A few weeks ago after preaching to a couple of teenagers and young adults, a number of youth walked up to me and asked to see me in private. One of them confessed that he had been struggling with a porn addiction. He had been invited to a birthday party at a friend’s hostel. When he got there, he found several young men crammed in the tiny hostel. There was no cake, no food and no birthday celebration. The owner of the hostel shut the curtains and switched on his television and DVD player. He muted the volume and inserted a disc in the video tray. Everyone in the room seemed to bubble with excitement and he wondered why. He then understood.
The moment the DVD began to play, graphic footage of naked women and men engaged in coitus showed up on the screen. Some of the boys in the room began to giggle and laugh while some hushed them. It was his first porn experience. He tried to leave but his will was weak. Against a godly desire, he remained behind and consumed hours of porn at a supposed birthday party. Since that day, the desire for porn in his soul has never left. He has battled and found himself powerless and full of lust. I shared with him my porn testimony and encouraged him. He confirmed he was a believer and he knew that the battle was also largely spiritual. I gave him a copy of HOLY JOE and asked him to read it carefully and practice what is written. My heart bled for that young man and many more in our country that the enemy is destroying through pornography. I meet so many men like these every week- many in campus, some married, some single and some in dating and courting relationships. I am realising more and more that porn is a scheme to emasculate men and destroy future godly marriages.
The agenda of the enemy is simple- emasculate the man, discourage the woman, destroy the family- in that order. It starts with the man. Whilst many vices bring down a man, I believe none aims for his heart more than that of sexual lust. It fascinates him then assassinates him, it thrills him and then kills him, excites him and then executes him, electrifies him and then electrocutes him, arouses him then roasts him, inflates him then deflates him, balloons him then bursts him, charms him and then damns him. The forbidden woman has enchanted him to believe the pleasure will last forever. Mainstream entertainment has fooled him to neglect his God-given masculinity and trade it for fantasy. Pornography has bewitched him and set him on a false course with false fire to only chase the wind. But when the day is over, the man is falling down the cliff without a chute, he strikes the ground and his soul is writhing in a blood pool of regret. He looks okay on the outside but is dying on the inside. And when he gets the life to get back up, he runs up the same cliff, believing the same old lie, deceiving and being deceived and off the cliff he goes again. When a man is a slave to sexual lust, he loses power and the biggest loser is his relationships, especially the one with the woman he loves. We need men to reclaim their passion, purpose and power.
But to reclaim the lost power, we must realise that victory over sexual sin is infrequently in one-time deliverance experiences. While those do happen, most people get their victories in what I call small wins. Small wins may be a denied sensual glance, a refusal to entertain a flirt, a switching off of the television when lewd matters come on screen, a refusal to be at compromising venues, a refusal to forward a dirty joke, drawing clear boundaries with those who encourage sin etc. In a nutshell, to have small wins, you have to die to the flesh daily. These small wins pile up over time and grant you a total victory. Coupled with scriptural intake, they weaken the carnal man and strengthen the spirit man. These small wins if successful leave you stronger to face the next temptation. If defeated, they render you feeble and useless against the next frailest of temptations. Those who train themselves to be godly (1 Tim 4:7) understand that the small wins give strength for the grand battles against sin. Do you see a man or woman overcoming grand temptation? He or she has been forged in the fires of character by small wins in minor temptation.
That is why at the end of this month, we are starting the POWERHOUSE program- to teach us how to get the small wins. It is for two kinds of men: The man who wants to regain lost passion, power and purpose and the man who wants to maintain his passion, purpose and power in a world out to emasculate him.
To register for the Powerhouse and to get more details, send an email with the subject POWERHOUSE, stating your full names and phone number to info@penstrokes.co.ke
Powerhouse: Saving relationships one man at a time!
Discussion13 Comments
Indeed, when we are far apart from God it is when the enemy thrives. The enemy uses the battles we consider small and inconsequential to lay a stake in the huge temptations. The battle is real and as men we have to keep vigil. It is the battle of sight and blindness, and all times it starts from the mind. We have to win it from that conception point. The enemy has succeeded far too long by planting these wrong seeds. It is time for men to reclaim and heighten their position in the spiritual realm for homes (wives and children) to experience the flow of Grace.
Amen and amen!
I’ve been really waiting for your next article. Finally here!! I too as a female struggled with porn and I even became comfortable with the sin not realising it was pushing me away from God. But as soon as I decided to focus on God it got much better and small wins have helped alot… Temptations still come but I don’t allow myself to be a slave to sin…. God Bless You!
Amen! Amen!
Awesome!!
This is amazing.
Amen, Frazier!
Insightful!Thankyu
Amen, Titus.
Ernest this is awesome and real. many young men just fall that way without knowing and get lured into sin in a slow fading way as Casting Crowns sang. I think I need that book too that you gave the young man too. thanks for sharing this in the pks fellowship group on whatsapp.
Amen!
I’m enlightened Ernest and at the same time saddened by the fact that porn amongst other addictions have stolen the hearts of men away from God (John 10:10), but one at a time they are being reclaimed by men like yourself.
Someone said that we should not assume that we have the rest of our life to make things right in matters purity. If we intend to live a certain way,we ought to begin now. It is very easy to get into an addiction, so if it is a path that one is not sure of, we should not set out on it because we can get stuck there.
That said, there is nothing new under the sun so the challenges that young people are dealing with today are things that people of the older generation have dealt with in their time and if they are willing to speak up and guide young people, I think we can begin to move faster. (J Mwakazi)
Thank you. Very insightful and helpful.