The Steve Nam Podcast

Picture this. You're in your bedroom all alone. It's night again and no one else is awake in the house but you.

You could go to sleep but the allure of a familiar habit is calling out to you. You struggle with it for a few moments and then finally decide to give in. And then after your orgasm and look back on what you've done, you ask yourself for the umpteenth time, how come I keep doing this? How come I can't break this? What you have to realize is that you will continue to repeat this cycle until something breaks it.

And in this video, I want to talk about how do you fight the temptation to watch porn? How do you combat the lies that you're tempted with? Those lies that you just mindlessly accept and you feel like you're in that moment of weakness. And it keeps you powerless and it keeps you without a fight in you. And did you know that this is right where the devil wants you? Yeah, the Bible says in 1st Peter 5 8, be alert and of sober mind.

Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Yeah, the devil has a plan for how your life turns out. And it also says that the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and life to the full. That was Jesus in John 10 10. And so if you are a Christian man and you hear these Bible verses, I want to ask you, do you think that when you give into porn, you are actually living God's will out for your life? See, the devil wants to destroy your life and Jesus came to give you an abundant life.

That's what he has offered you. And so whose will are you going to live out when you're watching porn? We thought about that. Whose will are you actually living? Whose life plan are you actually following? So first, what we're gonna do here is we're gonna identify the lies that we're tempted with and then we're gonna talk about the real truth about them.

And then after that, we'll talk about what you do in the moments of temptation where those lies are just so loud and in your face. And then once we talk about that, we'll talk about how to make sure that you can continue to do this to continue to combat the lies and fight the lies so that it actually becomes a habit. It becomes automatic and it's something that gives you freedom and it helps you to actually break free from this and walk in true freedom.

Alright, so the first thing we're gonna talk about is the lies. So let's call out some of these lies for what they really are. I know how convincing they can sound in the moment, but they are straight from the enemy and they only lead you to pain.

So the first lie is that it's just a harmless fantasy. Look, I get it, man. We are telling ourselves this over and over again.

I've told myself the same thing, but you know it's garbage, right? Porn is twisting your mind. It's damaging your relationships. It's grieving God and the images that we watch, it shapes how we see women.

We see them as objects. We don't see them as daughters of Christ. We don't see them as our sisters in Christ.

And even if it feels harmless, consistently indulging in these influences of porn, it shapes our thoughts. It influences our attitudes. It causes us to act in different ways.

It's not a joke, right? The Bible tells us to take every thought captive and to make it obedient to Christ. That's what it says in 2nd Corinthians 10 5. And so it's not harmless. Either it's gonna help you and it's gonna turn you toward God or it doesn't.

And it actually harms you. There's no middle here. You got to choose a side.

And so another big lie is that I deserve this pleasure. Now hold on. Pleasure in itself isn't bad, okay? I'm not against having pleasure.

And actually God made our bodies to enjoy sexual intimacy within marriage. But porn is actually this cheap substitute. It is fleeting.

It is a temporary pleasure and it ruins the intimacy that you have in your marriage. And porn is stealing from your current or your future marriage. And the truth is you don't deserve that.

You do not deserve to have your marriage, your life ruined, alright? The next thing that we will talk about is that I know you've thought that no one will find out, alright? This is a lie. We can't fool God. You know who knows about it already? God.

Yeah, he sees it all. Proverbs 15 3 reminds us that the eyes of the Lord are everywhere and they're observing the wicked and the good. And so even if you think no one else knows, God sees your heart and he sees your actions.

And then after God, it's not only him, but you ruin the integrity that you have with yourself. You know that you're living without congruence. And your mind and your body and your conscience, it's keeping score.

And what happens is it affects your confidence, how you carry yourself. It raises your stress levels. You think that no one's gonna find out, but God knows and you know.

And when you have this in your life, you start to walk differently. You present yourself differently. And in time, the people around you will be able to sniff this out if you keep this up, alright? Another lie is that it is just a natural urge.

I can't control this. It's just natural. This is how I'm wired as a guy, right? And I actually have to ask you this.

If you genuinely believe this and you call yourself a Christian, who is your God? When did you accept defeat as a man of God? See, the Holy Spirit's strength allows us to resist temptation and we can retrain our impulses over time, okay? God always provides us a way out and he's given us the Holy Spirit to empower us. We've just got to choose to take him up on that, right? We've got to choose to partner with the Spirit that's inside us and not believe this lie that allows us to be so passive and to just give in and make excuses for ourselves. This is going to be a fight that will shape your character, right? It's a fight that's worth having and you can master your responses when you're in the face of temptation.

Every temptation is an opportunity for you to choose to allow the Holy Spirit to give you power, okay? You can resist the temptation and you can choose righteousness in those moments, alright? And then beside that, maybe you believe on the flip side, I am totally in control. I'm totally in control. I can quit anytime I want and this reminds me of Paul's words in Romans 7, 15 through 20, where he just can't seem to get a handle on doing the right things.

He talks about continuing to do the things that he doesn't want to do. See, if we're honest, most of us have realized that we can't stop this on our own, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we can. And if that were completely true, that we could stop this anytime we want, then we wouldn't be enslaved to this cycle that we find ourselves continuing to go in, right? Have you ever tried to stop after telling yourself, I'm gonna stop, right? We've got to get humble and admit that we need help from God and we need help from others if we're gonna change.

Temptation is strong, yes, but God is stronger. And at the end of that chapter, Paul actually declares that, who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Christ Jesus our Lord. It is God who can deliver you.

And so listen, you can't do this on your own. If you could have quit on your own, you would have done it by now. And so you got to get real with yourself and realize that this is the battle that you need to surrender to the Lord, all right? The next thing, it's the lie that it's not gonna hurt anyone, right? It's not gonna hurt anyone.

Porn is just harmless, right? It's not gonna hurt the people in my life. And the truth is that it does hurt people. It hurts us, of course.

It warps our mind, our emotions, our spirit, and it hurts our significant others. It hurts our wives. It breaks the intimacy that we would have with them.

So man, it is a lie that this is not gonna hurt anyone. Even if it seems like our actions are in the moment, it's not gonna harm anyone. Give it enough time and it's gonna have ripple effects on who you are as a man and how it affects the roles that you've been entrusted with.

Maybe it's with your wife, with your kids, with your family, your friends, your community, your church, how you are at work. People there are all counting on you to have integrity in your life. And this lack of integrity and how you're gonna not show up for them because you're the man who continues to watch porn is gonna hurt them, okay? It robs you of so much that could be powering you.

And that leads us to the next lie, which is that I can separate porn from my real life, all right? These can be in its own box, right? And the truth is you can't. You can't. How many times have you had porn on your mind or sex on your mind or you looked at a woman in a way that you really didn't want to as you went about your day, right? How about this week? Think about it.

How many times have you done that this week? You think that your life is not fueled by your porn use? You think that your mind is not racing and running through these memories and these thoughts that you've had when you're watching porn, right? Your brain doesn't know the difference about what you watch on a screen and what you actually fantasize about. And your brain can't separate that from what's real life. It seeps into everything.

It seeps into your time, your priorities, your financial decisions, how you're going to treat others, how you're going to see yourself. And so if you've ever thought that you can't make it through this day without watching porn, that, oh man, I'm just having a hard day, but maybe there's porn at the end of the tunnel. And that's something that you're looking forward to.

Oh, that's something that's finally going to give me relief. That's something that's going to finally cure my frustrations, right? And so that, of course, influences how you live your day. You think you're separating it, but that's a fool's rationalization.

In Matthew 6, 24, Jesus says that we can't serve two masters. You think you can, but you can't. And you need to tear down this idol that you have put up in your life.

Porn is an idol that you continue to hold and you think you can compartmentalize, but there's no doubt that it's affecting your walk with God. And so you got to choose today who is going to be your master, right? And so next, there's that lie that we need porn to feel better, all right? You think you need porn to feel better, but what is it going to really provide you? It's this quick, dirty release, and it actually makes your problems worse in the long term, right? You think that it's going to be this just quick fix that you need, but while it may be a quick fix, it lasts so shortly and the effects last so much longer. Real comfort, real satisfaction will come from God.

It will come from having the right community, having healthy habits, all that kind of stuff. We were made for so much more than what porn offers, right? Porn might be disguised as something that makes us feel better, but it only makes us feel worse. And it is actually bondage, it's slavery that's disguised as freedom.

And so if you're feeling down, if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling frustrated, stressed, brother, porn is not going to make you feel better in the way that you're looking for. Only God can truly satisfy the longings of your heart. He can heal what you're missing, okay? The Bible says that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted in Psalm 34 18.

And so let him be the one to satisfy you, not porn. Turn to God in your time of need. And lastly, I want to talk about the lie that this is just a one-time thing, okay? How often have you said that? How many times was it, this is the last time that I'm ever gonna give in, right? Unless you intentionally work on and change the patterns and the root issues, this is gonna happen in your life again, okay? Let's be extremely honest with ourselves.

If you are about to head into porn and you're telling yourself, this is the last time, I'm never gonna do it again. I'm sorry to break it to you, but you know deep down the chances are it's not the last time. You've seen yourself continuing it again and again and again.

You think it's just this small one-off that in the moment you rationalize that that's what it is, you think it's an isolated event. But what's happening is every time you say yes and you make this what you think is a mini agreement, it's taking you deeper and deeper into the sin and it adds more shackles in your mind. Your mind continues to affirm that, yeah, I'm enslaved to this and I'm never gonna come out and it's gonna feel weighed down more by this habit that you see yourself continuing in.

And so what makes you think that it's gonna be easy to resist the next time and the next time and the next time when in this particular moment you can't even just say, okay, I'm not gonna do it, right? You're actually just giving in and saying, so easily, just one more time, right? Yeah, it's a weak excuse to give yourself permission in that moment for another hit, okay? So you've got to get real. Every time that you accept one of those lies, you're allowing yourself to jump into this downward spiral that goes super fast and it leads you right into sin. And you're just saying, take me wherever you want.

And you're not fighting. And so by your own poor choices, you reinforce it into who you think you are, right? And you continue to further believe that you are a slave to this sin. And of course God has compassion and he can rescue you.

And of course he can forgive you. But you will keep returning to square one if you don't do the work of learning those real lessons and those real truths about what you're capable of through the power of the Holy Spirit, through God's power in those moments of temptation. You never learn how to work with God to get over this sin, okay? And on the flip side, those who have broken free, those who are breaking free, know that you need to use temptation as an opportunity to expose lies, to learn truths about yourself and about God's power.

And this is how you make progress in your recovery by fighting in the face of temptation. Not giving in, not just easily, mindlessly jumping in and saying, oh, what's another time? But actually stopping and saying, enough is enough. I'm gonna fight and I'm not gonna give in this time.

And so here's what you need to do when you're faced with those lies. You do what Jesus did when he was tempted. What did he do? He quoted scripture.

And there is an endless amount of scripture that you can quote back to the enemy when you're tempted. If you notice, every single one of those lies that we talked about, we talked about a scriptural truth that will dismantle that lie, right? And you might be thinking right now, okay, Steve, well that's great, but how do I know what to say, right? Well, first you need to be in the Word. You need to have that scripture ready.

You need to memorize scripture. Have it ready on your heart. And if you're just getting started, you can write it out, right? Of course, there's so many lies that's gonna trip us up and each one of us has a particular lie that might be bigger for us that we just easily accept and that's what leads us down that path.

So you need to identify what are gonna be those lies for you and write it out. Write down each of those lies that you believe in those moments. Because the enemy runs the same playbook on us.

Okay, well I'll just run your playbook, Satan. I'm just gonna continue on the plan that you have for me. Yeah, let's do this together.

You partner with him in those moments, right? And so if you want to partner with God, you're gonna need to have scripture that you're gonna use to combat those lies. And so for example, when I'm told the lie that there's no way out, that this temptation is too strong, what I remember is that no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

But with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it. That is from 1st Corinthians 10 13. Alright, and you might be thinking now, okay, well Steve, but how do I have those verses ready in those moments of temptation? You need to put this next to your bed, maybe on your desk, maybe next to your computer, your phone, wherever that you are the most tempted to just give in so easily.

Have those verses written out. Have those verses typed out. Whatever you need to do, get it ready so that you can fight against the lies in those moments.

Alright, so you list out those possible lies that could be used against you. Then write out scripture that you're gonna use to combat it, right? Use the Word of God as your sword and you're gonna have all that ready for you to fight and combat the lies in those moments. Okay, so of course there are several other things that we can do in those moments of temptation.

You can of course change your environment, get up out of your seat, get up out of your bed, go do something else. You can also call for backup. Have those pillars of support that you can use in those moments.

You can do a critical moment reflection. There's just so many other strategies, but the point here that I want to drive home is that no matter the strategy that you're using, you need to call upon the power of God in those moments. Through the Holy Spirit, use the Word of God.

Tap into that strength that is given to every believer, okay? It's not our strength, it's God's strength. And as a believer, as a Christian, you need to get familiar with relying on that because when you rely on your own willpower, you're always gonna run out. With God's power, you can make progress.

With God's power, you can overcome this sin, okay? And so finally, of course, temptation is not just a one-time thing. We're tempted all the time. We're tempted every day.

And if you're stuck in this sin, you're gonna be tempted with it over and over again. And so the question is, how do you continue to win? How do you continue to use Scripture? How do you continue to access the power of the Holy Spirit and have victory when you're faced with temptation so that you keep fighting and you establish freedom, true freedom, and walking freedom in your life, right? How do you do that? How do you stay plugged into the Spirit's power? Well, the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4.12 that though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

And a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. I think that you get what I'm hinting at here.

If you are going to do this alone and you think you're gonna say, okay, great, thanks Steve for all these tips. I'm gonna go ahead and try it on my own. I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna pose this question to you, brother.

How is it working out for you trying this alone? He's called you to be in community. As it says in that verse that when one is alone, he can easily be attacked and defeated. And so you have Christian brothers around you that you can partner with, you can get in community with.

You know that you've done it on your own for far too long. So I want to encourage you, you need to find your band of brothers. You need to find your community who's gonna be your backup, who is gonna be fighting on this journey with you, right? Who's gonna reinforce the truths that you will forget at some point in your moments of weakness, when you're discouraged, when you fail.

Who's gonna be that person when you're attacked and defeated, right? The verse says that alone you are susceptible, but two can have each other's backs. And then three are even better, right? So who's gonna be that community for you? Enlist the help of other brothers. Use that to break free from porn.

It is not going to be easy if you are gonna be alone ranger. You need the leadership of the other brothers around you. And I also should add that at least one of the brothers in your band of brothers needs to actually have been somebody.

This is such an important point, I can't believe I almost forgot to say it. You need somebody in your band of brothers who has actually been out of porn. You don't want another situation of the blind leading the blind, alright? You need somebody who has already overcome porn and is not walking in this sin.

And so where are you gonna find this brother that has already overcome it? You might find them at church, you might find them in your Bible study, you might find them on your club, on your team. Somebody that you know is a believer, a strong believer, and who's overcome it. And now sometimes it's hard to find people who actually fit that description.

And you get in the conversation, you talk with a brother that is trusted, you know that they're walking with the Lord, and you just tell them, hey I'm struggling with this and I'm looking for somebody who has overcome this. Because a lot of times people in your church might be stuck in the same thing. They might be living in the same sin.

Ask them, who do you know that might be already free from this? Maybe it's your pastor, right? Maybe it's a counselor. Maybe you need to go online and find somebody who is talking about how they're free from this, right? Maybe you need to find a coach. There's several online communities, forums.

There's people who have overcome this. We have the redeemed man community. Whatever your community is, the point is you need a band of brothers with you.

And so you don't want to be a Lone Ranger, okay? So we talked about a lot here. We talked about the lies that shout at us and temptation. We talked about how what we do to fight back against those lies.

We talked about not how to just fight once, but to make sure that you keep fighting. And so that you can start to walk more and more in freedom from porn. And I know that this works because this is what I did to overcome porn.

And I just want to say brother, I am rooting for you, all right? I want you to experience freedom and victory. And just the fact that you watch this far already says that you are serious about overcoming porn and getting free in your life. And so I want to honor you for that.

And so take everything that we talked about here and use it, implement it. God bless you and I'll talk with you in the next video.