Watch this video for spiritual growth by Jonathan Pokluda
how we doing porch come on come on continuing our vice and virtue series I
want to start by just kind of flashing back to my life before Christ BC
days
I'm here in Dallas Texas I'm not walking with Jesus out of college and
every
Thursday Friday and Saturday night was spent at a bar or a club in really
one
particular club that we would always go to so I moved five times all
within one mile of lower Greenville and so that's
kind of was the Uptown of that day the West seventh the Baker Street in
Houston
it was just it was the place where you would party and so we would go to
this particular place all the time you know
one Friday night I'm there and here's what would happen is we start at the
apartment and with the tequila shots and then from there we would move to
beer
and then we'd go to the club and that's when we'd open the bar tab and
start with the mixed drinks because I would
dance better when I was drunk or at least I would think I'd dance better
when I was drunk you know and and so
anyways we're there I'm moving my way to the dance floor and and so
dancing
having a good time see this blonde girl across the way we might make eye
contact
smile at each other she starts coming my way and this is awesome and so
we're
we're dancing you know and it starts off a little bit of space in between
she has long blonde hair beautiful short little
tiny dress and and and so we're dancing looking at each other you know all
is
great and you like that high dance either and so yeah and and there's a
space in
between us and as the hours go by and as the drinks are flowing we get
closer and
closer and and you know and sorry to be graphic but we're on each other at
this point no grinding and and she's you know
whispering in my ear says hey I want you to go home with me and I'm
thinking you know this is
awesome because that's really the goal of life in this time is we go to
the
club and and hope to go home or take someone home with us and and so my
mind
is fast-forwarding to what's going to happen later on and and in the club
is
amazing because the the lights are down and and all you see is the neon
the DJ's
up there mix in that the beat is thumping and it's just a party and it's
fun and it feels like this perfect
environment like like just ecstasy kind of deal and and and so we keep
going and
and the nights moving on and really we literally dance the night away me
and and my new friend and it's 2:00 a.m. at
this point and so the bar is closing DJ plays it's closing time and and we
can I
start looking for my friends you start looking for her friends and we were
there that takes so long that they turn
the lights on and when they turn the lights on in the club it's just
everything becomes different there's this place that was perfect and full
of ecstasy and fine
you start to see all the little bar napkins all over the floor and how
dirty it is you know somebody threw up in the
corner that's what that smell was and and and there's this kind of but
musty beer smell that just increases when they
they turn the lights on and and all the sexy coeds kind of look like
incoherent
zombies at this point you know they spilt drinks on their shirts and
they're all sweaty and hot and it's kind of
nasty and then I see her and and it's not that she's not beautiful but she
just appears kind of needy and she has these big bags under her eyes and
and
this kind of look in her face and and at this point I've sobered up enough
to say
hey I gotta go home and and she says and
again invites me over to her place and my friends are there now and I'm
like nah I gotta go and and then she kind of
moves to like begging and she grabs my arm it kind of starts pulling me
and I'm like now I got to go
in and what's going on is is her lawful desires are making her
unbelievably
unattractive and then she does something really weird I didn't see coming
she
pulls out her purse and pulls out a couple hundred dollars and she says
I'll
give you this notice I'm not the most attractive dude on the planet I get
that
okay and this has never happened to me before and this isn't where I'm
kind of boasting about what happened in the past
that's not my heart hear what I'm saying in my heart is saying this is I
never
will forget this moment even though I was intoxicated it just was like oh
man something's not right they're like
you're lost has moved you to a dysfunctional place and I got to go I
got I got to go quickly I got to get out of here and I don't know where
you're at in your
walk with Jesus I don't know if you've ever had that experience where the
lights turn on but my heart tonight what
I hope to do tonight is to turn the light on lust that you would see it
for
what it is that you would know what it is because it seems like it's it's
this
thing that is there and you don't really know what is it is it natural is
it not what am I supposed to do with it you
know and and where it's gonna take you somewhere so we're in a series vice
and
virtue and this evening we're talking about lust and self-control and so
last
week we talked on forgiveness if you missed it I'd encourage you to
podcast it to go in the poor chap and get that
really it was the gospel that would be a message to share like many of the
messages in this series but I feel like
God did something special last week and I pray again that he's going to do
it tonight tonight is mature content if you
came here with your eight-year-old one how did you get in to - I'm gonna
pray
in a moment and I'm going to ask you to leave and if you're here you're
listening to this anywhere in the world you're 18 I'm gonna ask that you
turn it off
we are gonna speak really candidly on this topic this evening and at this
church I don't know what church you grew
up in at this church we just handle these topics really candidly and
especially on a Tuesday feel a lot of
freedom to speak really directly to this issue so let me pray and that's
where you would exit again if you're under 18
Lord we do just ask for your help this evening I know that the enemy hates
this
message hates this text hates your scripture hates me and these people and
wants to see them abuse themselves on
this topic father I know my friends are all over the place in regards to
their struggles lord I
pray for those that are listening online couldn't get in the parking lot
here those in Houston and and those in Fort
Worth and El Paso in Tulsa and all over the world Lord that you would heal
us
tonight I pray this would be a resource God as we read from the scriptures
that it would be a resource that we share
with others and those who struggle our friends and our peers set us free
in
Jesus's name Amen now feeding your lusts is going to cost you more than
you could
have ever imagined I'm going to speak from four authorities
right now and they're not all created equal but the first one is the
scripture this is God who loves you who has a plan
for your life and and so he puts sexual sin in a specific category he says
these
sin sexually sins against his self the he alludes to Jesus alludes to to
sexual
sin can drag you all the way to hell and that's gonna a statement that's
gonna need some unpacking I hope to do so
before you leave for this evening the second authority is my own
experience I've been a slave to this sin okay
that's what you need to know if we don't know each other I've been a slave
to pornography sexual addiction I have sat
in that prison I hope to turn the light on so that you can see the cell
walls because I lived in it I've seen the cost
firsthand the third Authority is all of you the last 11 years over a
decade I've met
with thousands of you literally thousands of you that have fallen victim
to the enemy's tactics as it relates to
lust I've seen those who've done it well and those who've done it poorly
I've seen those who win and those who lose
I've seen the likes of dozens and dozens maybe hundreds of marriages I
know who is successful and who's not so many
obvious patterns you think you're going to escape the odds you think
you're
going to live outside of God's law his commands for your life and get away
with it and you will not you won't you will
not be the first person in the history of history to do that so I beg you
to
heed his warning this evening and the fourth Authority is just the current
of
our culture what's going on in around us the the trends if I was to have
everyone
stand up and I won't I don't want to embarrass anyone the heart tonight is
not to shame anyone but if I said hey
everyone stand up and and sit down if you've had sex with less than eight
people the majority of you would still
be standing I know that I understand the problem that I'm speaking to this
evening hey I if I said hey everyone's standing I said hey sit down if you
have an STD
or you've had an STD you or someone beside you would sit down about one in
three here this evening if you if I
asked you know have you ever been sexually assaulted before this message
is over maybe 40 or 50 times every 90 or
are way more than that I'm sorry my math is off every 98 seconds in
America every
98 seconds that comes from rain 40
million Americans are sexually involved with the Internet that's such a
weird
sentence to read 40 million Americans are having sex with
the Internet 8 out of 10 that's 80% of men between the ages of 18 and 30
view
pornography at least monthly 13 million American women click on
pornography
sites each month I know it's not just a men's problem I know that I know
it's not 1 in 3 viewers of pornography.
