Breaking Free

Jesus had some strong things to say about the issue of lust and about how we deal with that. Joe Rigney says we need to better understand what drives us as men to look at pornography. What's the hunger we're trying to satisfy? When a man goes to pornography, you might think he's just interested in naked women. But part of what he's doing in the fantasizing is he's imagining himself in the scenario, and he's picturing himself as a strong, masculine man capable of satisfying a woman.

I think that for many men, the actual pull to pornography is a deep desire for validation. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com.

If we're going to root out the issue of lust in our lives, we need to understand what's really driving us. We'll talk more about that today with Joe Rigney. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. This is an old thing. Some of our listeners would have no idea what we're talking about. An old thing? You're not talking about us?

I am talking about us. Back when I was a kid, there were no recycling bins or recycling centers. But from time to time, people would put their newspapers out at the curb, and the Boy Scouts would have a paper drive. And we'd come through and we'd pick up the sacks of paper.

You'd be making some money by getting recycled goods. I remember those, Bob. I was a Boy Scout, actually a Cub Scout, on a Cub Scout paper drive one Saturday morning out picking up sacks of paper from the neighbors, and one guy had set out at the curb a sack of old pornographic magazines. And I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I remember... You remember. I remember picking up that sack and going, oh, my goodness. And we took it back to the truck where we were loading everything up, and I said, I'll stay here at the truck and just move stuff toward the back while you guys make the next run.

And that was my fall into the pit. I think... How old were you? Nine or ten years old.

Oh, man. Years later, I was with a group of guys at church, fathers and sons, and I just on the spur of the moment said, let's do this. Let's go around the circle and dads, tell the rest of us when was your first exposure to porn. And I told my Cub Scout story. And it wasn't if you've had one.

Yeah. It was tell us when it was, and every dad could tell his story. And I think every son heard every dad telling their story and went first, OK, so what I've felt or maybe what I've fallen into is not I'm the only bad person in the world. But secondly, there was something that happened just in that communication in that moment that opened things up.

We're talking about how we get out of the pit once we've fallen in. And Dr. Joe Rigney is joining us this week on Family Life Today. Joe, welcome back. I'm glad to be here. And we've got to answer that question.

Probably every man listening and probably some women are going, I know that story. It's a similar story. A lot of times, eight, nine, 10 years old, some inadvertent stumbling onto it.

But that power. Like, I can't remember the first time I ever looked at a Sports Illustrated sports magazine. I don't remember. Why? Why don't I remember that? It's just a sports thing. I'm watching, looking at pictures of athletes, but a visual sexual image has a power. We've got Dr. Joe to tell us. What is that?

Why is that? Well, and here's my image. I was four or five years old. One of the younger cousins, 12 cousins, we lived around each other. And our older cousins told my cousin and I, who were four or five, go steal or grab any pornography, and they would say any magazines of naked girls, out of our uncles' bedrooms or stash or whatever, and then bring it back to us. Let that communicate to a little girl. Our dads or uncles have it.

Our cousins want it. And when we found it and we looked at it, my thought was this is what a man wants, and this is who I need to be. Joe has written a book called More Than a Battle, and you describe your own battle with this issue, but you also talk about how God led you out of this and what you've seen as an ongoing pattern for how guys can get free from this temptation.

That's right. And so part of it is actually trying to help us see that there's multiple lenses that we have to use when we think about this struggle. I tend to default to the battle imagery that's helped me, and I think that that is a useful one. It's a biblical lens, put your sin to death, that sort of thing. But there's also ways in which this is an addiction. There's a deep bodily dimension to this struggle that has to do, and this is where the technology today is designed to exploit those bodily weaknesses that we have so that sexual arousal produces...

There's sections in the book about the way that dopamine and endorphins and all of these things kind of get involved to basically take snapshots of those arousal moments, and your body is saying, that felt good, I want it to happen again. And we need to just stop here and say, this is the wisdom of God that that happens. That's designed, that snapshot of, wow, that was a pleasant experience.

I want that again. That's for marriage. Like, it's meant to bind a husband and a wife together in the one flesh union.

That's what that's for. And then sin, right? So these companies and then the devil and all are using that good gift and exploiting a weakness in it, which is, you could have that same bodily experience at some level with an image on a screen or with a fantasy in your mind. And so we're recognizing the way that our bodies, we can actually weaponize our bodies to where we make sin easy and real relationships hard. So there's a bodily dimension.

And then there's this kind of, I call it a brokenness lens. There's ways in which other issues in our lives, other areas of brokenness can actually be the driver of our sexual sin. So I'll talk about, there's sins that steal headlines, and then there's sins that fund newspapers.

Okay? So lust is a headline stealer. When you fall into that, it's the one that you feel, there's the guilt, there's the shame, there's all of that that just carries on you.

But playing in a back room someplace in that theater is another sin. It might be anxiety. It might be desire for power. It might be anger at God. There's all kinds of other sins that are actually the issue, and this is the presenting symptom.

But until you deal with these other back room type sins, you're never going to get free because they're fueling the intensity of that desire. So I'm trying to take and say, hey, we need to get a more holistic view of this struggle. It's not just about the images. It's not just about sexual desire.

It's really, really complex, and it takes wisdom to try to untangle. Is that why you titled your book More Than a Battle? Is that where you're getting at?

That's exactly right. Because I think a lot of men, and again, I can't speak for women, but I know it's an issue. You know, it's easy to think, oh, come on, dude. There's nothing in the back room. It's just I want to look at a naked woman.

I don't need to go in the back room. So talk about that. What is fueling that so many of us don't understand that we have to get at the root?

Here's a good example. I think that for many men, the actual pull to pornography is a deep desire for validation. When a man goes to pornography, you might think he's just interested in naked women. But part of what he's doing in the fantasizing is he's imagining himself in the scenario, and he's picturing himself as a strong, masculine man capable of satisfying a woman. And again, this is a good gift. This is husband and wife in marriage receive pleasure by giving pleasure.

It's a mutually, it's a glorious and beautiful thing. In the image, it's I'm creating a version of myself and I'm able to be a strong man. And so the real hunger there is often I want to be perceived and seen as a strong man. As a strong man, that's the drug.

So then you have to step back and you have to go, well, where's that supposed to be met? There's a good thing under there. There's a desire to be a strong man is a good desire. Where did God intend for us to fulfill that desire?

And so there's, and then there's lots of answers to that question. In marriage, that's one place. A wife's just respecting her husband. With other men, like for other men to respect you and to view you, like this is one of the things I notice of looking back at my own struggle. I noticed that if other, if I thought other men were looking down on me, like as a college student, if I, if I wasn't doing well, you know, in the, in the opinion polls, you know, among 18 to 25 year olds, my, my, my approval rating was down in my self-assessment, right?

I've taken my Gallup poll and I'm, my approval rating's down. That made sexual sin really attractive for some reason. And I never knew at the time like what was going on, but there was a deep kind of spiritual, emotional, psychological thing happening where because I'm not being, having this sense of approval from this group, that woman on that screen, she thinks I'm awesome in my, in the fantasy and plan in my head.

And then you have to take it even deeper. Where's the fundamental approval supposed to come from? It comes from God. He's our father. He, this is what the gospel is for. I approve you.

Well done. This is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased. That's what God said to Jesus. And because we're in Jesus, that's what God says about us. The fundamental approval is there. But that's a weird thing to think I'm going to fight my sexual sin by reminding myself that God approves me. Like if you don't get that, that's what's really underneath.

That won't make any sense. And so we've got to really untangle and do the heart work. Yeah. And I think the typical guy and I'm, I'm, I'm being that guy. And again, I'm not saying women don't think the same way. It's like, yeah, but to do it the real way is so hard.

Yeah. Porn is easy. You can look at it and you feel all that stuff. I walk in my bedroom and it's like, oh, my wife wants me to talk about our relationship. And I don't know if I should, you know, rub her shoulder or, you know what I'm saying? I'm having fun with it, but it is so much harder to be intimate, real intimacy with my wife than it is to just get that superficial hand.

And with God, by the way too. And I'm finding as we've been doing marriage conference for Weekend to Remember for over 30 years, I've noticed a trend in that at the beginning, when we first started doing our conferences, I would have women come up to me and say, oh my goodness, I don't know what to do. My husband is always wanting to have an intimate sexual relationship with me.

Now I'm finding one of the bigger complaints is my husband has no desire for me. And so the question is why? Are they having their needs met? Yeah.

Someplace else. Yes. Yeah. Because for many men, a relationship with a real woman looks suspiciously like work.

That's so impressive. And, you know, and that is, so when we talk about other sins that are feeding into this sin, the kind of laziness that says, man, cultivating a real relationship with my wife takes effort. And that's not because we don't love our wives or anything like that. It's just in the same way a wife cultivating a relationship with a husband, it takes effort. People are hard.

And imaginary people are way easier. C.S. Lewis has described, I quote this in the book, he has a great, it's a letter that he's writing to somebody who asked him for advice about this issue. And he talks about, you know, the real sin in pornography is the creation of the imaginary harem. He says, you know, we collect this imaginary harem with women who far outstrip because they have all the qualities that we want with none of the downside. And we are the perfect person in the scenario who's perfectly able, and so he says that pornography basically becomes a mirror in which we can increasingly worship ourselves.

Wow. It's a mirror for our distorted manhood. We're seeing our distorted glory reflected in the supposed satisfaction of the fantasy. And so it's really a self-worship that's happening in this thing and that that's a deeper issue and that's a different issue than simply a, oh, guys, you know, like to look at naked women, like it's more complicated than that.

Yeah. It is really a deep centered rooted. I know that I've often talked to men also about the fear of intimacy and it's sort of a superficial intimacy and intimacy with your wife or even being really a close friend with another guy is hard work.

It takes courage to open your soul and bear weakness, you know, with your wife and then not know how she's going to respond and something on a screen is so easy. But when I was reading your book, I mean, I was sort of struck as your struggle struggle, you talk about that and we've talked about that and there's part of me right now. It's like, OK, let's get let's get to the victory, you know, and there's a turning in your life where I was like, whoa, you had a revelation, an understanding that started you on a path toward what, you know, you're writing about victory now. Talk about that.

What changed? Well, courage was a big element of it. So when I got engaged, it basically, you know, up to the stakes.

And I think that was a major thing that the Lord used to kind of snap me awake of like, hey, you can't just muddle through here. There's another person involved that you love. You love her.

You don't want to hurt her. And were you afraid? Oh, of course.

I mean, I was terrified. Like, I mean, the kind of things we're talking about, you know, I'm gonna have to confess something if I fall. I don't ever want to look at that, see that look on my wife's face. I don't ever want to have to have that conversation with her ever again. Now, this actually produced certain kinds of distortions we could talk about as well in terms of the relationship because a husband who's dealing with this can begin to treat his wife like God and feel like I'm not forgiven until I've been forgiven by her and she's happy with me again, as opposed to you need to confess to make it right with her, but your fundamental forgiveness, who can forgive sins but God alone? Like, he's the one who forgives sin. When you do that, because I know exactly what you're saying, you lay that weight on her.

Like, you have to forgive me, and until you do, I'm not good. And then she, I mean, it's like a weight she shouldn't have to bear. Exactly. Right. She can't be God to you, just like you can't be God to her. And so there's a way in which sometimes guys can get in a trap of their unhealthy habits of confession, where I have a guilty conscience because of something I thought or did or whatever, and then I need to vomit it on her, and then, boy, I feel relief because I just got it out, but now she's covered in it. Yeah.

And she's carrying it, and it's not fair. It's another way that we were harming our wives in that way. And so a big shift for me was recognizing the value of other men, particularly older and wiser men, helping me. The pattern of confession that I've cultivated and commend to others is, first, when you sin, you confess it to God.

No minced words, no euphemisms, no, you know, beating around the bush. Just, what did you do, and confess, sincerely, honestly, forthrightly, you confess it to God. And the Bible says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, period. From there, it's confess it to other men. And the reason we're doing that, because James says, confess your sins to one another that you may be healed.

So the confession to the other men is for healing, and I would say counsel. So I'm going to them, and I'm saying, hey, here's what I did. Here's the temptation I faced.

Here's how, for two seconds, I clicked on something, or whatever it is, whatever the thing is. And then now I'm confessing it to them, and I'm saying, oh, now you help me. How should I talk to my wife about it?

What should I say? And then I'm running that by them. And the goal here, this is where the wives, this is really important for wives, the guys that you're doing that with, she needs to trust. She needs to know they are going to be as hard upon you as God is, that they're going to call you to live up to the standard that God wants you up to. Because otherwise, she's going to feel like, hey, I need to be involved here, because no one's going to care about your holiness more than me, which isn't true. God actually cares about your holiness more than she does. But the felt sense of fear and the anger, she wants to be involved. But there has to be a right ordering.

She can be an ally, but only if she's your wife, and not God, and not your main accountability partner in this struggle, because she won't understand. What do you mean, like it was two seconds that woman walked by and your eyes just went there? What's wrong with you? And it's like, well, men and women are different. Their temptations are different. The way we experience reality is different, God, and it's good.

But she's not going to get it. And so you want to be able to confess to other men. So this is a game changer for me in having a wise older counselor who embodied what I call gospel presence. And that's two elements to that. It's gospel presence.

On the one hand, there was a compassionate stability. What I mean is I could tell him anything, and he was going to lean in. It didn't matter what came out of my mouth. He was going to lean in and say, hey, I just want you to know I'm for you. I'm for you. I'm with you. I'm not running away. Because the fear, right, is if I say this out loud, he's going to go, whoa, and like freak out. And I'm going to be confirmed in I am the worst sinner, and nobody else has been as bad as me. But instead, when he goes, all right, I heard it. We're going to deal with that.

I'm with you. Like that was massive in terms of like, OK, I'm safe here. So gospel presence made it safe for sinners. But the second part was focused hostility.

It's not safe for sin. Now we've got to go to work. Right. It's not just we're going to get together. You're going to vent. And I'm going to be like, it's OK. God loves you anyway.

Now let's see you later. It was OK. Now what kind of things are we going to do going forward? What kind of wise strategies are we going to put in place out of this gospel reality that I love you and I'm communicating the love of God to you out of that?

What are we going to do different tomorrow so that we're not back here again? And it was that combination of compassionate stability and focused hostility that was a massive game changer for me in the struggle. How did you find this friend? Because a lot of wives would be would be saying, my husband has no men like that. He was he was a college pastor at Texas A&M. And so I got to know him and he did our premarital counseling and was massively helpful both in terms of my own personal and then helping us to work together.

And so when we moved up here right after we got married, like I would still call him and just say, hey, there's fallout from the struggles, the confession that happened during engagement and it's still kind of lingering. Help me. And so he helped work through some of those things like the relational complications that come. And so there's a major this is a major focus of the book.

When I wrote this, the idea was I want to write a book that guys who struggle and guys who want to help guys who struggle can read together and then talk about. Let me ask you this. Do you think it can be a dad with his son? Yes. Yeah. Yes. I mean, so I haven't got there yet.

So I've got an 11 year old and a nine year old. We've begun those conversations. And it's not just the talk. It's the talks world.

Give us an example. What's that sound like? So with my 11 year old, just about a year or so ago, I got some resources that kind of walk through kind of the just the birds and the bees type stuff.

Right. And so one day my wife took the other kids and went off and it was just me and him. I said, hey, I want to talk. And so we pulled out the book and I just kind of walked through it with him and answered some questions. And, you know, after, you know, a little bit, he kind of was like, OK, that's how we're OK. OK. And then after he's like, OK, I'm done talking about this now, you know, it's clear.

He's like, I'm done. And then now it's going to be like, OK, we need to revisit that. Or as things kind of come up, it's never like, OK, I've checked that box. It's the beginning of a conversation in which as new things arise. And so we talk about modesty.

We talk about things like that. We talk about wise eyes. So when we're watching TV and a commercial comes on, we'll say to our boys, hey, wise eyes. And that means their eyes go down and means my eyes go down. I want to show them it's not that it's OK for dad to watch whatever that is, but it's not for you.

No, none of us need to see whatever that was. And so wise eyes look down, OK. And so that means that they know, hey, dad, we're the same in this. He's in the struggle with us. And I'm hoping that that means that when the time comes, you know, in the next couple years, when it becomes more acute, that there's an openness and a transparency that they'll feel like they can talk to me. And I can then tell them the same thing you guys were talking about earlier. Here's the story.

I think there's a lot of dads listening that are afraid to take that step with their son, whether they're 10 or 15 or 18, because they're not winning. Yes. You know, they're in the middle of the struggle. They're not winning. Maybe they're hiding. Yes. And they're like, I don't have, I haven't won and I'm not winning. I'm not making the right choices.

So to go there and I would just say this, today's your day to start the step toward freedom. It's real. Joe's experienced it. I've experienced it. Bob experienced it. Yes. I know the battle, but I also know victory. It can happen.

Yes. And you've got to take a step to tell somebody, get the book, be the first step. And let me ask this real quick to a single mom or a wife who has a husband that will not enter into this conversation. Should we as women enter into that? With sons?

With a son. I would probably say that's where you're going to want to get a pastor involved, you know. Which could be kind of weird and creepy if they don't know him.

What it means is it's got to be about community. So this is where you're going to, your family needs to be embedded in a church where you have where there's that overlap. So if it's a single mom, you know, there's all kinds of reason that you want your son to be around other godly men. And you're going to be working together and like, hey, he's missing something that he needs. And one of those things is how to help him with this struggle. And so I think that for most boys, talking to mom about this is going to make things harder and weirder. And so the more that it can be mentors and pastors and people like that who are helping them and providing that spot, that's what was true for me. My dad could have talked about it, I think, but didn't.

And so I found other mentors, youth pastors, guys like that who are helpful. Here's what's critical. Don't just think I'll get a copy of Joe's book and put it on my son's bed or I'll get a copy and read it and hopefully it'll help.

What you're saying here is it takes more than just information. It takes guys and accountability. And our hope is that a lot of guys will go through this book with other guys, fathers and sons, men going through this with other guys from church. We're making Joe's book available this week to Family Life Today listeners. Any of you who'd like a copy, you can go online or you can call 1-800-FL today to request your copy. We're asking that you would make a donation to support the ongoing work of this ministry and we'll send you Joe's book as a thank you gift. We really want to see men engaging with other men around this subject. And so again, we'd love to send you a copy of Joe's book as a way of saying thank you for your support of the work of Family Life Today.

We are listener supported. You are the people who make today's program possible and if you've never made a donation, somebody made today's program possible for you. So you can pay it forward for somebody else. Go to familylifetoday.com to donate or call 1-800-FL today to donate and again ask for your copy of the book More Than a Battle by Joe Rigney. Can you get in touch with us?

We look forward to sending you a copy and thanks in advance for your support of the ministry. Now tomorrow, we want to talk about why we have such a distorted view of what God's good gift of marital intimacy is supposed to look like. We'll continue our conversation about how we defeat lust in our lives, how we gain victory over pornography. Joe Rigney is going to be back with us tomorrow, hope you can be back as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Hope for today, hope for tomorrow.