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Hey, Brian here, editor and mixer of this podcast, and before we jump into this episode,

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I wanted to give you a heads up that it's going to contain some mature subject matter

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around the topic of lust and how Jesus taught about sexual integrity.

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If this kind of discussion would not be beneficial or maybe not age appropriate to everyone you're

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listening with, then you might want to skip this one.

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Hey, I'm Matt Brownell, and I'm Van Owens, and I'm Tim Adams.

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Welcome to Climbing the Mountain, where we dive into the scriptures and discuss themes,

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connections, and real life application.

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We're kicking off a series here where we're going to examine the sermon on the mount and discuss

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implications for this teaching for Christians today.

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Perhaps we should begin with a disclaimer before this discussion.

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The subject matter is mature.

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We're going to consider Jesus' teaching concerning lust, found in Matthew 5:27-30.

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Maybe just below greed and love of money, lust is one of the top sins of our society.

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Temptations to lust are all around us.

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Pornography is becoming more and more mainstream, reaching children at a younger and younger age.

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It's already one of the biggest industries in the United States, larger than the combined revenues

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of the major TV networks.

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More than the revenues of the big three sports, MLB, NFL, and NBA combined.

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It's more than a $13 billion industry in the US and over $97 billion worldwide.

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It's estimated that 12% of all content on the internet is pornographic and that roughly

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$3,000 are spent on porn every second.

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A new porn movie is produced every 39 minutes.

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So anyway you look at it, and I hope you don't, lust is a huge industry in the US and doesn't

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show any signs of slowing.

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Millions are addicted to it.

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And this is a sin that loves darkness too.

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With the rise of smartphones and 5G networks, porn is more convenient than ever.

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Gone are the embarrassing days of having to go somewhere public like an X-rated theater.

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You can take porn anywhere.

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And people are so enslaved to it now that some are even watching it during the middle

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of the day at work.

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Porn is a huge issue that has impacted the lives of millions of people and continues

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to impact people, especially as they stay in darkness about it.

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So I'm very glad we're shedding light on lust.

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Let's begin by reading the text.

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And to remind us here the context is Jesus is telling us that our righteousness needs

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to surpass that of the religious Pharisees.

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We need to get to the heart of the law.

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And here's part of how we do it.

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You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery.

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But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed

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adultery with her in his heart.

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If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.

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For it's better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into

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hell.

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And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

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For it's better that you lose one of your members than your whole body going to hell.

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First off, despite that introduction, this scripture is not just about pornography.

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Jesus says that even if you look at anyone with lust in your heart, it's as bad as committing

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adultery.

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Someone walks down the street and you desire them, it's as bad as adultery.

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So I want to start with the perception that some have that, you know, maybe lust isn't

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such a bad thing, right?

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Look but don't touch.

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I'm not doing any harm.

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That's the big problem.

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It's actually probably good that I'm giving into lust and masturbating in private because

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it means I'm not acting on those thoughts in public and potentially hurting someone

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or freaking them out or whatever.

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But if we look at Jesus' words here, he doesn't think of lust the same way, does he?

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He calls out looking at someone with lustful intent.

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He calls out sinning with your eye and sinning with your hand and he says that leads to hell.

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So first thing we are presented with is a huge dissonance between what the world is

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telling us and what Jesus says.

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The world tells us that there's so many more important things to worry about like war,

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famine, poverty, homelessness, water scarcity, natural resources, and habitat depletion,

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politics.

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You name it.

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It's not that these things aren't important too, but it's not what Jesus is saying when

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he's talking about lust.

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So are we making a mountain out of a molehill here or is Jesus right about how serious lust

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is?

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If so, why do you think lust is so serious?

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Yeah, thanks for that introduction, Matt.

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This is a really...

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It's an intense topic, but it's also a topic that we're very desensitized to in a lot of

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ways because of how pervasive this is in our culture.

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So I'm glad that we get some time today to think about this together and kind of draw

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out what Jesus is talking about here.

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When you're asking this question of, you know, is this really something that's serious?

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You mentioned that perspective of, well, as long as I'm not doing any harm to someone,

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I'd say that's a very common philosophy in our culture because we basically are...

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We have this mentality, we can do whatever we want and you can't tell me what's right.

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And so as long as my actions don't affect other people is the idea, then it's all fine.

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It's all fine and good.

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And what I find interesting is how when Jesus says that lust is like adultery, that he's

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connecting our thought life with our actions.

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And in Mark 7:20-23, Jesus is talking about what makes a person unclean

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and he says what comes out of a person is what defiles them and says, for is from within

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out of a person's heart that evil thoughts come.

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So he says evil thoughts, but then a bunch of the things that come after that are like

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things I'd consider more deeds.

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It's a sexual immorality.

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He says theft.

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He says murder, adultery, etc.

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So he says all those evils come from inside and defile a person.

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But I think in a nutshell, lust is very serious, like Jesus is saying, because it's determining

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what's going on in our thought life and our thought life is inseparable from our actions.

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I really like that connection you made in Mark.

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And there's another, you know, it's in the synoptics, so you see it a couple of times,

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but you know, what goes into you, into your heart, because this is a heart issue.

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That's something that God sees.

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And then it comes back out in all of these other things.

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So you know, when we're lusting, we're playing with fire right there.

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Yeah.

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I think that I appreciate what you said as well, Tim, because when you think of, when

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you think of lust, when you think of even some of these other sins that we've discussed,

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that anger and the hatred, it's, it's virulent.

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It's like a virus.

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And you know, having come out of this time of COVID, the whole world was afraid of something

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that we couldn't see.

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Right?

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And there was all kinds of controversy about wearing masks and not wearing masks and people

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who wore masks or at war with people who refused to wear masks.

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And all over something that with our naked eyes, we cannot see all over something that

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for perhaps most of the history of the human race, we didn't even know was there.

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But it's something that was the topic of every news conversation of every, and it was treated

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very seriously.

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This is something that could kill you and a lot of other people.

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We understand that.

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We understand the context of that.

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We understand a virus.

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And I think that Jesus' extreme words here, I think they're, I think they're

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genius.

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They capture that this is, this is, this is virulent.

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This is something that's a virus that can get into your heart.

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And I love the way that these passages that we're talking about go straight from the heart

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to what the impact is, to what the action is, to what, to what the thing that actually

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causes the damage that we can see.

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And I believe that Jesus uses this kind of extreme language because he knows how we are.

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He knows that we rationalize things away.

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That it's very easy for us to take something that we know either innately in your heart

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or that you've heard from what you've been taught or what you've observed is bad for

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you.

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It's very easy for us to jump from, well, is it really that bad?

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And once we get to, is it really that bad?

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That's a short jump to, well, it's actually okay.

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And it's a short jump from okay to this is actually pretty good.

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And it's a short jump from pretty good to, oh, this is necessary.

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And we can make those jumps very quickly in our minds.

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You bring up the language that Jesus uses here.

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And I want to spend a minute on that.

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But as I was studying for this and for some of the podcasts we're going to be doing, I

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came across something very interesting in how the religious people of that time viewed

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adultery and viewed lust.

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They very, very similarly to Jesus categorized it as something that was on par with adultery

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because it was an internal thing.

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But the only difference was that they didn't connect it with eternal consequences like

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Jesus does here.

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They had a law and what happens if you commit adultery and they deal with that and that

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was very serious.

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But when you're looking at someone lustfully, yeah, that's wrong.

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That's immoral.

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But what Jesus does here is connect it with hell, which is very serious.

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I think we put a premium on taking Jesus at His word.

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In this case, though, should we, I just want to ask, should we really take Him literally?

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For instance, if we pluck out our left eye, don't we still have a right eye with which

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to lust?

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All it seems we've done is maim ourselves.

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If we're not to take Him literally, what is the point He's making?

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Well, I think that this is pretty clearly to me not a passage that you should take literally.

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I think it's pretty clear that there are not many people who would take this passage seriously.

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I don't see a lot of one-eyed, one-handed religious people.

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Maybe some pirates.

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Maybe some pirates.

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Before we get lost in confusion, when you say this passage that we shouldn't be taking

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literally, there's several different sections of this passage.

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Are you guys only talking about the part about cutting your hand off or cutting your eye

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off?

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Yes.

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And it's so why.

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I think the crucial word there in this passage is the if.

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That's a very big if.

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And he says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away.

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And I think that the fact of the matter is it's not your eye that causes you to sin.

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It's not your hand that causes you to sin.

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There's that famous passage in Romans chapter seven that when I read it in the new international

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version, which is mostly the version that I read and study in, it gets very confusing.

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So I read it in the new living translation, which helps me a little bit in Romans chapter

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7:18.

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It says, I know that nothing good lives in me.

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That is in my sinful nature.

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I want to do what is right, but I can't.

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I want to do what is good, but I don't.

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I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.

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But if I do what I don't want to do, I'm not really the one doing it.

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It is sin living in me that does it.

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I've discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably

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do what is wrong.

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I love God's law and with I love God's law with all of my heart, but there is another

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power within me that is at war with my mind.

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The power makes me a slave to sin that is still within me.

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Oh, what a miserable person I am and who will free me from this life that is dominated by

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sin and death.

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And then he says, thank God, the answer is Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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So you see how it is in my mind.

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I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin that

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it's not as simple as my right eye causing me to sin.

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It's not like it's not like my right eye.

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There's something wrong, inherently wrong with my right eye that if I get rid of that,

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I'll stop sinning in some ways.

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Though it's a radical concept that would almost be easier that if it was, if it were, if it

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were a problem with my eyes, then I could just get something done to my eyes, but it's

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not a problem with my eyes, it's deeper than that and it's more intricate than that and

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it's more involved in that and it requires not just my being aware of it, but it requires

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me involving Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit to even identify it sometimes, but

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certainly to deal with it.

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Yeah, that is what you just said reminded me of blessed or the poor in spirit, because

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there are a lot of people that are poor that are not poor in spirit, that are still consumed

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with I want more and it's the same kind of thing.

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It's a hard issue like what you were saying, Tim, right?

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And I think the words that, yeah, I don't think Jesus wants us to literally chop our

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hands off or gouge our eyes out, but I think he's saying such extreme language because

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the point he's making is this will lead you to hell.

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And so it's almost like if you imagine like an animal that's trapped, you know, like it

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got caught in a trap, it will do whatever it needs to do to get itself out.

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It'll even gnaw its own leg off to get out of there because otherwise it'll die.

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And that's the visual I have when I read this, I think, oh my gosh, I have to take this so

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seriously, I have to make every effort because otherwise this will send me to hell.

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Yeah, and I think we have to kind of circle back there and maybe make it more explicit

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of why is our thought life so important?

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You know, our thought life and our actions, I like made the claim that they're connected,

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but like, in what ways are they? Because if that's not a really strong connection, then

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I would say Jesus is being too harsh.

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But if that connection is really intricate and we can see that clearly in a bunch of

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different cases, then what Jesus is saying makes tons of sense because, you know, you're

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going to want to start the transformation of a person, you want to complete the transformation

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of a person at the root of the thing instead of in the symptoms that you're seeing on the

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surface.

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That's a great point too.

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You want to get to, you want to, instead of hacking at branches, you want to get to the

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root.

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That's right.

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What are your thoughts on that?

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So I was, there's kind of two different things that I think about.

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And one is something that you know, Matt, you and I are actually talking about a little

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bit ago off, off whatever we're doing right now.

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So yeah, anyways, we were, we were talking about this idea that my heart is revealed

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when I go through this thought exercise of what would I do if I had no consequences?

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And if I had the ability to act on all of my desires without anything bad actually happening

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to me, what would I, what would I carry out?

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And the reason why that feels relevant to this is that I think we can all wrestle with

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sinful thoughts, whether that's lust or it's greed or it's whatever, but often we don't

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have the capability or the power to actually act on those things in our lives.

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And those that do often do that and they act out on it and we can condemn those people.

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Oh, I can't believe that you did that.

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But when we examine ourselves, it's the reason isn't that I don't want to.

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It's because I don't have access or the ability.

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Like, like in greed, I know we're going to talk about greed much later, but you know,

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greed is an obvious example where people are like, oh, I can't believe that someone spent

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X number of dollars on X thing.

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And it's like, well, if you had that as much money as that person, maybe you don't spend

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on the exact same thing, but maybe it's something, you know, just as unnecessary.

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Why is there so much debt?

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You know, people, yeah, you're right.

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It's a great example.

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So that's one, that's like one thought exercise I do.

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And that to me validates very clearly.

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Oh, my thought life is super, super important.

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But the other thing that I think is really important is I only have a certain amount

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of space in my head for anything.

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And so if I, if my thoughts are consumed with possessing something that's not mine, with

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lusting after someone, I can't direct those thoughts towards the good things that Christ

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wants me to be considering.

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So I think we can, we can talk more about that.

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But those are some of the, the arguments that I have to remind myself of and talk myself

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into when I get into that line.

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Oh, like my thoughts really aren't that important.

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I'm not really hurting anyone.

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Yeah.

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And this is a, this is actually a battle.

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And at some point, I think we have to trust God, like and trust Jesus here that he's warning

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us about something that we, maybe we don't understand or I don't see what the big problem

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is, but he's God in the flesh and he's telling us this is a problem.

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And so we need to listen to him, I think, because, you know, warnings like this are

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a mercy, right?

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If you don't know that you're headed on a road that's under construction about to, you

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are about to go off the road, you don't have any signs saying stay off the road, stop.

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And you just go, you're going to die.

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So these are, are pretty important markers.

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And I thought of a few others that I want to share here and one, maybe just one, but

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in 1 Peter 2, there's a, there's a very, we probably all know a lot of our hearers

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have probably listened to this or read this part about where Peter references Exodus 19

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and God's vision for us to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation so that we might proclaim his

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excellencies, you know, who called each of us out of darkness, how we're now a people

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and how we've received mercy.

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Just after that, Peter warns us, lust wages war on our soul and that it's a life and

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death battle.

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As beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh,

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which wage war against your soul.

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Yeah, that, that is not a connection that I've, I've drawn.

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I think as I just separate passions, I put that word in a different category, but I appreciate

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you drawing that out because yeah, what is, what are the passions of flesh?

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Like there's basically food, sex and material things.

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So yeah, that's extremely convicting because that's the vision of who we want to be, right?

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We want to be that holy priesthood.

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And we will, I mean, we'll ruin our, our witness to other people if we're, if we are full of

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lust.

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I think that's something that distinguishes us to be holy.

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And I, man, there is so much more to tease out on this.

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Yeah.

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Van, do you, do you have some thoughts here?

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Well, I think I appreciate that scripture that you just read, Matt, because when you

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think of, when you think of war, so when I was, when I was a younger man, we still had

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the, the selective service that you had to register for the draft.

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When I did that, I believed they were still drafting people sometimes.

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There was still a very real thought in my mind that if we had a war, I would have to

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go to it.

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I would have to, I would have to fight.

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And I was thoroughly terrified by the notion of going to war.

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War was the worst imaginable thing to me.

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Being in a place where death was everywhere apparent, where you saw it and experienced

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it all the time and that yours was imminent at any moment.

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And I think when you, when you use a word like war, war coming up on you, there's only

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two choices.

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You surrender and put yourself at the mercy of your enemy or you fight.

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And when you say fight, fighting is a, fighting is a vicious, it's a, it's a survival thing.

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And that, that Peter would equate lust as something that goes to war against your soul.

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It just, it strikes a chord in me.

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It's like, okay, so what am I going to do if this is at war with my soul?

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How am I going to treat it?

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Am I going to put myself at its mercy?

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And I know that it has no mercy.

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Everything that Jesus tells me, everything that the Bible tells me says this will destroy

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you and condemn you eternally.

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So do I give in to that?

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Am I overwhelmed by the fact that this is going to be a really hard fight and I might

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not be able to win?

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Yes, but I fight because I have, but I have no choice if I'm thinking about it in the

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right way.

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But if I'm thinking about it in the way that gets advertised, if I'm thinking about it

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in the way that comes at me from every imaginable source of media that I have in every moment

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of every day almost, then it's that serious.

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It does feel like war.

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As soon as you're aware of it and as soon as you let yourself think about it, this is

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the thing that came to me while I was studying for this talk is that as soon as I let myself

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think about it, it's like the veil is drawn away from my eyes and I can see that it's

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war.

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I can see that it's everywhere and I can see that I have to fight for my own survival so

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that I can fight for the survival of the people who are around me.

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So I can fight for the survival of everyone because if we don't, then we're done.

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We're done for and it just feels like all the statistics that you read in your introduction,

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they're just mind boggling.

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They are.

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I can remember a time and I'm older, but I'm not that old.

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I can remember a time when you could watch TV shows about married couples and they were

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in separate beds all the time and always fully clothed when nobody lives like that.

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And yet now you can see things on network television that wouldn't have been in the

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worst R-rated movies at the time when I was a young man.

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So it is a war.

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And that's probably where we're going to have to pause on this discussion and pick it up

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again next time.

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This has been great.

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Thanks, guys.

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Thanks, guys.

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Thank you.