My Husband Is Okay with Racy Scenes

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - A wife writes in to ask this,

00:00:07.120 | "Pastor John, I and my husband cannot reach an agreement

00:00:09.520 | "about a certain thing, so we have decided to ask you.

00:00:12.260 | "I can't stand when we watch a movie

00:00:14.480 | "and there are scenes with naked women.

00:00:16.440 | "I know that he doesn't lust for them

00:00:18.460 | "and he doesn't fantasize about them,

00:00:19.920 | "but it just bothers me when he sees other women.

00:00:22.160 | "So the question is simply this,

00:00:23.600 | "is my husband obligated to give up movies

00:00:25.860 | "with sexual or nude scenes if I don't like it

00:00:28.060 | "because I'm jealous?"

00:00:29.600 | - Yes. (laughs)

00:00:32.940 | But I don't wanna start there, even though I just did,

00:00:35.980 | because I put the emphasis in the wrong place

00:00:39.940 | by making him do it because she's ticked.

00:00:43.880 | That's not the right motive.

00:00:45.940 | First of all, I would want to know,

00:00:50.480 | is your husband a believer?

00:00:52.120 | Sounds like he is, but is he a believer?

00:00:54.840 | Does he want to honor Christ above all?

00:00:58.680 | Does he want his mind and heart to be pure

00:01:03.380 | and full of what is true and honorable and just

00:01:06.380 | and pure and lovely and commendable and excellent

00:01:08.840 | and worthy of praise, Philippians 4:8.

00:01:11.780 | Does he believe that sin killed Jesus,

00:01:16.380 | that this woman taking off her clothes

00:01:20.380 | in order to make a movie more racy

00:01:24.740 | and get a lower rating and a higher attendance,

00:01:29.400 | that that sin killed Jesus?

00:01:33.020 | Is he okay with that?

00:01:34.800 | Okay watching that, okay endorsing that,

00:01:37.020 | okay making light of that.

00:01:39.080 | And does he realize that Jesus died to kill sin?

00:01:41.600 | So this sin killed Jesus and Jesus died to kill this sin

00:01:45.700 | and here you are playing with it as though it doesn't matter.

00:01:48.040 | Does he agree with that?

00:01:49.240 | So that would be my starting point.

00:01:52.440 | And if he's a believer, I would say he is obligated

00:01:57.440 | to give up these movies, not first for the wife's sake,

00:02:02.640 | but for Christ's sake.

00:02:04.120 | Both of you, I would say to her,

00:02:07.560 | both of you should disapprove of these scenes

00:02:11.480 | other than jealousy.

00:02:13.420 | These scenes should not be watched for other reasons

00:02:20.680 | like they're unloving, they're unloving to the women

00:02:25.680 | because watching these scenes, buying these movies,

00:02:32.200 | paying to go see them endorses de facto,

00:02:37.200 | endorses behaviors and desires in those scenes,

00:02:42.040 | those women that are going to destroy them.

00:02:44.880 | If the woman who's performing nudely for a living

00:02:48.960 | doesn't repent of that, she's gonna go to hell.

00:02:53.480 | Here you are saying it's okay to buy, to watch it.

00:02:58.860 | It's unloving to that woman's future husband

00:03:04.760 | or if she has a husband because it's gonna make life harder

00:03:09.520 | for her to have a normal, wholesome, sexual relationship

00:03:14.040 | having stripped herself bare for so many men

00:03:17.320 | and been touched in so many ways

00:03:19.400 | that nothing seems sacred and pure and precious anymore

00:03:24.400 | for her husband.

00:03:25.780 | And I've thought of this so many times

00:03:29.520 | as I've wrestled with what do I let myself watch?

00:03:34.200 | I have a daughter.

00:03:36.000 | If my daughter decided that she was going to sell her body

00:03:41.000 | to be looked at by men in movies or at a strip show

00:03:48.240 | my heart would be broken, which means that all those men

00:03:52.360 | who endorse that, pay for that, encourage that

00:03:54.760 | and enjoy that don't give a rip for me and my broken heart.

00:03:58.800 | So it's just so unloving to glide through these scenes

00:04:03.800 | as though they weren't massively important for life

00:04:09.080 | and they're just plain adulterous.

00:04:10.960 | I mean, this wife is naive, I think,

00:04:13.160 | if she thinks that these scenes in her husband's head

00:04:18.160 | have no relationship to how he relates to her.

00:04:21.600 | That's crazy.

00:04:23.040 | That means every time he's lying with her

00:04:26.200 | he's got competitors in his brain, he does.

00:04:29.160 | And the more he has watched, the more competitors he has.

00:04:32.920 | And if she happens to be not cool that night

00:04:35.080 | he'll just switch gears and go into one of those scenes

00:04:38.800 | and that's the way he'll have his stimulation.

00:04:40.920 | That's adultery.

00:04:42.640 | And so I think she needs to wake up to the fact

00:04:46.520 | that he may say, "Oh, I'm not lusting or whatever."

00:04:49.480 | They're there and they're locked down there

00:04:52.560 | and they'll be there in years to come.

00:04:54.880 | And he'll use them in 40 years, if not tomorrow

00:04:58.720 | when she's not so pretty.

00:05:01.000 | And they're just destructive to a man's soul.

00:05:04.880 | Our souls shrink to the kind of pleasures

00:05:09.400 | we're indulging in.

00:05:10.920 | This man's not gonna be able to read his Bible as sweetly.

00:05:14.120 | He's not gonna enjoy the fellowship of God as sweetly.

00:05:16.880 | He's not gonna look at sunsets the same

00:05:18.840 | and he's not gonna look at little babies the same.

00:05:21.520 | His soul has always got this defilement

00:05:25.120 | that he's cherishing in there

00:05:26.920 | because he thinks it's no big deal.

00:05:28.600 | And that is going to push out bigger, nobler,

00:05:32.300 | more beautiful things.

00:05:34.080 | So I think lastly, he should really care

00:05:37.800 | about what his wife thinks.

00:05:40.440 | And if his wife is being wounded by this,

00:05:43.520 | if she can't quite articulate what it is,

00:05:46.080 | she just knows this is not right.

00:05:48.240 | I think she is intuitively wholesome and he's a jerk

00:05:53.240 | if he doesn't get this.

00:05:54.600 | And he needs to listen to John Piper, read his Bible,

00:05:58.320 | look to Jesus in the cross

00:05:59.960 | and realize that sinning on that screen.

00:06:03.440 | And I don't just mean the play acting sinning in the movie.

00:06:07.500 | I don't even know if it is.

00:06:09.600 | I mean the sinning in the studio

00:06:12.320 | where this woman created in God's image

00:06:14.680 | is walking around naked, being gawked at by cameraman

00:06:18.600 | and being told by directors how to slant

00:06:22.000 | this part of her body and that part of her body.

00:06:24.360 | That whole scene of sin right there

00:06:27.880 | is something that he should be deeply offended by

00:06:32.880 | and profoundly broken hearted by for the woman herself

00:06:38.800 | and for her parents and for her husband

00:06:40.920 | and for the whole beauty of Christ that he made sex for,

00:06:45.600 | which is being so prostituted there on the screen.

00:06:48.320 | It's not a spectator sport.

00:06:50.240 | - Thank you, Pastor John.

00:06:52.280 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.

00:06:54.160 | Email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org

00:06:57.680 | and visit us online at desiringgod.org

00:07:00.600 | to find thousands of free books, articles, sermons

00:07:02.800 | and other resources from John Piper.

00:07:04.660 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:07:05.620 | Thanks for listening.

00:07:06.680 | (upbeat music)

00:07:09.260 | (upbeat music)

00:07:11.840 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

My Husband Is Okay with Racy Scenes — I Hate It

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