Welcome to the Further Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and today I want to give you a game plan for fighting lust in our series on holiness. We know from the last two episodes on unwholesome speech and modesty that holiness always has to get personal. If it doesn't get personal, we're just talking in ethereal terms. Everything stays very safe. But if we want to get to the heart of the matter and grow in the Lord and fight sin, well, you got to get personal. And few areas expose the flesh and get as personal as lust does. Not just looking, not just curiosity, you know, not just like private stuff, kind of viewing it that way. Those are all ways to excuse it. No, lust is a spiritual problem with physical consequences. And pornography, which is attached to that, and I'll get into a little bit in this episode, has become kind of a turbocharged delivery system for lust in a modern world. It's just everywhere. We live in a very pornography-saturated world. Jesus does not treat lust as a minor weakness. He doesn't say, oh, it's just looking or, oh, you know, it's this or that. No, he calls it heart adultery. And he calls us to fight it with decisive seriousness. We don't just cope with it and kind of let it go. And there's a passage I'm already turned to in my Bible in Matthew chapter 5, verses 27 to 30. Jesus, teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, kind of goes to the next level of fighting lust and the heart of sin. He says this you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. He says that because in Judaism and Jewish tradition, Jewish law, their teaching, you know, you had all these ways to get around things, you know, like, oh, well, you can do this, but not that. And you, if you do this, it's technically not breaking the law. And they had all these loopholes. Well, I didn't touch, I didn't do it, I didn't actually act on it. Jesus says, look, it's not about moral lawkeeping and just looking good on the outside and like, well, I didn't do anything wrong, or that's not technically sin. Don't get technical with me, is really what God is saying. I see your heart. Then he says, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. It doesn't matter if you didn't quote unquote act on it. You've already done so in your heart. Then he goes into cutting these things off or dealing with them strongly. He says, if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, throw it from you. It's better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, throw it from you. It's better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Jesus is basically saying, this is not a gray area. This is not, ah, boys will be boys. This is not, hey, I just, I'm just looking. It's not a big deal. No, none of those are acceptable reasonings or excuses for lust. Lust, if allowed to fester and allowed to breed itself, James says that's the cycle of sin. It's going to lead to death. Jesus says, better to just cut things off, better to go to a flip phone, better to not use social media, better to stay out of that location, stay away from that woman, stay away from that particular situation at work, than for your soul to be in peril. This is sin. Lust is sin. Sexual sin in particular is so damaging because it has such a ripple effect on all of our relationships. And the Bible actually makes it clear that we are sinning against our own body when we fall into sexual sin. That kind of sin is corrosive and needs to be cut off. You've got to go to war. This is warfare language. Cut it off. Get it far from you. Get it out of here. Don't even be near it. Because if you play around with that, it is sin like any sin, but it's a different kind of sin, is really what Jesus is getting at. And that's really what the gospel calls us to do. When we get saved, we stop loving sin. We don't want to entertain sin, even though we're tempted to sin and we do sin, we hate it. And grace doesn't ever lower the standard. Well, God is gracious and he forgives. Of course he does. Grace then becomes empowerment and motivation in the fight against sin. Now, I want to talk about pornography and what it's doing to our society. Because you can't talk about fighting lust without getting to the core issue we're facing. Pornography is paralyzing this generation in countless ways, but no less than five that I've listed here. Number one, porn trains the brain toward craving and cue-driven wanting. I want to explain what I mean by that. Porn trains the brain towards craving and then cue-driven wantings. We're embodied souls. We are going to repeatedly create patterns and pathways in the mind or habits. The Bible makes this clear that what you dwell on is what you're going to focus on, and then what your attitude is going to be like and what your actions are going to be like, what you hone in on. That's why Philippians 4, 8, 9 tells us to dwell on certain things, whatever's true, whatever is noble, whatever's right, of good repute. Why? Because your mind is wired that way. God created the mind for that. So what we repeatedly do carves habitual pathways in your mindset, in your life, habits of attention, habits of reward and desire. This is why some of you, when you go to church or you hang out with other believers, or you fellowship, you get discipleship, you get counseling. Afterwards, you go, oh, that feels so good. Why didn't I do that sooner? You know, I and what's happening? Well, you just tapped into something in the mind God has created for you. And there's there's this reward. It's a spiritual reward. Your spirit is uplifted, your mind is renewed. You go, man, I need to do that more often. You feel the same thing after going to the gym. Endorphins are firing. They have clear studies about oxytocin and different good hormones being released when women hold their babies and we have affection for one another. All of these things are good things God has designed the body and the mind to enjoy. Well, they've done image research on problematic pornography use, and it actually shows heightened brain reward response to cues that are predicting sexual images, linked to this wanting. And so when you look at pornography and you entertain lust, guess what? It trains your brain to want it more and to want it again. And then that wanting, the cue of wanting, I called it, well, that's an anticipation that begins to form in your mind, like a dog being excited to go on a walk or a deer going to the same deer stand or deer feeder because it knows around 5 p.m. at this time when the sun is there and everything's like this, that internal biological clock says time to eat. Well, in the same way, you start looking at things a certain way and acting on them a certain way and creating habits in your life a certain way. And pretty soon there's this inner anticipation and wanting. There was another widely cited study found that that found that greater pornography consumption, like hours and repeatedly throughout different weeks, was associated with differences in brain structure and connectivity in reward-related regions. In other words, the more someone spends time spends time watching porn, the more that their brain starts to change how it even processes pleasure and reward. So pretty soon, normal pleasures don't satisfy. No, I want that reward. I need that feeling. I need that hit. It's like a drug, and that begins to build on itself. And pretty soon things have to get more and more extreme for people to find satisfaction. Why do I tell you all that? I want you to understand. I can give you chapter and verse, and I will, and I have. Amen. But you also need to understand the way the body's wired, the way the brain is wired, and how God has designed these things. Porn is not benign. If dwelling on the right things leads to joy and reward and a good attitude and blessing and fruit from the power of God and the work of the Spirit in our life, then so it will be when you hone in on pornography and lust and you engage it again and again. You wonder, well, what's that going to do? No, I'm just, you know, burning off steam, or I'm just, it's just a natural thing. No, it's not benign, it's malignant. It's shaping your desires, it's shaping the way your brain processes rewards. It's shaping what God has designed for good things, good reward, those good feelings, into something that's going to lead to destruction. So instead of habits that center on presenting yourself to God as a living sacrifice and getting the reward of joy in your heart, you end up presenting yourself to lust and pornography, and those rewards don't satisfy. Pretty soon your habits become your lifestyle. So where's there hope in all of that? In the gospel, in repentance. The gospel gives us the power to fight these things. John Piper once said, this horrific news from Brain Research. He was talking about some of this about the enslaving power of pornography, is not the last word. God has the last word. And to that, we have to say a hearty amen. And so hope matters a lot on this discussion. The point is not, well, your brain is doomed. All right, you've got those habits. It's over. Nothing you can do about it. No, the point is don't underestimate what you're feeding. Okay. Yes, be aware of it, but also don't underestimate what Christ can do. If you'll repent, turn this over to him and fight the fight according to the word of God. Number two, porn poisons marriage through secrecy, comparison, and betrayal. Porn poisons your marriage through secrecy, comparison, and betrayal. Porn thrives in the darkness. Secrecy, it's not neutral. It's not what she doesn't know won't hurt her. No, it's a relationship killer. Porn rewires your expectations, and then it just quietly judges your actual spouse against an edited, unrealistic fantasy. It trains consumers to evaluate bodies a certain way, not cherish the bride that God has given you, but to say, well, it has to be this, even though half of it's fake. Research has shown that married Americans who view pornography were more than twice as likely to experience marital separation over time. The divorce rate is not unattached to the amount of porn use in our society today. There's nothing about porn that's just personal or your thing. It doesn't just stay in the browser or on the phone. It snakes into your marriage. It's an imposter. It pollutes the bedroom. It goes against what the author of Hebrews says, not to pollute, not to demean the marriage bed. It's to be held holy. It breeds comparison. It breeds impatience. It breeds entitlement. It breeds an unrealistic view of intimacy and it creates emotional distance. Third, pornography distorts your view of sex and it trains you to dehumanize. God made sex as this beautiful, covenantal, joyful union. It's one flesh intimacy under the safety of marriage. That's the way God designed it. The two shall become one flesh. You see Genesis 2.24. She is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. It's beautiful, wonderful union. Pornography then turns sex into consumption. It's just this thing we consume versus this union we enjoy. It trains those who view it to relate to bodies as products rather than real people, let alone image bearers. Research has shown that violence, objectification, and abuse can all be linked to pornography use. Therefore, porn has no place in educating our culture, our children, the school system, which now there's places and education centers that are actually using pornography to educate the next generation on intimacy. And we wonder why things are going to hell in a handbasket pretty quick in our society, especially in this area. Well, because porn doesn't educate you for intimacy. It literally disciples a generation in selfishness and objectification. I remember Chuck Swindahl saying this when it comes to remaining morally pure, you don't need to pray and ask whether it's God's will. It is the will of God that you abstain from sexual immorality. And the reason for that is because if you don't, it leads to the destruction and demise of our society and our marriages. Porn is a poison to our view of sexual intimacy and godliness. Number four, porn damages your relationship with God through spiritual numbness and hypocrisy. Porn damages your relationship with God through two things, spiritual numbness and hypocrisy. What do I mean by that? Well, simple. You can't cherish Christ while cherishing and enjoying what nailed him to the cross. Porn will train you to disregard the conviction and calling of God the Holy Spirit in your moments of temptation. When you're tempted, you know, you know, you can call it the inner voice, the inner thoughts. Really, it's just the word of God that has trained you. It's that thing inside of you that says, don't do this. That's not a good idea. No, this isn't who we are. What is that? It's a conscience, a Christian conscience, which becomes like a moral rudder, shaped by, informed by the Holy Spirit. There's a book by John MacArthur called The Vanishing Conscience, and it actually speaks to that. The more you engage in sin and ignore the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the more you will numb, dull, or sear the conscience. Pretty soon, ah, you do what you want. Why don't you feel conviction? You've got a seared conscience, and you are on thin ice and you got hot skates. Over here, when you inform the conscience biblically and you shape it and you nurture it biblically, all of a sudden you get in a moment of temptation and morality, godliness, truth, what the scriptures call you to, and the power of the spirit all come together to help you fight. You realize it grieves the Holy Spirit and it suppresses your appetite for prayer and scripture and worship when you engage in these things. And so we got to realize that lust is not like, oh, just this thing. Everyone does it, everyone looks. No, it's it's dangerous. You've been invited to the front lines of war when you're being tempted to lust. One of the most sobering lines Jesus gives us is the line I read to you earlier. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has committed adultery in the heart. So you got to say this at the very least, we got to be honest and confess, we're all adulterers. We are. It does not diminish the person who has committed physical adultery and gone to seek out an actual affair. But let's not diminish lust to the point of like, ah, everybody does it. No, no. We are adulterers in the heart. So what does that mean? What do we, oh Costi, what are you saying? Well, we should all be repenting of our lust, not excusing it, because it is heart adultery. If you've ever lusted after a woman or after a man who's not your husband and not your wife, if you've ever desired someone, if you've ever gone down that road. It's not just something you did, or oh, it's just, I mean, every, it's not a big deal. No. That and pornography is not just something you watched or just a look you had. It is a disorder of affection. It's a disorder of worship. It's seeking pleasure where it must not and really cannot be found. And so it's very important that we take holiness seriously. Holiness is not perfectionism at all. Nothing I've proposed to you today or argued for or taught you would say, you gotta be perfect. You can't this and you gotta that and just do it. And it's all law. And no, if you're hearing that, you're literally not hearing what I'm saying. You've been skewed by some other school of thought. Holiness is not perfection, it is a passion for obedience and righteousness because you love Jesus Christ. You love him. And so you even turn to him in repentance, knowing that he's the solution for your problem of sin. And really, a love for Christ is revealed in what we do. Do you want to obey him? Do you love him? Okay, then obey him. Jesus said that, not costly. A love for Jesus and genuine affection for him is revealed in what you do when no one is watching. You realize that? We can't hide behind this kind of antinomian loose view of grace and salvation, because, well, works don't save people, and it's all the work of Christ and his finished work on the cross. Yes and amen. That does not give you license to do whatever you want and say, well, I mean, it's not works, so I, you know, I can't control this. Oh no, you have been bought with a price, Paul says, Yes and amen, and you didn't pay it. He did. Grace upon grace. First Corinthians 6 19. So glorify God with your body. That's Jesus' esque words to the woman caught in adultery. Go and sin no more. Yes, neither do I condemn you. You're forgiven. Go and sin no more. Number five, porn erodes work ethic and purpose through time theft, fog, and dopamine drain. I will stand by this. I don't care if you don't like me using the word dopamine or someone's like, oh, he's getting psychological. Now, no, I'm not. You can look up all your ACBC articles, you can do biblical studies on this, and you will find, you can talk to young men in your church and around the world, and you'll find pretty soon the use of pornography, definitely a spiritual danger and destructive. Also, why are so many young men lazy, not motivated, wasting time in a fog, wrestling with issues, and there's no dopamine hit high enough or hot enough to give them what they want and fill them with the passion and the energy? Well, because porn has stolen this in our society. It doesn't just steal purity, it steals drive. The drive to perform, produce, fight the fight, creativity, zeal, energy, clarity, all of those things. Why? Because the brain has been trained to chase quick reward rather than sustained effort. It's instant gratification versus delayed gratification. By the way, I remember my own baseball coach telling me about this stuff and all of the players when we were younger. He used to talk about delayed gratification. He'd say, fellas, you can go out there in the world and experience instant gratification in a lot of ways, from pornography, sexual sin, anything you want. You just compromise or you don't put in the work and you find these quick hits and avenues, it's just like a drug. And you'll enjoy instant gratification. And guess what? You won't be filled and you won't be satisfied. Delayed gratification is where it's at. Putting in the work now, the reward is later. Making wise decisions now that don't necessarily show themselves in the moment, but the reward, oh, it's sweeter. You're glad you waited. And he used to apply that to sexual sin, to financial dealings, to getting good grades or to hard work on the field or in the gym long before the baseball season started. He understood something that is still true today pornography, instant gratification, these quick hits for the brain. It fuels procrastination, distraction, and to be honest, it will put you in a tough spot at work, especially when your employer finds out that you waste time. It's workplace risk taking. Research on what people are calling cyberloafing, it's personal internet use at work, has highlighted how routined online habits become normalized. And it's been studied as a real workplace problem. Porn use at work, more rampant than you think in our world. It carries obvious consequences. Compromised integrity, you got HR, legal issues. But I would say deeper levels for Christians, slow corrosion of diligence. Colossians 3.23 says, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, not working for the Lord, but, or not working for man, but for the Lord. Well, you're cyberloafing. Porn is training you to seek escape rather than endurance. It's calling you to a false sense of relief rather than repentance and hard work. It's calling you to instant gratification rather than delayed gratification. And all of a sudden you realize, wow, I I've stopped living the Colossians 3.23 life. I gotta get back to who I am. And that's really what the question is. Do you know who you are? And do you remember who you belong to? If you're a child of God, you are called to greater things. One reason porn is so spiritually deadly is it sells fantasy while hiding the victim. Not only the victims. That are using it, but the victims that are involved in it. Over the last several years, there's been major platforms. A lot of Christian ministries have been bringing this to light, which is wonderful. But you see a lot of serious allegations for non-consensual illegal content. Horrible things that have to do with children. There was a 2025 enforcement action that included claims of failures to stop child sex abuse material, non-consensual videos. There was like these significant safeguards and audits. We're celebrating in the state of Arizona certain websites now being banned. It's awesome news. Without oversensationalizing all of that, my pastoral point is this: there is nothing benign or harmless about using pornography. The pipeline can include coercion, exploitation, sex trafficking. It's content that should never even exist in children. And by the way, you remember the words of Jesus Christ. If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, go ahead and tie a millstone around you and jump into the ocean. He says, better to just drown yourself. You do not mess with the children. And when people try to argue from whatever nuance, like, oh, it's just AI or it's consensual, or oh, you know, it's just, it's not hurting anyone. It's just my thing. I'm telling you, that is one of the best evidences for how we have fallen into a trap. Sin loves plausible deniability. Don't make those excuses. No different than a lawyer, a shady, dirty lawyer trying to use some avenue of the system or discredit some other thing or create distraction so that the truth does not come to bear on the verdict. You and I as Christians, we call sin what it is. We call porn what it is. We call these things that create gaps between us and Christ what they are. So let me kind of answer this last question that somebody asked recently of our ministry. What do we do with mental health and shame and the feeling of hopelessness as a result of all these things? I was talking to a young man who said, you know, I agree with everything that you would teach on this, and and but I struggle like mentally and with shame and hopelessness. I've just got these patterns of response in all these areas. And I I think a common pattern is, you know, pornography, shame, isolation, more porn. I mean, that's pornography, shame, isolation, more porn. And that really is the devil's goal. Isolate. Isolation is an accelerant. And studies have shown there's associations between problematic pornography use, which all use is problematic, but you know what I mean. They've you've gotten down the rabbit hole into a dark place. And now begins the mental health struggles, heightened anxiety, depression, loneliness, even suicidal ideation in some of the studies that have been shown. Hear this though. That is not meant to lead you to running into isolation. No, the conviction over these things doesn't mean God is angry at you and he's never going to forgive you. It's meant to lead you to repentance. God has invited you into dealing with the sin issue through repentance, not despair and running from it. The Proverbs say, Who separates himself seeks his own desire? Don't separate yourself. The devil is the one who says, You're filthy, so hide. Like the garden when Adam and Eve were ashamed. They finally realized they're naked. What'd they do? Well, let's make clothes and hide from God. How does that even process in the human mind? Denial. Jesus invites you to bring it into the light. God the Father invites you to confess to him and find forgiveness and find repentance. I think there is a warning in the scriptures, clear as day, about these things. I also think there's an invitation. Don't carry this and not bring it into the light. I remember hearing John MacArthur tell a story about a man 78 years old who was saying, you know, I I I I've been, you know, serving the Lord, and I I just I never got victory over pornography. Oh, brothers, sisters, even. Don't let that be you. In that is also a warning and an invitation, a warning that people can keep this hidden, they can wrestle with it, and then in the end, I just never got victory over it because I entertained lust and I didn't go on the offense and attack it. Bring it into the light. The words of John Owen, be killing sin, or it will be killing you. So let me close this out. I know it's been heavy, but I want to give you some steps to fight lust and to leave porn behind. I want to give you just several things to think through. Number one, call it what God calls it. It's not a struggle, not a habit, it's not a quote need. Sexual immorality and lust are sin, call it sin. Number two, confess it quickly and specifically. Confession, 1 John 1.9, it breaks the power of secrecy, gets it in the light. God will forgive you. Turn to Him. Number three, bring it into accountable light. So find a mature believer, confess it, set ongoing check-ins. Have people in your life to help you. Number four, build a no access plan. Delete the apps, install the filters, remove the private browsing, switch devices, get a dumb phone. All of those things. Put your devices in one place and be away from them. Go to a traditional alarm. Don't be near your phone at night. All these things. Don't manage sin. Okay? Oh, it's just what it is. No, starve it. Number five, identify your pattern and use the acronym HALT. I heard this a number of years ago. Are you tempted when you're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? Halt. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Don't moralize fatigue. Address it. And there's a great book that can help you on this. My buddy Easy. Emil, Easy, Zwain, called Fight Like a Man. Great book. We've given this away to tons of guys in our church. We've looked at it as a men's Bible study. We had Easy out. We've done some uh videos with him on for the gospel. If you don't watch him on our YouTube channel, I had him on the podcast as well. But he's got a ton of good material in there. And don't be mistaken. There are points when you we just we we are tempted and we kind of moralize it and go, ah, whatever, like it's not a big deal. It's just, you know, like, no, you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired. There's something that's triggering this. Number six, replace, don't just remove. Replace porn with better pleasures. Scripture, prayer, exercise, sleep, purposeful work, real community. Philippians 4.8, go dwell on something else. Number seven, train your eyes. Practice quick bounces. Get your attention recalibrated. Don't negotiate with the first look. Don't say, oh, it's not the first look that'll get you, it's the second. I remember a pastor who said that, fell into sexual sin not more than a few years later. It's not the first look that'll get you, it's the second. No, it's it's any look. Run. Number eight, renew your mind with better theology of sex. Go learn, study what the Bible says. It's covenantal, it's holy, it's good in marriage. It's not dirty, it's not a commodity. Go get your mind renewed the right way. Number nine, pursue marital intimacy with tenderness and repentance. If you're married, fight for trust. If you betrayed it, own it fully and rebuild. And finally, number 10, preach hope to yourself. You can change. It's not in your strength, it's by the power of the spirit. But your past and your challenges with pornography or lust do not get the final word. Christ does if you will turn to him. Our team will post those 10 steps on Instagram if you're looking for a visual way to remember them or maybe share them with others. But I hope this episode has helped you. Maybe because it was a longer one, you had to take it in kind of two different sessions. Whatever you can take from this and apply, oh, I pray that the Lord would strengthen you in this area. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for supporting. Above all else, thank you so much for praying. We're so grateful for the way we get to do this because of your support. I pray that God will continue to use for the gospel in your life and in the lives of many others. I'll be back next week with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.