Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple and Spotify. And those of you enjoying this on our YouTube video podcast format. I also want to welcome those of you listening around the world because for the gospel is downloaded in many different countries. If you are watching this on video, you'll notice I'm wearing my For the Gospel hat. If you like these, I know a number of people have been getting them from our forthegospel.org merch store. A great way to represent the gospel, trigger conversations, and share the hope and truth about Christ wherever you go. So you can pick up a hat like this on our online store. On this particular episode, we're continuing our series on sexual sin and sexual immorality. And what better than to wage war on porn? That's what this episode is going to be about. It is an interview between Dr. Owen Strand, a dear brother and friend of mine, and myself. We sat down just recently, and I wanted to ask him a number of questions and dig into this topic and then present it to you on the podcast via video and of course audio, so that you can listen in and gain strategies for waging war on one of Satan's most pervasive strategies today. The porn industry is his weapon of choice for luring this generation, men and women, into lust and ultimately into the destructive pattern that sexual sin brings. But there is freedom. There's freedom in Christ, there's freedom in the truth, and the word of God is not silent. So without further ado, let's jump into that interview. And I pray this equips you in the war on porn. Oh, and thanks for being on for the gospel, brother. Really grateful for you. Grateful for you. Thank you for having me, brother. Oh, it's always a pleasure. We go back a number of years now. Our friendship is one of the longest in ministry. And I remember early on you were a professor at Midwestern. I was a student. And here we are, sitting today. You're being faithful, still getting after it. And I want to talk to you about a particular subject that you're no stranger to. You've done a lot of teaching, a lot of discipleship on it. You've obviously, as a man, I'm sure, waged war against it. And I want to talk about pornography. Speak to how prevalent it is as an issue, first and foremost, in your experience with men. You're in a local church. You've been active in your local church. Not just an ivory tower theologian. Speak to how pervasive this issue has been for men.
SPEAKER_01What I've realized over the years is that it's the norm for young men today in such a visually driven culture to be struggling with pornography. So it used to be that once in a while a young guy would come to you and say, I need help on this. Nowadays, you almost assume it's the struggle of young men. And that's very regrettable, and we don't want that situation, and you and I have lots of things to say about it. But actually, we're in a situation where it frees us up to say, all right, let's be honest about this. And let's get real. Let's know that the gospel isn't something you apply once every six months to your sin issues. The golden thread on this real problem, we don't want sin to abound, but the golden thread is that we can say, all right, you know what, you're in a low place. You're in a place where you can see that sin has mastered you. You don't have control over your sin. This isn't going to be a matter of self-help or motivational tricks or tuning into some podcast guru who's got some Spartan plan, you know, for your life. You need the gospel, you need Jesus, and you need the Holy Spirit. And guess what? I don't have a little tiny dose of any of those things to offer you. I'm a sinner just like you. You feel hopeless, you feel trapped. Well, I have the way out. I have the key. The key out of this dungeon is the gospel. And so that's what we have to offer these guys who are struggling in a very real way today.
SPEAKER_00That's super helpful. A couple of things I'm thinking of as you're talking. Number one, would you speak to the man who is going to ask this question? He's going to say, So I understand that. That's true. I need the gospel. Owen, what if I'm addicted to pornography and I have been and I like it and I'm steeped in it? Is there an element of caution for those who might hear that and they're like, okay, cool. So I'm like, I'm good. And you know, I believe the gospel, and that's fine. So this is just an issue that's in my life. You know, I don't need to worry much about it. I'll just ask for forgiveness after I do it. It is what it is. Would you caution someone with that mindset? I don't want to overbear people with like, you're probably not even saved if you look at porn ever.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00We got to be careful there. Right. We all sin. At the same time, is there a license issue as well? Speak to that. There is.
SPEAKER_01So flag on the field. False start. Because if somebody is saying, um, I love Jesus on the one hand, but I also basically love porn. And um my love of Jesus, yeah, it makes me feel a little bit uneasy at times about uh lust and sexual addiction, but I I don't know. I'm just struggling and I can't really get victory over it. And and Jesus just loves me the way I am. We've got to stop there and we've got to say, all right, bro, sister, whoever it is, I totally understand a lifelong fight with sin. I'm in one myself. It's a it's a dog fight, it's gonna end uh when I go to glory. So I'm there too. Uh every Christian is. And we've got to be honest about that and realistic. On the other hand, for the Christian, Romans 6, the power of sin is broken so that we're no longer a slave to sin. And we're not getting into the finer technicalities of theology here. This is basic Christianity. When you become a Christian, the power of sin is broken. So you're no longer mastered by it. You still have to fight it. You fight it every morning, you put your boots on and go to war against it. But fundamentally, you're not a slave to it any longer. So the person who comes to you or me or any of our friends out there uh who loves fellow sinners and says, Yeah, you know, but I love Jesus, but I'm in this place of uh, you know, basically addiction. We say either you are a young Christian and you got to have the gospel seriously applied, and we got plenty of it for you, like we're saying, or you're you're not a believer. And that that's a very real possibility. And in saying that, we're not hating you, we're not against you. We want to rightly diagnose the condition like a good doctor would, and then say, um, all right, what you need to experience is the new birth. And when you experience the new birth, when you put all your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, then you are going to become a new creation, 2 Corinthians 5.17, and that is going to mean at the level of your thoughts, your desires, and your actions, now that you are going to war against your sin. And that's the distinction. Somebody who is a Christian is not somebody who's perfect, functionally perfect, but it's somebody who is going to war against their sin in the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00So good. Uh thinking about 1 Corinthians 10 13, one of the passages that my college coach made us memorize actually way back when at Dallas Baptist. I'll never forget. It's still stuck in me. And I was living a double life back then and all that. But I remember we had to memorize 1 Corinthians 1013 and said, No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God who is faithful will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also that you may be able to endure it. What you're saying is so helpful because we all will sin, but the the genuine believer, somebody who Christ has won victory over their heart, they have a new heart, is never really going to say by pattern, Well, I just can't stop, or there's I I I can't. It's just it's it's right there. God has provided the way of escape also that me we may be able to endure it. So the person who says, Well, I just can't break this, or no, it's just the way I am, you're not tapping into all that God's given through the gospel. You're not tapping into his grace and forgiveness through confession, you're not tapping into accountability. Speak to that part. I mean, if we're saying we're Christian and, well, it's just the way I am. The Bible has so much to say about confession and getting honest. Yes. Accountability can be, we sit around and kind of kumbaya, like, man, I'm struggling. I'm struggling. Awesome. Let's pray. And then we go, we're like, it's such a good small group today. What'd you do? Everybody confess their stuff, man. We're broken and I'm broken and he's broke, we're just broken. And then everyone bounces. Yeah. I was in a lot of that, like in the sort of the seeker-driven church. It's okay to not be okay as long as we're all not okay together. Right. And everyone just goes out and does their thing. What is real accountability? Is it like, oh, you struggle, I struggle, cool. Or is there is there a direction? Are we going somewhere, or is it like this cultist act? We just keep cycling.
SPEAKER_01Conversion is not a makeover. Conversion is a takeover. That's how the theologian Steve Lawson has put it, and I'm so I'm stealing here on camera. Uh, because it's not you and me in coming to faith, we just got to step back a minute and say, it's not you and me making Jesus anything. We don't make Jesus the Savior. We don't make Jesus the Lord of the cosmos. Jesus is the Lord of the cosmos. Jesus is the savior. So that actually weirdly takes a lot of pressure off of us. Because when you're battling sin, including sexual sin, from the standpoint that all this is dependent on you and you got to be making Jesus this. And wait, I'm still battling a lot of lust and a lot of sin, so maybe I didn't make him Lord enough. Oh no, it's on me.
SPEAKER_00That is not the gospel. So when someone says, I gotta, you just gotta make him Lord of this area, bro. Like we're compartmentalizing, and he's Lord of three of them, but not four.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you're doing great in areas one through 17. Jesus is officially Lord of that, but sorry, uh 18 to 29, he's not Lord over yet. So, bro, can you opt in, please? Can you subscribe to the email? And what we have to say is, absolutely not. When Jesus saves you, when the Spirit uh uh gives you regenerating life, John 3, 8 and 9. What happens is this you are now able to recognize Jesus as Savior and Lord. You didn't make him anything. Now it has a lot of glorious effect on your life, such that, yes, you're gonna take that truth and apply it in all dimensions, and that's gonna mean that you're gonna take this truth that grace is stronger than sin. The power of the cross is infinitely stronger than the power of sin. And now you are going to say, in a real volitional way, a real from your heart way, you're gonna say, All right, I have this pattern when it comes to my smartphone, I have this pattern when it comes to my computer, I have this pattern when it comes to what I watch on TV, this pattern when it comes to where I go on the weekend or whatever it is. And now I'm going to say, wait, I didn't make Jesus Lord or Savior of anything. He is that, but now he's claimed me. And so I can't do that. And that's what all that means practically. That frees you then, out it takes you out of the shame of self-directed action and self-directed confession. And so this isn't all hinging on your practices. You already are saved by God, and now you're freed to be honest, to be humble, to confess your sin to God and your brothers or your sisters, and then to repent of that. And you're not managing your image or your or how you look to people. You are gloriously free to be honest about your life and claim all the grace that is in Christ. Amen.
SPEAKER_00So helpful. Okay, two things. I want to go two places for the rest of our time together. Number one, the bad news, the devastating effects of porn on the brain, which is an organ. I think we we need to be careful. Uh, sometimes in conservative theological circles, which we live in and are church members in, and biblical counseling, which we're we're all in on. We love biblical counseling, that's what I mean. Sometimes we hear words like brain or hormone or dopamine or whatever, and people are like, oh no, don't just this isn't some psychological babble. God made the brain, and he wired us to like you go in the sunlight, you have a workout, people are like, Oh, I feel so good after I work out. Why? God designed you to exercise, or we spend time together, physical touch. You I saw some stat the other day of like, I was I told my wife, I'm like, we have to hug for five minutes a day because this new study shows that it rained, and she's laughing. It's like, uh-huh. And you know, but God has made us for interaction, for healthy living, all those things in a certain way in the war against porn. The brain they've shown this, yeah, can get hooked like a drug. And all of a sudden, we're in patterns of addiction.
SPEAKER_01I want you to speak to that. Yeah, we're complex creatures because God made us that way. So we have a brain, as you said, we have these feelings. By the way, we all think that we're in control of our feelings, and men like to think as a side note that we're not emotional, but but women are emotional, and women have all these feelings. And we have different, you know, emotional lives, it's true, in general terms as men and women. We can we can draw some lines in those kind of ways. But here's the deal when women get their feelings, you know, when they when they're feeling it deeply, they go eat ice cream or something and and cry. And men think they don't get feelings deeply. When men get feelings deeply, they go out and burn something down. So who has feelings? You know, is it only women's feelings? Is it only women who have feelings? So we've got to just recognize that we're complex beings, as you were saying. And we've got to know that, yes, um, sin and a fallen world affects us as complex beings in complex ways. And one way uh lust gets into the coding of our body and our thinking is the circuits in our brain get rewired when you get in a pattern of watching these high stimulation images associated with pornography or that sort of world, and and your brain craves them. And so what you do is you form what are called neural pathways that now can only be satisfied when you see increasing doses of that terrible content.
SPEAKER_00Which is why I was watching one Christian, really helpful teacher on some of this, speak to the fact that it was the after-effect for some men, where they said it got worse and worse and worse because, like a drug, you had to keep going. More like a gateway type thing, without going too far into it. Right. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've covered this in my book, The War on Men. That's the deal. That's what ends up happening. And uh, if I I don't study pornography for a living in terms of watching it or anything like that. No joking here, I'm very serious. Yeah, but um that there are studies that are showing that it is getting pornographic material is getting more and more and more violent. It's it's getting, it's already horrific and of the devil, diabolical, uh, one of Satan's best weapons against the human race, visual pornography, but it's getting worse and worse and worse. And and that that relates to our brain in that um it's just fascinating to think about that. The more sin you you give into, the greater the degree of sin you need to be happy, uh, to be satisfied, or whatever it is, but it's never going to satisfy you so costly. We got to say this on video right now before I move on to the next thing. If somebody out there and somebody is out there following the lie that pornography or the images you're watching, or whatever it is, or the the the real life affair, there's gonna be a point where you where you you have satisfaction and now you stop. Outside of being born again, there is no such point. Wow. There is no fixed point on this graph. You are never going to stop. You are going to go and go and go until you destroy everything you have and everything around you. There is no point of stopping because Satan has given this a diabolical energy such that the only way out is a new birth, is a new nature, is being born again. That's it.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00The studies that are put out regarding divorce in relation to pornography use and the next generation. I saw one study. It wasn't about generational curses and some of that weird stuff. Or like the sins of the father will visit the children. But it was more so the patterns of a father or a mother in this area can create a home dynamic that actually sets the stage for children who use pornography because they're exposed to these things. Oh, yeah. Speak to the effects of it though on the marriage, on the way we view women, and then let's land the plane with some strategies for how to go to war.
SPEAKER_01We were told for a long time in American public life with regard to homosexuality, this line, it doesn't matter what I do in the privacy of my home. That was sold to us to literally change the nature of marriage, for example, in the West, or try to. Nothing has changed. Marriage hasn't changed. But we were told that there's such a thing as gay marriage. And part of the argument that drove that in the public square was whatever I do in the privacy of my own little screen, it's my business. It's my business, and it has no effect on anybody else. And honestly, that could not be less true. The stats uh that you were alluding to, the stats on pornography use in marriage, show this. If you use pornography in marriage, your chance of divorce goes up 300%. The single best way to blow up your marriage, your family, your home itself, your ministry if you have a ministry, your vocation. Yeah, whatever you got. If you want to get the matches out and the kerosene, uh the single best way to blow it all up is to use pornography. Um so we've got to know that. We've got to know that that is happening all around us. But even as we state these things, I'm just relentlessly going back to the fact that as bad as this situation is, as deep as you get into the pit of sin with this particular struggle and battle, there is absolutely always a way out. There's always a way out. So you and I are talking about the ideal. You and I are talking about the standard biblically. We have to talk about the standard. We we have to line this out and say, you don't just live how you want to live when it comes to sexual sin, and we're gonna slap a Jesus tag on it and say, You're great. That's right. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna hold the bar high and be and try inadequately, imperfectly to be biblically faithful. Yes. Okay, but here's the deal. We don't all hit the standard, and folks out there have blown up their life and they have lost their marriage, and they are estranged from their kids. So we're gonna keep talking about, you know, how to drive toward purity if people haven't done that. But to the folks who have, to the folks who are living in ashes and smoke, the wreckage, we're gonna say, Jesus is gonna put you back together. Yes. We can't guarantee what's gonna happen with the family or the marriage or reconciliation. But what we can say is this this is the God who loves broken things. This is the God who loves to heal. This is the God who loves to renew. Yes. In fact, as we're engaging somebody like this as flesh and blood people in our neighborhood, community, church, workplace, that's a vital part of our witness, is to say, I've broken things. Yes. I've I've needed to be healed, I've needed to be restored. Somebody had to die on a cross for me to save me. So you're not the only one who needs help here. You're in a low place. You're in a very vulnerable place. But I know what that is too, because I've been in a very low place. And in fact, every time I sin, I'm not on some mountaintop above you, you know, shouting down instructions to you about what to do in your life. I'm right here with you. I know what it is to give into sin and give in to the flesh. So we've got tremendous hope. I keep saying this, but we've got tremendous hope to offer. The very same hope offered to us who haven't blown it all up, is the hope we offer to those people who are living in that wreckage. And they can come out of that, and God can turn that around. And God will even, I'm going on here, but God will even use the testimony of the wreckage, the smell of the smoke on your clothes from the fire that burned your house down. Yes. He will even use that for people who are like you, struggling with all of this, and that will be a part of how redemption comes into all of this. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Everything you're saying right now is so helpful for especially the person watching, saying, Well, you know, must be nice, or you know, I wish I had a way out, or you know, I just don't, I wish that there was some way. And I'm thinking, what you're watching right now is is a lifeline.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00What you're hearing right now is another 1 Corinthians 10 13 moment. You could be on any other video on YouTube, you could be listening to some other garbage on your podcast playlist, or or watching some other reel on social media, and you're hearing this just another olive branch that the Lord offers again and again and again. So take it. How do I go to war against porn? I believe that. Gospel, I know that I'm righteous in Christ. I am not gonna graduate from the gospel. But Jesus isn't saying to his followers, cool, like if you love me, hang out. Do your thing, and it's all good. We'll slap some grace on it before you get through the pearly gates. Obey me. Go and sin no more. Can you give us some things to do? If the Holy Spirit has stirred our heart with conviction, I want to go do it, but we don't go, well, rest in Christ. What does that mean? What is resting in Christ? Look to Christ. Okay, what I'm looking at him. What what does he want me to do? Love it. Because the disciples never stay in the boat. Follow me. Okay, let's go. So give me some strategy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, put your boots on and start walking. Walking. That's right. So we go to a text like Ezekiel 36, 27, the promise of the new covenant, where God says to Ezekiel and to his people, I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Okay, why do I go there? Because that's the promise that comes in fullness in Jesus Christ with his shed blood, dying on the cross for his people, for sinners like you and me. What that means now is that when God gives the gift of saving faith, the spirit comes and indwells every believer. And now so now that promise has come true. God puts his spirit within us. This isn't fancy theology, by the way, for some classroom somewhere. This is rugged practicality for everyday living. This is what everybody needs, not just you and me who like theology. And so now the spirit's in us. But the spirit does stuff. The spirit doesn't just make you feel some type of way. The spirit does things in you. And specifically the Bible says the spirit drives us to that obedient call you just said. So what we do is we wake up in the morning and we identify where we are pulled to sin, to the flesh, and we cry out to God in complete and total dependence for strength and power and help. We get in the Word of God, we start our day off right. This isn't a new law or something like that. If you miss a morning or something, or if you prefer to read the Bible at night or midday, God bless you. But a lot of us know we got to start the day off well. So you brew that dark roast, that beautiful dark roast, and uh the day, the day dawns upon you slowly, or you're headed to the gym soon, maybe because you got to get that physical discipline in as well. It's amazing how closely the body and the soul are linked. When you're taking care of your body, you're often taking care of your soul and vice versa. Not always, but often linked. And so we're we're we're we're drinking the coffee, we're reading the word, we're getting in there 20 to 30 minutes if we can, not a perfect time allotment, but we're trying to feed our souls with the word of God. And then and then we got some prayer in the car as we're driving to whatever we get to do, gym, work, whatever it is, and we're filling our mind with good things and we're asking God for power over the flesh. And then, this is very practical, when uh it comes to the habits of the day, we're pointing ourselves in the right trajectory, we're we're knowing our weaknesses. Yes. Where are we weak? Don't pretend you're not weak.
SPEAKER_00Amen.
SPEAKER_01I'm weak, you're weak, we're all weak. God's strong, not us. So where am I tempted to go? Phone, tablet, conversations, physical locations, whatever it is. Where am I tempted to go that's going to be sinful? Um, you're not trying to be a goody two shoes, but you're trying to be wise because a lot of how we end up in the bad places is we're not setting the trajectory right. We all like to talk about how we just ended up in sin. You've talked about this in your ministry. Loved what you said recently. We don't just end up in sin. No, it just happened. It just happened, bro. Oh my word, it just happened. Really? Not usually. Yeah. So set the trajectory right. And then when you are presented with the temptation, claim the grace that is in Christ. Remember Christ dying on the cross for you, swat it, get out of there, get out of that situation. And then last thing I'll say, when you do fail, we're not we're not endorsing or enfranchising failure. We don't want sin to abound, the grace will abound. Romans 6, 1. Uh-uh. Sin is never good, but when we do fail, as fail we will, we go to God, we confess that, we repent of that, we invite the accountability of the spouse or the close friends or the church pastor, whoever it may be, and we start all over. And we don't, I gotta say this quick. Please. I I gotta say this. In that fail part, sadly, um, we don't, we don't wallow and say, and and lose ourselves and say, oh no, I'm one step away from being unsaved or something like that. You know, if there's a crazy pattern of defeat, start asking those diagnostic questions of, do I know Christ? But I'm talking about the Christian, the normal everyday struggle against the flesh. Um, what you've got to do is remember that the grace of God is sufficient for you. And so even those weak moments end up amplifying the grace of God because at the heart of Christianity, unlike every global religion, is not just the standard do this. At the heart of Christianity is do this, but but the greater principle is the redemption principle where I need Christ to do this, and then when I don't do that, I need him all over again. And praise God, I have all of Jesus for all of life.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Excellent wisdom, so helpful, prevalent issue, not going anywhere fast. So we'll do more of this in the future. I'm so grateful for you, brother. Thank you. Thanks. Well, I hope that was a helpful interview. I know any time that I get the chance to sit down with Owen, he pours out wisdom. He is fiery and passionate about the truth. He holds nothing back, and I enjoy listening to those kind of dialogues because I want the truth. I know you do too. And with pornography being so pervasive, we need to pull no punches in the war against it. Well, thanks for listening. Thanks for watching, thank you for supporting, and thank you for sharing. We're gonna keep going in this series, and I'll be back with another episode as we dig into strategies for fighting against sexual sin. We're gonna look at Jesus' words and the Gospel of Matthew and go a few other places. I can't wait to keep going on this series. We're getting a ton of feedback from you sharing that it has been helpful. So let's keep going deeper and deeper into the word on the topic of sexual sin, sexual immorality, and how to walk with the freedom that Christ gives us. Thank you again for joining us. If this episode has been helpful, be sure to subscribe on YouTube or leave us a review. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.