.600 | And do not get drunk with wine,

01:07:10.960 | for that is debauchery,

01:07:11.960 | but be filled with the Spirit,

01:07:13.560 | addressing one another in psalms and hymns

01:07:15.320 | and spiritual songs,

01:07:16.280 | singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,

01:07:18.960 | giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father

01:07:21.440 | in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

01:07:23.360 | submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

01:07:26.060 | I don't need to add much to that.

01:07:31.420 | But I would just say, men, we start with us.

01:07:36.220 | We start with us,

01:07:39.260 | and then we start with those who are nearby.

01:07:41.680 | One of the questions that I have

01:07:43.100 | is just so many of these women have come forward.

01:07:46.260 | The thing that angers me,

01:07:47.340 | where are the men who are gonna stand up and act like men?

01:07:50.540 | What are the husbands of these women doing?

01:07:52.300 | What are their fathers doing?

01:07:54.200 | Sending their daughters off into a place

01:07:55.920 | where they're gonna be preyed on by,

01:07:57.720 | where they're gonna be preyed on.

01:08:02.220 | How do those fathers look at themselves in their face

01:08:06.160 | when they send their daughter in that situation

01:08:07.720 | where she's defenseless,

01:08:09.200 | and then she becomes a victim of a great evil

01:08:11.880 | and she can't tell anyone?

01:08:14.200 | What kind of environment has been created?

01:08:16.460 | What kind of love and trust is there

01:08:18.440 | where this woman is put into this situation?

01:08:23.440 | What are the husbands of these women doing?

01:08:27.500 | You and I can't do anything about those men,

01:08:31.700 | but we had better not fail the women that we care about.

01:08:36.780 | We had better not fail our wives

01:08:38.660 | and our mothers and our daughters.

01:08:42.340 | We better be the ones to stand up for them.

01:08:48.140 | There was a day,

01:08:48.980 | I don't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing,

01:08:50.580 | but it certainly indicates something.

01:08:52.060 | There was a day when the brother

01:08:55.660 | of a woman whose honor was besmirched

01:08:58.460 | would go and deal with the man.

01:08:59.740 | There was a day when a father would go and deal with that,

01:09:02.180 | and today, we as men kinda say,

01:09:03.940 | oh, well, she's her own,

01:09:04.860 | she's gotta stand her own two feet.

01:09:06.340 | Yes, women have to bear the responsibility

01:09:09.140 | of what they have wanted to do,

01:09:11.340 | and a lot of women are pretty offended

01:09:13.620 | if you take on any kind of even just a tone

01:09:18.620 | or a desire and indicate your desire to protect her.

01:09:22.020 | That doesn't matter.

01:09:23.500 | You gotta do it anyway because it's right.

01:09:25.660 | Now, I'm not saying that you should go and get a shotgun,

01:09:30.000 | but probably in some cases, you should,

01:09:32.140 | and make sure that if there's a woman in your life

01:09:35.100 | who's victimized, you better make sure

01:09:38.700 | that she feels safe to come

01:09:40.420 | and that you're gonna deal with whatever needs to be done

01:09:42.940 | to deal with it.

01:09:43.900 | Now, one final area of importance for you,

01:09:49.060 | and I think this is very, very important,

01:09:52.260 | especially in light of the allegations

01:09:53.980 | against Judge Roy Moore.

01:09:55.340 | I hope it's been clear that allegations are important,

01:10:00.340 | and my job, especially for somebody who's a politician,

01:10:05.860 | it's not my job to jump on Harvey Weinstein.

01:10:08.060 | It's not my deal, I mean, in the sense that

01:10:11.460 | if he's close to me, but I'm not gonna go out

01:10:12.900 | and pick fights with people,

01:10:14.340 | but I will be the first to roast someone like Roy Moore

01:10:19.340 | and hold him accountable 'cause that's my job

01:10:24.100 | is to hold those accountable who are near me,

01:10:25.860 | myself and those who are near me.

01:10:28.500 | So, but in the scenario that he's in,

01:10:31.460 | in the sense that the allegations, if they're true,

01:10:36.460 | those allegations against him were a long time ago.

01:10:42.300 | So, I wanna speak straight to you, men,

01:10:46.020 | because I don't wanna see you become successful

01:10:47.820 | in the future and then have a skeleton from your past,

01:10:50.740 | a sin from your past come out and destroy you.

01:10:53.220 | What do you do if you've committed sin in the past?

01:10:56.700 | What do you do if there's something in your life

01:10:59.460 | from the past?

01:11:00.580 | You repent.

01:11:04.780 | Today, now, you repent of your sin

01:11:08.700 | and you go and you make the situation right.

01:11:10.420 | You repent first and foremost to God

01:11:12.860 | because he's the one that you've wronged

01:11:14.740 | and then you go and you repent

01:11:16.260 | before the person that you've wronged.

01:11:18.140 | And you may seek to make the situation right

01:11:22.740 | in every way possible.

01:11:25.180 | If you've stolen, you need to go back

01:11:27.740 | and you need to make restitution

01:11:29.140 | to the person that you've stolen from.

01:11:31.820 | If you've wronged somebody, you need to go back

01:11:34.500 | and you need to apologize to the people that you've wronged,

01:11:36.980 | ask for their forgiveness, and you need to go back

01:11:39.580 | and do anything you can to restore what's right.

01:11:42.380 | Some things can be restored.

01:11:43.820 | If you stole money, you can go back and make restitution

01:11:46.300 | and pay the debt that you owe.

01:11:48.700 | If you took a life, you can't bring life back.

01:11:53.660 | If there's crime, you need to go and submit yourself

01:11:57.180 | to the governing authorities and confess your crime

01:11:59.700 | and face it.

01:12:00.900 | You need to go back and repent and face it.

01:12:05.500 | And you need to repent.

01:12:08.900 | I wanna say publicly, but not always necessarily publicly,

01:12:12.020 | but at least to the people involved.

01:12:14.260 | One of the biggest issues that I have with modern,

01:12:18.220 | and it's just speaking theologically,

01:12:19.780 | one of the biggest issues that I have

01:12:21.660 | with modern mainstream popular Christianity

01:12:24.540 | is we've adopted this myth that somehow repentance

01:12:27.780 | is this thing where you kinda say,

01:12:29.020 | well, I'm sorry, God, and that absolves everything.

01:12:33.060 | Repentance needs to go much deeper.

01:12:34.500 | You need to repent from anything,

01:12:36.500 | from any sin before God that you committed in the past,

01:12:40.260 | and then go and make those things right

01:12:41.980 | and demonstrate deeds of repentance.

01:12:44.020 | Now, there's no possibility.

01:12:45.940 | It is utterly impossible for you to ever

01:12:48.700 | fully make everything right,

01:12:50.100 | and it's impossible for you to ever fully repent

01:12:53.140 | of every single sin, but if there's something

01:12:55.300 | that's on your mind or there's something

01:12:56.620 | that's on your conscience, go and repent and make it right.

01:13:01.100 | Make it right now while you have the chance

01:13:03.660 | to make restitution lest you stand before God

01:13:06.860 | and experience His wrath for that sin.

01:13:09.720 | The foremost foundation of Christian conversion

01:13:13.820 | is repentance, repentance, and it's a word

01:13:18.820 | that unfortunately, and I apologize to you

01:13:21.260 | on behalf of, if you're not a believer,

01:13:24.940 | I apologize to you on behalf

01:13:26.540 | of my fellow Christian believers.

01:13:28.980 | We have failed this generation,

01:13:32.060 | and that failure is reflected into my own shame

01:13:35.620 | frequently on the front page of newspapers

01:13:40.780 | when so-called Christian leaders

01:13:45.420 | who want to put themselves forward

01:13:49.780 | and preach from a pulpit, and all of a sudden,

01:13:51.740 | it turned out to be engaging in sexual immorality

01:13:55.580 | with whomever, trying to be careful with my language.

01:14:00.980 | It's so deeply shameful,

01:14:03.180 | and it destroys the testimony of God,

01:14:07.060 | and it's to our own fault, and we will bear

01:14:09.740 | the consequences of it in coming generations.

01:14:12.940 | We already are, but that doesn't make it,

01:14:17.820 | that doesn't make repentance optional.

01:14:20.860 | Just because the modern Christian church

01:14:23.020 | has somehow decided that repentance is optional

01:14:25.580 | and it's just a matter of come to Jesus

01:14:27.020 | 'cause He's gonna make you feel good,

01:14:28.580 | that doesn't violate the fact that repentance

01:14:32.500 | is the very first step of turning from sin.

01:14:36.780 | Now, I'm not recording this show

01:14:41.180 | as a get-rich-quick plan for you,

01:14:43.420 | but if there's sin in your life from the past

01:14:46.900 | that you have not made right,

01:14:48.980 | or have not sought to make right,

01:14:50.860 | if there's crime, if there's evil,

01:14:52.740 | if there's infidelity, if there's those things,

01:14:55.060 | that needs to be dealt with today.

01:14:57.860 | Otherwise, I guarantee you, your sin will find you out.

01:15:02.860 | You may go and build a career for 40 years,

01:15:06.460 | and be running for high political office,

01:15:08.420 | or getting ready to go and release your great new movie,

01:15:11.980 | and on the night of your release,

01:15:14.080 | the director may look and say, "Guess what?

01:15:16.500 | "This person's just become a liability."

01:15:18.660 | And my hope is not to persuade you of that

01:15:21.380 | so that you can somehow get more money and be richer.

01:15:25.020 | My hope is to persuade you of that

01:15:26.380 | because it's the right thing to do.

01:15:28.540 | Though it cost you everything, every dollar you have,

01:15:33.140 | to go and make right those you've wronged.

01:15:36.240 | If you used a corporation and you abused people,

01:15:38.660 | go and make it right.

01:15:39.540 | Though it cost you your entire fortune,

01:15:41.580 | go and make it as right as you can,

01:15:46.220 | because it's far better to be completely penniless

01:15:54.540 | and morally upright,

01:15:55.960 | and stand before God with a clear conscience,

01:15:59.500 | than to enjoy the pleasures of sinful,

01:16:03.380 | ill-begotten wealth for a season,

01:16:05.600 | and face your eternal damnation in hell.

01:16:10.140 | In 500 episodes of "Radical Personal Finance,"

01:16:18.180 | I can't remember a show

01:16:20.380 | in which I've been perhaps this intense.

01:16:24.260 | I'm seeking to speak intensely because it's that important.

01:16:28.240 | And if you want proof of it, open up your newspaper.

01:16:32.660 | Though I may die and disappear,

01:16:38.620 | and though God may judge the modern Christian church

01:16:40.940 | for our unfaithfulness in our modern era,

01:16:44.260 | you will still be exposed.

01:16:47.100 | These men and women in Hollywood,

01:16:50.380 | I hear very little Christian testimony.

01:16:54.480 | Just watch how God's using them

01:16:57.480 | to expose the evil and the sin

01:17:00.800 | that is pervasive in that community.

01:17:02.640 | If Judge Roy Moore is guilty of what is alleged against him,

01:17:09.080 | just watch how God's using a staff of reporters

01:17:14.360 | on a Washington Post news reporting team,

01:17:20.460 | which if, maybe there's a believer somewhere in that group,

01:17:24.740 | but if there is, I don't know how they keep their job.

01:17:28.180 | Look at how God is using the non-believing secular people

01:17:33.180 | that run the Washington Post

01:17:35.780 | to expose the sin of the professing Christian,

01:17:39.860 | if that is true.

01:17:42.440 | I don't know, and I want to be careful

01:17:43.980 | with my judgments I've said all the way through.

01:17:46.340 | I'm not close.

01:17:47.220 | I don't know if I'll ever know.

01:17:48.860 | Doesn't matter.

01:17:50.700 | Look at the shame.

01:17:53.380 | If those allegations against Judge Roy Moore

01:17:56.340 | are proven to be true, look at the shame,

01:18:00.060 | the shame that the church members and the friends

01:18:03.460 | and the Christians around Moore will face

01:18:07.520 | for their lack of movement and activity.

01:18:12.000 | God will use just about anybody to accomplish his purposes.

01:18:18.220 | It's a privilege to be involved in that,

01:18:20.780 | but if you don't stand up, he'll go use someone else,

01:18:25.580 | and if you don't fix it, if you don't confess it

01:18:28.580 | while you have time, the Bible says today

01:18:31.540 | is the day of salvation.

01:18:32.820 | If you do not harden your hearts,

01:18:34.760 | today is the day of salvation.

01:18:36.780 | Today is the day that you can go back

01:18:39.660 | and repent of your sins in the past

01:18:41.580 | and turn towards God and ask him for his forgiveness.

01:18:44.200 | Today is the day.

01:18:45.520 | (sniffling)

01:18:48.360 | Today.

01:18:49.200 | The longer you wait, the harder it is.

01:18:57.920 | The longer you wait, the harder it is.

01:19:02.320 | Just think about this.

01:19:05.800 | If those allegations against Judge Moore

01:19:07.880 | are proven to be true, think about the destruction

01:19:10.560 | on his family, his wife, his children, his grandchildren.

01:19:14.140 | (sniffling)

01:19:16.480 | The longer you wait, the harder it is.

01:19:23.020 | (sniffling)

01:19:26.680 | Hope you'll forgive me.

01:19:32.500 | I'm not doing this for effect.

01:19:33.740 | I didn't plan this.

01:19:38.420 | I'm just, this is.

01:19:39.340 | (sniffling)

01:19:43.040 | (crying)

01:19:45.120 | I didn't set out to preach to you.

01:20:05.000 | My friend, today is the day

01:20:11.600 | we face.

01:20:12.440 | Today is the day.

01:20:18.000 | Don't let another day pass.

01:20:21.200 | If there's something in your past, I beg you, repent.

01:20:24.640 | Don't.

01:20:26.800 | Confess to your wife, confess to your husband,

01:20:29.500 | confess to those that you've wronged.

01:20:31.120 | Make the situation right.

01:20:32.400 | It'll never get better.

01:20:34.080 | Just get, we'll get worse and worse.

01:20:35.880 | And someday, you may watch, I hope not.

01:20:41.360 | I hope, I pray that these allegations against Moore are wrong.

01:20:45.520 | I hope, I pray that they're proven wrong.

01:20:47.840 | 'Cause it's just such a deep shame if they're proven right.

01:20:51.280 | It's so deeply shameful

01:20:54.160 | to find out when somebody is out preaching publicly

01:20:58.920 | and yet they're a hypocrite.

01:21:00.640 | It's hard to think of a deeper shame than hypocrisy.

01:21:08.520 | I don't wanna see anybody's life destroyed.

01:21:11.960 | I don't wanna see Harvey Weinstein's marriage

01:21:13.920 | and his children hurt.

01:21:14.960 | I don't wanna see Judge Moore's marriage

01:21:17.000 | and his children and grandchildren hurt.

01:21:19.040 | But friends, the wages of sin is death.

01:21:24.080 | And this behavior, this sin, brings death

01:21:27.960 | and it will destroy everything.

01:21:29.700 | We live in strange times.

01:21:37.160 | I think every generation before us has felt that.

01:21:40.720 | My friend, we live in strange times.

01:21:47.440 | I cannot for the life of me figure out

01:21:49.960 | by what standard modern sexual activity is judged.

01:21:53.920 | I cannot figure it out.

01:21:55.560 | I study it and I try to think.

01:21:56.800 | I pretend, I say, okay, pretend I'm an atheist,

01:21:59.960 | pretend I'm a progressive, pretend I'm a feminist,

01:22:03.160 | pretend I'm these things and I just think and I study.

01:22:06.200 | And you know what, there are a lot of criticisms

01:22:08.320 | that are just and that are right.

01:22:10.520 | There are a lot of criticisms

01:22:11.680 | and I can see those criticisms,

01:22:13.040 | but then I go back and I say, by what standard?

01:22:15.500 | By what standard do we judge?

01:22:17.560 | And the only standard that I can come up with today

01:22:19.960 | is consent.

01:22:20.960 | Like that seems to be, in terms of the religious doctrine

01:22:25.800 | that is taught today about the appropriate

01:22:27.800 | sexual activity for men and women,

01:22:29.880 | the standard seems to be consent.

01:22:32.040 | That's it.

01:22:32.920 | As long as there are consenting people,

01:22:35.280 | consenting adults who are engaged in the sexual activity,

01:22:39.000 | everything else is possible.

01:22:40.840 | And nothing else is to be disparaged

01:22:45.000 | or come against in any way.

01:22:49.520 | So it seems to me that you're supposed to be able

01:22:52.120 | to do anything you want except consent,

01:22:53.880 | but I can't even figure out,

01:22:55.820 | I can't figure out even what consent means.

01:23:02.220 | In this sense, I read an article yesterday

01:23:04.600 | as I was reading about this.

01:23:05.560 | I read an article by a guy, I guess he was a cook,

01:23:08.400 | 'cause he was Eddie Hwang, I think it was.

01:23:12.480 | And I guess he's a celebrity in the world of cooking.

01:23:15.680 | And this article, he was talking about a sexual assault

01:23:19.000 | that he received when he was a kid,

01:23:24.000 | he went on a trip with a Baptist church group.

01:23:27.880 | And while he and a roommate of his

01:23:31.040 | were in their room, in like the camp room one night,

01:23:34.960 | a male camp counselor who was older came in

01:23:38.800 | and took a shower, came out of the shower naked

01:23:43.800 | and stood at the end of their bed,

01:23:46.480 | according to his account,

01:23:47.400 | stood at the end of their bed for 15 minutes naked

01:23:50.920 | with an erect penis reading the Bible to them.

01:23:54.100 | Now, if that's true,

01:23:55.360 | and I don't see any reason to doubt his account,

01:23:58.440 | number one, that is so utterly

01:24:00.720 | perishing and shameful that that would happen.

01:24:07.000 | And unfortunately, it's not hard to believe

01:24:09.520 | because it does happen, but it's so shameful

01:24:14.080 | that that would happen on a Baptist church group

01:24:18.640 | to a boy who doesn't even go to church,

01:24:23.640 | who was just coming along 'cause a friend said,

01:24:25.520 | "You can come along on this fun church group.

01:24:27.040 | You don't have to believe anything.

01:24:28.360 | They'll pressure you a little bit to believe."

01:24:31.000 | So it's so shameful, but I thought about that.

01:24:33.160 | And I was just thinking about his story

01:24:35.080 | and I asked myself, is that sexual assault?

01:24:37.240 | Now, it's entirely improper and it shouldn't happen.

01:24:43.200 | It's entirely immodest, but is it sexual assault?

01:24:47.080 | 'Cause he's coming out with his Me Too story

01:24:49.160 | and talking about how I was assaulted

01:24:53.000 | and I pushed the memory back

01:24:54.680 | and it's caused me fear and trauma.

01:24:56.400 | I believe that to be the case,

01:24:57.980 | but is that sexual assault?

01:25:00.280 | Well, if that's sexual assault,

01:25:01.560 | then am I not being sexually assaulted

01:25:04.760 | if I'm walking down Bourbon Street in New Orleans

01:25:07.800 | and a woman flashes me?

01:25:09.680 | Or is it that, wait a second though,

01:25:11.520 | because hold on, it's genitalia sexual assault.

01:25:15.960 | Somebody displaying genitalia,

01:25:18.200 | but displaying breasts, that's a matter of feminism, right?

01:25:23.200 | Because if men can take their shirt off,

01:25:27.000 | then women should be able to take their shirt off too

01:25:29.440 | in public and so therefore,

01:25:31.100 | the flashing of breasts is not sexual assault

01:25:33.180 | because of it's above.

01:25:34.020 | But what about the women who do body paint

01:25:36.640 | and walk down the street in body paint?

01:25:38.420 | Is that sexual assault?

01:25:39.480 | Because I can, am I being assaulted?

01:25:41.160 | Well, I don't think so,

01:25:42.160 | but I don't even know how to figure out this stuff.

01:25:47.160 | And after all, if that makes that person happy

01:25:51.480 | to expose themselves to me,

01:25:54.280 | then on what basis do I wanna deprive them

01:25:56.920 | of their happiness and their erotic fulfillment, right?

01:26:00.560 | And I thought about this in regards to the age of consent,

01:26:04.960 | right, 'cause the allegations against Judge Moore

01:26:08.240 | are about, the allegations are that he pressed himself,

01:26:13.240 | he didn't engage in sexual intercourse,

01:26:17.260 | but he fondled a girl who was 14 and pressed himself on her.

01:26:21.180 | Now, okay, so the problem there,

01:26:23.780 | is the problem the fondling

01:26:26.140 | or is the problem the consent or is the problem the age?

01:26:29.000 | I can't figure it out.

01:26:30.900 | So now I'm opposed to all of it.

01:26:32.800 | I've been clear with that,

01:26:33.900 | but let's just walk this reasoning through

01:26:36.440 | and see where this ends.

01:26:37.640 | So the basic allegation,

01:26:39.200 | the basic horror that I see expressed

01:26:41.400 | in our modern culture, modern secular culture,

01:26:43.480 | is that it's about the age of consent.

01:26:45.400 | This was a 14-year-old and allegedly with an older man.

01:26:50.400 | Okay, I agree.

01:26:52.280 | An older man should not, there should be no sex.

01:26:57.100 | That's the thing.

01:26:57.940 | My way is much simpler.

01:26:58.860 | By the way, if I can ever convert you

01:27:00.420 | to come and think like I do,

01:27:01.380 | it's much simpler when you just say,

01:27:02.940 | man, woman, married, great, enjoy sex.

01:27:07.100 | Man, woman, not married, no sex.

01:27:10.180 | It's very simple.

01:27:11.220 | I don't believe it just 'cause it's simple,

01:27:12.660 | but that's a little simpler way to figure it out.

01:27:15.540 | So I thought about age of consent and I thought,

01:27:17.500 | well, we all agree, right,

01:27:19.460 | 'cause a 32-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl,

01:27:22.280 | there's a power imbalance,

01:27:23.720 | and so can a 14-year-old girl accurately give herself,

01:27:27.240 | give up control, accurately give herself up sexually

01:27:31.180 | to somebody who's 32 years old?

01:27:32.820 | Okay, well, I'm with you on that.

01:27:34.820 | But then the question is,

01:27:36.220 | is a 14-year-old's judgment questionable?

01:27:41.220 | Well, if a 14-year-old's judgment

01:27:43.820 | about their ability to give consent is questionable,

01:27:47.180 | then why are we giving explicit sex education

01:27:51.060 | and passing out condoms

01:27:53.380 | to children younger than 14 years old?

01:27:55.560 | If a 14-year-old's judgment is questionable

01:27:58.800 | when confronted with a 32-year-old man,

01:28:01.540 | does it make it right

01:28:02.660 | if she actually wants to be with a 32-year-old man?

01:28:05.140 | And if it's not right, then why is it not right?

01:28:07.380 | But if her judgment is questionable about consent,

01:28:10.100 | then what about some of the other,

01:28:13.460 | when I was 13 years old, I was a pretty big guy.

01:28:16.380 | I was a lot bigger than a lot of the girls

01:28:18.340 | that I interacted with, I always have been.

01:28:20.500 | So if the age of consent is about fear and intimidation

01:28:23.620 | from an older person,

01:28:24.460 | then it shouldn't be based on size and coercion.

01:28:27.020 | I never had sex when I was 13 years old, thank God.

01:28:30.100 | But if I had, then the modern culture would say,

01:28:33.580 | well, that's okay if you're with a 13-year-old girl.

01:28:36.980 | But is it really okay if the 14-year,

01:28:39.700 | I'm getting mixed up on my age, but you get the idea.

01:28:42.980 | What does it matter, age of consent?

01:28:44.940 | Does it matter among children?

01:28:46.060 | And why are we teaching children to have sex,

01:28:47.940 | but use a condom and have safe sex?

01:28:49.620 | And here's how you have anal sex.

01:28:51.460 | So it's just, it's weird.

01:28:54.060 | It doesn't make any sense.

01:28:55.700 | Or is the standard desire,

01:28:59.540 | the number one biggest driver that I can discern

01:29:02.380 | from the modern philosophy that is preached to me

01:29:05.380 | is that whatever I wanna do in consent is fine.

01:29:08.460 | Okay, then why would it be wrong for an older man

01:29:10.980 | who desires a younger girl,

01:29:12.340 | and a younger girl who desires an older man

01:29:14.180 | to have sexual contact if they're giving consent?

01:29:18.220 | And especially if we consider that a 13-year-old boy

01:29:21.020 | or girl is at an age with sexual,

01:29:24.620 | like they're sexually mature, and yet...

01:29:26.740 | Anyway, no doubt I've backed myself into a corner here

01:29:32.580 | with this final little words.

01:29:35.140 | But it just, this is so utterly destructive.

01:29:38.980 | And we're gonna bear the pain of this

01:29:41.700 | for an ongoing period of time.

01:29:43.060 | We already are, we've already borne the pain

01:29:45.820 | of these things so far.

01:29:50.180 | So my plea for you, forgive me if I went off rambling,

01:29:55.180 | my plea for you is this.

01:29:56.820 | Protect yourself because it's morally right.

01:30:01.180 | And you'll enjoy the benefits of being protected

01:30:07.740 | from having your career destroyed with sexual scandal.

01:30:12.340 | Number two, if you see evil around you,

01:30:16.380 | expose it to the light so that it can be dealt with.

01:30:20.340 | Number three, if there is sin in your past,

01:30:25.380 | repent from your sin and make it right.

01:30:27.860 | Go and make it right, repent towards God,

01:30:31.620 | and go and perform deeds of repentance

01:30:34.580 | towards the people that you have wronged.

01:30:37.060 | 'Cause it will come out, and it will come out

01:30:38.980 | at the most inconvenient time

01:30:41.620 | if you don't deal with it now.

01:30:43.260 | I hope that this has been helpful to you.

01:30:47.780 | I hope that, I've demonstrated that this does have

01:30:52.780 | deep financial impact,

01:30:55.680 | and which is why I'm placing it here

01:31:01.420 | on Radical Personal Finance for you.

01:31:03.220 | And one comment I had recently,

01:31:07.180 | and this'll be my closing thought.

01:31:10.580 | Probably pretty frequently,

01:31:11.980 | I set out just to create the show for you,

01:31:17.220 | and sometimes, a lot of times,

01:31:19.220 | it seems like when I wind up reading Bible passages to you,

01:31:23.020 | I'm dealing with sexuality.

01:31:26.420 | I'm gonna change that in the future.

01:31:28.880 | Because one of the things that is so important

01:31:32.980 | is that the Bible talks about different sins.

01:31:38.120 | But as an example, in 1 Corinthians 6,

01:31:43.120 | let me just read this to you.

01:31:44.600 | And I've read this before,

01:31:46.000 | but I just wanna make one point here

01:31:47.780 | with regard to the importance of things like greed

01:31:50.920 | and covetousness, which deeply impact money.

01:31:54.080 | Bible says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous

01:31:56.040 | "will not inherit the kingdom of God?

01:31:58.180 | "Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral,

01:32:01.760 | "nor idolaters, nor adulterers,

01:32:04.940 | "nor men who practice homosexuality,

01:32:07.520 | "nor thieves, nor the greedy,

01:32:10.040 | "nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers,

01:32:13.680 | "will inherit the kingdom of God.

01:32:15.920 | "And such were some of you, but you were washed,

01:32:18.320 | "you were sanctified, you were justified

01:32:20.060 | "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

01:32:21.560 | "and by the Spirit of our God."

01:32:23.240 | My point with reading that is,

01:32:24.760 | in our modern kind of like super sexualized culture,

01:32:28.100 | every time, when I've read that scripture

01:32:30.680 | in the past one time about drunkenness,

01:32:32.240 | and I received an email filled with people saying,

01:32:35.040 | "Joshua, how could you say that about homosexuals,

01:32:37.780 | "men who practice homosexuality?"

01:32:40.480 | I just thought, like, I just read the verse.

01:32:42.680 | But you know what I never hear?

01:32:45.640 | I never hear someone that says, "Joshua,

01:32:47.680 | "how could you say that about thieves?

01:32:49.340 | "How could you say that about the greedy?

01:32:51.300 | "How could you say that about swindlers?"

01:32:54.020 | Why?

01:32:54.860 | The reason why is because those battles

01:32:58.360 | have been fought in past cultures.

01:33:01.200 | In the modern United States of America,

01:33:03.080 | because of our Christian heritage,

01:33:05.440 | every single one of us will rightly stand up

01:33:09.000 | and condemn thievery and greediness and swindlers.

01:33:14.000 | Our laws reflect it, our society reflects it as well.

01:33:19.720 | It was not always that way.

01:33:21.860 | That has been some hard work by people that came before

01:33:27.560 | to convert past cultures and to establish

01:33:31.040 | upright standards of righteousness and justice

01:33:33.920 | as related to swindling and thieves and greedy people.

01:33:38.440 | But today, our discussion somehow seems to be

01:33:44.480 | related to sex and homosexuality and sexual immorality

01:33:49.480 | and all of this stuff.

01:33:52.000 | Now, my price for sharing this show with you

01:33:56.840 | is going to be an email filled with angry listeners.

01:34:01.080 | I feel I've satisfied my conscience

01:34:03.120 | by giving you a fair warning up front.

01:34:04.760 | You're voluntarily choosing to listen to

01:34:06.760 | a freely offered audio file.

01:34:11.100 | But I want to just make one comment to you.

01:34:14.080 | I don't actually think much, personally,

01:34:20.080 | about sexual matters.

01:34:22.120 | I'm married, I have a beautiful wife,

01:34:23.800 | I enjoy sex with my wife, and I'm happy

01:34:28.100 | to basically ignore everything else

01:34:29.920 | and just focus on my wife and my children and my own life.

01:34:33.160 | Pretty happy to do that.

01:34:34.660 | I'm not the one bringing this stuff up.

01:34:38.800 | And I think I'm just speaking here,

01:34:40.200 | if you wonder why, and we often get the questions,

01:34:43.960 | Christians, why do you Christians talk about sex so much?

01:34:47.560 | I didn't put sex on the front page of the newspaper.

01:34:49.720 | I am putting it here, obviously.

01:34:51.840 | It was one episode out of 500 or whatever

01:34:54.260 | on Radical Personal Finance.

01:34:56.080 | But I didn't put it on the front page of the newspaper.

01:34:59.160 | But whatever's there, we gotta deal with.

01:35:01.200 | Thank you very much for listening.

01:35:04.640 | I hope that you've sensed, just my heart for you,

01:35:08.840 | my desire to, together, see justice accomplished,

01:35:13.080 | see victims exonerated, to see the immoral

01:35:18.080 | and the sinners and the criminals face

01:35:22.300 | the proper judgment for their behavior,

01:35:25.400 | and to see, collectively, to see us move forward

01:35:28.600 | into lives filled with justice and with peace on all sides,

01:35:33.080 | where people are protected from predators

01:35:37.320 | and where people are honored for the,

01:35:41.160 | I can't do anything but use the language,

01:35:47.080 | the Christian language, the Bible language,

01:35:48.840 | because it's the only thing that connects these things.

01:35:51.520 | I wanna see you honored as an image-bearer of God.

01:35:57.720 | And I wanna see your worth protected and respected,

01:36:02.200 | and to see you honored and lifted up in dignity.

01:36:04.960 | That's what I wanna see.

01:36:08.880 | Thank you for listening.

01:36:12.840 | - [Announcer] Struggling with your electric bill?

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01:36:18.400 | You may qualify for an 18% discount.

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RPF0501-Protect_From_Sexual_Scandal