Ryan Swanson: Hello and welcome back to the Satisfied podcast.

This is Ryan Swanson and we’re jumping back into our series here. first off let me just say a quick word of big news on the street here in menominee falls wisconsin right now is as you probably have heard that janna van gelderen did go ahead and marry judson schultz and so now janna and judson schultz are beginning their life in ministry together and from satisfied ministries to faith talks we just want to wish them a congratulations i’m I’m curious on how long it’s going to be before Judson makes it on the Faith Talks podcast.

I have a feeling it won’t be too long, but we will see.

I’m not sure if that’s been a dream of his getting on that program or not, but I can see an interview coming before long, so maybe you want to reach out to Jana or Anna Faith there and request that if you’d like to hear their story or something on that podcast.

But anyways, we’re jumping in back to our series, as I mentioned, And excited about this, we’ve been looking at the three things that are required before someone falls or has a relapse in lust.

We’ve called the series The Prerequisites of Pornography.

And last month we looked at the area of isolation.

We looked at the problem of being alone.

Woe to him that is alone when he falleth, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 4.

And of course the threefold cord is not quickly broken.

So we discussed that in that last podcast.

But now we’re looking at availability.

Today, a discussion of availability will be in Proverbs chapter 5.

Proverbs chapter 5, a chapter that, as you know, Solomon spends warning his sons against what he calls the strange woman, and we could just say is referring to the lust of the flesh in this case, for men or for women.

The principles are the same here.

And I’m going to read starting in verse number 7.

He says, Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

He’s saying, listen up, this is a big deal.

In verse 8, Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house.

Of course, speaking of the strange woman once again, he doesn’t just say, don’t go in her house.

No, he doesn’t even just say, don’t knock on her door.

He says, don’t get anywhere near her door.

And of course, at that point, Solomon’s sons could have been saying, well, what’s wrong with the door?

I don’t know that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with the door.

And that question that we ask ourselves so often when we hear preaching on a certain application of the principle in this passage, we’ll say, well, what’s really wrong with YouTube?

Or what’s really wrong with Facebook?

And that principle should be so clearly seen here in this passage, to realize that is the wrong question.

But first off, can we just take a step back and kind of picture this as Solomon is giving this instruction to his sons?

Can you picture what’s going on here?

He’s saying that pornography is available, but you have to essentially cross town to get to it.

And that’s how it was in that day, evidently.

If you wanted to view pornography, you had to go there.

You had to cross town and knock on her door.

It’s a different day in which we live, isn’t it?

I think we’ve got to recognize that point from reading this passage.

It’s a different day in which we live.

It’s not that the battle of lust is a new battle.

Again, the principles are the same, but it is a different battle than ever before.

The biggest difference between what Solomon is, the instruction he’s giving here, and the application he’s giving his sons, and the application we have today, the biggest difference is the change in one area, and that is availability.

What used to be available for only those who would sneak out of the house, cross town, and get from the source, nowadays this strange woman, as she’s called, is literally in our pockets.

She’s on any computer we can access.

She’s literally floating around in the cell phone signals and Wi-Fi signals that are all around us.

I mean, the availability is infinite.

At almost any given moment, you can have access.

It’s a scary thought, and it’s a different day in which we live.

So if anything, as we read through the principle here, it should only be applied even more so today, even to a more extreme degree, I believe, because of the prevalence of the temptations that we’re facing today.

So again, back to the picture here.

Solomon is saying in verse 8, Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh.

Don’t get even close to the door of her house.

Most of the time when we find ourselves in her house, in other words, we’ve had a relapse, we’ve fallen in some way in regards to our purity, and so we’ve stumbled, we’d have a compromise and we have found ourselves in her house and we somehow can’t believe that we made it there again and we say, I’ll never do this again, I don’t know how that happened.

And so we go back home but then we find ourselves never strategizing or asking the question, what did I do to get to this place?

Or what decisions could I make and steps could I take to be sure I never get to this side of town again? somehow we’ve got to stay on our side of town.

So if we instead, then we’ll actually ask that question how did I get to this place?

How did I get to her door?

How did I get inside?

And probably what you’ll find is look around on that side of town.

What other things are over there?

You might see a theater on one side of her house called YouTube.

You might on the other side of the house see a social center called Facebook or Instagram.

And these things that we think, what’s really wrong?

Is there a Bible verse against YouTube?

Is there a passage of scripture that says you cannot go on Facebook?

Again, totally the wrong question.

The fact is, you have probably found yourself going to those things, or it could be something different, that is close to her house.

And by venturing that close, you have found yourself then being tempted with the strange woman’s house, which is right next door.

And I want to make this clear.

This isn’t a message against YouTube.

It’s not a podcast against Instagram or Facebook.

You have to decide for yourself what those things are that are on either side of her house.

Because they’re going to be different for each one of us.

Now, I think there could be some things that are just off limits and would be ridiculous and very unwise for anyone.

But instead of just saying Solomon’s preaching against YouTube, I want you to ask yourself, when you fall, how did you get there?

What were you just visiting?

What are you next door to in that case?

How did you get there?

Because whatever area that is, that now becomes sin.

The command in this passage is to not get anywhere close.

That’s what it is.

So what things are close and what is drawing you to that side of town?

You’ve got to steer clear.

So, I mean, that could be done, first of all, as we just stated, by setting up some boundaries on things we’re not going to do.

We’re not going to be, maybe for you, it’s not going to be, I’m not on Facebook on my phone.

I don’t have the Facebook app on my phone.

I don’t have the Instagram app on my phone.

So that might be, I don’t have the YouTube app on my phone.

Maybe that’s a big deal in the step that God wants you to take in that way, to be sure you stay on your side of town.

However, what if you’re on the internet and you use it for work or for research for school and there’s just so much filth available there at all times at your fingertips, what could be a helpful way to minimize the availability of that moment?

Well, of course, an internet filter.

Covenant Eyes, accountable to you, I’m more familiar with Covenant Eyes, but I’ve heard great things about Accountable to You, and there’s others as well.

And these things, by the way, are not replaced by the court app.

I use the court app.

I still use Covenant Eyes.

I think the court app is focusing on the area of isolation and maintaining that daily accountability with other individuals.

But the Covenant Eyes and Accountable to You, those are focused on the availability.

They’re cutting back on the access that you have at any given moment.

Now, whenever I bring up filters, inevitably there’s a conversation that ensues.

Someone’s saying, yeah, but you can get around any filter, so it doesn’t really do anything.

I want to challenge our thinking on what exactly is the purpose of an internet filter.

What is the purpose?

Years ago, my family had a storage unit that we were renting while we were in between a move. and I remember my dad needing a lock.

He needed to purchase a padlock to put on the outside of that storage unit.

So we went to Home Depot.

We went over to the aisle that had several racks there on the wall of locks and he called over a Home Depot associate and just simply said, I’ve got a storage unit.

I need you to recommend a lock to me that would keep someone out of my storage unit.

And the man immediately said, I’m sorry, sir, we don’t sell something like that here.

And my dad was surprised, and I was too, of course, because we’re looking at a wall of these locks.

Some of them look pretty beefy.

But he said, we don’t sell something like that here.

My dad said, what do you mean?

He said, sir, locks are to keep the innocent people out.

Somebody that might have seen you unloading all of your earthly possessions into the storage unit and then walk away without putting a padlock on it.

And now they’re standing there looking, knowing what’s inside and notice that it wasn’t locked.

Now they didn’t come here looking to steal something, but at that moment, they might be tempted.

You see, locks are to keep the innocent people out.

It’s to keep that from being a temptation to somebody.

But he said, look, if somebody wants to break in to your storage unit, they’re going to come prepared.

They’re going to come with their bolt cutters or their angle grinder or their, I don’t know, jaws of life to cut this thing open.

And they’re going to get it open.

It’s just there’s nothing at that point you can do to stop it with a lock.

And I think that is an incredible picture of what we’re talking about right here with filters.

The purpose of an internet filter is not to make it impossible for you to access filth on the internet.

In fact, it’s a dangerous thing if that’s your goal because you’re going to be just focused on your victory is contingent upon getting a filter that is so tight and so strong and just so impeccable that you can never find a way through it.

And so then you’ll have victory.

And of course, that’s just not going to happen.

There’s always going to be a way around it.

It’s not the purpose of the filter.

The filter is to keep the innocent people out.

There’s two things I want to focus on for a purpose of a filter.

But the first one we could say is to minimize temptation.

It’s to protect you in times where you’re not searching for it.

You’re not going out of your way, but a filter’s there to minimize things from popping up.

I think a good way to, a good principle to keep in mind is just don’t let someone else decide what you look at.

That’s the dangerous thing about these reels and shorts and that kind of thing that has become so popular on YouTube and social media is you’re just flipping through over and over and allowing an algorithm to decide based on your demographic what you like to see.

That is a very dangerous thing, especially if you’re a young person, young man especially, they assume that you want to see immorality.

And so although much of the algorithm is focused on things that you’ve seen in the past and showing you things that they think you’d be interested based on your search history.

Another part of the algorithm, as you undoubtedly know, is just things that they think will appeal to you as a young man or a young lady that could be sensual in that case.

So relying on an algorithm, I’m telling you that my purity means too much to me to wage it on the algorithm that some secular company can come up with.

In other words, sitting there flipping through reels or YouTube shorts is very, very unwise.

You’re allowing someone else to choose what goes before your eyes.

Back years ago, the equivalent would have been channel surfing.

And of course, you know, that was never something that was wise, sitting at a TV with cable internet and just getting on the channel clicker and browsing through, letting someone else choose what goes before your eyes.

So the first purpose of an internet filter then is to minimize temptation.

We have all the reason in the world to put guards and tools in place that can help protect us from those temptations that we know are going to be there looking for us.

But the second reason I think you should have a filter is even for somebody that you really don’t think you’re going to be tempted.

I mean, This might be someone that’s already been on a purity journey, and maybe they’ve arrived at, I don’t want to use that word arrived, I guess, but maybe they’ve reached a point where they really don’t feel that they’re going to be tempted by something that comes up.

Now, I’m not even sure that I’ve talked to someone at that point, but maybe that’s you, and you’re just not worried about really being tempted at all. there’s a billboard that I saw at one point that was by a filter company I may have mentioned this on a podcast a couple years ago but it was by a water filtration company and had a very simple byline up there on the billboard it said this buy a filter or be a filter and it had a picture as I recall of a boy drinking straight out of the water faucet.

Now, obviously, the idea is there that there’s always going to be a filter.

Something is going to catch the impurities that are coming through in the water.

It’s either you put a filter on your house and catch them before they get to you, or you become the filter as those impurities come out in your own system as you ingest that water.

So to somebody that says either, you know, I’ve reached a point where I’m really not concerned about temptation, so I don’t need a filter.

Or to someone that has, by God’s grace, protected their innocence.

They’re still maintaining their innocence and have not yet really been awakened to some of these deep desires.

For both of those cases, I think it’s equally as important for the second purpose of a filter, and that is to guard innocence. the first purpose was to minimize temptation but if even for someone that’s saying I’m not really worried about being tempted in this way I’m not sure that I really need to buy a filter to put on my devices but I think that principle man, you either buy a filter or you’re going to become a filter and your innocence is going to be lost quite quickly as the devil is going to start throwing stuff your way buy a filter to minimize temptation and by a filter to guard your innocence.

Now, could somebody just say, you know, really the answer for me is just to not use a smartphone or to not own a computer or to not be on the internet?

Well, absolutely.

And I’ve known men that have taken that standpoint and I respect that.

That’s awesome.

I think the things we’re discussing now are applications to fit a broader spectrum of individuals and I think a filter is a good resource for that.

But if the Lord’s specifically leading you to just be done with some of those areas of technology, then I’m all about that.

And of course, do not say no to the Holy Spirit in that area.

Maybe you’re a teenager that has a smartphone that ever since you’ve got it, though there’s been certain things that you’ve used it for that have been helpful to have GPS, to have your email, and these different things, you know, there’s always another way to do that, of course.

And as your parents would say, we did it for years.

Without a smartphone, you can do it too, right?

Heard that before?

And even though you may be holding one right now, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessary, and it doesn’t mean that the Lord couldn’t lead you to give that up and go backwards, as it were, to a dumb phone and be helped in that way.

So I just want to throw that out there.

Again, I’ve known guys that that was the step that the Lord led them to and that very, very well could be for several listening to this podcast.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

I would say if the step of an internet filter is not what God’s leading you to, then the only other option I could see would be him saying, let’s be done with this technology for a while and just kind of go on more of a detox from this type of availability.

Now, again, that’s not totally going to solve the issue.

Again, that’s not the purpose of minimizing the availability in this way.

And there’s always going to be somewhere else you could go for it, even with that step.

The point is, take the step the Lord is leading you to at this moment.

Take the step.

It’s a different day in which we live.

But again, the principle from Proverbs chapter 5 is the same.

We have to be willing, through whatever means necessary, no matter what we need to give up, we cannot allow ourselves to be on her side of town.

And let me end with this final principle here.

I think many of us in a discussion of purity have some reserves.

In other words, we understand that there could be a lot of application that comes from a discussion of purity, and it scares us a little bit.

And every time we discuss it with our parents or a pastor, we’re worried about the application that’s going to be prescribed.

And so generally we come to the table in a discussion of purity with certain things that we are willing to give up and certain things that we are not.

Certain things that we could see changing and we are willing to do and other things that we’re just not there.

And the principle from this passage in Proverbs chapter 5 is no matter what it is on that side of town, it’s not worth it.

We’ve got to come to the table and say, Lord, whatever you put your finger on, essentially everything’s on the table.

My phone’s on the table.

My computer’s on the table.

My time is on the table.

My social media, my YouTube time, all of these things are on the table.

And Holy Spirit, if you put your finger on anyone or all of them, they’re gone.

Because I am not going to risk my purity and integrity on the frivolities of this world.

It’s not going to happen.

But I think if you are willing to give the Holy Spirit permission to any aspect of your life and to point things out that are leading you in that wrong direction, that are leading you to that side of town, you’re going to be in a good place.

And I can promise you, he’s going to start pointing his finger and he’s going to show you just what it is.

And that’s good news, not bad news.

He’s going to show you what needs to change, if you’re willing, if you put it all out there on the table.

So in conclusion, as we look at this category of availability, there may be certain things that you just need to give up.

And the Holy Spirit is going to show you what things are drawing you to that side of town.

But then maybe there’s an application the Holy Spirit wants you to take by installing a filter, covenantized, accountable to you, something like that on your devices to minimize the temptation and to guard your innocence.

The principle is very clearly seen in this passage in Proverbs chapter 5 and it’s also seen in other passages we’ve discussed in the past such as Romans 13, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.

In an age where the availability of pornography is near infinite, we need to stop setting ourselves up for failure and start taking drastic steps to set ourselves up for victory.

So ask the Lord what that step would look like for you and of course be obedient in whatever He calls you to do as you continue your journey to be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Thee Generation Podcast.

If you’ve been blessed or helped in any way by this episode or any other episodes, please consider sharing what God has done in your life.

Your testimony could be exactly what someone else needs to take their own step out of the boat.

To share your testimony, please visit thegeneration.org. slash testimony.