I concluded in part 1 that the real issue in lasciviousness is non-covenantal love, we need to be putting off non-covenantal love, and putting on covenantal love.
Covenantal love it’s a beautiful thing and it doesn’t need to be in marriage. Certainly it does if it’s going to be sexual or romantic in any capacity but love, there’s nothing wrong with love. You can do that all you want.
The Lord Jesus wasn’t married, but no one can say he wasn’t loving.
And the apostle Paul, he loved the church. He was given care over it and took great care for it. He didn’t just love the invisible church either, as if it were some theory and not actual people. No, he loved the church as it appeared. He didn’t love the spots and wrinkles, but he loved it such that it should be without spots and wrinkles. He writes to churches that didn’t understand basic things. The Romans evidently needed the whole religion laid out for them, but he spends the last chapter remembering them by name. Everyone forsook him, but he kept on at it.
So we have to put on the Lord Jesus Christ to understand covenantal love. We have to understand how he loved the church and how he called his people to love the church.
We need to be in the sermon on the mount. We need to be looking at this. This isn’t just him describing his own righteousness that he imputed to us. This is him telling us what to do. He’s the Lord! This is him telling us what he wants us to do according to the law, this is him explaining the law: demanding it of us in our inward parts.
With respect to putting off lasciviousness and fornication, we don’t want to limit our work to sweeping the house and putting all things in order because if we don’t fill the house again with good things of the Spirit, we risk inviting even more demented and evil spirits than we had before. They’ll just go and tell all their friends it’s an open house. Our hearts are warehouses of sin, and unless we have the presence of the Lord, we can’t keep them. We can will all we want; will do and will and do constantly. But unless the Lord keeps the house, the watchmen labor in vain.
Or to put it another way, we can’t just be one step above Amnon, Eglon, Esau, Beltshazzar, and all those other evil, lustful, profane, and gluttonous men. We need to exceed the righteousness of Amnon.
So what does this mean for us practically.
First, we should understand that the weapons our warfare are not carnal. By this we should understand that the means that we use are not sufficient of themselves. Whether it be prayer or Bible reading or psalm singing. Unless it’s done in the Spirit: done with the aid of the Spirit, then it’s all for nothing.
But thankfully, we have a sure promise of the presence of the Spirit given to us not because we have done something wonderful. Not because we’ve repented enough. Not because we’ve got some kind of enlightened understanding. But by faith. Oh and the faith is a gift too! Faith is the alone instrument of justification and God certainly, and surely sends his Spirit to sanctify the heart with the more faith wherever he finds it, that’s his covenant promise. You can rest on it; you can be certain of it: if you come to him and faith, he will never cast you out. He will never give up on you. He binds himself with an oath to it after an order of a more perfect priesthood.
WCF 7.3
Man, by his fall, having made himself uncapable of life by that covenant (that with Adam), the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.
So here repentance is not a condition of the covenant of grace, faith alone is.
And yet,
WCF 11.2
Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but [worketh] by love
But what sort of good works?
Well we can see:
- that they are such as God commands in his holy word
- They are done in obedience to those commandments as fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith.
- By them we manifest our thankfulness. I’m so thankful that God found me: what can I render to the Lord for all his gifts to me?
- We have the fruit of holiness with the end being eternal life.
- The good works are not at all of ourselves, though paradoxically they must be done by ourselves in obedience. They must be understood as the work of the Spirit in you: because they really are.
- You act in faith knowing that you are being sanctified every step of the way with the help and power of the Spirit with the end being true holiness and eternal life.
With this in mind, we can look at shorter catechism 85.
Q. 85. What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse, due to us for sin?
A. To escape the wrath and curse of God, due to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption.
This question and answer is countenancing the whole of justification and sanctification, with a focus on the duty of man for Gospel Obedience. The emphasis here is not about what God has done in election (as we might consider as a thing that must be believed about God), but under the duties of man.
God enables us by faith to repent and thus escape his wrath and curse that must fall on those who do not repent and do not obey the gospel. So repentance and good works cannot be included as part of the condition for justification, but they are necessary fruits of faith.
WCF 15.3: “Although repentance be not to be rested in, as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof… yet it is of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it.”
Another paradox, but one that must be rightly ordered. It does not cause pardon or provide satisfaction for sin since even the most heartfelt and sincere of repentance remains tainted by sin. And yet God requires that kind of repentance from anyone that wants to expect pardon. God must be respected and honored as God both in his power to save and in obedience to his word.
We don’t get the glory for doing the works or having faith, even if it were possible to do them in our own strength. But it’s not. We actually do need him to work faith in us from out of complete darkness and then we need him to enable us to do good works consistent with that faith.
That’s why you put on the Lord Jesus Christ: to put on his gospel to meditate on these things and the glory of him in saving a sinner. Receiving you as you were and then cleansing you. Not for anything in you but because he’s gracious: he was merciful to you. And he continues to be.
Devotions
We also have the outward and ordinary means of grace. In the case of lasciviousness, it must be met with private devotions.
You wake up in the middle of the night, you’ve got the itch, you reach for your phone. But then bring up the psalms on it. Turn on the light and sit up: it’s a night watch! You’re being called to worship, so sing like your life depends on it.
Psalm 134.
Bless the Lord all you his servants,
As you serve with one accord
Bless the Lord in your night watches,
In the dwelling of the Lord
Lift your hands within his temple,
Bless the Lord and raise them high
Let the Lord bless you from Zion,
He who made both earth and sky
Then open Matthew 4 or any other place and read like you need it to slay a serpent coiling around your soul. These are weapons! Look to Christ and remember how he met the devil in that moment of temptation. The devil promised everything: “All the kingdoms of the world! Right now! All the drink, all the power, all the pleasure, all the women! Just give up everything! Give up on the salvation of those filthy sinners! It’s all yours anyway!”
And how did the Lord defeat him and send him fleeing? By remembering the doctrine of worship.
Resist the devil. He’s a coward and will flee when you resist in the Spirit. I promise it, but no, better, God promises it. The devil will be back when he thinks of some other scheme, but you’ll have the Spirit then also and you can send him running away humiliated again.
The weapons of our warfare are powerful. Do you believe this?!
This is only the beginning of the battles though, and you need to be equipped with the Word to know where to go to fight back. There are so many searchable bibles. Tech keys us in with porn just as readily as it can key us in with the word of God.
ChatGPT. Possibly the tool the devil means to use to destroy the human race, but you can use it to help you find the right scripture or find the right psalm. Just tell it to reply like a puritan minister and it’ll be based and beautiful.
Only don’t let the Spirit get away. When you feel the power starting to drift from you, and you’re getting tempted and focusing too much on the attacks of the conscience, or the world is creeping into your thoughts, beg him to come back! Like a child lost in the mall! Pray, fast, whatever it takes! And he’ll find you and remind you he was there the whole time. He had an eye on you.
That’s the consolation that comes from Godly sorrow. It works you up to zeal! To revenge! So you bring your body of sin to heel and strike it in the throat by the power of almighty God.
You say “but I thought it was dead!”
Well if it gets up kill it again. Double tap this time. And don’t stop til it stays dead and God calls you home.
Understand: this war is why the martyrs could go with joy to their deaths. They’d been fighting that battle over and over and over again, and they see the end! The battle is almost won! Victory is in sight! They didn’t go to the flames as lovers of death and pain like some freaks, but as lovers of the Lord and seeing him call them to suffer for his name as their honored entrance into glory.
Sacraments
Remember your baptism. Whenever it happened, you can rejoice that you’re in a more sanctified state now than back then. And if you don’t think you are, then why? What gives? Do you have some form of godliness but not the power of it? Or some kind of faith that isn’t working by love? You better not stay that way: you better repent! Search yourself, search the scriptures, figure it out while it’s the day of salvation. You don’t want to be one of the many saying “Lord, Lord, I thought we knew each other!? I thought you were such a one as myself!” That’s not the time to have that set in order before your eyes.
Rom 6:1-4
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Those who are baptized should walk in newness of life. It’s what the sign means. It’s the sealed oath you’re bound to keep. Gospel obedience: you’re sworn to do it.
Rom 8:13
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
But how can I mortify the deeds of the body without the help of the Spirit? You’d better pray! You better pray to have the inward cleansing of the Holy Spirit: for him to give you what your baptism signifies. God gives good gifts. The Spirit will run to meet you when you start praying for him earnestly. And boom: now you have the power by faith to start putting off the works of the flesh. Believest thou this?
Same with the Lord’s supper. Week by week you’re called to repent, examine your heart and then come to his gracious feast. Not to be dead and go through the motions, drinking damnation: storing up wrath in your gullet. Purge out the old leaven and keep the feast since you’re called to the wedding supper of the Lamb: many are called and few are chosen. We could go on but my own corruptions are still too fresh.
Getting Assurance
And then when you persevere in godliness long enough to get your assurance renewed: mark it on your calendar. Mine is on my calendar. August 4th. I’m not sure what I’ll do for it next year, but I look forward to meeting him on it and hope my testimony will be the same: “Thus far the Lord has helped me”. Ebenezer. I woke up on it like out of some wonderful dream. I’d been hardly sleeping, hardly eating. And I wake up bathed in sunlight elated and reciting the ending of that movie with Scrooge, saying to my soul, “You there boy, what day is it? Have I missed it?”
“Why no, sir, it’s the Day of Salvation.” And I’m thinking “It’s today! It’s today! I hear History voice and my heart isn’t hard. I didn’t miss it! Dress this slothful fellow that wants to lay in bed and slay him for the Lord of Hosts, it’s His Day of Salvation!”
Half manic, I’m thinking, “Ebenezer…Ebenezer…what does this mean? I know he said it somewhere.”
Thus far the Lord has helped me.
So I go to work, and what do I see?
No appointments all day til like 6 at night. Worst I’ve ever seen it. And just as I’m tempted to get angry and fret or complain in my heart, I think, “I’m being called home because I have work to do there.”
So I block my schedule for the morning and get to work purging everything that didn’t serve the Lord Jesus Christ that I could find. I was surrounded by games and toys and entertainment. I had purposed to sell it and give to the poor, but I thought the Lord doesn’t need my money, and I would rather just destroy all these things so they won’t be a snare to anyone else and so I don’t value it enough to want to have to go through it.
And I won’t go back to games or sitting to be entertained (like I’m something special), save for the enjoyment of children and others. It won’t be in my home: but I’ve got three TVs I don’t know what to do with. I don’t need to be entertained. I don’t need to be a consumer of things that aren’t sanctifying. I go through my phone and it’s full of stupid memes and things to get mad about. Why do I need that? God called me to peace. Jews probably aren’t going to succeed at wiping white people of the face of the earth and if they do, God won’t be dethroned and there will be a resurrection anyway. So why surround myself with memes reminding myself to stay angry about things I have no control over, or about things the gays and liberals are doing and how stupid they are? The real fight is in my soul and our enemies are to be fought by winning them for Christ. Not mocking their blindness while I’m in the grip of my blindness. They’re lost and dying in filth and they need help like I did.
Psalm 131
My heart is not exalted Lord,
Nor haughty is my eye,
I do not deal in matters great,
Or things for me too high
I have composed and calmed myself soul,
I’m like a little child.
Now weaned he on his mother rests,
With soul subdued and mild.
Yes like a child who has been weaned,
My soul is calmed in me.
Hope in the Lord oh Israel,
Now and eternally.
Sisterhood
I’m blessed to have a very beautiful little sister, and though I’ve not always been nice or good to her, I’ve always cared about her honor and wellbeing. We know by nature how to love our own sisters with tender affection and without romantic affection. The Egyptians and Canaanites Abraham journeyed among understood this, perhaps better than he did. Everyone involved understood that it’s abnormal for a man to marry his sister, otherwise Abraham saying Sarah was his sister wouldn’t serve to conceal his marriage to her.
With the law revealed to forbid any lawful marriage between a brother and his sister, we now understand the very thought processes that would be needed to lead up to marrying our sisters are abominable. But we are told,
1Ti 5:1-2
1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;
2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
We can therefore see that our natural affections for our sisters are meant to extend to all women. The home is a training ground where we learn to model chaste covenantal love toward women. All of us with sisters know how to do that, unless you need a lot of help like an Amnon would. We don’t tolerate such thoughts for a moment (we should hope) and when the flesh or devil strike with them in a moment of perversity, we know how to reject them forcefully and with disgust.
We can exercise the same power, now with the strength of the Spirit and not merely rooted in natural affections Canaanites could drum up, to resist lusting after any woman. It’s not burdensome. Sin is the burden.
Now I consider how natural affection makes me want to protect the honor of my little sister, but then my natural man thinks I have some right to lust like an animal after any other young woman I want. This is pure hypocrisy that shouldn’t be named among the people of God. Those other women are in covenant relationships with their brothers and fathers, and extended families and nations, and are likely baptized into covenant with God with you. Or she may be a stranger or your enemy, both whom the Lord has also commanded you to love.
So however you look at it, you have a responsibility to use the same protective, honoring, chaste love you learned with your sister on all women. There’s your “game”. Game to win the Lord’s heart and be sons of your Father in heaven. But note that the affection we learn with our sisters is light and playful: not stiff and formal, and has an assertiveness that remembers her as the weaker vessel. There’s no need to be joyless with a woman as if that were pleasing to the Lord, but in every interaction focus your heart on winning the Lord and his smile, and not as some game to seduce a woman, because he sees and he judges hearts.
So even if we don’t or can’t have marriages, we can still have covenantal love toward everyone, not just to women and not just to the church, but to everyone, even our enemies. And even if everyone scorns you, you have the love of the Lord which you have been scorning by expecting love reciprocal from other sinners.
Applying the word to your life in faith with the help of the Spirit is your winning strategy. These aren’t dead letters and lists of rules, and they can’t merely be done outwardly (and yet must be done in the sight of others). Reading scripture, hearing it, applying it to yourself, going to church, baptism, Lord’s supper, prayer, mortification of sin in the heart: these all have the power of the Spirit of God with them, so when they’re exercised in faith, they must be helping you in the principal thing: that you be sanctified. Don’t have the attitude of a fool in Israel that thinks he’s justified, so he doesn’t think he needs to be sanctified. No, if you’re justified, prove it by getting sanctified with the help of the Spirit.
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