A friend of the podcast who wishes to remain anonymous writes in, "Hello Pastor John. I'm a listener in the Middle East. I slept with my girlfriend two days ago, and now we are both left hurt and feeling dirty, cheap, and ashamed. We cannot even look at ourselves. We're both born-again believers in Christ, but we got lured into temptation.

Is there any hope that we might become pure again and be healed from our sin? I know the blood of Jesus covers every sin, but how can we get back our relationship's purity again, or is that permanently gone? What do we do now?" I think this young man from the Middle East is beginning in the right place.

He is, it seems, appropriately shattered, meaning something has been irrevocably lost. He and his girlfriend will never be able to go behind this sexual encounter and undo it. They have lost something very precious. And I begin this way, even though it may sound hard, because I feel a tender and jealous concern for those who are listening who have not lost their virginity.

It is a very precious thing for men and women. The world views it as weakness. Silly, in fact. God views it as a very great strength and beauty beyond compare. And I am just as eager to help listeners maintain their sexual purity and virginity before they lose it as I am to help those who've lost it recover the purity that Christ makes possible.

So that's why I'm beginning the way I'm beginning. So I think this young man is beginning in the right place. He's broken. He knows that a beautiful thing has been lost, and he knows that the blood of Jesus covers every sin. So this is a good place to begin.

Those who take their sins lightly and treat the blood of Jesus as a kind of quick fix, they've never seen the true costliness of what Jesus did to purchase their purity. So let me simply make a few observations that might prove redemptive and, I hope, hope-giving to our friend from the Middle East and his girlfriend.

Number one, I would simply draw attention to what he already knows, only put it in biblical words, 1 Corinthians 6.18, "Flee fornication." God's will for unmarried people is that they abstain from sexual relations. And God makes this possible by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in His promises, and He gives sweet and special rewards to single people who honor Him in this way.

Marriage has its special rewards for faithfulness, and singleness, chaste, holy singleness has its special rewards for faithfulness. Married people can glorify God in some ways that single people can't, and single people can glorify God in some ways that married people can't. This is not a matter of inferiority or superiority.

Singleness and chastity are a very high calling in God's mind. That's the first thing. Second, I would say our friend, and he already knows this, but again, I want to put it in the words of Scripture so he can hear it from Christ and not just from me, should hear, "Truly I say to you," this is Mark 3:28, "Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness." Now let's leave aside for a moment what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.

That's for another time. But let us simply, and I mean all of us, with tears of thankfulness, with trembling joy, let us revel in these words, "All sins will be forgiven the children of man." That is breathtaking. Can you imagine anything sweeter for a person like the thief on the cross?

Nothing but sin, nothing but sin for who knows how many decades. In other words, there is no specific single sin or kind of sin that's so ugly, so gross, so offensive to God that it cannot be forgiven by the blood of Jesus. As John puts it, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from," here it comes, "all, all unrighteousness." So that's the second thing.

Third thing to say, it will be a huge challenge for this couple now in this situation to forgive each other, not just to receive God's forgiveness, but to receive each other's forgiveness. Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." But that is no easy thing.

And I just want to help them realize how difficult this is going to be so that they won't give up too quick. What makes it difficult to forgive each other in this particular situation is not only that we are all proud and selfish people and we don't like to humble ourselves before others, but it's also because that in this situation, there is a subtle temptation to shift blame onto the other person that belongs at least partly with yourself.

So while this young man may feel shame and conviction that he did not take more responsibility for chastity as the masculine leader and initiator, he may subtly be saying to himself that she was kind of seductive and she could have helped him stop, and she didn't. And thus he begins to shift blame onto her.

And she may be doing the very same thing. She may feel shame and conviction that she was too compliant or maybe even seductive, and she didn't resist when she should have. But she might begin to shift more blame onto him and find fault that he didn't protect her. And in that moment of temptation, in other words, mutual forgiveness is no simple matter.

Because for forgiveness to be full and complete and real, there needs to be confession and repentance that is authentic and lasting. Both need to own completely their own fault in this. And both indeed are at fault in this. Yes, they are. And both need to be willing to confess their part in this, even at the risk of the other person taking advantage of them and putting more blame on them than they should have.

So you can see that what's needed here is not only the grace of forgiveness, but the grace to risk being taken advantage of, the grace to risk bearing more accusation than you think appropriate, the grace to treat another person better than you are being treated, you think, the grace to stay low before the cross when the temptation to rise and feel superior, even superior for that your repentance is better.

So mutual forgiveness is very complex and grace is needed at every turn. And the fourth thing I would say is that in view of all the imperfections of human life and all the ambiguity surrounding mutual forgiveness, there will need to be a huge experience of the reality behind the old fashioned word forbearance.

Forbearance is what you do when forgiveness has not remedied all the tensions between you. You think the other person should have done more. You think they should have changed more. You think they should have repented more. They haven't done what your gut says they should do. So you can either walk away from that relationship that's destroyed a million marriages, or you can forbear, that is, put up with, endure.

I mean, the Bible talks this way. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, "Love bears all things, believes all things, endures." I mean, he says it twice, bears all things, endures all things. And the key passage, I think, on this matter of forbearance is Colossians 3, 12 and 13 goes like this, "Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience," and here it is, "forbearing one another," or it could translate it, "enduring or bearing with one another.

If anyone has complaint, forgiving one another," and so on. So forgive and forbear, forgive and forbear. And the fifth thing I would say to our friend there struggling in the Middle East with this mess that they've made, the restoration of trust takes time. It is possible to forgive someone and yet not trust them fully.

Trust is earned. Forgiveness is not. We trust someone because they've proved to be trustworthy, not because they say they're trustworthy, which means that when we have broken trust, which they have, both of them, it will take time to establish confidence in our character. So be patient with one another and be honest about this.

It's very painful to look a person in the eye and say, "I don't know if I can fully trust you yet." I mean, that's enough to destroy a relationship. But to be dishonest, to try to preserve the relationship, that will wreak havoc in the long run. And the last thing I would say is just a great gospel word of hope.

Yes, purity is possible again. Yes, forgiveness is possible. Yes, forbearance is possible. Yes, trust is possible. So here's the key. Beautiful, beautiful text. 1 Corinthians 6, 9. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." And here it comes.

"And such were some of you." "Were." That can be spoken over you. I'm talking to you, this couple now, who may be listening to this together. That can be spoken over you. "Such were you were sexually immoral. Such were some of you. But you were washed. You were sanctified.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God." Amen. Thank you, Pastor John, for that balanced word of conviction and hope. These are the tricky pastoral questions that we've been tackling on the podcast for over 800 episodes now. And all of those episodes are available online.

For more information and to download our apps and to search our archive of all the past episodes, find us online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with author and longtime pastor, John Piper.