Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of loving righteousness and making a covenant of purity with our eyes, urging believers to actively choose righteousness as a form of spiritual armor against temptation. He explains that while God's grace is available, it requires our cooperation through sincere decisions to resist sin, particularly in the realm of sexual immorality. Bickle warns against false teachings that downplay the necessity of personal responsibility in overcoming lust and emphasizes the need for believers to endure temptation as an expression of love for Jesus. He encourages making radical commitments to purity, such as Job's covenant with his eyes, and highlights the significance of obedience in the believer's relationship with God.

Tonight I want to talk about loving righteousness and some practical ways, and I want to focus on making a covenant of purity with our eyes. That's where I want to go towards the end of it, just spend a few minutes on that point. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, let's pray. Father, I ask you for the spirit of grace to be released upon us, even as we hear your word and speak your word, as we are before your eyes, even now in this room, and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 1. Paul said, we, as workers together with the Lord, we plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. You know what, we can receive the grace of God in vain as believers by failing to cooperate with it in a way I'm going to describe in just a moment. Verse 2, for the Lord says, in an acceptable time I heard you, in the day of salvation I helped you. And then Paul announces this glorious reality. Now catch this, this is the glorious reality. Behold, now, and that's the word you want to emphasize, now is the acceptable time. Because Jesus went to the cross today, now is the perpetual time where God says yes. He goes on to say, behold, now is the day of salvation. Or you could add there, the day of deliverance. Now is the day I promise to deliver you from the enemy's tactics against you. Every day is the now day in God. Verse 4, Paul said, we commend ourselves as ministers of God. And I want to just point, he gives a list of ways that he offers himself to the people as ministers of God. But verse 7, he says, by the armor of righteousness. The point that I want to focus on tonight is the fact that when we choose righteousness, when we make godly choices for righteousness, it acts as an armor that thwarts the enemy's attack against us. The enemy's constantly raging against us. And there's various ways that, there are various dimensions of our armor against the Lord. But the choosing of righteousness is a dimension of our protection that there is no substitute for. Meaning, some people just cry out and they pray. Prayer is part of our armor. But they go, they pray. They go, Lord help me, Lord help me, Lord help me. The Lord says, I will help you. You need to pray. But only as you choose righteousness can I help you. And so righteousness, the choice of it, is part of God's, in God's plan, that which is a protection against the work of the enemy against us. But know this, today, every day since Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, from the resurrection, every day is the day of deliverance or the day of salvation for the believer. Now God requires us to work together with him. Notice how he says, we are workers together with the Lord. We cooperate with the Lord. Now God's, God's desire for us to work together with him is his desire for partnership with us. Meaning, God could just run his kingdom without us. But he says, no, I'm going, I'm only going to do it in partnership with you. God will not do our part and we cannot do his part. Now I say that over and over and over again, but it needs to be said that many times. God will not do our part. If we don't choose righteousness, the Lord says, I won't choose it for you. I will not violate your free will. I will wait and wait and wait until you choose, until you voluntarily make the choices that bring your heart into voluntary agreement with my heart. We can't do God's part and God will not do our part. He won't do our part. Now our part, there's a number of dimensions to our part, but I'm only focusing on one tonight. We need to make quality decisions. We need to make quality decisions means a sincere decision that we stick with. That's what a quality decision is. It's a sincere, heartfelt decision and one we stick with when the pressure's on. We must make quality decisions, decisions we stick with to deny sin in our life. I know this is really fundamental, but it's amazing how many Christians are waiting for God to deliver them from their lust, but they won't say no to their lust. They're waiting on God, but God's waiting on them. And they're a bit confused. I've been praying, but he won't help me. He says, I won't deliver you in a way contrary to the way that I run my kingdom. I won't do your part. The analogy I've used over the years is that of the farmer and the preacher. The preacher goes over to the, have dinner at the farmer's house and he sees the great farm and it's beautifully cultivated, manicured and he says, farmer, God blessed you with this farm. It's awesome. Look at this awesome farm. And the farmer says, preacher, when God had this farm, it was a mess. See, God's not going to plant the seed. God's not going to weed the garden. God is not going to cultivate the garden. If we trust God to cultivate the garden, the garden will be a mess. But then the farmer can't make life work in the seed. The farmer can't produce sunlight and the farmer can't produce the rain. God has his part. We have our part and that's by God's design. Nothing substitutes for the choosing of righteousness. We must choose it. We absolutely must choose it. Now there's a false teaching that's going around the kingdom of God today. It's been really increasing the last couple of decades actually. That's false teaching on grace. I comment on this regularly and it's a teaching on the grace of God that makes people comfortable while they're sinning. Says, you know, that's not that big a deal. You know, it's this idea, well, we're asking God for his grace. So somehow things are just going to work out on their own somehow in grace. And because we believe in grace, we believe in things will somehow work out. And that's not true if what we mean by that is somehow the sin's just going to leave and we're just going to stop doing it one day. We're waiting on God. I mean many of these folks are waiting on God to deliver them. But God's waiting on them to make a quality decision. False teaching on grace minimizes the need to make a decision. Now I'm going to talk, I'm going to focus in on a few minutes on sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is something that is growing significantly across the earth and particularly through the internet. Immorality is going to go to heights never known in human history. I mean, imagine where immorality is going to go when technology develops with the holograms, you know, where there's going to be whole scenes enacted out by technology and light that will seem real and people can determine this and have it right there in their living room beyond anything we can imagine. And the days are coming when there will be several billion people on the earth involved in this kind of activity for years and years and years. And the amount of demonized people with sexual perversion on the earth will be an astounding number before Jesus returns. This is an issue we must deal with at the root now in these days, in this time. Peter said, he said, I beg you abstain from these lusts. They war against you. Lust wars against our heart. And it wars against our heart all the days of our life. Now lust isn't all limited to sexual immorality. That's one category of lust. There's a number of types of lust. Lust, other categories of lust. Anger is a type of lust. Pride is the most dominant prevailing lust that the human race knows about. Pride is a lust. But tonight I'm looking particularly at the subject of choosing righteousness and saying no to sexual immorality. John chapter 14, verse 21. Jesus said, he that has my commandments and keeps them, this is the person that loves me. Then he goes on and repeats it again. In verse 23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my commandments. Jesus defines what loving him consists of. Now what man wants to do is to love God in our own way. We can't love God in our way. We have to love God on his terms. But the spirit of humanism, just human thinking and human reasoning says, no, I'm going to love God in my own way and I'm in my own style. But the Lord Jesus said, if loving me does not include setting your heart to obey me, I don't receive it as sincere love. Now this is troubling to the religions of the world. Because without obeying Jesus, he calls all the religions of the world, as well as members in the body of Christ, who do not set obedience to him as a priority in their life, they do not love me is what he is declaring. Again, we can't love God on our own terms. We have to love him on his terms. He must define the way that we love him. Now this is one of my, one of my hundred favorite verses. You know, you get to have 100 favorite verses. This is one of them. But I want to highlight this verse to you and another one in a minute I'm going to highlight. This is a verse that I use many times. When the enemy comes to tempt my heart with any type of compromise, whether mental or physical or verbal compromise, or I'm not obeying the Holy Spirit's leadership, I love to speak this verse to the enemy. When I feel tempted. Jesus says, he that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And I like to declare in the name of Jesus, I have his commandments, and I will keep them because I am one who loves him. I am one who loves him, Jesus, I am one who loves you, or to the enemy, I will say, I am one who loves him, I will keep his commandment be gone in the name of Jesus. Beloved, we speak the Word of God to the enemy when our soul is tempted. This is one of my favorite ones. I encourage you to use it. Denying our lust, denying lust, whether it's anger, whether it's pride, whether it's immorality, denying lust is the theater in which God has given us to express our love to Jesus. I mean, what a glorious thing that we can love Jesus in a way that moves his heart. And he looks at lust, waging war against us, and he says, if you will deny it, I will take that as love. That is an avenue, that is a platform in which you can show me you love me. Well, Lord, this lust is waging war. He goes, I know, I know you feel it. I know it never seems to stop. But if you resist it, I will take it as love that you're giving me. I mean, what a glorious reality. Now, each believer in the body of Christ, each believer has a different struggle. I mean, it's all the same general categories, but in different application. Every one of us, our emotions are different, our life situation is different, our calling that God's preparing us for in the future is different. So each one of us have a very unique assignment in which we are to show Jesus our love. We are to give him the gift of our love out of our own unique struggle, our own assignment of that which God calls us to overcome. Like you say, well, I have this desire and that desire, and this thing has come against me, and this setup, and this is my calling. It's unique from the person next to you. It's very different. And the Lord says, that's the assignment that I've given you to overcome that particular arrangement of troubles in your heart and in your life. That is the assignment that I've asked you to love me in. Well, Lord, I have a greater propensity to this or that and the other than other people do. And the Lord says, well, that's my assignment to you. Overcome and show me that you love me. Now, it's important to notice this. I mean, to note this. I spoke on this the other night when we spoke on Song of Solomon. A very important principle. Paragraph F. Obedience begins not with full victory when victory is fully accomplished in our character. Obedience is not only real when the victory is full. Obedience is real when we set our heart to obey long before we get the outward victory. When you say, Lord, I will obey you in this, but you haven't proven it fully in your character, but you have set your heart to war against it. Beloved, that is where obedience begins. And the Lord values that obedience. The reason I'm making that point is because when we set our heart to obey the Lord, even though we don't have the victory in our character, but we're warring against it faithfully, we're rebuking it, we're declaring our heart to God to obey Him in that area. When we do this, we have every reason to feel the Lord's pleasure while we're growing up in the Lord. The Lord doesn't just have pleasure towards you after you get the victory. He actually has pleasure towards you while you're growing month by month, year by year. If in fact you're declaring war on the issue that you're stumbling in, but you're fighting it and you're resisting it, yes, you're stumbling, but you're repenting and you're rejoining the war again against that area that's waging war in your heart. Now the reason this is important, because if we aren't repenting and declaring war on that, the Lord is smiling over us even before we have the breakthrough. And when we know that, we run to the Lord instead of from the Lord because we feel that He's happy with us instead of angry at us because we're still stumbling. But the enemy, he'll tell you differently. He'll say, look, you're a hopeless hypocrite. You're still struggling in that area. Just give up and give in and quit. And many people who don't understand God's heart, they only see obedience to the measure of how they have, how they're walking in it in their outward character. And they're saying, it's never going to happen. Then they have despair, they have hopelessness, and they just want to quit. And the Holy Spirit's saying, no, no, don't quit. I see you warring. The Lord is pleased with you. My heart is for you. And beloved, we can run to Him with confidence that He loves us and that we love Him even before we have full victory. The setting of the heart for righteousness is where the beginning of victory takes place. Now having said that, I'm not content just to have that beginning of victory. I want the full manifestation of victory in my character. I am not content with just receiving mercy with confidence and knowing God likes me. I like that. I mean, I really like that. But I want to go on. I want to follow through and I want victory in every area of my life. Why? Because it's an expression of love to the Lord. It's the way the Lord says, if you will obey me in these areas, I will take it personal. I will take it as though you love me. I will see it as a statement of love. James chapter 1 verse 12. This is another one of these top 100 favorite life verses. Oh, I love this verse. I quote this verse a lot like I do the John 14 21. And here's what it says. You want to write this one down, mark it, put it in your Bible, learn it to where you don't have to, you don't have to carry it around in a post, you know, a little card or something. Index card. I used to write them on those kinds of things and just carry them around and look at them, put in my pocket and memorize them. But I've said this so many times, I just said, Lord, this is what I want. Here's what it says. Here's a promise. Blessed is the man or blessed is the woman who endures temptation. For when that person has been approved by the Lord, that man or that woman will receive the crown of life in the age to come. And the crown of life is that which the Lord has promised the people who love Him. Now what this verse is talking about, it's talking about those that are approved and what it means to be approved by God. It's in the age to come where He approves us. It's after our life is over and the body of Christ from all of history stands before the Lord and there are those, it's not the majority. It is, it could undoubtedly will be millions of people, but there might be one or two billion saints or more that will stand before Him, possibly two to three billion. And so I believe millions will receive this promise, but I believe that hundreds of millions will not receive this promise. The crown of life is not the promise of eternal life. The crown of life is the promise for leadership in the age to come. Now whatever you do, don't take your theology from funerals. You know, you go to a funeral and the guy gets up and every single time they say, well so and so has received his crown. As though every born-again believer has a crown. That is not what this passage is teaching and that's where they get this from. They get it from this passage. It's like in society, if everyone on the earth had a crown, then nobody would have a crown that meant anything. A crown is a distinguishing, it's a distinguishing reality that only those in leadership and government have crowns. And only a small percent of people, believers will have crowns. So don't get too carried away by the theology at funerals because, you know, they lie at funerals a lot. I remember when I was, you know, a young man in my 20s, I was so stirred up. I used to go to funerals. I used to do weddings and funerals and I just kind of bypassed the occasion and told what I thought to be the whole truth. I talked about hell. I don't know if this guy worries that if he didn't love Jesus with all of his heart, I'm sorry to say you don't have to go to hell. He might be there. You know, the older guy said, you know, you don't have to get that truthful. I said, well, hey, I'm not going to be one of those flatterers at funerals. Anyway, I just kind of adjusted a little bit. I don't flatter people at funerals, but I have, you know, figured out there's right time to say different things. But the crown of life is promised to the man or the woman that endures temptation. Now, what a phrase, endure temptation. You know why it's called enduring temptation? Because the devil comes day after day, after day, after day, he knocks on the door. He knocks. He says, I'm coming. I'm coming. Like, leave me alone. I already told you I'm not buying today. He says, I'm coming over and over and it's oppressive. It never stops and it requires endurance to obey God. The decision that we make today, we have to remake it tomorrow and the next day and the next day. It's like, do we ever get free of making this decision? The answer is no, not in this life. We must make decisions. Now our emotions change and we begin to love righteousness. And so the intensity of the decisions change, but we must always make decisions to obey the Lord in this life. And so it's called enduring temptation because it's a reality that we have to choose over and over and over. There is no one choice that settles all the other choices. You can't go up front to a prayer time and they lay hands on you and then all of a sudden your, the necessity to make choices is now alleviated and all of a sudden we're on automatic pilot and we don't make choices. No, it doesn't work that way. We're called to endure it and the man or woman that through the years consistently says no to darkness. And I mean, it's an endurance test. James says, I promise you this from the Lord. When the Lord approves you on the final day and he'll say, and nobody does this perfectly, by the way, this isn't a perfect attainment of this. Whether it's the apostles or the great leaders of the, of the body of Christ through history, nobody does this perfectly, but we can still do it consistently. And a guy says, well, you know, for years, I haven't really done this as a believer. I've just yielded and yielded beloved start today. Start today. Like, well, if I start today, I mean with a new zeal, but I've wasted so many years. You know what? Those years are gone. You can't get those years back. I don't know what to tell you about those years, except for they're gone, but you might have another year or you may have 10 years. You may have a 50 years ahead of you start today. You don't know how many years you have begin to endure temptation by saying no to the enemy, knocking on the door. He just doesn't stop. It's like, will he ever let up? We'll settle it. He won't. He won't. He came after Jesus. He didn't have a chance, but he came after him anyway. It's unrelenting. The devil is unrelenting. And the Lord says, if you will endure it and resist it, I will take it personal and I will see it as an expression of loving me. Notice it's the crown of life is promised to the people who love Jesus, meaning their love is displayed by resisting temptation. Now, again, my message tonight, I'm just focusing on the need to make choices because there's so much talk in the body of Christ about grace and help and all these things. And we need to talk about God's help and God's grace is mercy. But sometimes we just need to settle the issue that we're waiting on the Lord to deliver us while he's waiting on us to make a quality decision. And we're thinking, how come I'm not good delivering? He goes, because I'm my power will not be manifest till you make a choice. You're against it. Well, I've got these emotions and they're really, they're wrong, but they're fully inflamed in my heart. He says, you declare war and in time I will deliver you, but you have to declare war against them. I will not do this for you. You must do it. Will you help me? Will you help me to want to? He goes, yeah, I'll help you to want to. And I, it's a legitimate prayer to say, Lord, help me to want to, but don't camp there too long because you can get into a lot of, you know, just deception. Well, he hasn't helped me to want him. So I guess I'm free till now. No, no, don't go there. You can waste a lot of time in the enemy's camp, even as a born again believer with that mindset. Beloved, I want the crown of life. The crown of life is not synonymous with eternal life. That is the gift of leadership and government in the age to come in his kingdom. 2nd Timothy chapter four, Paul talked about the crown of life. He said it differently than James. He called it the crown of righteousness. I believe it's the same crown. There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness. 2nd Timothy 2.4. I mean, 2nd Timothy 4, verse eight, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will give to me on the day, on that day, on the day when he meets the Lord. And he will give it to all who have loved his appearing. Now this is some people mistake this verse because they think that, well, I love his appearing and what they mean is I would love the rapture to come today. That's not what this verse means. It doesn't mean that the Lord will give the crown of righteousness to everyone who hopes the rapture comes today. And that's how a lot of people think about it. The rapture isn't coming till after the great revival and the great trouble takes place on the earth. And the Lord says to the people who love the entire context, I don't mean we like all the negative and the evil, but we are girding ourself to show love to him in the most difficult time of history. And we're not drawing back. We're not giving up. We're not giving in. We're getting ready because we love the entire context he has chosen to enter the earth again. And that's tremendous trouble and tremendous revival. And we're buying into it with all of our heart. We're getting ready. We love it. That's what he's talking about to men and women of endurance. It's not talking about into anybody that wishes to escape any minute now, they'll get the crown of righteousness. No, the crown of righteousness is given. It's a place of leadership in the age to come unrelated to your leadership role in this age. You may have no leadership in the kingdom in this age, but you may have significant leadership in the age to come. And the having leadership in the kingdom of God isn't about being over people. It's about working near Jesus in his leadership. I want to work near him. I want to be with him where he is. I want to be doing what he's doing in the age to come. That's what we're talking about. Well, the positive side, paragraph J of the struggle, I mean, there's this struggle of sin. Sin is hitting us and pulling us and tugging on us. The positive side is this, this struggle that we're resisting and resisting. It's giving us an opportunity to express love to Jesus in a way that he remembers and esteems. He values it. Every time we resisted the pride or the lust or the immorality or the anger or the paying the guy back or doing somebody and we resisted because I love you. He goes, I take it personal and I will remember it. I will remember it forever. I mean, what a glorious opportunity. I mean, I don't want more trouble, but it's an opportunity. We only have a short time in our eternal life to make choices like this in this age. We're only in this age for a minute. We're billions of years in the age, in the, in the, in the future, only here for a moment. And the choices we make Jesus will take personal forever. And he will be endeared by those choices. It's only in this age that we make righteous decisions in the presence of temptation, the age to come. We won't make decisions in the face of temptation only now. He says, I've given you a short opportunity, a few years on the earth, 70 years, the Bible calls it, but it's just a moment. You choose it. I will value it. I will remember it. And it will endear my heart, the choices that you made beloved. I want to make these choices. I want to seize the opportunity. I don't like temptations and struggles, but I want the opportunity to choose and the fire of temptation to choose him day by day. And he loves it. He writes it in his book. He says, Mike, we'll talk all about that when you get up here. I'll talk about day by day. I go, oh, I love it. I get to do something that's exciting the heart of Jesus. That's the, that's the upside of it. Roman numeral two, sec first Thessalonians chapter four, very, very important passage. It says, this is the will of God. First Thessalonians chapter four, verse three. This is the will of God. Your sanctification. You could put the word there. Your purity, sanctification and purity is the same idea. Your holiness, your obedience, put whatever words you want in there. It means it comes down to the same thing. And here he goes on to spell it out. He goes particularly that you would abstain. In other words, refuse to abstain means to refuse sexual immorality. To abstain means we make a choice. Even though the temptation is strong, we choose against it. So this is the will of God. Now here's the exciting thing. Whenever God commands us to do something in that commandment is the promise of the enabling to help us. If we will choose and line up with God's heart in everything God commands us to do, if we will make the choice to agree with it, if we will come into agreement with it, God will help us to obey it. Every command is the promise of the enabling to walk it out. Now, here's what he says. This is the will of God, or you could say it this way. This is what God promises you to help you in. If you will agree with him, he will help you in this, that you would abstain from sexual immorality. And he goes on to say that each one of you would know how to possess his own vessel. That means your body. That each one of us would learn to possess our body in honor before God or in purity. That is what God is, is calling us to do, to learn how to possess or to carry our personhood in the presence of temptation. Beloved, do you know how to possess your vessel, your body in honor and in purity? Let's go to paragraph B. Here's what Paul is saying. He's calling the saints to study how their body and their mind and their emotions work. You need to be a student of how you work and how you feel. A lot of people don't even pay attention to it. He says, learn how to possess your, your vessel, your body this way. It takes attentiveness. Take notes as the Holy Spirit gives you insight. And when you fail, take a step back and say, what happened? Why did I fail? What excited me to where I gave myself? What were the contributing factors? Because everyone has a different personality and a different setup in terms of their whole person and how it works. Look at paragraph B. Study how temptation affects your personality by knowing what specific situations make you, make you vulnerable to specific sinful desires. Like for instance, in the realm of immorality, study how fatigue, a person gets tired, then they get in a desperate mood of depression. Then they hear the wrong music. They watch the wrong movie. They go to the wrong places. Well, it was only a sports bar that I'm going to, but you're tired, you're depressed, you're angry at people for mistreating you. That's a perfect setup to fall into immorality. It is. I never thought. Think about how your body works and how your emotions work. The whole setup is working together to bring you down. Oh, so when things go bad and you're in a real bad mood, don't go there. Don't call up the, the, even the Christians that have a view of the grace of God we're sending is just fine. Go call the other guys and say, you know what? I'm just in a mess right now. I'm totally in a funk. Don't talk to me. Just, you know, let me come over busy. I don't even want to talk, but I don't want to go somewhere else right now. Well, praise God. We got the house of prayer. Just come sit in it and just chain yourself to the chair. You know, it's Stewart walks by and go, Oh, having a tough day. Yeah. I chained to the chair. I'm just kidding about that, but see, it's a difficult, a disappointing situation. Things are went bad. They're real disappointed. A friend betrayed them a little bit of alcohol, the right setting, the right time of day was typically night and they're out there and just the right context. And all of a sudden the next day they say, Oh, I didn't think I was going to do that. And Paul says, learn how to possess your body in honor. Learn how you work particularly in specific ways. Don't be surprised for 25 years that it always turns out bad when that setup is there. You know, they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. So the guy gets depressed. It's late at night. He goes, he gets his alcohol, goes to the right place, gets with the wrong people, walks in immorality. Wow. That shocked me. Okay. Does it again, again, again, and again, insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting it somehow to turn out different. Beloved, learn how to possess your body. Because all these different factors work together against you, against your emotions, the circumstances. I really urge you to take this very, very seriously. Okay. Let's go to the top of page three. I'm going to skip on the way there a couple of verses that talk about how God will discipline us. If we, he will discipline us because he loves us. If we get into immorality and we stay in it, he will discipline us. That's the passages that I'm skipping. You got the notes and you can get these notes on the internet if you don't have them. You can get them at the back on the way out if you want them. There's a number of Bible passages. Make it clear. The Lord says, I will give you time, but you must repent of this. I've got, you have a limited time or I will discipline you. I will make it uncomfortable for you to continue in immorality. And many people, believers, they stay in it and really negative things happen that affect their life for decades. And it's the discipline of the Lord. Let's go to Roman numeral three. He's just going, I can't take it. I can't take this guy up there. I just can't take it. It's okay, Pee Wee, I understand. I might get up in the morning, you know, early in the morning, about 4.30 and I get my coffee and I turn on the God TV and there I am, five o'clock in the morning, screaming at me. And you got to go, whoa, whoa, whoa. I just settled down. No, I do. I see me every morning. I go dial down, man. I just, I haven't woke up yet. And you know, the other day, he says, just set things aside and, and really focus it. I go, no, I'm going to drink my coffee. I'm not going to set things aside. I'm in a real conflict. Anyway, I understand that little guy. That's all I'm trying to say. I really understand him. You know, my wife gets up. I go, God, the guy's yelling at me the whole time. Tell him to dial down. She picks up the thing and just turns the volume down. She goes, there you go. Okay. Last few minutes here. Just a couple of verses we're going to look at. Just page three and we'll end with page three. Matthew chapter five, verse 28 and 29, Jesus exposes how the spirit of immorality works. He said, whoever looks at a woman, Matthew 5, 28, to lust for her in his heart, he has already committed adultery. When he, he gazes with lust and he locks in, he says he's committing adultery in his heart. And then Jesus says, be radical. If your eye caused you to sin, pluck it out. Now, he doesn't really mean pluck it out, but he goes, go to extreme measures to change the situation that's inflaming your, your heart and lust and sexual immorality. Now the progression of adultery goes this way. I adultery. That's where it begins. I adultery. Then it grows to heart adultery. We stare and we see, and we look. That's how the human heart works. And with I adultery, it grows into heart adultery. Then the fantasy gets locked in. And then heart adultery ends up in physical adultery. People do not just commit physical adultery in a vacuum. They commit physical adultery as in, as the end of a series of giving themselves in, in, in more subtle secret ways to adultery. Guy says, well, he just committed physical adultery. I don't know where it came from. I go, that fire has been burning for a long time. You don't just do that one day without doing the other two for a long time. Job 31, this was a verse that really marked my heart as a young man. Job 31. I went to a Bill Gothard conference when I was about 17, 18. Some of you don't, never heard of Bill Gothard, but he had these huge 10,000 kind of conferences all over America. And one of the things I went several times, he taught this every time, Job 31. It was, our whole youth group was captured with Job 31, verse 1. Here's what Job said. He said, I made a covenant with my eyes. Why then I, why then should I look upon a young woman? He meant with lust. If my heart has been secretly enticed, or if I lurked at the neighbor's doorway, he means lurked to stare with lustful desires that he says, I deserve God's discipline. That's how he ends that passage. He made a covenant with my eyes. I would not give myself to these kinds of things. Beloved, it's much easier to shut the eye gate in the realm of immorality, rather than put out the raging fire of immoral, immoral desires that are burning and building in our life. We have to shut the door at the eye gate. We turn our eyes away, and the other fires are far less dangerous. They're still there, but they're far more manageable. We have our eye gate open to sin, and where the, where things are going in the internet is so dangerous. It's not okay. It is dangerous in a very, very serious way. Because if we don't make a covenant with our eyes, our imagination will get so defiled and so destroyed. Now, I remember, we went to this, our, you know, a bunch of us did, young people, and we all made this covenant. And it's been a very important verse in my life for 30, 35 years. This verse, Job 31, verse 1. I haven't obeyed it perfectly, but I've obeyed it in a serious way for many, many, many, many years. For 35, 30, 30, however long. I'm 52, I guess that's 35 years. I remember when I was 18 and 19 years old at the university. I was at a large university, Missouri, 30,000 students or whatever, a big one. There was so much lewd, lewd dressing, men, girls, and guys, both. Even back in the 70s, it was bad. And I remember, this verse was so important to me, that I would walk through the campus, and when I would look at a girl, I would, I made a commitment in my heart, and I did this thousands of times. I would look her in the eyes. Maybe I would be caught unaware, and I would just look at her, and it wasn't a good situation. And I would look her in the eyes, she didn't know, and I would pray for her salvation. I don't know, maybe she was saved. I didn't do it so she'd get saved. I did it so I would be locked. It's really hard to lust when you're praying for someone's salvation. It just messes the whole thing up. And I did this, and I taught all the young men. I mean, I was 18, 19, they're 18, 19. I said, guys, let's do this. I mean, I mean with resilience, let's commit our heart to this. And I tell you, whether in the church or out of the church, if you will look them in the face, I don't mean to get their attention, but instead of looking at other parts of their body, and if you're looking and your heart's being pulled, if you will just take, I mean, five seconds, ten seconds, and ask the glory of God to touch that young woman. Or it can be women to men these days. There's so much other things going on in the internet that's really developing, and we need to completely abstain from that. But you'd pray, it would be, it would make a world of difference. Now the internet began to come, you know, this whole internet thing began some years ago. And I made a, based on Job 31 verse 1, I made a covenant. And I want some of you, you know, you've already really gone deep in the internet thing, but I tell you, I want you to join me today with this covenant. Let today be the first day. Here's what I made a covenant to do. I'm not trying to say this to condemn you. I'm saying that because I want to inspire a whole company of 14 year olds to buy into this. I made a covenant some many years ago. I said this, I will not look at internet pornography one time, not once in my entire life, not once ever, not one single time. And I'd set my heart to do that. By the grace of God, He's keeping my heart steady. I am so cautious about this covenant, I even make other people do the Google stuff for me for research. I don't want to even accidentally, I want to meet the Lord never once having seen pornography on the internet, not even a glimpse, not one time ever. That's my heart's desire. And I believe by the grace of God, I'll be able to do that. But I, here's what I'm calling you to do. I'm calling you not to say, well, I'm going to ask for help. No, go way beyond that. Make a radical decision. Never again will I ever go there. Not one more time. I'm not going to, uh, this, you know, uh, reduce it. I'm never going to do it to the second coming ever, never again to meet Jesus. Never again, not once. I tell you, temptation, the definition of temptation is options. It really is. You get rid of the options. I don't even have an option to go there. It's not even an option. It's not on my mind ever because it's not an option. I don't think, man, I wish I could go to the internet. It's never on my mind. I'm not trying to play, you know, holier than thou because it's not an option that I think about beloved. I want to call you to do this. I'm calling the women to it as well, to make this covenant with your eyes. You will never look on anything on the internet that entices you, but there's enough on TV these days that is going in the wrong direction. So don't just limit it to the internet, but this is a covenant we're making all the days of our life. You know, there's a lot of talk about the gals, you know, they, even in the, in the body of Christ, they wear, uh, enticing, seductive clothing and the, you know, guys, well, the girls are doing it. Well, you know what? I'm going to just get, let the girls off the hook tonight. There's a time to address that. And I'll, well, I'll talk to the girls for one second, ask the Holy spirit, if he's pleased with the level of more of, of seduction, I mean, the level of purity, or, or do you wear seductive clothing? Don't get your standard from the magazines and the malls, get your standard from the Holy spirit. Don't look at all the magazines. I want to be cute like her in the magazine. Well, what do you mean cute? Like her? She's filled with seduction. That's not your role model. Well, she's just so cute. Like, ah, where in the world are we getting our standards? Anyway, off the girls, guys, two guys do, uh, they get their standards from them from the magazines too. And there's a lot of seductive dress that men are involved in too. I'm talking about in the kingdom of God, I'm talking about guys and gals at IHOP. Their consciences are dull and their minds are blinded. They love Jesus, but they have blind spots in their thinking and in their discernment. Men and women both ask the Holy spirit. But anyway, that was a bunny trail. That's not even what was, wasn't even my point. Here's my point, guys, don't complain about the girls. If they change it, I'll change. No, you are going to set your heart to make a covenant with God. And if none of them change, you are still going to keep your covenant with God. I'm not depending on a revolution in the church to keep my purity. I'm not waiting on them to change whoever them is. I am determined to keep a covenant in my heart with the Lord because I want to, I want to endure temptation and be approved of the Lord as a person that walks steady with the Lord. It's a lot easier to shut the eye gate than it is to put out the raging fires of immorality. Beloved, if you think immorality is bad in 2007, and it is 2017, 2027, the next 20 years, immorality will be so prevalent on the planet. It will be, you don't want to wait for 10 years. I'm saying this seriously, pick up a few demons of perversion because you can get demons of perversion. Even as a believer demons, you invite them and they will come. Believers can have demons of perversion that are camping out that are a part of their life because they invited them in through the opening of these doors and say, well, I'm just going to, you know, hang in there for about 10, 20 years. I'm going to get serious. Beloved, you'll end up with so many demons in your life. I'm really mean this and demons are unrelenting. They have no mercy at all. They want you completely devoured by the unsatisfiable cries of lust in your being. You'll lose your life in God. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. There is only one possible way forward. 2007, we're here together. We are going to go headlong into this with a covenant of our eyes to be holy the Lord's. And if you've made that covenant and lost it, make it again. And beloved, I have set that covenant. I've not kept it 100% over the years. I'm talking about the 35 years. But I want to say this, whenever I would step over that line, I would re-declare war on lust in my heart. I would reset that covenant. I mean 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33. I would remake that covenant. I would declare it to the Lord 10,000 times in my private life. I've declared that covenant and I renew it day by day by day. And it's not that I want to be better than someone else. I want my soul vibrant and alive in God in an evil culture. You can have it too. David did it. Here's the other verse. Psalm 101 verse 2 and 3. David said, I will end with this. David said, I behave wisely in a perfect way. When he says perfect, he means a spiritually mature way. Perfect doesn't mean perfect in the absolute sense of perfection. It means mature. He says, and now he gives the details of how he set his heart to behave wisely. He said, I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. In other words, I'm declaring war on everything that's dark and I'm agreeing with what is light. And here's the premier issue. He says, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes in the privacy of my home. You could add the word, my office. Beloved, we want to be men and women with a heart after God like David. I want to challenge you. Psalm 101. I've used this Psalm so many times with Job 31. You want to say it over and over. I will set nothing in the name of Jesus. Father, I come, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. I'm talking about whether it's movies, whether it's internet, whether it's pornography, whether it's magazines. I will set nothing in the privacy of my home. I will walk wisely before God, even in the privacy of my house. Amen.