Helping Others to Victory - #216

One of the greatest sin issues that so easily entangles Christian men today is that of lust, porn, and other forms of sexual sin. If someone were to ask you for help with their lust issue and porn problem, what would you say? How would you counsel them?

Learn more about the ministry of The Purity Coach at  http://www.thepuritycoach.com

Transcript

I firmly believe with all my heart that one of the greatest sin issues that so easily entangles Christian men today is that of lust, porn, and other forms of sexual sin. If someone were to ask you for help with their lust issue and porn problem, what would you say? How would you counsel them? 

Welcome to The Point of Purity Podcast. A powerful weekly study filled to the brim with the all the tools from Scripture you will ever need to build a lasting life of Biblical purity and godliness. I’m your host Steve Etner – author, National Speaker, Certified Professional Mentor TM and Purity Coach for The Pure Man Ministry and this is Episode #216 entitled “Helping Others to Victory”

Hebrews 12:1 says, “since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off EVERYTHING that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with patience the race marked out for us.”

I firmly believe with all my heart that one of the greatest sin issues that so easily entangles men and women today ... and one of the greatest hindrances to the church today is something that - unfortunately - very few churches talk about, very few pastors preach on it, and very few spiritual leaders will adequately and effectively counsel on it. I also believe that way too many of the churches rank and file are deeply engaged it themselves.

32 years ago (1993) the Internet first became available to the general public. 5 years later (’98) there were already 14 million pornographic pages. 5 years after that (’03) that number spiked to over  420 million pages of porn. Last year the numbers were estimated to be well over 3.2 billion pages of porn. 

Google’s annual usage report for 2022 revealed that they averaged 8.5 Billion searches daily (aardvark's & actuators to Zebras & Zingers). That number - 8.5 billion searches daily – blows my mind. But what breaks my heart is that 1 in every 5 of those searches was for porn.

Let me boil that down for you. 1 in every 5 of those 8.5 billion DAILY searches equates to 20k searches for porn every SECOND of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month.

If one person viewed all the pages of porn available on the internet today at an average of 2 minutes (120 sec) per page – and did so 24 hours a day  non – stop, around the clock, it would take them        4,083,000 DAYS to look at it all. That equates to over 135 LIFETIMES!!!

OK: let’s get a bit closer to home. A few years ago Josh Mcdowel ministries /  Covenant Eyes / and the George Barna group  teamed together and conducted a massive national survey of professing Christians. 70% of Christian men (7 out of 10 men in the church) admit to viewing porn. Over 33% of Christian women (3 out of 10 women in the church) admit to viewing porn. This isn’t just a men’s issue.

In that same survey, 37% of Christian men admit to viewing porn multiple times a week. In other words: nearly 4 out of every 10 men are addicted to porn. Those numbers should shake us to the core. Unfortunately, I’ve had well-meaning men say to me: “But Steve, I bet those numbers are much lower in our  fundamental, Bible-believing, God-fearing churches. I’m certain they are definitely much lower in my church!”  

OK - let’s say for argument’s sake that you’re right. Let’s say instead of 70% of the men IN YOUR CHURCH it’s only 40% (4 out of 10). Does that lessen the severity of the problem? No! There are men (and women) in the church who are - according to Matthew 5:28 - looking with lust upon a person and thus committing adultery in their heart.

Let me remind you of Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 5:6 that “a little leaven leavens whole lump.” And in Ephesians 5:3 he warns that “sexual immorality and all impurity must not even be named among you.” (NIV =  “not even hint”).

Please understand that I am NOT saying that 7 out of 10 men in the church are “ADDCTD” to porn, or that 3 out of 10 women in the church are sexually immoral. Here’s what I AM SAYING: A high percentage of Godly men and women in our churches today are struggling at some level with lust and porn and other forms of sexual immorality and they don’t know how to deal with it … and the church at large isn’t helping.  

Easily 20 % of men who reach out to me for help are doing so because they refuse to talk with their Pastor about their struggle … either because they’re too embarrassed or there is a fear of being judged, shamed, and even ostracized. In fact: only 7% of the churches surveyed said they have something in place to help their congregation. Let me express it this way: 93 out of 100 churches are doing NOTHING to help!  

Here’s another devastating statistic that came out of that report. 57% of pastors and 64% of youth  pastors admit to struggling at some level with porn. And by the way, ALL those numbers are representative of ONLY the ones willing to admit it. I personally believe those numbers are actually much higher.

Fact is, we have brothers and sisters who are wounded, deeply impacted, and profoundly  impacted by this sin. This issue is destroying hearts, messing with marriages, fracturing families, and it has infiltrated and weakened the church.  

So, I pose this question to you: Someone comes to you for help. They confess to you a struggle with lust and pornography. What are you going to say to them? How are you going to help them? You don’t have to have a degree in Theology, you don’t have to know Biblical Hebrew and Greek, and you don’t have to be trained in the latest counseling methods. 

So, let me point out something that should be fairly obvious. Our strategy in helping others to victory – no matter the problem, no matter the circumstance, no matter the sin issue – our approach to helping others to victory must always be 100% Biblical. In Psalm 119:9, David asks a vital question. He asks, “How can a man keep his way pure?” Now let me pause here for a moment because that is pretty much the exact same question I am asked time and time again. How can I be a pure man? How can I be free from my sinful habits and addictions? Fortunately for us, David answers his own question. “How can a man keep his way pure? By LIVING according to God’s Word.” (Psalm 119:9)

When someone comes to you for advice in living in victory over and freedom from their sinful habits, help them understand that just going to church on Sunday and doing five minutes of “devo’s” during the week will not keep them pure. Now don’t misunderstand me here. Yes – go to church. Yes – have a devotional time with God daily. By all means, YES! But what are you DOING with what you hear preached in church? What are you DOING with what you’ve read from Scripture during the week? How are you applying it to your everyday living?

It's critical that we understand that when someone shares with you their battle with sexual sin, God is giving you the awesome privilege of coming alongside of them to help them discover not how to “fix” the problem, but how to live out the solution as revealed in Scripture. Psalm 119:105 declares, “God’s Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” In Psalm 27:1 David exclaims, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” And John 1:5 tells us that when God’s light shines in the darkness, the darkness cannot overcome it. 

Here’s the thing. The person entrenched in their sinful habits can be free! God’s Word guarantees it. In John 8:32 Jesus said, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” And what is the truth? In John 14:6 we see that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life.” This is why Jesus declared in John 8:36 that “if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed!” Did you know that 1 Peter 2:16 commands us to “live as people who are free, not using freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”

OK. So, let’s invest some time today talking about how to help someone who is struggling with lust and pornography and other forms of sexual sin. To begin, I want to share with you the top four “NO NO’s” and “Don’t Do’s” when mentoring a person who is struggling with purity.

NO NO #1 – Don’t tell them they need to just stop it. I recently had a gentleman who came to me for help tell me that he had confessed his addiction to porn and masturbation to his pastor. The pastor’s advice? “OK, so just stop it. Stop looking at porn and stop masturbating. Just stop it!” That was literally the extent of that pastor’s counsel.

If you listened to Episode #45 of this podcast you might recall hearing me share with you my testimony. You see, I had struggled with a severe addiction to lust, porn, and masturbation for over 30 years. It dominated my life, nearly destroyed my marriage and wreaked havoc with my family. I allowed it to ruin two very promising careers. On more than one occasion I had godly men tell me to just stop lusting. Stop looking at porn. Stop masturbating. Truth be told, I WANTED TO STOP! In fact, on multiple occasions I tried to “just stop it.” However, eventually I would have a moment of weakness, and I would once again give up and give in. The guilt and shame were overwhelming to the point where I attempted suicide.

Now here’s what I want you to understand. Telling someone who’s struggling with a sexual addiction to “Just stop it” is the equivalent of telling them to stand on a train track and with their own strength and willpower prevent an oncoming freight train from going any further. It’s going to bowl them over. Here’s why … telling them to “just stop it” is placing the emphasis upon their ability (or lack thereof) to control it. I submit that’s a major part of the problem. They are trying in their own power to control something they are quite literally powerless over. So, telling them to “just stop it” is going to do nothing but frustrate and irritate them.

NO NO #2 – Don’t tell them they need to “try harder.” Again I had some well-meaning, godly men tell me “Steve, you’re not trying hard enough. You need to exercise more self – discipline.” OK. Here’s the thing: just as with no no #1, this approach is putting the emphasis upon their behavior, their ability to “control” the problem. Understand this: both NO NO’s 1 & 2 typically produce feelings of failure and hopelessness. So, please don’t tell them to “try harder” because trying harder typically leads to falling harder. Here’s another thing to keep in mind … when someone is coming to you for help, it’s usually because they’ve already been trying harder to just stop it. It’s important that you lovingly come alongside of them and compassionately help them understand the victory and freedom comes NOT in resisting (not in trying harder to just stop it) … the key is not in resisting but in submitting. You see, there can be no victory where there is no surrender.

James 4:7 commands us to “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” Did you notice the order here? God does not say “resist and then submit.” NO. He says that when you submit to God, you will automatically resist the enemy.

I’ve actually just completed and released my newest book about this very thing entitled “Living FREE: Victory thru Surrender.” I’ll tell you more about it at the end of this episode.

Now let’s talk about NO NO #3. When someone comes to you and shares their battle with lust, don’t fail to address the spiritual side of the battle. Now, some of you may be thinking “why would I ever fail to address the spiritual? Of course I’m going to address the spiritual!” You see, if we’re not careful we might get caught in the trap of focusing all of our attention on what’s called “the presenting problem” (lust, porn, masturbation etc.). But that is not the real problem; your issue is not your behavior – it’s your heart. I do what I do because in my heart I want what I want. I’ll talk more on that in a moment. The fact is you cannot change your behavior until you first change your heart. This is why Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

On the flip side of NO NO #3 is NO NO #4. Don’t fail to address the physical aspect of the battle. You see, this is a two-sided coin … both spiritual and physical, and we must be sure to address them both. Here’s my point. When helping the person who is struggling with sexual sin we must always be on guard against focusing ALL our attention on either aspect of the battle. I call it putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble. 

We need to help them understand Galatians 5:7 that their “flesh is in conflict with the Spirit, and the Spirit is in conflict with (their) flesh” and they are opposed to each other, keeping you from doing what God has called you to do.

Hebrews 11:25 warns us that “sin has its pleasure for a season.” Truth be told, if it wasn’t pleasurable we wouldn’t do it. Right? Watch this now. Our goal for the person we’re helping is NOT to train them on how to resist the temptation to look at porn and sexually act out (that’s teaching them to focus on changing the outward behavior). Rather, our goal is to help them discover how to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). We must urge and encourage them to “Love the Lord God with ALL of (their) heart” (Matthew 22:37). 

OK. Now it’s important at this juncture to take a few moments to dive a bit deeper into first the physical component of the battle for purity, and then the spiritual side of this. Our most important sexual organ is situated between … our ears. You see, within our brain are these things called neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that carry electrical signals between the neurons in the brain. Don’t worry – I’m not going to get all “sciency” on you. But I do want you to understand that those chemical messengers (often called “hormones”) play an important role in your physical makeup.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that God designed them. He created them so they’re not a bad thing. Watch this now – this is awesome stuff I’m about to share with you. God designed 9 of our hormones in such a way that when we become sexually aroused, those 9 hormones are instantly released simultaneously. Those hormones are called Dopamine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine, Endorphins, Enkaphalons, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, DeltaFosB, and Testosterone. Medical science has discovered that when all 9 of these hormones are simultaneously released (which happens during sexual arousal) – the effect upon the human brain is more powerful than morphine! That is what we become addicted to, NOT the porn or the lust or the masturbation.

Let me explain it to you this way: an alcoholic isn’t addicted to the bottle, nor is a heroin addict addicted to the needle. Those are just the instruments used to deliver the drug. It’s the same with sexual addiction. We’re not addicted to the lust, or the porn, or the masturbation – those are just the instruments used to deliver the drug (to trigger the release of those 9 hormones).

Here’s another factor to consider. Whereas the alcoholic or drug addict needs “more” of the drug in order to achieve the same high – not so with lust and porn. You see, the primary reason a person will waste hours upon hours looking at porn is not because they need “more” but rather because they need “different.”

Before moving on to the spiritual side of the battle, let me just point out that many of those hormones include what’s called a “bonding agent.” In other words, when those hormones are released there is a strong connection (a bond) that is formed between the feeling received from that cocktail of hormones and the action that brought about that particular feeling.

So, here’s what happens. The next time a person is struggling with their “trigger points” (could be stress, frustration, loneliness, boredom, anger, for example) their brain says, “wait a minute! I remember what made me feel better last time (e.g., looking at porn, masturbating, sexually fantasizing etc.) – and so they choose to repeat that behavior. Here’s the thing. Watch this now: each and every time they choose to look at porn, sexually act out … those 9 hormones are once again released and the bond between the feeling and the action that created the feeling is fortified more and more and becomes stronger and stronger making it increasingly difficult (NOT IMPOSSIBLE) to break the cycle and have victory over and freedom from that sinful habit. 

As I said earlier, the main reason why we fail to live in victory is because we haven’t yet addressed the core issue. You see, the problem we struggle with is not lust, porn, masturbation – it’s not alcohol, drugs, anger, greed, pride, worry, gluttony, control etc. Those are the by-products of the real issue. The real problem every one of us struggle with every day of our lives is a worship disorder. Who is sitting on the throne of my heart? That’s the issue and that’s what needs to be addressed … our heart.

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” And in Mark 7:21-22 Jesus said, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, (and) foolishness.”

When Scripture refers to the heart (for example, Proverbs 23:7 declares “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”) it is in reference to the place where thinking and decision-making occur. In other words, your mind. This is important to understand because Satan knows that if he can impress your thinking, he will impact your living. What we think becomes what we do. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:3 “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” 

This is why, according to 2 Corinthians 10:5 we are to “take captive EVERY thought” and we are to “set (our) mind on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2) and Paul commands us to “not even THINK about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14). Proverbs 4:23 reminds us that the most important thing … “above all else guard your heart (protect your mind at all cost) for out of it (out of your thinking) spring the issues of life.”

You see, when King Me is sitting on the throne of my heart, my thoughts will be focused around I want, I need, I desire, I deserve, I have to have, I can’t live without. And when my thoughts are about King Me, my choices, my attitude, my behavior will all be centered around making King Me happy, happy, happy. 

Never lose sight of the fact that when King Me is sitting on the throne of your heart, three things are guaranteed to happen simultaneously. First, I will always worship King Me. Everything I think, say, and do will be thought, said, and done for the benefit and pleasure of King Me. Second, I will expect everyone and everything to worship King Me. And third, I will expect God to worship King Me.

OK. I want to quite intentionally hit the pause button until next week’s episode. I’d like to challenge you to think on what you’ve just heard. Then, in next week’s episode I will share with you my thoughts and expertise in walking someone through the Spiritual side of the battle. 

In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about The Pure Man Ministry (what we do to help men across the globe find freedom and victory over sexual sin), be sure to visit our website at ThePurityCoach.com.

I am super pumped and uber excited to announce to you the release of my newest book entitled “Living Free: Victory thru Surrender” available now on Amazon. You see, in our journey through life, we often find ourselves teetering at the edge of an ongoing battle of the heart. This book, “Living Free: Victory thru Surrender” will challenge you to examine your worship, your focus, your desires, and the very foundation of your faith: in short, to discover how to live in victory over sin through faithful surrender to God. 

So go to Amazon today and pick up your copy of “Living Free: Victory thru Surrender” - and join me on this transformative journey toward a life of genuine freedom – found not in indulging the fleeting and fickle desires of the flesh, but in truly devoting yourself entirely to the only One who will fully satisfy your soul.

And if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, let me encourage you to do so today so you won’t miss any of our upcoming episodes! So, until next time this is Steve Etner – author, National Speaker, Certified Professional Mentor TM and Purity Coach for The Pure Man Ministry – reminding you that if you are going to glorify God in your everyday living, He must first be glorified in your every moment thinking.