Hope to Win the War on Pornography: Jacob Way

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May 3, 2024

Pornography has become a pervasive and destructive epidemic in society and effects the church as well. Pornography is a $97 billion dollar a year industry and 64% of professing Christians say they view pornography once a month- and that's only the ones who are telling the truth! The unfortunate truth is that numbers are much higher.

00:09: Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Reform Rookie Podcast. My name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm your Reform Rookie host, bringing you all things
00:16: Reform today. The goal of this channel and podcast is to take the deep -rooted truths of the
00:22: Reform tradition and help you see the beauty in them and the joy you'll experience in understanding them better.
00:28: Understanding these truths will help us better know the true God of the Scriptures and help us to better appreciate
00:33: His plan of salvation. So today, I'm excited to bring my guest to you today. His name is Jacob Way.
00:39: He's the author of the new book, Hope to Win the War, How Pornography Enslaves and Truth Frees.
00:46: Jacob is a committed dad and father and teacher. He also has the privilege of serving as an elder in his local church.
00:52: He loves reading, watching movies, hiking, eating food, eating great food, which I share that affection.
00:58: He lives with his wife and two children. Hi, Jacob. Hi, Jacob. Welcome to the show. Hey, Anthony. Thanks for having me.
01:04: Glad to be here. Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. So, as a first -time guest to the show,
01:09: I'd just like to hear your testimony to how you came to know Jesus as Savior and Lord.
01:17: Yeah, absolutely. So thankfully, I was blessed by the Lord. I was raised in the church. I had two loving parents, a tradition of faith.
01:24: So I grew up in the faith. I was regenerated at the age of seven, really young.
01:31: Praise the Lord for that. And just kind of had a normal life, normal Christian life.
01:36: But it was really kind of when I was 13 or 14 is really when I would say I became born again in the sense that I actually understood the faith and decided to follow
01:47: Christ more. Amen. Now, the tradition that you were brought up in, was it a
01:52: Reformed tradition to begin with? No. No, this was that large, non -denominational, kind of, you know, clump of evangelical.
02:03: Yeah. Big net. We're going to get everybody in here. Yeah. So how did you come to an understanding of the
02:12: Reformed faith, the doctrines of grace and the five solas? Yeah. Well, it's funny.
02:17: The first time I was at a youth retreat, I think I was 13, and we had a college pastor who was kind of working on our small group.
02:25: And he started telling us these things, and God chose us and we're predestined. And I freaked out.
02:30: I was like, what is happening here? Like, I got organized a coup, I got all my friends together,
02:37: I called my youth pastor on the phone. I'm like, hey, this guy is teaching some stuff. I've never heard it before.
02:43: Like, what is happening here? So my youth pastor actually called the college pastor, was like, hey, you know, tone it down.
02:50: We don't know what these guys are doing. Oh, that's funny. Stick to the curriculum, right? Don't go off over here.
02:56: So it kind of scared me. It terrified me. I rejected it. That fleshly man just rejected it completely, that I couldn't have a choice, or that I couldn't choose
03:08: God freely, that God had that much sovereignty. So at first I rejected it. And then over time,
03:15: I mean, this was kind of the tail end of that, young, restless reforms that I kind of just barely kind of snuck in.
03:21: So I think we were at, even at youth group, and we watched a clip of John Piper's seashell sermon.
03:30: And man, I had never heard anything like that before. I had never heard something so God -centered.
03:37: And so that was happening. And then I started to read the Bible for myself, and was reading books like Isaiah, and just having my mind blown of God's sovereignty, and that no one can stay his hand, and he's in the heavens and does what he pleases.
03:54: And it was just a picture of God that I intuitively knew. So once I was reading it, then
04:01: I would hear sermons and find material, and it's like, well, I'm not, I can't get these two things together.
04:08: And I didn't have the theological terminology. I had no idea. But yeah, so through YouTube, I actually started to be exposed to Calvinism and the doctrines of grace.
04:20: And then so, but slowly but surely, I kind of became convinced of Calvinism, I think maybe by 15 or 16, because it was just matching what
04:28: I was seeing in Scripture. And then my journey continued in that pattern. I would read in Scripture, and I would kind of look around and not really see or hear biblical teaching like that.
04:41: And then I became Calvinist, and I was telling everyone, hey, I'm Reformed, I'm Reformed. And I thought Reformed was just a nicer way of, a nicer
04:49: Calvinist. Not a scary Calvinist. No, no, no, I'm Reformed, I'm Reformed, don't worry. It's okay.
04:54: Don't worry. Don't worry. I'm not, it's not dangerous. And then I kept getting all this pushback. No, you're not
04:59: Reformed. You're not covenantal. You're not creedal. And I'm like, what's that? You know, what are those things?
05:06: The whole new world. The whole new world. And then, yeah, just slowly but surely, you know, Carl Truman's creedal imperative was great for me.
05:16: A podcast, I listened to a podcast, walked through the 1689 Lundenbab's Confession of Faith, and I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
05:23: This is just a summary of Scripture. I thought I was, you know, scared of creeds, you know, no creed but Christ. I was holding that mantle.
05:31: Were you at all cage stage? Oh, I went full cage stage and then, yeah, I'm trying to, we're sitting down in a
05:38: Bible study. I'm like, Ephesians 1. That's all I want to talk about. Oh, gosh.
05:44: Who is this guy? Like, so, you know, and I think that's just by God's grace.
05:49: He's just been revealing that more and more to me and, you know, getting all those pieces together, right? So, you know, get the confessional and then the covenantal part was easy.
05:58: That was just, I think that was one article by R .C. Sproul. Yeah, I see that.
06:04: There's one people. That fits. That fits. That fits. That makes sense. And then, yeah, it's just been a joy, really, of just coming to know the
06:12: Lord better. And it's just how everything comes together and flows and makes sense and, yeah, and it's amazing.
06:21: It's just amazing. Yeah. Yeah, once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's like, wow,
06:26: I see God's sovereignty on every page. I see man's depravity on every page. And I see
06:32: God's grace in just dealing with the people who he called, you know, think about Abraham.
06:38: You know, Abraham was an idolater. His father was an idol maker and he calls this guy, you know, out of nowhere to, you know, be the one who through whom he's going to bless all the nations.
06:48: It's like Abraham wasn't looking for that. Like he wasn't seeking after God. You would see his father was making idols.
06:56: He was probably helping them. You know, it's like, wow, this is a God who pursues his people.
07:02: Well, and that's what it does, too. It just totally destroys your pride, right, in such a good way, because after you've been a
07:09: Christian for a long time, you start to think, well, you know, I'm pretty good. You know, God chose me because I would be pretty good.
07:18: No, no, no. Keep coming back to the cross. Keep coming back to his grace. Amen. Amen. Amen. So after you were born again, regenerated, and you come to the doctrines of grace, how did you know?
07:30: Did you sense a calling on your life to do this? Like how were you called into leadership? Yeah, that's a great question.
07:38: So part of that is, yeah, I was always just around, had opportunities for leadership.
07:44: I was in scouts. I was in Boy Scouts at an early age, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts. So I was always kind of in front of people leading, and that actually led me to do a lot of teaching, you know, how to tie a taut line, how to clean up a mess kit, you know, how to hike, those kind of skills, just teaching.
08:03: And I really enjoyed it. I felt a call there. I felt a joy that I hadn't had before. So I was kind of pursuing teaching.
08:11: And then really after kind of the other side of my testimony, after this pornography business,
08:17: I would just get in front of people and talk about it. And people started to respond.
08:23: And it was amazing to see, you know, my life being redeemed, my story being redeemed and bearing fruit.
08:30: And that, man, that was just, talk about joy and fulfillment there and purpose. So I could see that God was having me have these opportunities to talk about Him in front of people.
08:41: And so that was always there and got to do that more and more.
08:47: It was, you know, three or four people or my Sunday school class, it was just, I told the Lord, hey, anytime
08:53: I have the opportunity, I'm going to tell this story because it's your story. And so got to a point where I had that desire to teach, teach scripture, teach the
09:04: Bible. And my church said, hey, we need more elders. We're growing. So actually, this is how
09:11: I didn't even know, like, the difference between an elder and a deacon. Right? Because I didn't come from, you know, just a senior pastor growing up.
09:20: And so this kind of different church structure said, oh, you know, what's an elder? I'll do it. And yeah, praise
09:25: God. So just, yeah, that's how I felt called. Amen. Amen.
09:31: Listen, I'm so happy that you wrote this book and you share, you know, some deeply personal stuff, because some people are, you know, when they're caught in the middle of it, they're afraid to talk about it because they think it's shameful.
09:49: And to a certain extent, it is, all sin is shameful, right? But you're bold enough to come forward and say, hey, listen, this is a serious problem.
09:59: And there's freedom in Christ. There is a solution to this problem. So praise
10:05: God for that. I'm really praying that this is going to be something that people look at, buy the book, because this is a rampant problem worldwide.
10:16: And I don't think the culture wants to stop it. I think people are making money on it.
10:22: I think the dark side, the dark forces are rejoicing over people who are getting enslaved to this stuff, addicted to it.
10:30: And it just breaks relationships, not just in marriages, but just in general, it breaks people down and separates them.
10:40: Because now you're looking at people of the opposite sex or even the same sex, and that's all you're processing.
10:47: You're looking at them as how they can please you, and not how you can love them and serve
10:54: God at the same time. So why don't you step us through, how serious is this threat to the church society?
11:06: Did you have any statistics that you wanted to share, or just from your interaction with this?
11:14: Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I don't want to exaggerate here, but I really think that this is probably the height globally that we've seen of pornography's power in our world.
11:28: So some things have kind of combined together to create that. So but first of all, I just looked this up the other day, and this is just shocking to me.
11:39: Globally, $97 billion industry, pornography. And then in the
11:45: US alone, it's a $14 billion industry. Now I remember when
11:51: I was in the middle of this, you know, 10 years ago, and I remember hearing, you know, $1 billion industry, right?
11:58: And that's still a lot. But $14 billion today, here's just some quick statistics, 28 ,258 people are watching pornography every second.
12:12: And $3 ,000 is spent on porn every second on the internet.
12:18: So you know, since we've started this, how many people are addicted and trapped in this.
12:24: And here's the thing for the church, that's also shocking. 64 % of Christian men, 64 % of Christian men say they watch porn at least once a month.
12:36: So you know, best case scenario, half of the people in our churches are seeing porn just once a month, which, you know,
12:44: I've been there. That's not just a once a month kind of thing. And those are the honest ones, right? Those are the ones who are filling out the survey, honestly.
12:52: So but here's the sad thing. Only 7 % of pastors report that their church has a ministry to address this.
13:01: So there's a huge need in the church globally. And why
13:07: I would say that porn has that its height of its power is for three reasons. One, the access to smartphones,
13:14: I mean, man, praise God, I didn't have a smartphone when I was stuck in this. I mean, I'm logging on to computers and things.
13:20: And that kind of limits you, right? But man, you've got a smartphone in your pocket. You can access anything, anywhere.
13:27: And you can become secluded and do that easier. So smartphones, these subscription services,
13:34: I mean, this direct access to content is just totally new.
13:41: And you know, all these women are making millions of dollars doing this kind of stuff.
13:47: And it's hidden. It's secret. And third, how our society perceives it, right? This is like, it's no big deal.
13:56: You know, these kind of women are actually praised, like, hey, they're entrepreneurs. They're small business owners, right?
14:01: It's just this total, like, warping of this idea. And honestly, the church hasn't really spoken out much.
14:09: I mean, so I grew up kind of in the 90s, early 2000s, and there was this real big push in purity culture.
14:16: And I mean, it's gotten some backlash. It kind of needed to get some of its backlash. But there was at least, you know, a concerted effort to talk about, hey, this internet thing is coming about.
14:27: It's creating this pornography epidemic. It's going from print to online. But honestly, we haven't seen that same response, that continued response, because, man, it's a war.
14:39: And we've got to fight. So we can't be passive here as Christians in the church. Very much so.
14:45: The fight is real, and we have to be ready for it. Most kids, I mean, with phones, like you said, they have access to it.
14:53: It's not even prohibited by, you know, by internet standards.
14:59: And little kids are starting to watch this stuff at an early age, and they're getting caught up into it.
15:05: And because of the way the society views it, it's normal. It's like what we do.
15:10: On top of the fact, as you're watching just regular TV, we live in such an over -sexualized society.
15:19: You know, Jacob, obviously, I've been working with the Lord for about 20 years. Recently, I was watching
15:28: TV, and what came up on the screen was that show Happy Days, you know, with Fonzie and all that kind of stuff.
15:35: And I say, come on, kids, I want to show you something that I watched when I was little. As I'm watching this,
15:42: I'm seeing Fonzie kiss two and three girls, and this one go out on a date, and where we go, we go on Inspiration Point.
15:49: This, I started looking at this, and I'm like, oh my goodness, this is grooming kids at a young age to think this is the point of a relationship, to make out in a car, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
16:04: This is what I was watching. You know, even before pornography was like so prevalent in society, and I immediately turned it off.
16:13: I'm like, okay, kids, I shouldn't have watched that. I don't even know why I did, but you know, and that was considered a wholesome show.
16:22: Right, right. Yeah. And the whole thing was about how guys were going on panty raids and all these different things and buzzwords that they would use.
16:30: I didn't even know what it was at the time, and now I look, I'm like, my goodness, even back then, there was this push towards sexuality.
16:39: You'd always see them making out on a couch and going on a date. It was always about meeting with the other sex.
16:46: Horrible. Horrible. Wow. So, okay. So, you started now in leadership, and you had this issue with pornography.
16:55: How does your theology help you fight this battle? Yeah. So, this is key.
17:01: And so, yeah. Let me kind of tell a little bit about kind of my story and how our theology helps us fight this war.
17:09: So, yeah. So, as I mentioned, I was about maybe 13, 14, can't remember the first time I started to get ensnared in this, but I started out really hopeful, had lots of zeal.
17:21: I would fall, repent, fall, repent, and understood that I was fighting a war, and so that lasted for a couple of years.
17:29: But honestly, by the time I think I was 15 or 16, I just got tired of fighting. I got tired of repenting, and I got tired of being wrong.
17:41: I got tired of conviction, and I got tired of the Lord telling me to stop.
17:48: And so, I really had this internal struggle where I loved pornography,
17:55: I loved that part of my life, and I didn't want that to be yielded to Christ. And so, in my sinfulness,
18:04: I started just to think, well, you know, why is this wrong? You know, is this just something that a pastor has told me?
18:13: Is this conviction real? And what it became to me, I think I was 16, it became a crisis of faith because I started to say, you know what?
18:21: Like, how do I even know God is real? How do I know? Why am I a Christian? Is it just because I was raised in the
18:27: United States? You know, what if I was born in Saudi Arabia or India? Would I even be a Christian then?
18:33: So I had this kind of path where I chose pornography over Christ and just said, you know what?
18:39: I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going to stop repenting and just go full forward into this.
18:46: And so, you know, you get rid of God, you get rid of conviction. And I thought my life would be better, and my life was a living hell.
18:54: It got even worse. Every part of my life, emotionally, relationally, like you mentioned earlier,
18:59: I was seeing people as objects. I mean, it's all I could think about. It's all I could do.
19:05: And so God just kind of let me go in the sense of like, turn me over and man, it was just uninhibited.
19:12: And it was terrible. And then I finally hit this point where I looked up at the stars and then
19:18: I looked in a microscope at school and I said, yeah, there's got to be a creator. There's no way all of this just happened.
19:25: But then it was this like slow walk back to finding Christianity, kind of an apologetics course
19:31: I went through on my own. And then I came to the point where it was like, yeah, but I've walked away from Christ for six months.
19:39: How is he going to respond to me? So, you know, I've got to do some penance. I've got to do, you know, I've got to go to church every four weeks straight.
19:46: I got to make up for this. Got to make up for this. You know, and it's like, that's what I know. I got to like this. This is what
19:51: I deserve. How can he bring me back? How can he accept me back? And so that was a struggle.
19:58: And then finally, the Lord just broke me. I was it was a weight that was too much to bear.
20:04: And I finally it was like the prodigal son. I was wasn't in a pigsty, but I felt like I was in a pigsty spiritually into my senses and came back to the
20:15: Lord. And and the minute I turned around, he was there and he was there the whole time. And I didn't have to clean myself up.
20:22: I didn't have to do penance. I didn't have to, you know, do anything but repent.
20:30: And and he welcomed me back with open arms, as the father does. He he runs and he puts the signet ring on our on our finger and he says, my son has returned ring out the fattened calf.
20:40: So that was kind of my journey was walking away from the faith to pursue pornography and then realizing this this does lead to destruction.
20:49: This is terrible, actually. And God wasn't withholding good things from me by getting me off that path.
20:56: He was protecting me and showing me true joy in himself. So so that's kind of my story.
21:03: And then, yeah, the theology, we can dive in there. Yeah. So just just to let the listeners know, Jacob's whole story is in the book.
21:10: And it's it's really gut wrenching and brutally honest.
21:17: And obviously, the joy at the end is is terrific, because like Jacob had just said, the father welcomes you back.
21:23: Right. So if you repent, you you place your faith and trust in Jesus and you pursue the Lord. You know, he takes you back and continues this process of sanctification and restores your sanity back.
21:35: So now you can look at people as image bearers of God and not just objects of your pleasure.
21:41: So it's all in the book. But go ahead, Jacob. Keep going. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you,
21:46: Anthony. Yeah. So how does our theology help us in the fight? I mean, this is something that this is really why
21:52: I wrote the book is because, you know, when fighting this war, we don't just need, you know, tactics and there are it's important to have strategy in fighting.
22:02: But actually, this war is mental and there's lies that we believe that we have to kind of dislodge in fighting this war.
22:09: So how our theology impacts us, man, and especially talk about reform theology. If you're not really having a reform position, every stage of this addiction process is going to be miserable.
22:19: So to begin with, you know, having a right anthropology. Right. So if I'm being tempted, I have to know, well, where's this temptation coming from?
22:26: You know, I remember thinking like, you know, as long as I can keep all the external triggers from happening, then
22:34: I'll be good. And then one day I had a perfect day in the sense that there was no external triggers and it was one of my worst days ever.
22:41: And it's and well, yeah, it's because, you know, out of the heart comes all these things, as Jesus said.
22:47: So, you know, if we don't have that, first of all, we don't have the right starting place. We're not going to understand that, you know, we are the problem and the solution can't come from the problem.
22:58: We need an external solution. Amen. The beginning temptation, just knowing and having a right theology to battle that in the middle of sin, knowing that there's always a way out.
23:09: Right. Is that is that promise true? You know, is is the Holy Spirit powerful enough? And is
23:15: God faithful enough to always provide a way out? Yes. Is the Holy Spirit strong enough to say that he is in you is greater than he that is in the world?
23:24: I mean, man, you're really I mean, when you are right at that precipice of about about to go into sin or believing that promise, you have to then know that God is faithful to you and that moment.
23:35: And then, as I mentioned, with with repentance, you know, the biggest thing for me and this is this is my favorite chapter in the book is is just this lie of unforgivable that what if, you know, because the the person that's stuck in this, you know, you know, it's sin, you know, it's bad, you know, it's a struggle.
23:58: Right. You're not telling that's nothing new. Right. And you've been fighting this for years. So you don't need to hear, you know, bounce your eyes, you know, one more time.
24:09: You don't need someone to tell you, hey, put it put a scripture on your phone and everything will be fine. Like you are you are broken in your in your spirit and you need to know that God still loves you and that actually he can still redeem you that that you are not too far gone and that he his his grace is effectual.
24:32: It's going to continue to pull you along and praise God that he perseveres.
24:38: He makes his saints persevere. Yeah. And so in that darkest time, Christ leaves the ninety nine to pursue you and with joy.
24:48: And that's the part that always gets me with joy, picks up that lost lamb and brings us back.
24:53: So but man, if you don't have a right theology, if you don't understand that even in your addiction and walking away from from God, that you're still a son, that that Jesus knew all of that and still died for you.
25:07: If you think that you're going to lose your salvation or you think that he's going to disown you or that the blood of Christ did not forgive you of this sin, it just forgave you of these other sins.
25:18: Man, it's going to create. Yeah, it's going to talk about crisis of faith. I mean, sure, there's hope there.
25:25: There's no hope because it's all on you. Right. You don't you don't trust in the sovereignty of God to keep you and preserve you.
25:34: So, man. Yeah, because it's up to you. It's up to you to maintain your salvation at that point.
25:40: Right. If it's not if it's not God maintaining and sustaining you, well, then you're the one who's maintaining your own salvation.
25:47: God's done everything he can do. Yeah. You know, he tried his best. Right. He tried his best. But, you know, you messed it up.
25:53: You went too far and it's your fault. And man, I have been there and that is that is a terrible place to be.
26:02: And yes. But praise God that that's not true. Yes. Amen. Amen. One of the things that I learned in coming to the reformed faith, my pastor had did a teaching on when
26:14: God sets his love on you, that covenant love. First of all, it's the same love that he has for Jesus Christ.
26:21: Yeah, that the same love. And because God doesn't have emotions, he's got perfections.
26:28: It's a perfect love. It can never be any stronger, nor could it get any weaker.
26:34: It is a perfect love. And part of the new covenant is God places his the fear of him in our hearts so that we don't turn to the right or to the left.
26:45: Ezekiel 36. He he gives us his he writes his law on our hearts and compels us to follow them.
26:54: So in the midst of this of our sin, no matter what it is, whether it's pornography, alcohol, whatever it is, we're going to we're going to have that heavy weight of conviction weighing on us, which actually is an anchor that brings us back to Jesus Christ.
27:09: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in his conviction, it doesn't feel like it in the beginning, but that conviction is is an act of grace as well.
27:16: Yes. And he's bringing you back to the cross and he's getting you off that path of destruction. Yeah. And that that reality of his perfect love that doesn't diminish or doesn't grow based on our performance, it continues to change my life.
27:32: That is it's just amazing. Amen. Amen. Man, like likewise. So obviously we recognize that this is a battle.
27:39: And I love the fact that the book reads like a battle plan. And I was just having fun because, again,
27:45: I haven't read the whole book, but parts of it, I looked at the chapter headings.
27:50: Right. And you see each one of these points to something. The first one is temptation and you go through all these things and there's study helps in the back and things that you can do, scriptures that you could read.
28:04: So I was really enjoying the fact that you have practical fighting tactics, key memory verses, other resources outside.
28:13: In fact, one of the resources I knew about was from Tim Chalies. He had a lot of good stuff about pornography on his side, if somebody is looking for that.
28:22: So did you did you intend to write it as a battle plan or had it had that come about?
28:30: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think I had battle plan in mind when I was kind of framing it.
28:35: I mean, for me, it was the point of the book is just is the hope. And that's why
28:40: I wanted to start it off with hope, because that's what you need. You know, that's the fundamental human need when you're stuck in this stuff is just to know that it's possible to get out because by the time you would even say
28:54: I'm an addict, you're too far gone in your own head. But, yeah, I think that just kind of slowly came out as I was writing it.
29:01: I was realizing that, yeah, OK, it's not just it's not just knowing this truth.
29:07: OK, I need to have scripture to back this up. And then, OK, well, actually, that is kind of like a battle plan.
29:13: Well, what do I need to do? I do need to have some tactics here. I need to put scripture on my on my computer.
29:18: I need to have someone I can call at any moment. And they're just going to pick up the phone and we're just going to talk or, you know,
29:23: I just need to know, hey, I'm going to just go for a drive. I just need to get out, you know. So and and yeah, so I just kind of as it all kind of started to come together and as I was kind of writing it, you know, some some more analogy started coming out.
29:38: I was like, OK, yeah, this this really is this really is a way to think about it.
29:43: And, you know, especially as men. I mean, the book is for women as well. But, you know, there's this I believe this
29:49: God given, you know, masculinity that we have to to fight and defend and to protect.
29:56: Right. And so I think trying to tap into some of that as well, that, you know, because that's what pornography does.
30:02: It kind of effeminates men. It takes God's good design and it perverts it. And instead of, you know, being with your wife, you're looking at a screen, you know, it just totally like destroys
30:15: God's intention. And so I think we need to reclaim that. Yeah, no, that actually you brought you brought a thought to mind because, you know, when guys get together, it seems like this is this is something that they talk about.
30:31: You watch this. Did you watch that? But real men, right, talk about their wives and how they love their wife and they are fiercely loyal to their wife.
30:39: That's what a real man is. And just like everything else, the enemy tries to redefine what
30:45: God has defined already. Like we're looking at gender. Society's trying to redefine what
30:50: God's you look at marriage. Society's trying to redefine that. You look at when life begins. Society's trying to redefine that.
30:56: Now you look at what the gift that God gives us in sex with our with our with our our wives and a husband, if you're a woman listening to this, you know, sex inside a marriage is a gift to to us.
31:11: And what is what does God do? He breathes on dirt and make something beautiful out of it.
31:17: Satan breathes on something beautiful and tries to make it dirty. That's good. It's a good phrase.
31:23: It's good. It's so, yeah, I mean, you know, imagine imagine the danger, you know, if you will, of four or five men getting together saying, you know what, enough is enough.
31:34: We're stopping this. We're cutting this out. But we need each other. We're a band of brothers going going into this.
31:40: We're going to slay this dragon together and we're going to really hold each other accountable. And we're going to get this out of our homes.
31:47: We're going to get this out of our marriages. We're going to get this out of our churches for the glory of Christ. I mean, can you imagine a more terrifying thing than Christian men realizing that they have each other and they have the
31:59: Holy Spirit and let's go to war? Let's win this thing. Yes, absolutely.
32:05: And I think that's that's the first the first lesson to recognize that we're in a war.
32:11: But the God behind us is much bigger than the enemy in front of us. Right.
32:17: We can stand and rest upon God. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us. Greater is he that is in he than he that is in the world.
32:24: And once we take that first step and recognize we're going to call it for what it is. It's sin. And now
32:29: I'm going to be killing sin or sin is going to be killing me. And because because I'm a son of the king.
32:35: Right. And a royalty breeds loyalty. I am now going to honor my king by, like you just said, slaying this dragon and helping as many other people as I can to overcome this.
32:47: You know, I love the way in reading it, a buddy of mine was part of a 12 step program and you used the word sobriety.
32:54: You said I'm sober and I'm like, wow, that is a great word to describe this.
33:00: Right. Go ahead. Yeah, actually, the the the the original title for the book was
33:07: Hope for the Porn Addict. But I think the so that's kind of what
33:13: I had in mind. And it's funny that I was almost thinking, like, oh, do I model that for the 12 step? You know, like but it helped me to think about it as an addiction, because,
33:24: I mean, you know, research, you know, this is, you know, just non -Christian research will show that the dopamine hits that you get from pornography are almost as strong as illicit drugs.
33:36: I mean, it is it is it is really powerful. And and we can think about that from a Christian worldview.
33:42: And that makes sense, because if God creates, you know, that that connection, that that emotional and spiritual connection that comes from from pornography is intended as God as God intended for a husband and a wife.
33:57: So it's to build a relationship. It's to build build families and to fulfill the dominion mandate.
34:04: So you're having that type of response in your head and in your heart that's intended for a wife.
34:11: Yeah, you're an addict and you need to break. And that thing is controlling you.
34:17: And that to me was one of the biggest turning points for me. And it's so simple. But years and years chasing after pornography,
34:25: I never really understood that it was destruction. I just thought for so long, you know, this is just something fun that I get to do.
34:34: It's not that bad. It's only, you know, but once you actually are eating with the pigs, you realize that.
34:44: Yeah, it is destruction and it's it's destroying me. It's it's severing relationships.
34:50: It's making me less of a man. It's it's preventing me from becoming who
34:55: God has made me to be. It's it's continually putting taking advantage of grace because it's just taking
35:05: Jesus's death lightly. It's it's just, you know, engaging in sin just to forgive, have it forgiven later.
35:12: And I mean, there's a lot of spiritual things, seeds of destruction that it's sown.
35:19: So now you you put the steps, each one of the steps actually ends up being a title for the chapters of the book.
35:27: You have temptation, sin, remorse, withdrawal and deliverance. Is that is that the the logical progression of it?
35:34: And you laid it out that way. Can you touch on maybe just a little bit on each one of them? Sure, sure.
35:40: Yeah. So that's kind of how I laid it out was kind of thinking of, you know, and again, I've been through all of these and every every one of these lies,
35:48: I believe, took line and sinker. So as I kind of thought about it and I was praying about,
35:53: I was like, OK, yeah, I remember at this point of my addiction, right? This is the lie that kind of brought me to the next step and the next step and the next step.
36:02: So, yeah, we start off just with temptation, again, getting a biblical perspective of what temptation is.
36:09: So temptation is is is when that thought comes to mind and when our heart tells us to do something that is sin.
36:19: Temptation itself is not sin, right? We know the Lord Jesus was tempted and conquered that temptation. So that's a big lie right there that we think that once we're tempted, we will.
36:29: It's inevitable that sin is inevitable. It's just too strong. Right. So we just got to keep going forward. So that's one of the lies, you know.
36:36: But another lie under temptation is that, you know, God made me this way.
36:42: This is the first time, you know, this is not my fault. You know, this is God's fault. And he made her that look that good, too, right?
36:50: Yeah, yeah, exactly. God, I mean, he knew what he was doing. I might as well go along with this. Yeah, right.
36:55: Yeah. So, right, right. There's just so many things, you know, the other one, too, especially this is the one our society loves to perpetuate, is that this is a victimless crime.
37:06: Yeah, right. This is a sin that doesn't harm anybody. Right. It's just someone on a screen. You know, it's different if if I were to steal someone's
37:14: Corvette and drive off the street, you know, that's obvious. Right. You offended someone. You took their property.
37:20: You can see their face and how you hurt them. That's a victim. But pornography seems to be victimless.
37:26: Right. Like it's just someone behind a screen. And now you paid that person directly right with their subscription service.
37:34: So they're not they weren't forced into this. They weren't coerced into this some some kind of industry.
37:40: They chose it for themselves. They're an entrepreneur. Right. We celebrate and celebrate this in our culture. So, I mean, we just have to dislodge that.
37:47: So, yeah, it's just temptation. And then once we give in to temptation, we have sin and sin. Of course, is is are doing the things that separate us from from God and the consequences of every sin is death.
37:59: And so these are the things that Christ died to forgive us from. But, you know, the lies there, one of my favorite lies that I believed was all
38:08: I call it all or none. So, you know, you wake up in the morning and again, I'm thinking, you know, with that addiction, sobriety kind of mix, you know, and it's like in the morning you wake up, it's going to be a great day.
38:20: I'm feeling really strong. I'm going to beat this today. And then you fall at breakfast and then you're like, well, well,
38:27: I've the day's already ruined, right? I wasn't sober today, so might as well just, you know, and then just start again tomorrow.
38:36: But this this false narrative that sin is just our whole day is defined by it. And so we either binge or we or we fast so that that sin, you know, the lie of bodily autonomy as well, thinking that we can do with what we want with our body, my body, my choice.
38:53: Yeah, actually, no, it's actually no. You were bought with the price, right? Well, with the price, my body is not my own.
39:01: The highest price possible, right? The blood of the Son of God. Amen. So then that sin and then remorse.
39:07: And I mean, this is where you've you've fallen, you've fallen into sin. And this is when you're stuck in this addiction cycle.
39:14: So remorse is like I'm I'm I'm feeling sorry for my sin. I'm continually coming to repent, but I'm just I can't see a way out that there's no light.
39:24: I'm just in a tunnel. And then after that process, after we start to really fight this and believe
39:32: God's promises, then we find ourselves in remorse and withdrawal. So this is the it's kind of seems like a strange lie to be caught into.
39:41: But, you know, after we've kind of crawling out of the pit, we start to look back and remember that sin was kind of fun.
39:49: I miss it. And in some ways we can kind of hyper spiritualize it as well, which is what
39:56: I did. It was like, you know, I'm looking at my life today. It's like, well, I'm not not like, you know, fighting all the time.
40:05: You know, I'm not in constant prayer. I'm not in fervent prayer where it's like, God, I'm tempted.
40:11: Help me get out of this. You know, there's this kind of like battle. I'm not fighting a battle. Right. It's kind of more the
40:19: Christian life just looks different when you're delivered from this because it's not all about pornography anymore.
40:24: You've got the Lord reveals other sins that you've got to struggle with. But there's something different about, you know, telling someone like, hey,
40:33: I've been sober for two weeks, you know, and like I am fighting for day number 15.
40:39: It's it's different than saying, you know, still struggling with pride over here, you know, just the same ring to it.
40:47: So we have this weird thing where we would look back on our sin. Ten days without pride.
40:53: Am I proud? I'm proud of that. Right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. There's no there's no coin for that.
41:01: Right. Yeah. And then the last one is just deliverance. Right. So this is the this is the lie that deliverance says, hey,
41:08: I've been set free from this, but I've got to be quiet about it. Like no one can ever know about it.
41:15: And because it's too shameful, because people would not believe the depths of my depravity.
41:22: And really what I want to encourage everyone is that. You know, this is the story is not about you, your addiction is not about you.
41:32: It's not about your sin. It's about your savior. And so we actually have an obligation, you know, by the blood, the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.
41:41: That's how the kingdom advances. And so we need to tell all that we can, that there is hope and he's alive and no one is too far gone.
41:53: And and he will he will redeem you. That's that's what he does in his care.
41:58: I'm I'm so I'm so glad you said that last one about deliverance and testimony, because some people just even if it's not pornography, it's other things, abortion or whatever it is, you know, to come clean and and put that out on the table.
42:13: It's it almost it almost empowers you because now it's now everybody knows the devil can't whisper into you.
42:19: Oh, wait till they wait till I tell people about what you're doing. You know, like I told them, don't worry, it's it's out on the table.
42:26: Right. And guess what? Not only did I tell everybody, I told my God and he forgave me.
42:32: He paid the price in full for that sin. I'm redeemed and forgiven of it.
42:38: Now I can boast in the cross because that's I'm not the one who did it. I'm not the one who forgave myself.
42:45: It was it was a gift given to me by by Jesus. So I think it's real important that men who have gone through this process like yourself and and have been delivered of it, they stand up and start talking about it because we need to know just how many people are doing this, like how pervasive it is.
43:05: And like you said, that there's hope I've been delivered and you can be too. Yeah, absolutely.
43:12: And I love what you said that that's the enemy's main tactic, right, is to condemn, is to say, yeah, you're not worthy.
43:18: And and we do we just flip that script and say, well, there's no condemnation. First of all, I'm in Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation.
43:25: He's the one who's going to condemn me. And he can't because he's forgiven me. And he's he loves me and he's forgiven me.
43:32: And yeah, I know I'm not worthy. Tell me something I don't know. Right. That's the whole point here.
43:39: God's redeemed me. So I know I'm not worthy of this. I'm just telling of his grace. Amen. Yeah. In fact, in the 12 step program,
43:47: I was listening to a buddy of mine. I sat in on a couple of the meetings he was celebrating an anniversary.
43:52: And this one girl said, she said, a lie dies in the light of exposure. It's like, wow, you shine a light on it and now it's it's it's gone.
44:03: You know, you you hold it in the dark. It's a secret. And if festers, you put it out on the table for everyone to see.
44:10: It dies. Boom, that's it. It's not a lie anymore. Everybody knows it'll hold most sway over you.
44:16: So I think one of the first things, you know, for people who are struggling with this is to first of all, admit it, right, admit it to someone and say, hey, listen, and if you need help, reach out to somebody for help.
44:28: This is my issue. How can you help prayer, you know, be a prayer partner or an accountability partner, something along those lines, which
44:35: I'd like to get to in a little bit. So could you give us maybe one or two of the practical fighting tactics that you put in the book so that people can get a taste for what it actually looks like?
44:48: Yeah, so a few of these are so there's 20 of them. So, yeah, one one of my favorites is just a hop in a cold shower.
44:59: Yeah, so that one's fun. I mentioned the one have someone
45:04: I had a friend I could call anytime, you know, day or night, and he's just going to pick up and he knows
45:10: I just need to talk. I just need to get my mind off of it. Yeah, another one was, yeah, was to leave scripture.
45:19: So those scriptures to memorize, I have scriptures at each stage of this process. So, you know, at some points you need different.
45:26: You need different promises of God that you're dealing with. If you're dealing with temptation, you need to be reminded that, you know, you can't overcome this by the power of Christ.
45:36: If you're dealing with remorse, you know that Christ has forgiven you. He was faithful and just always forgive you if you come to him.
45:43: So you have new scriptures everywhere. Yeah, so there's just some of the ones that that come to mind initially.
45:50: So, Jacob, how many times you allowed to repent? Is there is there a number on it when and God says, whoa, whoa, this is the last one we think there is.
46:00: Right. And that's one of the worst lies there is. No, he he is he's faithful and just. And why is he just?
46:06: Because he's already justified you. Yeah. So, of course, he's going to forgive you. It's the right thing to do to forgive you.
46:12: Is he already hands? Amen. Praise God. Praise God. On page thirty seven, you have all the reason that God does.
46:21: God redeems. He reconciles. He reclaims. He regenerates. He refreshes.
46:27: And I just want to let you know this this upcoming Sunday, I'm teaching Sunday school and going through a biblical theology.
46:33: And we're up to, you know, God promise. I'm sorry. That was it was last week. God giving us the promise of a redeemer in Genesis three fifteen.
46:41: And I actually clipped this page, these words out of the book, and I put it up on a
46:46: PowerPoint slide. So I just wanted to give you credit. I I annotated it in there and I told people I'm going to be invited.
46:52: I'm going to be speaking with the author of the book on on Friday. So that was so powerful for me because I'm I'm an alliteration guy.
47:02: So when I saw redeem, reconcile, reclaim, regenerate, refresh, I was like, yes, he he hears me.
47:08: He understands. And, you know, but tell us about about about what that what
47:15: God does in in in the midst of that. Yeah, man, it's it's so powerful when you realize that.
47:22: And really, this comes to how we view God, right? Like maybe you grew up thinking that God's this schoolmaster that's just waiting for you to get out of line and he's going to wrap your knuckles and, you know, shame on you.
47:33: Or we think that we have to be perfect or we have to work to become perfect.
47:39: Right. And that we're either earning favor or we're earning his love. I mean, then it's so easy to fall into that kind of works mindset.
47:47: But man, when you look at the biblical narrative, I mean, that's not that's not true.
47:53: You know, Adam, Adam and Eve messed it up. And and God could it would have been just for God to say, well, you know what you send?
48:02: There's death. There's the consequence. All right. Next. But what does
48:08: God do? And yeah, Genesis three, 15, right? It's the first he promises.
48:14: It's so powerful when you look at that order of that is that he doesn't the first thing he does is to promise a redeemer.
48:21: Yeah. Like he deals with their sin. He deals with it. But he wants he wants them to know, hey,
48:28: I'm going to fix this and I'm going to I'm going to be the redo.
48:33: I'm going to be the the re here. Yeah. But that's what he does. I mean, so we have sinned.
48:40: We have fallen. We have messed up his creation. And he is the one who's redeeming it.
48:46: You know, we he has to give us a new heart. He regenerates us. We have to renew our mind with his word.
48:53: I mean, he's in the business of making of correcting and fixing and redeeming.
49:01: Right. So, man, once you get to realize that that's his character and that's what he does, that he's not making some special case to to reach down and and fix you, that that's actually what his
49:15: M .O. is, is he's the redeemer. And it's because he gets all the glory.
49:20: Right. So we can we can easily say, yeah, I know what I would do on my own. I know where I would be without Christ.
49:26: So, yeah, absolutely. You get all the glory. There's no way that I can I can get any glory here.
49:33: So, yeah, praise God that he is the God of reed. Amen. Amen. Yeah, because when I was talking about Adam and Eve after they sinned, obviously they tried to cover it up with the fig leaves.
49:43: Right. And and they hid. They ran away. So they weren't even seeking forgiveness.
49:49: Right. They knew what they did was wrong and they hid. This is a God. Who seeks after his people, he doesn't say
49:58: I'm here, I'm ready for for for for when you're ready. You know, I'll leave it out there.
50:03: Just come to me when when you're ready. He says, no, I'm going to pursue you. Right. There is none who seek after God.
50:10: We don't seek him. He's the seeker. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And I would say he doesn't fail in the mission.
50:19: Right. Everyone who he seeks, he saves. So if God placed his
50:24: Holy Spirit within you, you may try to hide for a while, but he will seek you out. And he disciplines those he loves.
50:31: So you're going to feel the weight of conviction. But know that this is a God who is going to pursue you and reconcile, redeem you and have a restart in your life and bring you to him forever.
50:44: And it's it's so powerful when you understand that that's the God who we worship. Yeah, yeah.
50:51: Amen. Couldn't say it any better myself. OK, so this book is designed so that small groups can do it, correct?
50:59: Yeah, absolutely. So how would somebody get started? I mean, is is is there an instructor's manual or something like that that you have?
51:08: Do you have any success stories, people who have done this already? Yeah, it's a great question. So, yeah, this is actually one of the
51:13: FAQs in the back is is how do I start this if I want to do a small group? So, yeah, this is a this is designed for small groups.
51:21: This is designed for you to read this with someone else. And one way I've done that is that every chapter has discussion questions.
51:29: You do not have to be an expert here. These are not, you know, challenge. You don't need to teach. These are designed just to bring you back to the text, bring you back to the text of Scripture and just to really start talking together about this and praying together about this because you can't fight this alone.
51:47: So how to start? I would just encourage you to approach your pastor, approach your elders and just say, hey,
51:54: I've got this book. If you want to read it first, that'd be great. But, yeah, we really want to go after this as a church.
52:01: I mean, this would be a great men's group. This would be a great small group. You know, there's some of the chapters are kind of small.
52:07: Some of them are a little larger. But, you know, if you did two chapters a week, this is a seven week study. You know, you could knock it out in this summer and come back in the fall and say, you know what, the men of this church, we want to we want to, you know, judgment starts in the house of the
52:21: Lord. And but dealing with sin starts in the house of the Lord. So let's let's clean our own house and then let's look outwards as well.
52:28: Amen. Have you gotten any feedback from people who have gone through the book and said, yeah, wow, this this this help this this did it.
52:36: Yeah, praise the Lord, there's, you know, I had a few people read the book at a time and had a bunch of people help with some edits and things.
52:44: And yeah, some it's only been out a couple of months, but I've already gotten some feedback of some people who have gone through it and are already praising the
52:52: Lord for their forgiveness and their redemption from this. So no small groups yet, but yeah, praying, praying and believing that, you know,
53:04: Christ came to set the captive free. That's what he came to do. So, you know, your freedom is is is one of his priorities.
53:12: Yeah. Amen. Hey, and just from from a from a personal standpoint, you know, this has helped me even just with mental pornography.
53:20: Right. I don't need to watch any more pornography. I, you know, my mind is, you know, got like a quick rewind in your head.
53:28: And you don't need to watch any new stuff. There's a recurring thing that happens in your head. And this book has really, you know, pointed me and said,
53:36: OK, this is how how we're going to do it. And it's just a real good refresher as to how to stay in the fight, how to stay in the battle, because that's what it is.
53:46: It's a battle. And to know that God is with us in the battle. He doesn't give up on us in the battle and he's going to see us through the battle and help us to gain victory over it, which was just a real, real help.
54:03: So thank you. Thank you for for doing this. Any any final words on the book, what you want people to know about it or anything else?
54:14: Yeah, well, yeah. Again, thanks for having me on, Anthony. This has been great. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing is that that there is hope and that Christ has won this battle.
54:23: Right. That this is he has slain this dragon and and he is with you.
54:29: Like you said, he's with you when you're struggling. He's with you in the fight. But he do not be mistaken.
54:37: Jesus is more powerful than pornography. It may not. It doesn't feel that way. But you start walking in that truth and see how that prison cell you were in.
54:47: He just demolishes it with one word of his power. Right. And you know what? That just just because the title to the subtitles of the book is how pornography enslaves.
54:57: But the truth sets free. Explain how does the truth set us free? Yeah. So one, it's the capital
55:05: T truth. It's Christ himself. He sets us free from our our wrong thinking, our sinful desires, our sinful flesh.
55:14: And he sets us free from our flesh by regenerating us, giving us the Holy Spirit. But the truth sets us free.
55:21: These lies in every stage that are so prevalent that as Christians, we don't even realize that our culture is teaching us this.
55:28: We don't realize that our own sinful heart is teaching us this. But those lies can't stand in light of the truth.
55:35: Yes. And so you shine some light in and mold can't grow in the light.
55:41: It needs darkness. Sin, sin doesn't do well when it's faced with with the truth of Scripture and God's word is alive.
55:49: It's breathing and it's a double edged sword. And so you need the living truth to deliver you.
55:55: But then you also use his word and his word as a sword out of his mouth. And that's how you slay this dragon.
56:03: Amen. That's how you get free. Amen. All right, guys, this is the book. Oh, here it is.
56:08: Hope to Win the Fort War, How Pornography Enslaves and the Truth Sets Free. I'm going to try to put a link to it in the comments section.
56:17: YouTube's been limiting that for some reason. I don't know why, but I'll at least put the title to the book and Jacob's first and last name so you can look it up on Amazon.
56:26: The best way to get it is there Amazon yet? Kindle and paperback and Amazon and audiobooks coming.
56:32: But it's maybe a week away. So, OK, terrific. Well, Jacob, thank you so much for being a guest on the show and reaching out to me.
56:39: I'm so happy that you did. And I'm so happy that I got a copy of this book. And it's it's it's helping me, you know, frame frame the battle the way it is.
56:49: It's a battle. It's a war. And to remember that God's truth is what sets us free. He's with us in the battle and he's going to be victorious throughout the whole thing.
56:58: So thank you so much for this time. Amen. Thank you, Anthony. Amen. Well, friends, a life reformed.
57:03: There's a life conformed to the Jesus of the scriptures. So Semper Reformata, always be reforming. If you like this particular podcast, check out our
57:11: YouTube channel. We have over 20 playlists to help teach you reformed theology. In fact,
57:16: I did a series on reformed Baptist distinctives. We do stuff on the doctrines of grace, the five solas.
57:23: We have lots of series, one on biblical hermeneutics, which is has, I don't know, like over 50 ,000 views right now.
57:29: We do we go through books of the Bible, Nahum, Daniel, Jude, Proverbs. We also have interviews with theologians like Tony Costa, Chris Date, Bruce Gore, apologists like Anthony Rogers and Eli Alla and Dr.
57:41: Carl Werner, who did a whole exposé on fossils. And now Jacob Way, who helps us learn how to fight the practical battle of pornography and just sexual addiction in general.
57:54: So once again, Jacob, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. Friends, my name is