Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Practical, Bold, and Biblical Strategies for Fighting Sexual Temptation - Jonny Ardavanis + Emeal Zwayne

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

People always ask us for good resources on sexual purity - we would like to commend to you Emeal Zwayne’s new book!Fight Like a Man: A Bold, Biblical Battle Plan for Personal Purity – Practical Strategies to Defeat Sexual Temptations and Restore Your Life“Win the war for purity. In a world that seeks to destroy sexual purity, the battle for holiness has never been fiercer nor the stakes higher. Sexual immorality has devastated too many men, damaged too many families, and marred the gospel’s testimony too many times. Now is the time to prepare yourself to fight.In Fight Like a Man, Emeal “E.Z.” Zwayne presents biblical truth for combatting the enemies of purity that seek to hold you captive in sin. Not content to just reveal your adversaries’ tactics, E.Z. also provides an arsenal of simple yet revolutionary strategies to equip you to conquer lust through the power of gospel-centered grace and the knowledge of God’s mind-blowing character. No matter your past, you can embrace the freedom available in Christ and the fullness of a life that honors God with every thought, word, and deed.There is hope on the battlefield of purity. Fight like the man God created you to be and join the ranks of those who have fought this battle and emerged as true spiritual victors.”To purchase Emeal’s new bookWatch VideosVisit the Website Pre-order Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

What we do as men oftentimes is we'll take something as beautiful as sex that should cause us to be in awe of the Lord. And instead of using it as what I call a wellspring for worship, we end up using it as a weapon for wounding. Welcome to the Dial-In Podcast. My name is Johnny Artavanis, and I've got an exciting episode for you folks today because I'm sitting with Emil Zwane, and he just released a book called Fight Like a Man, a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. Easy, Emil. Thank you for hopping on the show today. I'd love to just ask you right off the bat, tell everybody a little bit more about yourself, your family, what you do for a living at Living Waters,

and then we'll dive into really more of the content and subject of this book. Thanks, Johnny. I've been looking forward to this. It's a blessing to know the person interviewing you on a personal level, and I'm blessed by our friendship and excited to talk about the book. But yeah, you got it right.

Emile Zwane, born in Lebanon, integrated the US back in the 1980s, got saved back in 1991, had a crazy insane past. And the Lord just snatched me up August 15th, like I said, of 91. And by God's grace, I've been serving as a president of Living Waters now since, let's see, I think

it's coming on 22 years this January. Wow. Married, five kids, one of each, fascinating creatures of God. And been, yeah, doing the work here at Living Waters with Ray Comfort. I don't know if you mentioned this, but Ray Comfort also happens to be my father-in-law. And we've been teaming up for a long time. We're going to start a new mattress company called Easy Comfort together. I like it. Yeah, I like it. That's going to be our claim to fame. So there's a lot of mattress companies. You might have a lot of competition. Come on, man. Easy Comfort. You can't beat that name. That is not a bad game. And we're Jew and

Arab. So that makes it all the more interesting. It's a perfect combination. Yeah. Well, I'm thankful to have you on. And as I said, you know, your ministry is so thankful for it and the heartbeat for evangelism that your father-in-law exhibits and really your whole ministry is about and reaching people for Jesus Christ. And I'm so thankful for his passion for evangelism that

I've known about Ray Comfort since I was a boy. And so I'm really thankful for your ministry. Now, as I mentioned, your book is on really sexual purity, personal purity, and it's a needed subject. I've, you know, spoken on the topic of sexual purity, you know, ranging from junior hires to grown men. And it's a battle that is fairly pervasive. You know, I often give the stats that the porn industry is bigger than CBS, NBC and ABC combined. It's bigger than the NFL, NBA, NFL combined. 94% of 11 year olds have seen pornography, you know, in the average age of first exposure to pornography is I think 10 years old. And so this is a prevalent problem, not just pornography speaking, but just sexual purity at large. So I'd love to just ask it easy. Obviously,

I mentioned some stats, but what was behind the burden? You were talking to me just before we got on the call here about the burden you had to write this book on sexual purity. Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah, you nailed it, Johnny. It's a massive problem that I don't think has been even properly quantified as much as people try to quantify it. It's huge. You know, when I was a kid,

if you wanted to access pornography, you had to steal a magazine from a friend's house because his dad had a stash or he had to go to a video store and try to steal a magazine from a friend's house because his dad had a stash or he had to go to a video store and try to steal a video or whatever. But now if you think about it, every single man at the tip of his fingers has this device that can instantly connect him

to millions of images. And having pastored myself for six years, I know you're a pastor yourself and continuing to counsel people now, couples and individual men, this issue is ravaging people. And once in a while it surfaces and we pay some attention to it,

but then it goes right back underground because no one wants to talk about it. It's not a comfortable subject. And yet it's destroying everything that it touches. So I looked around and I thought, okay, this is a big problem. I have a passion to address this problem, but there are a lot of books out there on the subject.

And so what would make this book that I've written different? And that's that I wanted it, number one, to be biblically based, but then I wanted it to be theologically sound because you have books that purport to be based on scripture, but they're not theologically sound. And then I wanted at the same time, a book to be gospel centric and not, not

the gospel only being the tool through which we're saved, but the, the treasure house from which we live as believers, all of its benefits apply to us for all things that pertain to life and godliness. But then I wanted a book that was radically practical so that it hit all of those sweet spots, but that men could read it and then be able to really apply it in a tangible and practical way. And that's why the subtitle is A Bold Biblical Plan for Personal Purity. Well, I'm thankful for the burden that you've had to write on a needed subject. You know, we mentioned kind of the prevalence of the issue today. Um, and even as you said, you have to, you know, go to a gas station or, or whatever it may be, or steal a magazine from a father's house and forget who, who said it, but now there's a brothel in every pocket, just, you know, just instant exposure to a world of iniquity. And this

is, you know, um, again, if you're a junior hire or an old man, um, this is not a problem, particularly for just young men. It's, I've talked to a guy recently that's seventies in the seventies that just told me this is a battle every single day of my life. Now, I think because we, we talk about these, you know, you have the word battle plan within your very title. Let's just talk historically speaking, let's go biblically speaking. Why has this been such a large issue? Not just, you know, we talk about the way that maybe the pornographic world is shifting, but sexual purity is not a new battle. It's actually been one of Satan's main arrows for thousands of years. And maybe just talk about that for a moment and why in particular you think Satan

uses this particular temptation with so many men. Yeah, well, Satan is a master at taking what God has initially designed for good and perverting it and twisting it. And one of the things I talk about in the book is how what we do as men oftentimes is we'll take something as beautiful as sex that should cause us to be in awe of the Lord. And instead of using it as what I call a wellspring for worship, we end up using it as a weapon for wounding. And so Satan will take the very thing through which God replicates image bearers and ends up using it as a great weapon

for the destruction of men's souls. And scripture is clear, you know, that any sin that a man commits, you know, he commits outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. And so it brings radical devastating effects with it. And it's so tied into our drive as men

in connection with the design of God to create oneness on so many levels between a man and a woman, not just physically, but other levels as well. And he takes it and he twists it and he perverts it. But when you think about it, Johnny, the things that are involved in what ends up being sexual immorality, I mean, you've got vision, right?

You think of the human eye, 137 million light sensitive cells built into a presensitive light meter, wide angle lens, full color instantaneous reproduction. And instead of being in awe that I have vision, we take it and we look at images that we shouldn't look at. We look at women in a lustful way. You have cognition, the processing of those images. I mean, your brain is beyond any human machine that could ever be conceived. There's no computer on earth that

could compare to it. And then you have coition, which is coitus or the, you know, the mechanism of intercourse. And you look at, and you see God's fingerprints all over that. And yet we take it and we twist it. And instead of using it as a wonder for worship, we use it as a weapon, like I said, for wounding. Now you, you know, even as I think through what you said, you mentioned a verse that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 6, right? That every other sin a man commits or an individual commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. One of the things I often think about is sometimes we talk about the reality that all sin is equally sinful, right? All sin separates us from God, But sometimes people say, well,

what's the difference between my struggle with pornography and your struggle with anger? Well, I would say, well, the Bible says there is something unique and different about sexual sin. That's why Paul says, I think it's 1 Corinthians 6, 18, every other sin is different than sexual sin. And you kind of talk about that because it involves our drive. It involves the three factors that you mentioned. Um, you know, maybe break down for us easy in your book. You talk about the, the three main elements that men have to battle in their fight for sexual purity. Um, talk about those enemies and why it's important that we even, you know, Sun Tzu used to

say, we need the first thing in our battle is we have to know the enemy. So what are those enemies and why it's important that we even, you know, Sun Tzu used to say, we need the first thing in our battle is we have to know the enemy. So what are those enemies and why do we need to understand those enemies? Absolutely. And to those listening, these enemies are nothing new. They are the traditional standard ancient enemies of man, and they are the world, the flesh and the devil. But it's important, I think, to recognize and understand that as Dr. John Street said in his amazing book, Passions of the Heart, he said that, you know, Satan and the world are outward enemies of opportunity, that the real enemy is really the flesh itself. It's that fallen sinful nature. And so the world and the devil come alongside the real enemy, which is the flesh, and they become allies with it and they begin to coordinate against our soul. And so, yeah, it's really important for men to understand who the enemy is. And the problem, Johnny, oftentimes

is that men don't understand the enemy. And alongside with that, they're not ready for the war because they don't realize they're in war. There's a delusion that's going on. And I talk about it in the book in regards to a man being deluded into thinking that he's on a luxury cruise ship heading for the shores of Bora Bora, when in reality, he's on a Higgins boat heading for the shores of World War II Normandy.

And can you imagine a guy with this deluded mindset? I mean, he's gonna saunter on a Higgins boat heading for the shores of World War II Normandy. And can you imagine a guy with this deluded mindset? I mean, he's going to saunter off the Higgins boat clad in a bathrobe, some fluffy slippers and a remote control in his hand. And we both know that this guy's going to get smoked. And so that's what's going on. And those are the three primary enemies. They have undeniable tactics against us. They're nothing new.

And we need to understand the way They're nothing new and we need to understand the way they work and then we need to have our counterattack. And that's what I talk about in the book. Yeah. And even just along the lines of those three realities, you know, scripturally speaking, we know that the world is against us and wants to conform us, right? That's Romans 12. Do not be conformed to this world because the world does want to conform us. We know that the flesh is set out to destroy us because that's James 1. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God, but each one is tempted when he is led away by his own lust and own desires. And then yes, you have the world, the flesh and the devil. And we know in first Peter that the devil is prowling like a roaring lion seeking to destroy. Maybe just along that

lines of the devil, you know, I think we often live in an environment that either hyper-spiritualizes the devil's activity. You know, C.S. Lewis used to talk about how there's a danger of you find a devil under every rock. You're that type of person, or you just think he's not existent. We forget the reality that evil is embodied and out to destroy us. Why is it important that we have maybe a greater awareness of the fact that the devil is seeking to actively destroy men in regards to their sexual purity? And why are we maybe so prone to forget that reality? Yeah. Well, you know, again, we're moved by what we see, even in terms of how our sexual sin is impacting us in terms of our spiritual man and internally, you know, I often say if our lungs were hanging on the outside of

our chest and we could see them, you'd have a lot less smokers in the world. But guys are puffing away and they're destroying their lungs and they can't see what's going on. You've seen those pictures. I'll show you the before, the after and the charred lung. But if someone could see that, they would understand what's going on. And so it is with what's happening internally,

but the same holds true with the enemy of our souls in that we can't see them obviously. And there is, I think that other extreme of chalking everything up, you know, to just the physical battle, but we battle not against flesh and blood. We know that that's a reality. And he does, as you cited,

prowl about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And Paul said, you know, he's not ignorant of his schemes. We can't be ignorant of his schemes. And so he's a one trick pony in the sense that there's nothing new with his schemes. We can't be ignorant of his schemes. And so he's a one trick pony in the sense that there's nothing new with his tactic. It just morphs and kind of gets adapted right to the new era or maybe the particular sin. But with Adam and Eve, you know, he hit him at the beginning with discontentment. As God said, you can't eat of every tree of the garden. And God had said they could eat of every, he restricted them from the single tree, right?

Of the knowledge of good and evil. And he gave them dominion over the entire planet. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was microscopic and invisible. If you can imagine from space compared to the scope of the rest of the planet, yet he worked discontentment in their heart. And so men for their good are commanded by God

to abstain from sexual morality. And it's for their good are commanded by God to abstain from sexual morality. And it's not just pornography, obviously we've been talking about that, but it goes into all other different sorts of forms of sexual sin, but he creates this discontentment. You can't have this. And so instead of being filled with gratitude

for the overwhelming blessings of God that are bound in our lives, we take that bait and we allow it to destroy us. And then there's that aim towards not just discontentment, but also disbelief in terms of the ramifications of sin. So no, you shall not die. Satan says to Adam, you shall not die. And so men are deceived into thinking

that the consequences for sexual sin, as you highlighted, are not as serious as they are. And then finally it's deification. No, ultimately you will become like God, knowing good from evil. You will be the arbiter of what is right or what is wrong in your own life, ultimately autonomy. And it's the same thing with sexual sin.

Ultimately it's, hey, in a sense, to take the mantra used for abortion, my body, my choice, I could do whatever I want with it. And so those are the main tactics that Satan is still employing against men. Yeah, and it's so true. So you just said discontentment, disbelief, failure to believe that God is for you and that God is a restricting straight jacket

to true pleasure rather than the fountain spring of true joy. And then you just third mentioned deification, that ultimately we act as the sovereign in our life when we don't abide and submit to God's design for our sexuality, which again, I think it's worth mentioning that I forget who said it, but I always used to tell students that we were sexual before we were sinful and, you know, God's, uh, you know, before the fall, God made people sexual beings. That's not a bad thing. It's a good thing that God created that for his glory. And I think, especially in a church context, sometimes we, we fail to mention that, you know, sexual, a sexual drive is a good thing. God made it for his glory. But to your point, the first thing that Satan does in the garden is distort.

Yeah. God made a good thing. It's beautiful, Johnny. In fact, you know, when we first had the sex talk with our kids and we have five kids. And so, you know, we did it with each of them at different stages. But I told my wife, I said, you know, when we sit down with the kids,

I wanna present this in the beauty that truly applies to it. You know, most parents are nervous, anxious. Oh, you know, their eyes are just going back and forth. They're sweating. We told the kids in the morning, hey, tonight we wanna talk to you about something amazing, something beautiful that God made. And so it's important to highlight that and note it.

We're not talking about something, you know, perverted. God designed it. He created it. It's beautiful. Satan and note it. We're not talking about something perverted. God designed it. He created it. It's beautiful. Satan has twisted it and it's time to reclaim it for God's glory in the right way. I think what you're saying is so important in regards to the way that you communicate sex to your children. When I was growing up, sex was, I think, a very faux pas topic. And you were basically successful as a student growing up in the church if you did not have sex, you know, if you were a virgin. And it gave the impression that it can give the impression at least depending on the way you communicated as a pastor and as a parent that sex is something to just stay away from and that it's kind of gilded with shame. And it's a, and so I think actually what it does is elicit curiosity.

You know, but if a parent doesn't communicate the beauty of sex to their kids and what it is, they'll go Google it, right? And someone's going to teach the next generation about sex. It's either going to be the family or the world. Yeah. I love that illustration that says, you know, our children's minds are like warehouses full of empty shelves and whoever gets there first and stocks those shelves with whatever knowledge or truth or lies, they're going to make it that much harder for someone else to come and unstock and restock those shelves. And so we want to beat the world to it with our children. And, and even as adults, you know, we, we want to inform our minds properly with what the word has to say about it. And a lot of people have experienced it in a sinful context in whatever way,

whether before they came to Christ or even in ways they stumbled as a believer before marriage. And so it's important to reorient our hearts and minds with scripture. And also for men to recognize, I think another big lie, Johnny, if I can kind of interject with that here. There's that lie in men's minds

that they just can't help it. You know, those that are addicted or rather in bondage to pornography. We're so accustomed to using the word addicted. And I think it's not really the proper word, but there's that bondage to sexual immorality. They think, you know, I just can't help it. And that's the biggest lie.

And I often ask men, I say, look, if Elon Musk put a hundred million dollars in an escrow account, and you know that if you went six months without looking at pornography, you'd get that a hundred million dollars, right? You know, there's no question you would do whatever it takes to do it

and you would succeed. And so it's not a question of, can we, but will we, will we yield to the Lord? Will we recognize the sweetness of that good word? Repentance. There's repentance. There's hope in the Lord. And that's the beauty of the gospel. And that's where, you know, those aspects of the book and being gospel centric comes in that because of the gospel, there is hope, forgiveness, and the ability to walk in newness of life in that regard. Now, EZ, you've talked about the reality that there's those three main enemies. That's the world, the flesh, and the devil. And those are nothing new. You've already established those

have been the same kind of enemies that the image bearers of God have kind of navigated for thousands and thousands of years. Now, if it's the same enemy, the same problem, one of the things that you've alluded to in regards to being a gospel-centric solution is that believers now are equipped with the same remedy, and that's the scripture. So maybe talk about the remedy that maybe you would prescribe or the great physician prescribes to those who are struggling and battling. And that's a key word because I think sometimes we say, I don't know if everybody is even battling. Sometimes they think they're just losing, right? Because to your point, they just think they're addicted, right? It's just losing language, but we need to,

1 Peter 1.13, prepare our minds for action. I know you have a principle in your book that you call the note principle. So just talk about the scriptures battle plan. You call it that in your book, but what's the principles that you've put in place in the book for personal purity? Yeah, for sure. And I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of some are not battling. Battle is good. It's indicative of resistance. It's indicative of being in the fight versus surrendering and giving up. And so the first and most important thing is to recognize again, that in him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

And so the enemy will con you into sin, our flesh will lead us into sin, the world will influence us towards sin. And ultimately we make the decision to enter into sin and we bear the responsibility. But we need to recognize that we can make the decision then to repent because after those elements have led us into sin,

then enters the realm of condemnation. And so you battle back with the truth of God's word. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. You get up and then you begin to implement the battle plan to resist each one against Satan in terms of recognizing his reality as an enemy and recognizing the victory you have over him in Christ,

battling his lies with truth, taking up the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit and being men that are rooted and grounded in the word. You resist the flesh by recognizing that the remedy to the flesh is walking in the spirit, which means to be governed or controlled by the spirit of God. And you do that by engaging yourself in the things that the spirit of God is engaged in. And this is where the tragedy comes in, Johnny, because oftentimes we're looking for remedies in every direction when God's word has given us

the ultimate remedies right beneath our nose in the treasure house of God's word. And there are things we're familiar with, and so we just neglect them. But the spirit is involved, number one, in the word. Scripture is called the sword of the spirit. The spirit is involved in prayer. We don't know how to praise we ought.

The spirit intercedes for us with groans too deep to utter. We don't know the spirit is involved in evangelism. When the spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses. And the spirit is involved in fellowship. As scripture talks about the fellowship of the spirit and that dynamic being interrelated with the Holy Spirit. And so we immerse ourself in those things passionately and proactively.

And then finally, we recognize that the world is gonna come at us with its ways and its foolish wisdom. And so we counter that by not being conformed to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind. We examine what we let into our lives and our hearts and into our homes, what we put before our eyes. And we take heed to Philippians 4, 8, and make that the pathway through which we resist

the world's influence. Cause the world has a big bully pulpit and it's coming at us. But the note principle, do I have time to wrap it up with that? Yeah, please. Yeah, so. Yeah, please.

You know, I was counseling a young man one day and asked him how he was doing, you know, with the, with the porn struggle. And he said, man, I'm doing really well. I said, how are you doing as you go about your day, you know, and women cross your path, how are you doing in the area of lust? So he hung his head kind of in, in regret and sort of embarrassed me. He said, I'm not really doing, really doing too well in that area. And then I sense this like zeal and passion for righteousness and purity rise up in my heart. And I said, brother, you know what? We just have to have this attitude where we just, we just say, nope, I'm not going to give into this. I'm not going to allow myself to be lured into this. And we get this kind of attitude and we even declare it out loud. Nope,

I'm not going to do it. So the next day I'm driving into the office and the thought pops into my mind. I thought, man, I wish there was an acrostic that could connect with that word, nope. And as soon as I thought it, it popped into my mind and it's nope, N-O-P-E, not one peak even. And you think about how it's just that first peak that you allow yourself to give into

that leads to a stare and that leads to that desire developing in your heart. And so that hit me really hard. And then I thought, man, why though not one peak even? Not internally in terms of my mind's eye, not with my physical eye. And I thought, because it's fueled by the things that I love. And there are five things that I love

that fuel me in that regard. Number one, I love my Lord above all else. And I don't wanna dishonor Him and disclarify Him. I love my lady, the one that I've committed to be faithful to, the one that has become one with me. I don't wanna wound her and hurt her. I love my legacy or my lineage. I love my children and my grandchildren and those that are to come after them.

And I don't wanna ruin that example that I am to them. And then I love his lambs. I love God's people that I'm called to be an example to and to impact. And then I love the lost, those that I'm called to be a witness to as an ambassador for Christ. So those are the five loves that fuel me,

as I say, not one peak even to the glory of God. Well, I love the analogy, not one peak even, you know, and it's a biblical thing because Paul says not even a hint of sexual immorality must even, he says, even be named among you. It should be so far, so distinct, so separated from the life of a believer. Yeah, yeah.

It's not even a hint. Amen. And, you know, for the men that are listening right now, I know that, you know, when this subject comes up and men are enmeshed in this and embroiled in it, it's one of those things where they just kind of want to run. But again, man, I want to encourage you to recognize the hope that you have in Christ,

that he specializes in restoration. He specializes in renewal. And even though you're thinking, I've been in this for a long time, there's hope for you in Christ. There's hope in the benefits that we have in the gospels believers. And for you women that are listening to

whose husbands are struggling or whose sons are struggling, don't give up crying out to the Lord for them and speaking truth into their life from the depth of your soul of how destructive and harmful this is. And it's just my prayer that the Lord will take this book and use it as a tool. I've been blessed by the response.

You know, Johnny, Dr. John MacArthur endorsed the book. He said, every man needs to help this excellent book offers. And Ken Ham wrote the forward to it. It's been endorsed by a number of different Christian leaders. And even in pre-release, I was blown away and blessed by the success it had on Amazon. It had hit number one in its category and was one of the top books on there. And so it's an encouragement.

Praise the Lord. I think, you know, Easy, if you have a minute, I think any conversation on sexual purity is lacking without maybe two final nuggets. And I want to just alley-oop you. I'm, you know, I can be John Stockton. You can be Karl Malone. I'm ready to dunk, brother. Sorry to call you Karl Malone. But I, one, and you mentioned it, but it's worth punctuating.

In regards to the nope principle, I think that's a biblical reality. Romans 13, 14, make no provision for the flesh. And you could say not a single peak. Talk about the importance of, just for a moment on the transformation of our affections, because we can cut off every avenue to sin and our hearts still not be changed.

And so you mentioned Philippians 4,8, talk about the importance and the reality and the promise. You mentioned the hope that God can actually change what you crave. And that's, I think, the most hopeful thing for any man enmeshed in the sin. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, it ultimately comes down to the fear of God, because you can implement every sort of safeguard that you want, but if your heart is not changed, if you don't walk in that awe and that reverence and that adoration of the Lord, then it's all going to fall apart. And so it comes down to becoming a man who truly makes Christ your everything, who repents and returns to your first love.

And who understands that when you sin in this way, you are sinning in the shadow of the cross. And in essence, you're saying what Christ did really meant nothing. And so you're spurning the cross. And that's one of the points that I touch on in the book. There are these six C's, I call them the six C's to succeed.

And one of them is cross. And that principle, it's an alliterated sentence that men memorize and again, helps them in the battle and keeping with this battle plan. And that it stops spitting and stomping on such a sacred symbol. Stop treating the cross as though it means nothing. And so when you, you know, as Peter talks about,

he gives that whole, in 2 Peter 1, he gives that whole list of virtues that should mark us as believers. And then he says, he who lacks these things is short-sighted even to blindness and has forgotten his purification from his old sins. Which means in essence, Johnny, we've lost sight of our redemption, which, we've lost sight of our redemption,

which means we've lost sight of our redeemer. And so it means we need to come back to the knowledge of Christ, come back to intimate fellowship with him, come back to valuing his preciousness and having a heart that says, I don't wanna sin against such a sweet and precious savior. Yeah, and that's just the heartbeat of

the Psalms, you know, creating me a clean heart. God, give me a desire that loves holiness. Yeah. Yeah. Desire that blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. There's a promise there to see Christ more fully. I mean, that's my motivation for holiness is I want to see more of God. Yeah. And you talk about the awe and reverence for God, which is I think fitting. And then just lastly, you in the title, you have the language of a battle. You gave me the analogy of the contrast of a guy wearing a robe and slippers and then a man who's getting off of a boat, World War II Normandy. The danger in any subject that we're reading about individually is to think we can go about this battle alone. Battles are fought with comrades and men in the trenches. And I think

there's a danger of reading a book alone and praying alone and reading the Bible alone, which might be good disciplines, right? But battles are fought with brothers. And so just maybe talk about that reality for a moment. Yeah, you know, honestly, Johnny, if it weren't for the men that have been a part of my life for years, some of them decades, there's no way I could have even come close to writing a book like this.

Because again, the enemy assails all of us as men. And the reason why I think I'm so connected to the book is because I'm a man and I have the same nature as men. And I understand the lure and the temptations that bombard us. But brothers in your life, you know, there, there are a number of different men that I meet with on a regular basis for, for accountability, for prayer, for a sounding board. You know, sometimes I look at believers that have been in Christ for years and years, but their, their growth is stunted because they live in an echo chamber

and they don't have other men that are asking them the hard questions that are calling them to account and that are sharing with them ideas and thoughts and biblical principles through which they can grow and be protected. In fact, my wife and I, there's a couple that we've been meeting with for years. And recently we started kind of a new approach

where we'll meet together as couples, we'll have dinner together and get accountable on our marriages. And then we'll split up and we'll kind of a new approach where we'll meet together as couples, we'll have dinner together and get accountable on our marriages. And then we'll split up and we'll go to a coffee shop and I'll hang out with him, she'll hang out with his wife and we'll get accountable as men and then as women with each other. And it's revolutionary, it's transformational.

And the Lord has given us our brothers in the body of Christ to help us in that fight and battle. And so men are famous for isolating themselves. They're famous for not getting open and raw, but it's to our detriment. And so that's one of the things I'd encourage the men listening today to do. Get with a brother. Open your heart up to him. Tell him where you've been, what's been going on, and then get real accountability and get serious with your sin. Yeah. And I think in my own life, that's

for me been so important is to communicate to the men in my life, the subtle ways that my own flesh and the devil can assail me. Right. And for me, that means maybe saying no to morally neutral things that can have a detrimental impact on my mind and heart before the Lord. Yeah. And maybe you don't watch certain shows or something like that or. Yeah, totally. And you know, some men think that they can't help it.

Other men are deceived in the thinking that they can't fall in that area. Maybe they haven't and they're deceived. But I love what Votie Bauckham said. He said, if you think you can't fall in that area. Maybe they haven't and they're deceived, but I love what Votie Bauckham said. You know, he said, if you think you can't fall into sexual sin, in essence, you're saying that you're wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson and more godly than King David. And that's an eye-opener that the greatest of men in those different areas have fallen into sexual sin. Of course you can. And those who say they can't are the ones that often do. And so that's-

That's just scriptural too. Take heed lest you fall. Amen. So he who thinks he stand, that's right. And recognize that you can. And so you need to be wise. And that's one of the schemes of the enemies. He deceives us into thinking, no, we can stand.

And so we don't take the necessary steps to reinforce ourselves and strengthen ourselves in that area. No, easy. Thank you. I'm excited for your book. Again, that's Fight Like a Man, a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. And that's a key word, biblical,

because the world has strategies. Our flesh has strategies that wane. Our conscience at times wanes. You know, the conviction over sin, we can become desensitized and callous towards sin. Easy. I haven't ever concluded an episode like this, but would you just pray for maybe any man seeking purity, wanting to honor the Lord? Maybe that even feels trapped in sin. Would you just pray for us as we conclude this episode and point them to the truth, ultimately of God's word and the power of God's spirit? Absolutely. I would be honored, Johnny. Thank you. Father, we bring our hearts before you as men. And I know we're doing this, Lord, as we're thousands of miles away from each other. And it can seem like something

that it doesn't really have effect in the minds of many, but we recognize that Lord, you listen to the cries of your people, that even in this very moment, you're attentive to our prayers, that Lord, you affect change through your people, lifting up their voices to you. And we just pray for the men listening right now who are in that place of bondage to sin, who have become willing slaves, Lord. We pray that you would dispel the lies of the enemy in their

hearts and minds. We pray that you would reverse the influence of the world. We pray Lord that you would give the influence of the world. We pray, Lord, that you would give them that self-control reminder and that they possess it, Lord, because it's a part of the fruit of the spirit as they resist the world and its influence. I pray, Father, that you would create deep conviction in the hearts of my brothers listening,

that you would infuse in to them a deep sense of hope and that Lord, you would give them that wisdom as they cry out for it. As your word says, you will generously and without reproach and that they would heed that wisdom from above that Lord, they would be willing to yield to truth and that Father, you would delight them as they obey and repent. And I pray that you would restore the lives that have been ravaged, the marriages that have been broken. Lord, the godly examples that have been marred, I pray you reverse all of that, Lord, and that you would bring sweetness into the lives of my brothers, that this would become a distant memory, one that would arise in their

minds only to remind them of your goodness and kindness in the way that you delivered them and set them free. And so we commit all of this to you and ask you to do it for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, EZ, thank you. I would encourage any of you watching or listening to buy EZ's book and go through it both individually or as a small group with a group of men and have that be maybe the starting ground for a plan to keep each other accountable for years to come. EZ, thank you for your ministry. Thank you for the burden to write this book. And I'm praying that the Lord would bless

really the substantial work that you've put into writing it. So thank you, brother. Thank you, John. It was an honor to be with you, brother. And I just appreciate the opportunity and hope the Lord uses this book for his glory. God bless you.

All right, you too, brother.