Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 984 | Do 30-Year-Old Women 'Hit a Wall'?

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Today we discuss the recent online debate over women "hitting the wall": are women past thirty years old simply past their prime? Will men want to date women past a certain age? What are single Christian ladies in their 30s to do? Plus, we break down the recent controversy over former OnlyFans model Nala Ray's conversion to Christianity and her testimony. Do claims that she is faking it hold any water? Is it even our place to judge the sincerity of her redemption story? We look into all this and more. --- Timecodes: (04:16) Are women in their 30s “hitting the wall”? (11:40) “Girl boss” lie (17:50) Advice for single Christian ladies  (27:39) Nala Ray  (33:08) Is her conversion “legit”?  (46:15) Guilt over past sins (51:57) Weed moms? --- Today's Sponsors: Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' for free activation! My Patriot Supply — prepare yourself for anything with long-term emergency food storage. Get your new, lower-price 3-Week Emergency Food Kit at PrepareWithAllie.com. America’s Christian Credit Union – nationwide personal and business banking for people who still love God and country. ACCU is federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration. Learn more and get started at AmericasChristianCU.com/SWITCH EveryLife — the only premium baby brand that is unapologetically pro-life. EveryLife offers high-performing, supremely soft diapers and wipes that protect and celebrate every precious life. Head to EveryLife.com and use promo code ALLIE10 to get 10% of your first order today! --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 283 | Are We in the End Times? Part 1: How We Interpret Revelation Matters | Guest: Jeff Durbin https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000486948647 Ep 285 | Is The End Near? End Times: Part 2 | Guests: Jeff Durbin & Joel Webbon https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000487399954 Ep 107 | Charlie Kirk https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000437122203 Ep 262 | Trump 2020 & the Real Reasons for the Riots | Guests: Lara Trump & Charlie Kirk https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000477702029 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

An only fan star has become a Christian. Is it sincere? The internet is weighing in. Also, have 30-year-old women hit a wall? Are they no longer attractive in the dating pool? We've got all of this and much more on today's episode of Relatable. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. So I didn't get to address this yesterday because it was an interview episode. Go listen to that if you haven't. already, I just know that it's going to help a specific person out there who needed to hear that conversation. Go listen to it, watch it if you haven't. But my Tuesday comment that I said in passing that I don't believe in a pre-trib rapture, I got a lot of you very shaken up. And I got a lot of inquisitive comments and messages. Some of you were very angry about it. But most of you, the vast majority of comments and messages that I received asking me about that,

we're very respectful and just curious why I believe that. And we're not going to get into that today. I do have an episode on it. It's from 2019, though. And that was my first maternity leave. I was a new, fresh podcaster at that point. And while the material is good, I think the content and the direction and the organization of the episode is good.

and I still believe all of those things, it is really difficult. It's really difficult for me, at least, to go back and listen to those episodes from that era. So many things. I'm used to listening to my voice now because I've just done this so much. But going back and listening to old episodes, listening to the editing, the audio, and just my ability as a host and just, oh, my goodness, so many things. So many things. We've come a long way, related gals and related bros.

I still think that it's helpful information. I researched a lot for that episode and relied on a lot of very reliable, trustworthy sources. So you can go back and listen to that. But I will do another episode explaining all of the different eschatological views, pre-mill, post-mill, ah-mill, pre-mill, pre-mill, pre-mill, all of that stuff. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's fine. and the important thing to remember is that in all of these views, everyone who holds a particular view believes that they are doing so based on scripture. And this is not a salvation issue. And yet it is very important for us to study it because it increases our anticipation and it informs how we behave today. So sometimes soon I will do another eschatology episode. And some of you who are post-mill, you've said, oh, have a post-mills. person on. I have, I had Jeff Durbin on. We had a two-part series. We talked about this, I think, in 2020 or 2021. Chances are if there is a subject that you want me to address that I probably

already have. Not that we've talked about everything from every angle, but we're almost at a thousand episodes. So we've talked about most subjects. And the easiest way to verify this is to type in wherever you listen to your podcast. I think this is easier on Apple Podcast than it is on YouTube or Spotify, if you type in Relatable and then the subject that you're looking for, typically it comes up. So if you type in Relatable in Times, that episode will come up. If you type in Relatable Critical Race Theory or whatever, those episodes will come up. So that's just a little helpful tip for you. I know, I know. It is very disconcerting to hear that your favorite Southern Baptist podcaster does not believe in the pre-trib rapture. And yet,

and yet we will talk about it fully soon. All right. We've got a lot to get through today. I've been wanting to talk about all of these subjects. I don't even think we're going to get through all of the things that I want to talk about. But I want to chime in on this online discourse about women in their 30s hitting a wall, if you will. Now, this has been a conversation among what I would call like Manosphere Red Pillars for a while. And there is a group of people online who fall into this category. Maybe not everyone who falls into this category, but certainly a subset of this category, who truly just don't like women. It's not that they're anti-feminist. It's not that they just think the divorce laws or family court or unfair. It's not just that. It's not like all these

thoughtful critiques. Again, some of them probably have some thoughtful critiques, but a lot of them don't. They really just don't like women. And they really feel that women are, the drivers and even the source of all of society's problems. And they spend a lot of time demeaning women what they look like, what they sound like, what they think like. And they're extremely crass, extremely crude, extremely rude, and they participate and peddle in the worst kind of identity politics. And then when the polls come around, you know, after an election and they see while the majority of women are leaning left or they're voting Democrat, they cry about that. And they say, we'll see, they're driving all of society's problems, but they are doing the

exact opposite of attracting women to their ideas. So this has kind of been a conversation about women hitting their wall for a while. And the wall is basically the point at which women, and apparently this doesn't really exist for men, the women reached the point. where they are no longer getting more attractive or gaining more value in the eyes of a potential mates and are kind of on the back end. So they're on the downhill. Their looks are getting worse. The attraction or attractiveness that they have to a guy is getting less and less and they are no longer seen as kind of the cream of the crop. They've passed their prime. And there are some disagreements about what this age is. Some people say it's 26. Some people say it's 30. Some people say it's 35.

Some people say it's 40. And so there are some conversations, some kind of interesting, some not interesting at all, and just downright objectifying and degrading happening online. And this was reignited over the last week or so because of some comments that conservative Charlie Kirk made. And I'm going to talk about not only what he said, but I'm going to give context to what he said because I think that that's missing in a lot of these conversations. And my response won't really be to as much what he said specifically, but to just the conversation and the topic as a whole that I think is actually really important for my audience in particular that I know is made up of mostly women. There's plenty of related bros out there, but mostly women. Most of you are

married. A lot of you are moms, but many of you are not. And it's hard enough out there. And I just want to make sure that we are on the same page as Christian women when it comes to your value, your calling, and your responsibility, and we can drown out some of the unhelpful chatter, but also maybe take some difficult truths and apply them where needed. So first, let's talk about what Charlie Kirk said. He runs Turning Point USA, and I consider Charlie a friend. He has been on the podcast many times. We have spoken together. I speak at turning point events several times a year. He is truly one of the smartest and most articulate guys out there. You should go listen to the whatever podcast that Charlie was on. He did such a

great job of sharing the gospel and defending the faith. But recently, he was at an event and he was answering questions. It was a Q&A. And he made this comment about women in their 30s that ended up kind of going viral, generating a lot of controversy on X. Here. SOT 1. We basically told a great generation of young women, don't get married, don't have kids, go get a corporate job, and it's created mass political hysteria. And then in their early 30s, they get really upset because they say, you know, the boys don't want to date me anymore, because they're not at their prime. And people get mad when I say that, well, this is true. If you're in your early 30s, I'm sorry, it's like you're not as attractive in the dating pool

as you were in the early 20s. But again, you have your corporate job in cats. So I thought you, you know. All right. All right. I got a lot to say to that. All right. He also had some other comments about birth control that it really screws up female brains. And he encouraged people to make sure that their loved ones are not on birth control. And look, like, I agree with a lot of what Charlie Kirk said. And actually, in context, I probably agree with all of it in a sense. In a sense. So let me explain exactly what I mean by that. Let's break down his comments a little bit. So this generation of women, I would say generations of women, have been fed this idea that it is more important for you to make money and to be independent and to live on your own in your 20s and your 30s. And then you're going to find a guy who wants to marry you.

You're going to settle down. You're going to be able to have kids. and you can spend the next 10 to 20 years doing it all or balancing both. And that is a lie. That has absolutely caused mass hysteria. That is a lie that has caused a lot of disappointment and devastation. When women reach the age of 35 and they realize if they have purposely put their career first and put off commitment, put off marriage, put off dating, put off having kids,

only to realize then that the guys around them at 35 years old are not dating 35 year olds, but they are dating the 27-year-old who is not deciding to put her career first. Or the 35-year-old realizes that, oh, my chances now of getting pregnant are a lot lower than they were 10 years ago. Did I mess this all up? And now possibly I'm being told that I have to harvest my eggs. I have to freeze them and I have to go through ideas. that's a lot on someone's body. And of course, we won't get into the ethics of all of that right now, as we've talked about many, many times the problems with IVF. But that is the dilemma that a lot of

women are facing. So that is what Charlie is speaking to. Now, if I were to take this out of context and like just respond to the part where he said, you know, well, you said that you were fine with your corporate job and your cat, so that's okay. Like I, I want to. address that to you because he is speaking to a certain kind of woman that I just described who intentionally chose her career over settling down over getting married and having kids. But if I am speaking to you, I know that that last comment doesn't apply to you or to most of you. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of you listening to this show that are in your late 20s or your 30s and you are unmarried and you don't have kids, that you are not in this

situation because you want to be. You are not in this situation, most likely, because you imbibed feminist propaganda and you put your career first and you became this girl boss who had her blinders on and wasn't interested in a relationship or interested in having kids. If you're listening to this podcast, my guess is that you are single because that is the circumstance, that is the situation that God has placed you in. And it is not for lack of trying. It is not for lack of preparing. It is not for lack of praying that you are right now in this season of singleness. And so hearing something like, you're 30 and you're past your prime and you're not as attractive to men, that is understandably extremely offensive.

and extremely hurtful. Now, some of it is just plain true in that, yes, we become less fertile over the age of 35. That is just true. And unfortunately, I mean, it is true that a lot of men in their 30s are looking to date women in their 20s. That is just, I think, a fact of reality that many women have to reckon with. But listen, this is also true that God has written every single day of your life before any of them came to be. That God is completely sovereign. Romans 828 is still true that God works everything together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. It is also true that God sees you, that God hears you, that He has. That He has. has not forgotten about you, that he knows even better than you do the desires of your heart.

And he knows what today holds, what tomorrow holds, what the future holds. And he has done more difficult things than bringing a woman, a husband at the age of 35. That is not too hard for him. That is not too difficult for him. That is not too much of an obstacle for him to overcome. come. And I know that Charlie Kirk, by the way, would agree with that. And so before we take offense to his comments, we have to understand the context of what he's talking about and critiquing feminism, critiquing the propagandistic lies that a lot of young women have heard, and the consequence of those lies. And the particular kind of woman that he's talking about, again, that has intentionally chosen to put off marriage and children and all of that. But when I am speaking to you,

Christian woman and all the Christian women that I know in my life who are wonderful, who would make and hopefully will make wonderful wives and moms, like I know that those comments are hurtful to you in your particular situation. And I just want to remind you of God's goodness and of God's total power and total control and total sovereignty. That the culture that that we're in, the culture wars that are being waged right now, the dating scene, the horror that's on dating apps, the seeming lack of choices out there for when it comes to men that you would actually want to date and to marry, none of these things are inhibitions to God. Remember Job 42-2, no purpose of God's can be thwarted.

Now, I also want to say that you are not guaranteed none of us, you know, before we are married, is guaranteed marriage. No one is guaranteed children. Even if we desire these things, our desire is not an indication that God will fulfill that desire how we want him to. And so understand that, that life is filled with unmet and unfulfilled desires, even really good desires. It is a great desire to be married, to want to be married. It is a great desire to want to have kids. But we reject this kind of prosperity gospel that says, well, because I want it and because I've done the right things and I followed the rules, God is indebted to me. I am entitled to God's gifts. That is a lie and is going to send you down a spiral of continued heartbreak and disappointment to where you're not only feeling betrayed by possibly

men in your life, but you're feeling betrayed by God himself and God will never betray you. And he has never made the promise that he is going to give us everything we want. He offers us something far better. He offers us himself. He offers us his faithfulness. He offers us his presence. He offers us the spirit-powered ability to endure, even through the seasons of sadness and singleness and waiting and doubt and suffering that we don't want to be in. So that's the hope that we have. And I would just remind you, my single sister, that motherhood, and marriage is not when life starts. It's not when life begins for you.

You are not in a perpetual holding pattern. Like you are not in just a season of waiting. You are also called to work while you waits. God knows the desires of your hearts. You can continue to pray for that. But at the same time, you've got to release it with an open hand. Okay? And so just realize that your sanctification, God's calling on your life, the purpose that he has for you, it's unfolding right now minute by minute.

You are not more valuable to God, more productive for God just because you get married or have kids. You have not failed to fulfill your calling as a woman if God does not bring you a husband or allow you to have. children. You are not any less of a woman. You are not any less a daughter of God before you get there. Or if you never get there, understand that. That our highest calling as women, our highest calling as women is to glorify God with our lives. And we can do that right now. It's actually a lie of Satan for you to believe that your Christian life doesn't really start until you get married or have kids. So understand that. And just remember, remember this too. This is not a quote from the Bible by any means. This is just an allyism. And maybe someone told me this before I got married. I don't

remember. But it's certainly been true in my life and in a lot of my friends' lives who thought that they would never meet someone and then they did and then they got married. Here's just a tidbit. A lot can happen in a year. Just remember that. No, I don't know if you're ever going to get married. I don't know. I don't know. But neither do you. That's what I'll say. Neither do you. So you moping around and saying you're never going to find someone and Bumble and Hinge are so awful and there are no good guys in the entire city or state where you dwell. That's certainly not helping anything either. That's like when Sarai laughed at God when he said, oh yeah, you're going to become pregnant. I know you're like 90 years old.

but you are going to become pregnant. He called her out on it. It's a very funny story in Genesis. You should go read it. He said, yeah, you did laugh. And she denied it. And he was like, no, you did laugh. We don't need to be laughing at God. We don't need to be dismissing the power that he has. And you cannot see the future. A lot can happen in a year. You literally could. If God has ordained it, meet an amazing guy tomorrow and be planning your wedding this time next year. You have no idea. You have no idea. And again, another practical, a practical piece of advice that I would say because we can do practical wise things if our desire is to get married and to have kids one day. Go where the Christian men are. Go where the Christian men are. Most Christian men, most are not on Bumble and Hinch. certainly not on Tinder. They're probably not at the bars.

They're probably not. Not the men that you want to settle down with and get married to. They are probably at church. They are maybe at the gym. That's where I met my husband. It was like a Christian gym. And so it was a great place to meet a guy. Put yourself in a situation where you will meet a like-minded

man. Again, that's no guarantee, but it gives you a much better chance. And look, I will just say that I don't envy single women right now. I don't. I do think that it has gotten much more difficult dating than it was when I was dating 10 years ago now. Wow, I'm so old. It's gotten a lot different. Like the internet has changed the game, this red pill nonsense. has changed the game. Guys seem to be more immature for longer. But look, culture has always had weak men and has always had bad women. Like, I think the dating pool has probably been worse throughout history than it is right now.

And God has his people and he has his sons and daughters and he is sanctifying them. and I believe 100% that there are amazing, responsible, smart, women respecting, porn-free, hardworking guys out there. And look, guys, like there are some amazing women out there. And I will say to guys, don't just go for the 25-year-old. don't limit your pool and your selections to only 25-year-olds. There are some women, amazing women, who are in their 30s and late 20s. We don't need to be getting our direction from Twitter discourse about value and what a woman actually brings to the table.

just ensure that you are viewing people through the lens of the knowledge that they are made in the image of God and that God determines their worth, not Twitter, not social media, not anything like that. I remember that too for you, ladies, is that God determines your worth, not any of the chatter online. All right, so I just wanted to make sure that in case any of you were observing any of that rhetoric, that you remembered what is true about all of this. And again, I think Charlie Kirk would probably agree with everything that I said. All right. Now we've got another online conversation to talk about. And it's much bigger than an online conversation, but a lot of the discussion is again happening on Twitter. And that's an only fan's model, Nala Ray. She left her only fan's career

to follow Jesus. She recently did an interview with Michael Knowles on the Daily Wire. And a lot of people are saying, eh, I don't really know if this is genuine. Okay, former only fans model, this is from Christian Post and Church Leaders.com. A former only fans model, Nala Ray, has left the adult entertainment industry following a profound spiritual awakening, which culminated in her baptism and recommitment to her Christian faith. Only fans is particularly known for its porn content, with many creators using the platform to upload and monetize sexually explicit photos, videos, and performances. She also had a TikTok account with over 440,000 followers.

But recently, a few months ago, she announced that she was quitting OnlyFans, becoming a Christian, and she was baptized in December. Here's a two. Your biggest fantasy is... Not even my biggest. It's like one of my fantasies. Okay. So if you didn't see that, the first part was when she was on the whatever podcast talking about being an OnlyFans model, not too long. ago and how she's dressed certainly looks like a porn star. And then in the second part of that video,

she is being baptized, which is really amazing. And the text says, this is my testimony. No matter what you've done, said or believed Jesus saves. She told Fox News in a recent interview that she grew up as a pastor's child, ventured into OnlyFans in 2020, leaving her job as an orthopedic surgery scheduler. Her assent to the top 1% of earners on OnlyFan was Swift, yet it led to a critical assessment of her life's direction. She said that she was making $330,000 a month, which is just like mind-boggling. She said that her disillusionment with the industry grew. She observed its exploitative nature, particularly the way it allows men to control and profit from women's bodies. Her journey towards spiritual renewal gained momentum through interactions with the man she

described as her partner, who is apparently a devout Christian. She met in October through TikTok. She said he provided support through prayer and biblical guidance. And she said, I was reaching out to God and like, wow, my life is a mess. I feel so lonely. This is not what I should be doing with my life. She says they ended up getting saved, getting baptized in. I believe later December. I can't even tell you how much my life has changed since then. Everything in my life has just kind of come to this room where I can now observe it and then be like, okay, so I don't really want to do this anymore. I knew that this isn't what God wanted me to do with my life. I've raised decision to leave OnlyFans was complicated by logistical issues. such as awaiting tax documentation, which temporarily kept her account active. She made a symbolic gesture by posting a Christian video signaling her intent to advertise with the platform once her obligations were fulfilled. So she grew up actually as a Baptist, and I just want to say this as an aside and an encouragement for you parents out there who maybe have a prodigal son or daughter.

You have a child who is astray. You did everything that you could to raise them. and the Lord to disciple them, or maybe you thought that you were doing the best, best that you could at the time. And they have now walked away from the faith. And you're looking back and you're thinking, okay, I could have done that differently. I could have done that better. Oh, my goodness.

Where did I go wrong? How did I fail? And while all of us, of course, I mean, none of us is a perfect parent, all of us could have done and could be doing things better. At the end of the day, God is talking. totally sovereign. Like he is sovereign over salvation. And here's some encouragement to you is that I so often see him working through someone's Christian upbringing to bring them back to church. I see that so often from people who decided after they deconstructed or decided after they

walked away and they had a period of just wanting to be free in their sin, whatever it was. because they were raised in a Christian home, God uses those hymns that their mom sung them before bedtime, those Bible verses that they had to memorize in vacation Bible school to recall the memory of truth and to bring them back to the foundation that was laid for them. So just remember that parents who have a child who is not walking with the Lord right now. Your discipleship of them was not for,

not. It was not for nothing. It was not wasted. First of all, it was obedience to God because we are called to disciple our children. But secondly, you laid a foundation for them that God may very well use to bring them back to the faith. And so this, her story of being raised a Christian, walking away, it is very, it's very common. But also, this is another common part of it, is that her parents divorced when she was 11. And so divorce also causes massive destabilization for children. And that kind of instability leads to all kinds of problems. It can. It doesn't always, but statistically it very often does leads to lead to all kinds of problems. But then it was later that her dad became a Baptist pastor. And so she shared her testimony, all of this testimony on

the Michael Knowles show. And she also, addressed that she's gotten a lot of pushback on Twitter. And she has. I've seen this. So here's one example. Controlled Neo, I don't know, some blue check mark on Twitter, Christian to believe this woman can truly be saved. The naivete of conservative Christians is driving more people towards atheism and Islam. The same naivete that is making your society crumble, except anything in fall, except everything and fall for anything. Laura Lumer, who is not a Christian, says, these only fan girls can pray their slutty behavior away all they want. They will never be respectable, no matter how much they cry to God. Praying to be a respectable person doesn't work once you do sex work. It's best that we shun women

like this from society forever. Again, Laura Lumer knows nothing of the gospel or Christianity at all. Pearl Davis says, Michael Knowles, what a great commercial for her only fans, which still isn't deleted. However, community notes on that tweet says Nala's only fans page is not active, actually. Ian Miles Schong said, completely sociopathic,

would you believe that she's now being heavily promoted and touted as the next major traditional Christian conservative influencer? There's a shortage of good conservative women. What? There were many others, many others who said that she needed to pay her penance in order to really be saved or considered a Christian.

So here is Nala addressing some of those things in Sot 3. What is the fruit that I'm producing right now? Is it bitter and dying? Or is the fruit that I'm producing sweet? And is it growing in the soil that I have in right now? It's definitely stirring something in people's hearts, whether they can explain it or not. But I'm here to say, your explanation is Christ.

Go to Christ. If you really believe that I am fake, you go to Christ with that. You know what I'm saying? And you should be praying for me. So she's right. I mean, if you think that she's fake, then we should be praying for her. Now, I don't know her. I haven't talked to her personally.

We've reached out to her because I love people's testimonies. And I would love to talk to her about it. I don't say that I don't know whether she's sincere because I think that she's not. it's just because I don't know her and I haven't talked to her. And so, and I haven't looked enough, you know, into her testimony to try to verify it. That's not, you know, what I'm trying to do here. If she says that she's a Christian, then I am going to be hopeful about that. And I mean, in the same way with Kanye West, when anyone with the public platform who was so far in one direction says that they are a Christian, like I am very, I'm going to.

going to very hopefully accept that. Now obviously with Kanye West, I mean, I can see now that it doesn't look at all, at least from the fruit that he's showing us like he is following Christ. I don't regret being excited about the Christian music that he was putting out at the time or the church services that he was hosting even though he did have Joel Osteen one time or some of the gospel sharing that he did. I do agree though with any kind of hesitants to hoist someone up as like the new Christian celebrity or the leading Christian commentator. And I'm not saying that that's what people are doing for Nala, but it does seem to me that when someone has this kind of dramatic story of repentance,

that it would be better for them and better for their sanctification to leave the spotlight for a period of time and to really just grow in their faith. Before they start teaching, before they start a new platform to instruct people on Christian theology, I do think it is important to have that private, humble, in the background, season of sanctification. Now, I'm not saying that's a hard and fast rule. I'm not the person who gets to set the rules on that, but it does seem to me like that is probably wise. And so I can understand maybe that critique. Now, I'm not even, I don't even know if she's trying to become like the leading public voice of Christianity. But I think that that's like a fair assessment,

a fair critique. What I cannot get on board with. is this gracelessness, this anti-gospel message from some people online who professed to be believers. I didn't even read all the tweets. And then other people who clearly are not believers saying that, no, this person is too far gone. This person cannot really be saved. They can't really be accepted as a Christian. That they need to do something to prove themselves worthy of the label of Christianity. Like that is the opposite of what Christianity is. That is not the gospel. Recall the thief on the cross whose faith God used to save him. Jesus said to that thief, to the side of him on his own cross, today you will be with me in paradise. We read throughout

scripture. When Jesus is interacting with the woman of the night who washes his feet with oil and tears, when he speaks to the adulterous woman at the well, he calls these women to repentance. He calls these women to faith. But it is not through their cleaning themselves up. It is not through their own self-powered process of righteousness or making themselves clean that they have become acceptable to God. Remember, he who knew no sin became sin, so we might become the righteousness of God. So Jesus took on our sin. He died the death that we should have died. He paid the debt that we owed so that we could become the righteousness of God. He has justified us before a holy God.

He has made us holy. He has made us clean. His work on the cross, the blood that he shed, is completely sufficient for that. It was sufficient for Saul who turned to Paul, who had spent years of his life violently persecuting Christians, approving their execution. then he had the Damascus road encounter with Jesus in which he realized, oh my goodness, this sin that I have been committing is egregious and he became the greatest evangelist that has ever existed. Yes, Paul had sanctification and increasingly becoming more obedient to Christ and becoming more like Christ through the strength of the Holy Spirit.

But at the moment of his conversion, he was justified. He became, yes, a saint. He became a member with a member of the household of God. He became a co-air with Christ. He became a son of God. And that is what all of us are when by grace through faith, we have been made alive in Christ. And so let me read you a passage that, gosh,

we've read so much on this podcast, and that is Ephesians 2. This just reminds us that we really have no room to say, well, that person is too far off. That person is too far gone. They can't be saved by the gospel because, I mean, we read really clearly what that gospel is and where we all fall within it. And you were dead, this is Ephesians 2, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the

passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So that's all of us. All of us at one point, we're dead in our sin. There aren't different levels of dead. You are either dead or you are alive. and we read in Ephesians too that before Christ we are all dead in our sin. We are all stinking with the stench of death and decay. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raise us up with him and seated us with him in the

heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might know the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. for by grace you have been saved and here's a thing like i don't think most under people understand grace like you don't earn it you cannot earn it by definition it is a gift given to you freely because of no merit that you have on your own for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing like here's how many times here's how important this is to god he emphasizes it in so many different ways for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it is the gift of god so three ways to say grace right there not a result of works there's four so that no one may boast for we are

his workmanship there's another one created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them so the good works are a product of our faith not a prerequisite for our salvation. It's a product of our faith, not a prerequisite for our salvation. And even those good works that we do as a product of our faith are actually ordained by God beforehand. And he empowers us to do so we can't even take credit for those. So none of us have the ability, the authority to boast about any good that we've done, any righteousness that we have because it all comes from Christ. And that is the good news and I don't expect people who are not Christians to understand that. And I'm sorry that they are using that to bludgeon people like her or anyone else who they think are just too far gone.

Like that's the beauty of the gospel. That we could not make ourselves clean. We could not ascend the proverbial hill to God that he had to descent, come down the proverbial hill. Hill, take on flesh, and die a gruesome death on the cross for our behalf. And because we were dead in our sin, he had to make us alive in Christ by grace through faith. Second Corinthians 517. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Praise God. So if Nala is safe, by grace through faith, she is a sister in Christ. She is a saint and a member of the household of God.

Praise the Lord. And she is in a better position right now than the most chaste non-Christian when it comes to her ultimate fate. Now, we can also acknowledge that there are very real earthly consequences to sin. and we don't necessarily get to escape all of those consequences when we become a Christian. Like it is true that unfortunately Nala will be reminded of her past through the images that will live forever on the internet, through the videos that will live forever on the internet. Unfortunately, there's not very much that she can do about that. and she will carry the scars and the memories of the sexual sins that she is committed

and the knowledge that she at one point purposely, you know, tempted men into lust. And like having those regrets, what the Bible calls godly grief, is a real part of repentance. It's part of that Holy Spirit conviction. And thankfully, once we get to heaven, we don't have to worry about that guilt in godly grief, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to feel that guilt. Now, you don't have to feel overwhelming shame because it doesn't define you. You are a new creation and Satan, the accuser, will use your past sins to try to deny the reality of your new identity in Christ and try to disempower you from obeying him and just tell you, you know, you're always going to be

an addict. You're always going to be a prostitute. You're always going to be a cheater. You're always going to be a cheater. You're always going to be a liar. Whatever. He wants you to think those things so that you do not have the power and the strength and the energy to obey Christ. But all of those things are lies. However, the guilt that comes from conviction from the Holy Spirit and the knowledge that the past sins that we did were indeed bad, that I think is a good thing. Some people get confused about that. Like after we become a Christian, we shouldn't have guilt about anything that we did before we were Christians or any sin that we've committed. That's not true. We should look back at those past sins and yes, be ashamed of them, of those sins, even if that doesn't change our knowledge of our new identity in Christ. And so

the earthly consequences of sin are real and we do bear those absolutely. And like we can look at a story like that, like young people can look at a story like that and see, okay, so selling your body is not empowering. So making a ton of money through your bodily autonomy and being a pornographic girl boss that's not actually fulfilling. Oh, sexual liberation and money isn't all there is to life. Oh, that doesn't make someone happy. I mean, it's a tale as old as time. And so I do think that there are some lessons to be learned from that. But then also the humility in realizing that we were all once far off from Christ. And how amazing is it? In all the interactions that Jesus has in the New Testament that the gospel writers inspired by the Holy Spirit included so many interactions of Jesus

with adulterous women. The woman who was caught in adultery at the end of John 8, again the woman at the well, the woman of the night who was washing his feet with her tears. And while, of course, Jesus upholds the biblical sexual ethic and believes in holy sexuality, he treated these women with so much tenderness and so much care and so much attention and so much love. And so when we look at the gospels and we look at these accounts, we see the example of how we should be addressing and talking to these women who are in sexual sin or who used to be in sexual sin. It's not from a place of hate and anger and malice. Remember Romans 2. Go read Romans 2. It is God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And also there's a lot in there about like what judgment actually

looks like, good judgment versus sinful judgment. And so I think that's probably a good refresher for everyone. So that's my take on this. I mean, I do pray for Nala. Becoming a Christian and giving everything up when you are making hundreds of thousands of dollars when something has become a persona, it's become a brand for you. It's become really who you are, who people see you as when it's tied with your success and your stability to give all of that up for Christ. That's tough to do. That is tough to do. And so I'm just so thankful for her testimony and I just pray that she, um, she's got her ESV study Bible and that she is plugged into a local church. I don't know if she is still with this guy who originally

led her to Christ. Um, but I pray that her faith is not tied to that person, but that it is truly tied to Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever. So yeah, I'm just thankful. I'm always going to be thankful for these kinds of testimonies and just pray that the Lord would continue to continue to use her. Okay. So I think I've spent plenty of time like comforting women in this episode. And I think that these moms that I'm about to talk about need some tough love because there's this phenomenon apparently.

The rise of the cana moms. Okay. Moms who smoke wheat. Okay. Cannabis moms. And there are several outlets who are reporting on this. I think I saw this first on motherly. High on motherhood, the rise of canamoms.

So, 2023 study conducted by the Harris Poll for Cannabis Retailer Medman Enterprises found that more than one third of American women over 21 consumed cannabis. And apparently there are many moms also who are engaging with this. They talked to Kaylee, a 41-year-old mother and entrepreneur, Cannabis. She said that cannabis helps her manage challenging moments with her five-year-old daughter. I take a hit and then I'll be able to say, I'm sorry. That's not how I wanted to handle things. Oh my gosh, I cannot hate this more.

I found that I've had some of the sweetest, most engaged moments with my daughter when I'm a little bit high. Oh, my goodness, women. ABC News, this is actually from a few years ago. Weed moms are the new wine moms. The wine mom culture has long been the source of many a mommy meme with largely socially and largely socially acceptable. Marijuana using moms are stepping out of the shadows and proud. be extolling the virtues of cannabis. And so it goes on and on about these moms who have to use marijuana in order to get through the day. Okay, guys, we've had problems. You know that meme, or we have problems currently as a species. You know that meme about men, like men will do XYZ before they'll go to therapy? Okay, well, women will do XYZ, aka smoke weed before they get their stuff together before they go to church, before they find Jesus.

Okay, if you need wine, you need alcohol, you need drugs, you need a substance to get through the day as a mom, to go through your normal responsibilities as a mother, then there is something happening there. There is something wrong with your nervous system that probably has to do with not your physical health or even your mental health necessarily. there is something spiritual, there's something profound going on there, there's something going on in your circumstances that is not allowing you to self-regulate and to exhibit the patience that you need to handle your five-year-old. Motherhood is hard. Kids are demanding. The toddler years are really difficult, but it's made a lot harder by a lot of the things that we have going on today. kind of what we talked about at the very beginning.

If you were at work from 8 to 5, you're stressed out, you're touched out, you're talked out, and then at the end of the day, you are dealing with toddlers who are pulling on you and demanding a bunch of things and want everything from you. And of course, they want your attention and you're feeling exhausted and you're feeling overstimulated. Yeah, it's going to be really tempting to reach for something that is going to allow you to have some kind of like mental relief. or mental break. Also, constantly being on our phones, social media. Have you ever been really

like focused on your Instagram or focused on something on your phone, then someone taps you on the shoulder? And it just annoys you way more than it would if you had just been sitting there doing nothing. That's because our brains are just so overstimulated by social media that when one other thing tries to stimulate us, when one other thing tries to grab our, attention, it irritates us. And so we need to put down our phones. We need to reassess our priorities and we need to ensure that we are putting our jobs as mothers first. That doesn't mean that you don't do anything else. I know a lot of women who put their jobs as moms first, but they also have a podcast or they also have an Etsy shop or they also sell courses or something like that

contributing to the family economy along with their husband. It might mean, though, that you don't do any of those things, but we have to ensure that our priorities are in line. And if we are finding that we have to reach for an outside substance for us to just get through the day, then something is going on there. If we as Christians feel that way, then we really need to assess where our hearts are, where our spirits are. If we are being fed spiritually by the word, by other Christians, the way.

way that we need to, but also, like, I think some of it is just straight up immaturity. Some of it is just this belief in perpetual adolescence and prolonged juvenileity, that responsibility and having demands is just too much for us. It's just too much so we need an escape from all of it. When really, we have it really easy as a generation. moms have had it much more difficult than we have today in some ways, although I don't think that moms have the community and the village and the family support in some ways that other moms have in the past.

But even so, there is no justification for having to rely on these kind of toxic substances to allow us to be a mom. And, like, weed makes you stupid and lazy and fat. And so don't do that. It's bad for you. And it's bad for your kids. It's bad for your home. And it's bad for your air filters.

I am totally against, by the way, legalizing wheat. I think it's awful. I think it has only net negatives for society. And, like, the worst combination I can think of is a mom with young kids smoking weed. No, thank you. No, thank you. I think this is an awful development. This is just a new stage of toxic mommy culture, which toxic mommy culture, I first started

talking about that in probably 2018, wrote about it in my book in 2019. And it's just this phenomenon or like this culture of moms complaining about motherhood and thinking that it makes them cute or relatable or fun. We can be transparent about how difficult motherhood is in the right context. There's no need to vent about. your children and how difficult it is online for clicks and views. And you certainly shouldn't be smoking weed while you're doing it. That's my take on that. Okay, y'all, it was a full week. Gosh, we spanned a lot on our episodes this week. We will be back here on Monday with one of my

favorite guests, and that is Delano Squires. I've been wanting to talk about this, Don Staley, this coach of the University of South Carolina, women's basketball team, her recent comments about men playing in women's sports because they say that they're the opposite sex, but also how the media has raised her up as a hero. We're also going to talk about the very controversial subject about whether or not MLK was the Christian hero that we have always said that he was, whether the criticism of him is fair or not. We'll be talking about a lot of other things too. Y'all love Delano, so you'll love that episode. Make sure you tune in for that. We've also got some behind the

paywall subscriber only relatable content coming your way with chief related bro my husband you guys have been asking about that so go to blaztv.com slash alley and you can subscribe for all that awesome content all right that's all we've got for today see you guys back here on monday