How do you escape pornography or any sexual addiction? The Bible tells us that there are multiple ways of escape. What are they? How do you put them in place?

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And on this podcast, we're continuing the previous theme of pornography. We spoke last time about the devastating things that the Bible says of those who would continue. And so we want to shift gears a little bit here and talk about remedies, talking about really killing the dragon of lust.

And the scripture urges us to do that. And so I'd like to read a couple of passages of scripture to get us going on this. And the first is James 1.21, where James says, Therefore lay aside, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls, but be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. We're here really to focus on the first part of this, laying aside the filthiness and the overflow of wickedness. We'll get to the matter of receiving with meekness the implanted word, but not on this session here.

Also, just to remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter five, where he says, "'And if your right hand causes you to sin, "'cut it off and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than your whole body be cast into hell." So those are two remedies, two ways to escape. It has to do with killing the dragon. It has to do with setting something aside. So let's just talk about what that looks like. I think just as we think about killing the dragon, the first thought that comes to my mind is that the true Christian wants to be free.

He's not content to just sit and say, hey, this is my problem, but he wants to be free. He's having all sorts of, I'm sure, anxiety and shame and all these different emotions rumbling through. But the thing that I would liken it to would be, if you think of like a bear trap, the devil, He lures you and then he brings this kind of crushing condemnation over you. And you know, you can try to wriggle free. A lot of men will try these binge purge cycles, binge purge, binge purge, but can't quite wriggle free out of it.

And I think to me the first two things that come to mind are, you know, there are two remedies against us. The first is the cross and, you know, there's real power and we need to acknowledge that there's real power in the cross. You know, Christ came to save us, but he saves us from our sins, but he also gives us power over our sins. And we really need to believe that. And then the other thing I would say is that there are actual practical steps, the things that you need to do, actively do in your life.

Habits have deep, deep roots, and depending on how long you've been at it, it can have its tentacles in so many different areas. So those are two areas, the cross, but also the practical steps you need to implement to break free of that bear trap, so to speak. So, Scott, yeah, here's the two verses coming before what you just read about cutting off and plucking out. Jesus really opens the topic this way, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." So Jesus is waging war against our tendency to just externalize these things and think outward physical adultery is really the bad thing, and you should probably take some radical steps to not do that. But the things that just happen in the privacy of your own mind are really not that big of a deal.

Actually, Jesus addresses the things that happen in the privacy of your own mind and says those are the things that also require the most radical actions taken against it as well. It's interesting because he connects with what you're doing with your body, your eyes, your hands. He's connecting with your body. And this matter of how we think about our bodies, perhaps one of the reasons that we take this so lightly is that we have such a defective view of our bodies. Now, the Bible says that when we become Christians, Christ is in us.

He's actually in our bodies. He actually inhabits our bodies. If you have a low view of the body or a low view of Christ in you, then you're more susceptible to compromise. And I just want to read to you here, 1 Corinthians 6.15, because I want to say that if you're partaking in pornography, it means you have a low view of your body. You have a much lower view of your body than is real, unless you're not a Christian, And probably a low view of salvation, a low view of the presence of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

So in 1 Corinthians 6, 15, the apostle likens sexual immorality to the connection of Christ with a harlot. So he says, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? That's a high view of the body. Mm-hmm. Your bodies are members of Christ.

Mm-hmm. Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her, for the two, he says, shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. In other words, Christ. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." So I just want to set that before you.

The freedom that people have to engage in pornography is a symptom of having a low view of the body, a low view of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and a low view of being in Christ, and Christ in you, the hope of glory. – Scott and Paul, just to linger on the use of the body for a minute, Matthew 5 talks about, Jesus talks about the eye and the hand, And the parallel passage in Mark actually adds the foot, if your foot causes you to sin, amputate it, cut it off. So it's eye, hand, and foot. And these are not chosen at random. This is about what your eye sees.

This is about what you're allowing yourself to view. The hand is what you're allowing yourself to touch. Your foot is where you're allowing yourself to go, where your feet would take you. And this is about the use of our bodies. What is the use of our body for?

Well, it's not for these things. It's really to be living sacrifices. You go to Romans 12 verses 1 and 2, offer yourselves a living sacrifice. That's really our calling. Yeah, I have a pastor friend who, when he is talking with men who are entrapped in pornography and also the self-pleasure that's often associated with that.

He told me that he would often say to that man, don't you realize how ridiculous you look when you're doing that? Look at yourself. What are you doing with your body? And he drives them back to this profane use of the body, but not just the profane, but just the ridiculous, almost embarrassing treatment of his own body. One thing, Paul, and continuing that theme, where he, in Romans, he talks about the body as well.

So first, even that acknowledgement that you've been bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, And he makes the same thing. He says, Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust. And he talks about how in your last, your past life, you may have allowed sin to have dominion over you, but now you're not under the law but under grace. But as a result of that, there is something that we have to do. There's an act.

There's active dominion taking, I guess, in that sense. And he keeps continuing that same thing in terms of the theme. And he asks the question, He says, what fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. And it's just, again, just something to help us to see where this leads if we don't take dramatic action.

Like Jason just mentioned, your foot, your eye, your hand, you know, We need to really take stock of these things and take action in Christ helping us. So here's what Peter says in 1 Peter 2.11. 1 Peter 2.11 says, Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul." I love the Bible. I love how frank the Bible is on the hardest topics. There's an acknowledgement that this actually, there is a war against your soul.

J.C. Ryle often says in his writings that Christians are known as much by his war as he is by his peace. Christians experience both. We have a peace that passes understanding, but we know something about internal war too. And to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

The Bible tells us so clearly that you should expect war, you should act accordingly, and you should prepare yourself to act like not as a permanent resident of planet Earth, but as a pilgrim and a sojourner who's passing through to somewhere that's better, that has different delights awaiting us. And you know we're talking about you know why we ought to amputate, you know, all That's this whole subject. And you have this graphic imagery, Jason, you brought out the hand, the eye, or the hand and the foot, and matters of the body. The Bible speaks about our bodies in really amazing ways. I mean, we are not only are we members of Christ, but we're also members of one another in the church.

And no one engages in a pornographic experience without somehow, I believe, defiling the body as well, because we live in the body. The way that we are in private creates the way that we are in private creates the way that we are in public in the body. And you think about, you know, if a pastor is looking at pornography, what's the effect of that on the body? No one might know, but all will feel because we are our members of one another. There are just so many reasons to amputate because it would be joining of Christ to a harlot on the one hand, but it would also be joining your members with the other members of the body.

And I don't know how that actually works out in real terms, but we are members of one another, and there is some kind of an effect and I'm not sure how to even explain that. At least we could say there's real spiritual fallout and when when a pastor has real spiritual fallout then the people he's shepherding undoubtedly will feel that in ways that they might not even discern at the time. You know, Jesus talked about your eye being dark, you know, the darkening of your eyes. It's at least something like that. Also, you know, Paul talks about not specific to this sin, but grieving the Holy Spirit.

So because the church isn't just a gathering of people, it's not just a school or anything like that, but there's a massive spiritual component to it that is God going to be pleased as we engage in these types of things, you know, we sing the songs or engage in public prayer or even preach. How can there be power accompanying those things when What's done in the darkness is in opposition to what God, what pleases God. Just like David, the last verse in chapter 11 of 2 Samuel, and the thing that David did displease the Lord. That was the kind of punchline of the whole chapter. He did a lot of evil things, but he displeased the Lord.

And how can you expect continued blessing and growth in a church when these things are partaken of? You know, what you said, the church is the spiritual body. It's a spiritual family. There are things that you can't see. There are spiritual things that happen between us in our fellowship and our conversation.

And those things definitely, those spiritual, unseen things are affected. And so the point is, amputate, kill the dragon. The reality is, if you feed that dragon the smallest morsel, he grows big. You cannot feed him anything. That's why you've got to amputate.

That's why you have to cut off everything and set no unclean thing before your eyes. He grows large, and He will devour you at the smallest morsel that you feed Him. We're working through these really helpful texts in the New Testament on the topic. I think you can summarize them with three words, run, starve, amputate. There you go.

You don't stand near temptation and just hope for the best. That's a recipe. Anybody in this category who's been around the block knows exactly that that is a recipe for disaster. You don't stand near temptation, you run. That's exactly what Joseph did when he was being seduced by Potiphar's wife.

He didn't stay in the house, he left his garment and ran. You starve, you don't give it a single morsel, you starve it to death, and then exactly what Jesus is saying in Matthew chapter 5, you amputate. There is nothing so sacred that you wouldn't part with it, because it's better to limp into heaven than to have these sins drag you into hell. I wanna read this quote by Richard Baxter. He says, keep as far as you can from those temptations which feed and strengthen the sins which you would overcome.

Lay siege to your sins and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life." So clearly he's been studying the New Testament, but this sounds like a man who knows about the war and knows What it means to win and what it means to lose and how you go about both. Pete You know, I'm glad you brought up Joseph. He's that classic example. And there's so many things in that narrative that are revealing and helpful in terms of this matter. The first thing in the narrative is that the Lord was with him.

The Lord was with Joseph. That was his strength. And then in Genesis 39, 10, she was at this every day. He was being assaulted every day. But the Lord was with him and he would not violate his trust before the Lord.

And there are several things that he did. First was refusal. He just refused her. And the second thing he did is he declared his loyalty to his master. How could I do this to my master?

And the third thing was he ran. Those three things. But I think the heart of the matter, beyond his technique, was that the Lord was with him. His mind was filled up with the knowledge of God. And so, he was able to refuse, he was able to remember the loyalties, and he was able to run.

In Genesis 39, 9, this text that you're talking about, he actually says, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So, we'd already talked about how the freedom that Potiphar had given him to run his house. So maybe he was acknowledging it would be a great sin against Potiphar, but then he shifts his eyes to heaven, knowing that God is always watching, God would see it all. How could I do this great wickedness against God? 11 He was very concerned about what he might lose.

There's so much to lose, and it should always be in our minds. Solomon said that it brought him to utter ruin. But you think about the people in your life, you think about your wife, you think about your children. For me, you know, I have 24 grandchildren and I keep, I think about them. You know, these are, these are my grandchildren and, or at least some of them.

And it wasn't very long ago, one of my grandsons wrote me a note. And he said, Grandpapa, I love the Lord. And I can't get out of my mind what it would be like to have to face him, to face my wife, to face all my other children, to face my church members. There is so much to lose. And that's the critical matter here.

There is so much to lose and that's the critical matter here There is so much to lose if you have devalued your body Your anointing of the Holy Spirit the presence of Jesus Christ your brethren your family There's so much to lose Yeah, the psalmist and Psalm 119 He he was praying and you know, it's a beautiful how he he's asking the Lord to teach him his statutes, not just the mere meaning of them, but how he can apply them to his life. And he says, turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things. And then he says, and revive me in your way. He's not just saying, lift me out of the morass that I'm susceptible to, but cause me to live for you and joyfully live for you. And I think that's really a summation of how we ought to approach this world.

All of us turning our eyes away from things that are unprofitable. Because vanity, it deadens us with this particular sin. It slays your soul and takes you down in ways. One thing I would just add, when I've talked to different men, and you guys have been pastors for a long time, is I've noticed some men are susceptible at certain times and seasons, whether they're having hard times with their wife or going into depression. And those are kind of the peak seasons that they find themselves falling into this old habit, per se.

I don't know what you would say to things like that, but it might be helpful. Paul, let me build on what you've just been saying out of 2 Timothy 2 22. So here's what Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 22. He says, flee also youthful us, that's exactly what we were talking about, run away, flee also, useful us, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. So I think every man who's familiar with the war will say there's no such thing as only starving.

There is the other side of the equation of feeding the good things, of feeding the spiritual man. This goes right to the put-offs and put-ons that you find in both Colossians and Ephesians. You'll never, never win the war just putting off, just running, starving, and amputating, unless you're also giving your energies to the other side of the ledger, which is a hot pursuit of God and the things of God. 1 Corinthians 10, 13 Yeah, and that's so encouraging because there is a way of escape. There really is, there's hope.

You're not trapped, you're not in a prison. And 1 Corinthians 10, 13 makes this very clear. There is a way of escape. And we're going to talk about that more in a later podcast, but here's the way of escape. First Corinthians 10.12, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

No temptation has overtaken you, except such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry." Pete Slauson There are many ways of escape. And I think we always have to keep that in mind.

You know, are there any ways of escape that you're neglecting? You just mentioned one, filling up your mind with the knowledge of God, which we'll spend more time on later on. But there are various other ways of escape. You mentioned guarding your eyes. David said, I'll set no unclean thing before my eyes.

That's so important. But there are many ways of escape. Not going in the direction, not going near her house, staying so far away from her house, recognizing your vulnerable times. Maybe it's late at night, you know. I'm known for telling husbands, go to bed with your wife, don't stay up and look at your stupid computer.

So there are lots of ways that you can escape. But take the avenues. You know, take the escape route. It's there. God promises you an escape route.

So take it. Scott and Paul, listen to the counsel from J.C. Ryle here. J.C. Ryle says, nothing darkens the eyes of the mind so much and deadens the conscience so surely as an allowed sin.

Take my advice and never spare a little sin. Israel was commanded to slay every Canaanite, both great and small, act on the same principle, and show no mercy to little sins." It is these allowed sins that get treated like friends when they're your worst enemy. So I think we definitely wanna look in the camera sometime before we end and say, if you're watching this podcast and you have an allowed sin, you know it, nobody else knows it, your wife doesn't know it, your children don't know it, your church members don't know it, your family doesn't know it, but you know it, and you're giving it room to run. Do it now before it ruins you. Take Jesus' advice before it ruins you, and pluck it out, cut off, and take whatever radical measures are necessary.

Yeah. And we're gonna be given the language, you know. Kill it, amputate it, flee from it, and set it aside. That's the message of Scripture. That's the way of escape.

So thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Hope to see you next time. We'll continue the discussion. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up.

Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.