There was a video clip recently posted on Instagram by Jackie Hill Perry, who is a wife and a mom, a poet and a hip hop artist, and of course, a guest writer for us at Desiring God. We are fans of her work, and the clip that she posted is a really bold and insightful word to married couples.

I'll play the audio for you, Pastor John, and then I want to get your thoughts. Here's the clip. Question. How often are you honest with your spouse about your lustful temptation? When it comes to men, I think it might be two reasons why they might be unwilling to share with their wives about their struggle.

One, they like it. They enjoy entertaining the fact that other women want them, or the ideas that pop up in their minds about what they could do with other women. That is a heart issue. Two, you women too insecure to take it. Every time this man want to let you in on what he's struggling with, you want to get in your feeling.

So what you trying to say, you was thinking about another woman, and she was in your dreams? So you telling me I'm not worth dreaming about now? Girl, calm down. You should let the fact that he let you in on his heart give you security, and the reassurance that he loves you.

Letting our spouses in on our issue gives them the opportunity to hold us accountable and pray for us, and it uproots any opportunity for Satan to wreak havoc on our marriages through secrets. She gets to the point, doesn't she? Pastor John, any thoughts that you would add to this discussion?

Jackie Hill Perry is very thoughtful. She's a thoughtful young woman, and it's manifest in this penetrating analysis into a man's love affair with lust, and a woman's fears of letting her man talk to her about it. She isn't just blowing steam here. She's seeing, seeing through and seeing into, and that's a great gift that every Christian should aspire to.

Another thing, as I listened, that makes these couple minutes compelling is that she's balanced. She goes after both men and women in their respective sins and weaknesses. She's not just harping on the man or harping on the woman. It takes two to tango, and it takes two to play hide and seek, especially hide, and she gets that right.

The third thing that I thought of as I listened that adds depth to what she says is that she takes Satan seriously. There are a lot of people who don't even believe in Satan, and they're Christians who never give serious thought to how deceptive and destructive his designs are.

Jackie draws our attention to the truth that Satan works in the dark. He's like roaches. You turn the light on, he goes away. You keep the light off, he might run right up your leg. When Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, 11 that we are not ignorant of Satan's designs, he was referring to the unwillingness to forgive.

That's a field day. That's a dark kitchen for the roach of Satan. Maybe there, however, is a kitchen that is darker than the kitchen of unforgiveness, and that would be the kitchen that is so dark nobody even knows there's a need to be forgiven. At one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Walk as children of the light, Ephesians 5.8, or as James says, James 5.16, confess your sins to one another, and surely Jackie's onto something with husbands and wives here in applying it to that relationship. Confess your sins to one another that you may be healed. She would add, and I would add, that Satan might not get the upper hand in your relationship through all the darkness of unconfessed sin that you don't even know about.

If I would add anything to what Jackie says, I might say to the guys, Jackie stressed lustful thoughts in which you think about doing things with other women. Don't let yourself off the hook if you say, "Well, I don't fantasize about doing things with other women. I just fantasize about seeing things." Jesus said, "Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery in his heart." So the question is, is that woman in your head your wife?

That's the question. And the last thing that I would add is this. If there's going to be enough deep security and strength in this woman's heart and the man's heart, I would say, to welcome this kind of honesty that she's commending, then both of them will need to lay some pretty massive foundations of Christ-centered commitment beforehand.

And I mean like rock solid, unshakable, blood-bought, spirit-dependent, Bible-saturated commitment. Namely, divorce by either one of us is not an option. Noelle and I, my wife and I, said that divorce is not an option to each other over the last 47 years, many times. And in our darkest, stormiest seasons, we knew there was hope to get through the storm because we had promised, "Nobody's jumping out of this plane." So thank you, Jackie, for wise and penetrating words.

I hope they bear much fruit. Yes, amen. Thank you. And thank you, Jackie, for this and for your online ministry. You're really serving the church well. And thank you, Pastor John, for your thoughts here as well, too. On Wednesday, we return, and we're going to talk about the Old Testament and how to interpret it.

Specifically, what promises of God to Israel apply to us as contemporary American and Western readers of the Bible today? It's a question readers for ages have been asking and wrestling with, and we will talk more about it on Wednesday. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. you you you you you you