S05 E12 Finally Free

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Hi folks, this is Johnny, TAWCMM's producer for Man Talk Radio Podcast. I just want to remind you to join us every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Friday for an amazing breakfast and fellowship with men who have a heart for God and a love for their fellow Christian men at The Crossing at South Main Campus, located at 1130 South Main Street.

Connersville, North Carolina, 27284. Doors open at 630 with a hard stop at 8 a.m. So come out and recharge your spirit before starting your weekend. Welcome to Man Talk Radio Podcast. My name is Roy Jones and I'm one of your co-hosts. And I'm Will Hardy, your other co-host. Will, it's so good to see you. It's been a few days since we've run across each other. It's been a week or so since we did our last show.

This evening we're going to be speaking and talking to you as the listeners to each other as well. The book, Finally Free, by Heath Lambert. This is a book that deals with pornography, how to deal with the addiction, and it comes from an advantage point when you say, Will, of grace and freedom through grace versus condemnation and shame. Exactly. And there's, I think this subject matter, Roy, we know, and the statistics behind it, that Barna Group has done over the years. And they report that there's 115 million hits on pornography sites every single day around the world. 115 million?

115 million. And he goes further in Barna to talk about that there are at least 12 million people here in the United States who are severely addicted to pornography. So we know it's a problem. And the thing about it, Roy, is it's not talked about a lot in the church. And because it's not talked a lot about in the church, I think there might be some underlying reasons behind that. But for the most part, it's a subject that needs to be addressed because there's a problem.

And we wouldn't be talking about it if there wasn't a problem. Right. And the Barna study, if I remember correctly, Will, said that 69, I think it was 69 percent of the men in the church, basically seven out of 10 men in the church are struggling with pornography. So I think that 12 million estimate is much lower than what reality is. Right.

Because if you think about church, people generally have some moral direction because they're chasing God, they're learning more about the Christian walk, and people outside the church aren't walking to those same standards. So you've got to think the numbers are much higher than 12 million out of a 330 million or so population in the U.S. Exactly. And for the most part, Roy, I think when we look and talk about this subject matter, you know, the subject matter could be offensive to some. But for the reality is it's really not a problem with those who consider it offensive until they encounter it.

Right. And so when you start encountering things like this within your family, your friends, you know, co-workers, people within the neighborhood, then all of a sudden now we want to seek for a solution. So as pastors, you know, and teachers of the gospel, we are the solid foundation, I think, when it comes to individuals who need that attention and we should address it as such because it is a problem.

And we should take it head on. And the church has got to do a better job taking it head on. I speak with many believers of various times of the week and the month in different venues, and I ask them, how often does your pastor talk about pornography from the pulpit?

Very, very rarely is it ever mentioned. And that says that we're not addressing what the people need to hear because the Bible is very clear on what the standards are for sexual morality, right? And as the pastor, to your point, we're responsible for teaching those things to our either people on our watch, in our church, the congregation, in our men's fellowship, whatever it is.

We've got to be willing to take those issues head on. And I think that's what Heath Lambert does here. He comes straight at it right out of chapter one. But the great part is chapter one speaks to what, Will? Grace. Grace. And grace, I think he goes into the grace stages and he talks about how there's forgiving grace.

And then there's transforming grace. So when you get into all of the nuances of what pornography is, how did a person get indulged in it, and things like this, then we find that there are a lot of underlying reasons why people do this. And it could be classmates. It could be family members. It could be friends. It could be coworkers. It could be classmates. It could be all of these individuals who have or take a part in leading someone down that road.

And that's generally the way it starts, right? If a friend says, hey, I got a video I want you to see, or hey, check this link out, or hey, back when we were growing up, it was here's a magazine, right? And I think that's a problem that we speak about quite often on the show is that with social media, with the access of information on smartphones, the ease of access and no restrictions on the access, it's become the, if you will, the curve has moved way down to the age group, what it was back when we were growing up. Now I think the average age of exposure is what I believe we said eight years old now, is the average first time a person's going to see pornography is eight years old. And we've talked about this in the past. Eight years old, you don't even know which way is up, much less what you're seeing at that level when you start seeing that stuff.

And it starts to mess with the mind, mess with the brain, the connectivity changes, the thought process changes, and it gets a very unhealthy view of what God intended to be a very wonderful and beautiful part of our life. Exactly. And you know, I shared this with some of the men in our men's group is that when we had our second summit, and during that summit there was a young man, I was back in the prayer room, and there was a young man who came up to me and he said, you know, I would like to request prayer. And I said, okay, what is it that you want to talk about? And so he said, well, my problem is this.

And he held up his iPhone and he said, this is my problem. And he said, you know, because I had it with me all the time, these are the things that are drawing me in. And of course, he confessed that he had an addiction to pornography. And of course, we talked at great lengths as to, you know, how he began into it and what was his reasoning behind getting into it.

And for the most part, when you start talking to a man in reference to something or subject of this nature, you know, they have a tendency to shy away. So you almost have to be like an attorney, if you will, and ask a lot of questions to lead you down that path to say, absolutely, is this the truth coming forward? And of course, we gave him the information. We said, here, here's my information, give me a call.

Whenever you get the urge, not after the fact, but when you get the urge to go down that path, give me a call. And of course, I never heard from him. That's been six years ago. Six years ago.

Yeah, that's quite amazing. And I think part of the thing is the shame, right? People, for him to even admit he had a problem was a big step, right, that he was struggling.

And then it could be that he didn't want to be held accountable, right? And we've talked about the need for accountability in all of our meetings with all of our men. And that goes just as a Christian walk, whether it's dealing pornography or whatever, as a brother in Christ.

We need to ask each other those tough questions. Back to the grace piece, Will, when most programs that are dealing with the addiction of pornography are dealing a lot of times with statistics. They're talking about how it's impacting the family.

It's talking about all the money that's being spent, wasted, et cetera, et cetera. But Heath's book comes at it right out of the gates from grace, knowing that God's grace is sufficient. But what is one of the other things he says that we have to do with that grace? Well, you know, the grace piece, I think, has to be understood not only to the individual who is conveying the message, but to the actual person who is receiving that message. And, of course, if you have a communication piece where a person listens to you, but then they go away without understanding, then there hasn't been any communication. So you have to follow up with that person and say exactly if you're indulging yourself down this pathway, do you understand what God's grace can do for you? Convey that grace message to them.

This is what God's grace can do, and this forgives you. And then that next stage that Heath talks about in his book, that it can transform you. It can start to do this, and it won't happen overnight because it didn't happen overnight for the individual to indulge. Yeah, the addiction didn't just develop after one shot.

It may have started it, but it took months, years to be to this level. Will, we've had a gentleman, and for you as the audience as well, to know that several years back, we had a gentleman in our ministry that was very forthcoming, had been addicted to pornography for over 50 years. And he was in his mid to late 60s, and it had destroyed his marriage. They were still together, but the intimacy and all those things of his marriage had departed many years earlier. On the mountaintop, he got released from that addiction, which he had spent many different workshops, many different seminars, many different accountability partners.

But the grace that came through on that weekend and him receiving God's grace, not just knowing about it but to receive it, which Heath talks about in his book, you've got to actually receive the grace in order to get on that healing path and get away from this addiction. And I think, folks, in our audience that's listening today, we have talked many times that you as parents, you as uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, need to take it upon yourself to ask the tough questions. You need to be willing to look into the phones. You need to be looking at email traffic to understand where your children are going. I would go so far as to say even where your spouse is going because the two are one. So whatever your spouse is doing, you're doing it even though you're not knowing you're doing it because the two are one. So it's affecting your relationship. It's affecting your marriage.

Not that you're culpable, but it's impacting your life as part of that one. And you know, Roy, you brought up the mountaintop and the mountaintop experience. So maybe talk to our audience about, you know, when that event occurs and actually what goes on there.

Well, that's a great point, Will. We do an annual men's retreat up at Valley Cruces, North Carolina. It's typically the second to third weekend of February every year.

It's just after Valentine's Day. So we have a three-day event that starts on, some of us come up on Thursday nights, some go up on Friday evening. But it actually officially starts on Friday evening and we run through Sunday lunchtime. We've been doing this, this is our 17th season coming up, I guess the 17th event that we had an opportunity to bring men to the mountain. We make them turn their cell phones off during the sessions. We make them bring a hard copy Bible and a journal so that they can make notes and actually look at the word.

And the second piece of that reason we tell them to turn the phones off is for distractions. Amazing opportunity and if you're interested in learning more about that weekend, contact us at info at talcum.com, which we'll share with you again later, but info at tawcm.com. An amazing opportunity. Thank you, Will.

Appreciate the plug for the mountaintop. Now, you know, getting back to Heath's book, you know, after that transformation stage, then he goes into talking about repentance. And see, and I think that's a difficult phase for men because if they want to be free, and all of this amounts to whether or not you want to be free. You know, he gives you the tools to say, this is the path that I need to take in order to finally be free.

But you have to have that heart to say, yes, I do want to be free. Now, when we get into chapter two and talk about that in the book, then he goes on further and discusses how sorrow can take its effect on the human mind, human body, the human heart. And as a result of that, certain things will emanate from that person's life when they are exposed to that grace, peace. And then they continue down that road to say, yes, I do want to be free and I want to have a life that glorifies God and Jesus, rather than glorifying myself in fear that I might get caught not only by my spouse if they're married, but by my friends, church worker, and things like that as well.

Yeah, that's a great point, Will. One of the things that always comes to mind when we think about repentance is just, and which we'll talk about it when we get to chapter two, is that godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow. But the repentance is truly a mourning heart, right? The heart is mourning because of, not that they've done something against the humanity side in terms of their wife or their children, but it's truly that we've broken God's heart and that we've hurt God's relationship with us. And I think that's something that we as believers and followers of Christ need to constantly be mindful about. It's truly where the temple and anything we do to the temple impacts God and our relationship with God. And we've talked about that as well, not to mourn, not to grieve the Holy Spirit, don't cause mourning over that, right?

Amen. And we're commanded, of course, in Ephesians chapter five, you know, to go and put away these things, put away covetousness, put away filthy lucre and all these things because what it does is it plants roots of bitterness within our heart. And as a result of that, we go out and we commit all kinds of acts of lewdness and we start saying things that we really don't mean. But, you know, it's this anger piece that we might have in our heart or the fact that we're not getting what we think we deserve.

And so we continue down that pathway until all of a sudden, you know, we fall off the cliff. But his final section in chapter one has to do with hope. So we start off with, you know, forgiving peace. You go to that repentance and now we're at hope. And what what does hope do for us? What does hope do?

It gives us longevity. Hope says to us that we have a place. We have a savior. We have a set of circumstances that our savior endured for us.

And because he did that for us, then my life should reflect his life. And I think, audience, when when you look at your life, can you honestly say to yourself that, yes, I am a follower. I am a believer of Christ and I want help. I want to seek out and really drive myself to the point to say the life that I'm living, the things that I'm doing is not beneficial to me, not beneficial to my family, not beneficial to my church family or my coworkers or my classmates or any of those things. And there's help available for you. But as Roy and I continue to go through the book, take time out to consider that.

What is your life reflecting right now? You know. And if you really truly want to be finally free, you can be based on what we're talking about here.

God is capable of all things and can do all things, created all things so he can certainly free us from this addiction. Absolutely. Will, as we talk in the past and as we talk about this issue, we know it's not going away.

Right. And the thing that bothers me as a pastor, bothers me as a men's ministry minister, is that we're not addressing it as we talked about at the start of the show. And it just continually gets worse. And we know the source of this. We know where this all started.

We know that Satan's got his handprint all over this. Because if he can break up the family, he can break up the children. He gets hold of the children. They never get into a healthy family situation because they've had this to deal with most of their life. And it's very, very concerning for us as pastors that we're not addressing it. So how does the person that's listening today and listening and watching our program, what's their first step? First, if they don't know if it's going on in their home or not. Second, if they are dealing with a problem, what would you recommend that they do? Well, if it's the person, Roy, who is actually engaged in the actual pornography act, then I think that person, again, has to come to some realization that the hurt that they're affecting their family and the hurt that they're inflicting upon themselves is not healthy.

That's just not healthy. Now, once they come to a realization, and they have to come to a realization that I need help, I cannot do this on my own. And so that's when they have to branch out and say, OK, as I begin to branch out and look for avenues, then I can establish some dialogue and communication and a plan of attack for this. But we are not islanders. We don't live in this world alone. God designed us as interactive beings. And as a result of this interaction, what we should be doing is not necessarily what we are doing.

And I think that's the issue. Now, if we look at the individual who is not engaged in pornography, but they have someone in the home, then there has to be some type of clues that that's given for the individual. In other words, they stay secluded a lot.

They don't want to engage in any conversation. They come home from work or come home from school, go right to their room, get on the telephone or get on the computer. And of course, if we don't have any idea what's going on there, then it very well could be that they're engaging in that pornographic lifestyle.

Yes. So there has to be some something within that household that triggers the individual to say that my son or my daughter may have a problem. Doesn't necessarily say that they have a problem, but they may be headed down that road. The thing that comes to mind is if we've let this kind of become an accepted behavior, would that be a fair statement?

Absolutely. And within society, because I've heard people that have said there's no there's no thing wrong with watching pornography. And that includes folks, some folks in the church that say there's nothing wrong with it.

And I struggle when I hear that. I'm thinking, OK, are they not are they not reading the same Bible we're reading? Are they not hearing it from the pulpit that it is wrong? And then they've rationalized it in their mind to say it's OK. And we've accepted in society to the level that it's the norm.

It's the norm. But no one is going head on every day at it. But if you have a home that's got a loaded gun sitting out from a safe, that's an issue. I liken this to a loaded gun, but we're not putting any controls out there.

Most responsible gun owners have got their guns unloaded, locked away because it's a danger. But they don't see this mental danger and this addiction as a danger for their families. And it's probably one of the single greatest dangers that we're facing today, I think, as a society, bar none. And, you know, Roy, as the individuals engage, you know, and go down this lifestyle, what they end up doing is they end up, as Heath points out in his book, they end up either at a worldly sorrow stage or hopefully transition to a godly sorrow stage. The worldly style stage, as Heath points out, is he says that a person, they're ashamed and embarrassed because if they get caught, they might lose something worldly. And when you're talking about losing something worldly, then you're putting your attention on the things rather than the problem. So you're not talking about actually getting caught. You're looking at what you're going to lose if you get caught. That's the subject.

Absolutely. And so the precedents come, you know, when they look at the stuff rather than looking from the inside out. Now, the godly sorrow piece that Heath mentions is he says that if you're godly sorrow or sorrowful for what you're doing, you're going to seek after God. You're going to take what God says as his word and you're going to let the discernment and the conviction, because, see, we don't talk about conviction enough, but it is conviction, Roy, that keep us from going down the road.

Right. So if we're open up to the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God begins to speak to our spirit and now we start going down this road, what happens? All of a sudden, we start hearing that still small voice. This is not the right path. This is not the way you should be going. You know, there is something that's down the end of this road that's going to not only hurt you, but those around you. Exactly.

That still small voice. Well, that's let me ask you something, Will, in that very thing. If I'm in the middle of this mess, if I'm personally looking at this every day as much as I can and I'm in this in this trap, where is the Holy Spirit with me as a Christian? Where does the Holy Spirit reside during that period?

Well, if he's residing in you, then everything that you're watching, you're engaging in and with the Holy Spirit. So, you know, but a person's lifestyle, if they're continuing down this path and they're not getting any discernment whatsoever or any conviction about what they're doing, then you really have to ask yourself the question whether or not they really want to be set free. And if they think that what they're doing gives them more satisfaction, more joy, more happiness than what God can give you, then they're going to continue down that path.

But if they find that what I'm doing and what God is able to do for me, what God is able to keep me from, what God, how God is able to lift my life and spread his goodness abroad, if they come to that realization through the conviction process, then all of a sudden they'll be going down that godly sorrow path. And, you know, Roy, I didn't have a pornographic addiction, but I had an exercise addiction. There was a time when I was running marathons and I had to run, run, run, run, run. It was like if I didn't run today, I felt empty, you know. And when I was in my 30s, I was in the best shape of my life and it was run, run, run, run. Oh, OK, I said, no, I got to get a run in. I got to get a run in. And it was always about the run, running marathons, running 10Ks, running 5Ks, you know, all of this running. And I found out that that was indeed taking me over so I can see very easily how a person can put things in front of the Lord.

Sure, sure. And all of a sudden say that this will give me more satisfaction than what God can give me. You know, I think we don't step back and pause and really let God speak to us in today's society because of the phones, because of the workload, because of all the things that Satan keeps pushing in our path for distractions. And that's a great point, listeners, and viewers, is that we should be taking time with Father every day, whether it's in the morning, in the evening, or throughout the whole day you should be talking to Him because He wants to fellowship with us.

He wants to be there for you. If you're struggling with this issue or any other addiction, it's a great opportunity to renew your conversation with Father. Father will pick you up and wrap you up and set you free from all this. But you have first got to be willing to repent.

You've got to first recognize there's a problem and not be afraid to share that with someone that you hold in close confidence because then they can be praying for you, they can be lifting you up, they can be walking alongside of you, and they can pick up the phone and ask the tough questions. How is your private life? Have you been in pornographic sites today? And those are the kind of things that you need in your life as a follower of Christ is that accountability. So Will, we're getting ready to close the show out here in just a few moments. And just want to, any last thoughts that you'd like to share? Well, you know, Roy, I think the large issue, this is a much bigger issue, obviously, than we can talk about in this short time span.

And it has ruined so many lives over the course of generations. And so when we look at and talk about this subject, audience know that our heart as pastors, as believers in Jesus Christ, our heart is with you. And if you're listening and looking at this particular podcast and you're saying to yourself, yes, I do need help, feel free to give us a call. Reach out to the ministry. We can put you in touch with someone who is able to address that concern. We have men within the ministry and which Roy and I oversee who have gone down this road.

They have taken that path and found out that it's not the path for them. So give us a call and we'll be glad to assist you in any way possible. Yes. Well, thank you, Will. And folks, just for your benefit, the website again is info at TAWCMM.com. Why don't you email us first and we'll make a return phone call. Be sure to include your phone number and your contact information.

Best time to reach you. And we will give you a call back and start this conversation. You know, we've been blessed to be here with you.

We thank you for taking time with us. We would ask for your prayers over our ministry and all that we're trying to accomplish for the kingdom. And just keep men prayed up. We know that men need to take a greater presence in their homes, a greater presence in their church, and a greater presence in their community.

And we need your prayers to help us push men off the sidelines and back into the ballgame. And Will, it's been such a good opportunity to see you again. I've enjoyed our time together. It's been a great discussion.

Yes, it has. And so on our next show, folks, we'll be dealing with chapter two, which will be godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. We look forward to seeing you then. Thank you so much.

And we're out. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches, and work environment. Check us out on our website for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com.