Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - The Poison of Pornography | Greg Gifford and Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

In this powerful Dial In Ministries podcast episode, we tackle the devastating impact of pornography addiction in the church. Biblical counselor Greg Gifford shares practical strategies for making "no provision for the flesh" while finding superior satisfaction in Christ.Learn why 94% of teens are exposed to pornography by age 14 and why this sin is so prevalent even among Christian men. Discover why treating porn as an "addiction" misses the biblical perspective, and get practical accountability measures you can implement today.Whether you're struggling personally or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers biblical wisdom, hope, and practical steps toward freedom. Greg and Jonny discuss:- The prevalence of pornography in Christian communities- Debunking addiction myths with biblical truth- Practical guardrails for avoiding temptation- Finding true satisfaction in Christ rather than momentary pleasure- The importance of accountability partnershipsWatch VideosVisit the Website Buy Consider the LiliesFollow on Instagram

I remember being in the parking lot of my Christian school in ninth grade. First time I ever saw pornography. I think 11 or 10 years old is the age of first exposure. And I think the stat is 94% of 14 year olds have been exposed to pornography. Right. So why would we play games with pornography? Like this is okay. It's not okay.

It's never been okay. It will never be okay. Make some choices that are going to be hard now for the sake of your eternal destiny. And if you're not willing to go through those inconveniences now, I really do wonder the level of repentance and seriousness that you have, in all fairness. Welcome to the Dial-In Ministries podcast.

I'm sitting here with Greg Gifford. Greg, thanks for sitting down. I'm always grateful when I get to talk with you because I'm so thankful for the ways that you approach things with conviction and yet a tenderness of tone, pastoral. You're a biblical counselor, which means that what you do on a day-to-day basis

is walk people through how the scripture speaks to maybe what they're going through. I mean, how would you even define biblical counseling? It's really like the private application of God's word. And it's typically problem oriented. So private and problem oriented in that way. It's a little bit more than just discipleship because you have a direction you're going.

Yeah, and I think it's really helpful. And I think part of your background allows for you to speak to certain topics, certain themes in such a biblical way that's, you said it, applicable. You know, the private application, it's practical, meaning that sometimes even we approach the Word of God going, it's not practical. And you draw out this and extrapolate the immense practicality of, no, here's exactly what the Word of God says. And here's how we measure that with what the Word

of God says over here. And what I want to talk to you about today is a scary subject. And I was listening to you speak on the subject and you said it's scary. And that's the problem of pornography. Even as a preface, I think we go, hey, this is, I don't think anybody's approaching this subject from like the,

this is only for people out there. It's like, I want to tread carefully because I think you mentioned, as I was listening to you, every single guy and every single girl is one click away from accessing something Jesus Christ came to die for. When we talk about pornography, it's an industry that's bigger than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined. It's bigger than ABC, CBS, NBC combined.

Billions and billions and billions of dollars. Why don't you just speak for a moment to the prevalence of the problem? You know, like big idea here. How rampant is this? It stinks sometimes to be a counselor because you are, you're with people in the challenges. And one of those common challenges is pornography and guys. And the hard part is that you're seeing in the church that this isn't like a young guy issue this is a this is a middle-aged man issue this is a boomer and up issue yeah so what you find is that guys are they're hardening towards the lord their walk with the lord is not in a good

place and then they're tempted to go back to an old habit or go back to an escape. And I've mentioned this on Transform, but pornography does different things for different people. It's affirmation, it's pleasure, it's whatever that is. So when that guy is struggling in his walk, he's going back to that idol, whatever he worships and pornography is just really the means to that end. So as you look at the problem, big picture, this isn't out there. This isn't something like we're thinking of, this isn't out there. This isn't something like we're thinking of deviant sexual behavior out there. This is something that's in the church and it stinks because it's such a private sin. It's so available and then it's available in

private. And then if you're not on your A game really in following Christ, then your old idols are just lurking right there ready for you to go back to those old tendencies. So just think that it's, it's everywhere. Yeah. And I think we even think of the term pornography. And sometimes I think there's like a justification by, you know, even what you see on like a social media perspective, you know, the, the world in which we live, I think Vody said at one time, we live at our lives at like a pornographic four, just if we're living in this world, in the mall, at the movies, in commercials, you know, like sometimes I think, oh, it's not this.

But from a social media perspective, you can see things that are, you know, a hundred years ago would have made people cringe. Right, right. And so it's very common, you know, I think 11 or 10 years old is the age of first exposure. And I think the stat is 94% of 14 year olds have been exposed to pornography. You know, I haven't really talked about this too much,

but I remember being in the parking lot of my Christian school in ninth grade, first time I ever saw pornography. And so it is, you know, it's something that almost every individual is confronted with at some point. That's the prevalence of the problem. And I think even you've addressed maybe some misconceptions regarding even the nature of addiction. And I think this may be a good place to start because I want to get to maybe the biblical prescription of making no provision for the flesh and then the renewal of our mind, which we've spoken about previously. But I think it's worth addressing the misconception that I can't help it. You know, if you're a Christian, and even sometimes people use medical terminology to say, you know,

it's, it's developing neurological channels in your brain that are like a drug. Right. And I don't really know if people know what they're talking about when they say that. So can you just speak to that misconception and that idea? Sure. So think of addictions overall, moving from a moral issue to a biological one. Yeah. And there was even a push in the late 2000s to redefine the term abuse, to now use the term addiction for substance, alcohol, so forth. So the theory goes something like this, that your brain actually becomes chemically dependent on that thing. And so you habitually use it and you can't help it. So you really need brain treatment, the organ of your brain. Yeah. You need brain treatment as well as spiritual or moral help.

And there's even Christian series that will teach things like this. The Conquer series on pornography teaches this whole weird brain anatomy thing. And the issue is that we're failing to recognize what is the driver. Why did you choose pornography in the first place? And that's where we would say the brain can't make you do something. As a believer, that should be easy for us to say, Romans 6, that you're not a slave to sin. You've been freed.

You've died. Galatians 2.20, you live in Christ. Your brain can't make you sin. Can your brain encourage you to sin? For sure. Yeah, for sure. Neuroplasticity, right? You develop a bent or a habit.

I think it's Charles Duhigg, you know, the power of habit. And even in the reward cycle with the power of habit, where did the first choice come from? That's your inner person. So as a Christian, your brain cannot make you choose pornography. You have to break that lie and you have to break it that boldly and clearly. Here I am again, acquiescing to my brain. I can't help it. You know, I have a problem and I have an addiction,

but think the disease model of addiction is not a biblical or even scientifically supported model. So we can't prove that your brain started this whole issue, in other words. Yeah, and you get to this in your book, Lies My Therapist Told Me. But I think that could be about anxiety. It could be about pornography, you know, that I'm submitting to my brain.

And I think in your podcast, you use the example that I've never seen someone open up their laptop and pizza hut and look at pornography because they had to at that moment. And I thought that was a really great point because you're going, okay, you're so addicted. How come I don't see anybody looking at pornography in church? Right. Because that would be culturally unacceptable. Right. unacceptable. You don't have to do that. You have the restraint. You have the restraint. That's right. And it's like, okay, well, if you are a compulsive addict with a disease,

there should be no restraint. So you're at Pizza Hut looking at pornography. You're at church and you open it up on your phone. Like that is when you know, you have this uncontrolled ability, but that's not the way it works for basically everybody struggling with porn. It's always in private. It's usually at night. It's usually on their smartphone or tablet.

Yeah, you said nine times out of a 10, you know, out of 10. Yeah, right. And I thought that was a great point. And the other thing that I wanted to chat with you about before we maybe dive into the biblical like roadmap for making no provision for the flesh, a biblical reality and the renewing of our mind by finding something that offers superior satisfaction is at times the commonality of the problem provides justification for the continuance in the sin. Yes. You know, even like, you know,

we worked at a university setting, you still do, I don't, but okay, you struggle, I struggle, we all struggle. Ah, I guess we all struggle. Maybe just talk about how Satan uses the commonality of the problem, even within the local church, to justify this prolonged sense of, ah, you know, we're all losing. Think of the power of your environment as prompting you to be more like Christ or making it easy for you to fall away from him. And we think of bad company corrupting good morals, 1 Corinthians 15, 33. And there is a sense in which a little leaven leavens the whole lump, 1 Corinthians 5. So if you surround yourself with people that are mediocrely following Christ, don't be surprised if before long you're thinking something like,

well, you know, like he's doing it. You know, he struggles, he's being impure with his girlfriend. Don't be surprised that before long, that's the laissez-faire attitude that you take on. Sin is trivialized and normalized. Totally. And how is it because you're surrounding yourself with people that are trivializing and normalizing and rationalizing their own sin. And don't be surprised if you reflect that attitude, but then plant yourself in a group of men that are trying to be holy and they're taking their sin very seriously. Yeah. They're making no provision for the flesh.

Watch the way your attitude changes. So it's, it is very much an influence of your environment to be around a group of guys that are like, well, you know, like no one's perfect. I don't want a friend to tell me that. Like you're not my friend. If you tell me no one's perfect or you're not my friend. If I, if I were to confess impurity to you and you're like, well, you know, like you can't be perfect. I don't want that type of friend. I want the type of friend that's like, Greg, I'll go to war with you. Pushing you towards Christ. Like, yeah, like no, like no exception in this way.

Zero exception. That's the battle buddy that I want in the fight for purity. I don't want the guy that's going to just say, well, Greg, just try harder. Like, it's okay. You can make it. And there's an element, obviously, you want a friend that's gracious, you know, like,

but part of that grace is power to change, you know? And I think one of the things that you just mentioned with bad company corrupting good morals, I think in our heads, if you've grown up in the church or you're in the church, you think of somebody that's trying to like seduce you into explicit sin. Right. But sometimes bad company can be that laissez faire attitude towards sin that you're trivializing. It could be your accountability group. Yep.

Right. It could be the people that you pray with that go, oh, yeah, we're all imperfect. You know, we all miss the mark because accountability. and this is maybe a different episode for a different time. In my view, always include someone older and godlier than you that doesn't struggle in I've been really immoral with this other woman outside of my wife. And they were all just like, well, you know, Greg, like we all have struggles and we're just going to pray for you. And you really need to work on that. No, they would all be like, are you crazy? Are you insane? Like repent of that.

You tell her or we're going to tell her we're going to go to the elders of the church. Like they wouldn't play games with that sin. So why would we play games with pornography? Like, why are we putzing around? Like, this is okay. It's not okay. It's never been okay. It will never be okay.

Yeah. And I think even part of the reason you say it'll never be okay is I'm going to turn there in the Bible. You know, the verse Jesus says in Matthew five, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. 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. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is 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 and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Now, when Jesus talks about the subject of lust, he's pretty stinking serious, right? So what we're dealing with here is an eternal matter, Jesus says. Yes. He says, if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out,

throw it far from you. Now, can your eye only see bad things? No, it can see good things and bad things. But he's saying, go to the degree that you take drastic measures with sin. And I think it's Romans 13, 14, make no provision for the flesh. I think what you mentioned when I was listening to you speak on the subject is most people never find victory over the sin of pornography because they're not even willing to suffer inconvenience to grow and change and to remove the temptation from their life. Maybe just talk about that. That was a great way to frame it.

If I had a dollar for every guy that I counseled that was struggling with pornography that had a smartphone, and then I say, okay, like, does your smartphone go back to your room at all? And it's like, well, yeah, it's my alarm clock. You know, it's like on the nightstand right next to me. I'm like, is it? What world? I use this analogy, like in what world do you have plutonium on your nightstand? Something that can kill you, kill your family. And you're just kind of like, well, I'm struggling to be pure. It's also valuable. But I need it for work. There's all these rationalizations. You won't go without your laptop because you need it for work. You work remotely. And instead of now finding a public space to work from,

you're working from home. And we just have to think like, you're playing around. You're playing around. No wonder you're not changing because your smartphone's on your nightstand or you're taking your laptop back into your room. Make some choices that are going to be hard now. I don't know if you've used a flip phone in a while, but it's annoying. Like you, one, two, three, one letter, one, two, three, the next letter. But you're willing to inconvenience yourself now for the sake of your eternal destiny. And if you're not willing to go through those inconveniences now, I really do wonder the level of repentance and seriousness that you have, like in all fairness.

Yeah, and I think you, you know, ask the question like what guardrails do you have in your life? And, you know, even for me, you know, like I have significant guardrails in my life for what I, I basically have a dumb phone. I can't download an app. Everything I have gets sent via text to my wife and to Harry.

You know, so like, I think sometimes even there's this idea, you know, I'm a pastor, but my life is on lockdown. I meet with Harry every Monday. We talk through, you know, did you see anything? So I think even those types of things were like, that was kind of a, it was like, I don't have any streaming apps. I have no social media on my phone unless I'm on Safari because anonymity presents the illusion that no one else will know. So that's why I don't have any social apps.

So I think even like for me, that's inconvenient because we're on a podcast, I oversee a digital ministry, but I don't have any digital media on my phone. Right. Because I, I don't want the danger of it. Um, you met, you know, just talk through the radical steps. I mean, like even from, uh, your life, like you're a pastor, right. You like what guardrails do you set up? I think obviously, like, I think it's sometimes helpful to hear people just go like, yeah, even Harry, my Harry, 65 years old, he's got different things, you know, everywhere he goes, people know where he's at. What guardrails do you have? Let me give you some of the big ones starting with

the phone. So there is no deleting of anything on the phone, no history, no text message, no direct message. My wife and I share accounts. So she shares like notifications. She can log into my Instagram at any point. She is often managing even some of my social media. So everything that comes through that, she has access to. And I'm assuming she will see it. One thing for text messaging too is we never delete a text message in my home.

Even if I get like those random ones like, Hey, are you free? Hey, I have a tax service for you. It's like, I don't delete it. And the reason why is because if it's deleted, that means that I'm hiding something. Like I don't want you to see it. I'd rather have gigabytes and gigabytes of data in my text message than deleting things. And here's a habit I would encourage you and others to get into is I don't text with other ladies about personal matters. I put their husband in a loop. Yeah. Or if they're single, I put my wife in a group chat. And it's annoying at times because that means there's more people that can jump in the group chat.

But there's no private communication. So if a lady gets a private communication from me, I want her to be like, oh, this is weird. Like Greg's being creepy right now because I don't want to have private communications with ladies. Yeah. One more nugget is this past year and a half, I've started traveling with my oldest son. And he was 13 when that started. Yeah. Just because there is an accountability that should come for us that are on the road a lot.

So when you and I are out speaking or doing whatever we do, I want there to always be a guy with me, a male presence. And for us, it's now like father-son time. He's forced to listen to the content I'm teaching on. He's recording certain things for me. So when we're out, he's with me all the time. There is no time whenever I am not traveling without him. And that's just kind of the standard rule that I've gotten into here lately. So those mechanisms are all, they're the guardrail to prevent me from going off the side of the hill. Yeah. Not to mention the friendships, the accountability through a local church, the accountability through a friend group at a local church. I'm actually known by my local church. And I think those are really the things that are more of the good offense of, I don't want to get to the point of where I'm grinding against the rail.

Yeah. I want to be free in community in Christ at my local church. So I see them as just friends in Christ preventing me from going off the side of the mountain. Yeah, it's helpful. You know, all those different, different things. And I think I asked you because growing up, I never heard any pastors, I think probably different era too. I had an iPhone in high school.

I never heard pastors talk much about the accountability they set up in their own life. And I think it's important. And even another thing would be for me, my wife and I pretty much exclusively watch shows on vid angel now. Oh, nice. You know, and it's like, I've just been shocked even amongst pastors and people in the church that recommend shows that have sexual sin, just, you get numb to the fast forwarding. Yeah.

You're going, man, I, in no world, uh, would I ever recommend a show that has that, you know? And so I think, uh, it's become so common. People just don't even think about it, you know, now.

And so part of finding victory over pornography is realizing that sexual sin is serious. And you've probably been numbed to it by just whatever you watch. You can hardly watch anything. I was listening to a guy the other day going like, someone asked him what his favorite movie is. And he just said, it's hard to even say I have one anymore. You know, like, what have you gone and seen? I've never, I don't go to the movie theaters anymore because you're inundated with it. And so that's making no provision. And what I want to talk about now, which is important, set up guardrails, not trying to be legalistic,

but we do want to be wise. You know, if you're living your life, you know, doing the same, the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing every day, expecting different results. So maybe you need to get a flip phone. Maybe you need to lock it down.

Maybe you need to stop watching certain shows, hanging out with certain people. But that's not enough. And you get to this. Like you can't just say porn is bad. Porn is bad. Don't sin, don't sin, don't sin for the rest of your life and seek to maybe be transformed using your language into the image of Christ, the way that scripture calls us to be. So talk about that search for a superior satisfaction. How does even that desire for pornography, that temptation wane

when we are asking God to renew our minds and to make us fall more and more in love with the person of Jesus Christ. Yeah. The focus of your sanctification is not your sin. Yeah. And that's the way many guys treat pornography. When is the last time that I've,

it's almost like you get one of the sober chips from AA. Yeah. I have not looked in 60 days and 90 days, but the focus of your sanctification is Christ and the excellencies of Christ. So Hebrews 12, two, who are you focused on? The author, the finisher of your faith, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Not myself. I'm disentangling from my sin. Hebrews 12.1. Yeah. But I'm not focused on it. That's a game changer because 2 Corinthians 3.18, you behold the glory of God.

You focus on the Lord. And what takes place is you're transformed. So instead of saying, sin is gross. Sin can destroy my life. Sin will ruin everything. And it will. It will take everything. Pornography will take everything. It will shame you, shame your family. Like sin will ruin everything. And it will, it will take everything. Pornography will

take everything. It will shame you, shame your family. Like it will destroy you. That's still not enough to keep you from it. You need something better to use Thomas Chalmers words. You need the expulsive power of something better. And when your heart starts to change to Jesus is better, God is better, his ways are better, then Jeremiah 2 happens where you reject the broken cistern that can hold no water and you now prefer this fresh stream of living water. That's the goal. And how does that happen? As you gaze on the glory of Jesus Christ, he is what's better. So it's a fun analogy, but think of, are you going to go for the bologna sandwich when there's a

steak, like the tri-tip's almost done? I mean, that's what pornography is like. I've used this analogy a thousand times. That's what pornography is like. You're like cramming down a bologna sandwich and there's a tri-tip on the grill. You can smell it sizzling. That's the superiority of Jesus Christ. So the guys that are listening to this, and I think the guys that we get to influence, we're more than avoid pornography. That's really the byproduct of following Christ. We want the guys that we get to influence to be at the point where they're saying, I don't want pornography. I'm not tempted by it. I love Christ so much that even in those times of temptation physically, that I see Christ is better. His in those times of temptation physically, that I see Christ is better, His ways is better, and I'm following Him.

So, I mean, I would just say even practically, start to meditate on the glory of Jesus Christ. Put yourself in a public environment and start to study the attributes of Christ in a moment of temptation and just watch what that does. Because that's different from now, like you're testing all of the different limits of your technology. Like, can I do this? Can I expose this? You're sitting in the living room reading this scripture about the nature of the character

of Jesus. Jump into the gospels and just start reading like a mad dog and go for it. Yeah. Asking God, give me, you know, open my eyes. Help me to see Jesus Christ. That's right. That's the, that's the upstream stuff. Like that's what we have to help people see.

Cause the downstream stuff is like, block your phone. The downstream stuff is, don't use social media. That's the downstream. The upstream is have a heart that sees Jesus as better. And then you don't want that stuff.

He transforms you. Yeah, I remember reading, remember that little book, The Enemy Within by Chris Lungard? And he just talks about when you only make no provision, it's like a tiger, you know, hidden in the thicket. You know, like you think it's gone, the temptation's gone.

But over time, even by making no provision and your heart's not been changed and your affections haven't been transformed, you know, once you're off guard and once you have the opportunity again, all those desires and temptations come back. Because at some point, even if you lock every door, shut down every app, get a dumb phone, you're likely going to be confronted with the opportunity to sin. There's always a crack. Yeah. And so you want to have in that moment, a transformed affection and this repulsive, like at sin. And so, and obviously we're using the language of, you know, counseling guys. I

don't counsel women. You don't counsel women alone, but this is not just a guy struggle. And I think the margin between those men and women that struggle is becoming increasingly narrow every single year. And so I think we're using that vernacular because I would never sit down with a woman and talk about this, nor would you. But I, I think that's so important. And just practically, you said, you know, meditate on the attributes of God in a public place. We've already kind of mentioned it, but there's a scariness, I think, for a lot of people of confessing, you know, the need for, you said a battle buddy, I like that terminology, that I need a battle buddy. It's almost like an expression of weakness, like I need help. And it's a, I think Satan has a stronghold over so many different people's life because even just saying that is almost like falling on your sword. Right. I think for a lot of people, you know, like going like, I need accountability and I want you to ask me hard questions. Um, how would you encourage a guy like that, is is feeling the pit in their stomach i need a battle buddy

but that would be like a death dart to me yeah i would say first of all you don't understand your own heart well enough because i think if you get your doctrine of sin correct you leave the doctrine of sin saying like i'm ao, like straight up apart from Christ. I'm not clean and tidy. I'm not beautiful. Like I am sick. And I would even say that term sickness of Jeremiah 79 of your heart is true of us apart from Christ. Yeah. So add our own natural apart from Christ sickness, then add the Hebrews 3, 12 to 13, the deceitfulness of sin. And I have like a very dangerous combination. Yeah.

My heart is sick and deceitful. Yeah. Sin is deceitful. Like, oh man, I should not trust myself. I should have a healthy distrust of myself. Yeah, I think that's really good. I think there's this idea that I think Satan almost puts in the mind of guys in their own flesh that if I confess my need, people will see it as a weakness.

If I confess my need for accountability, they'll think I'm less. When someone comes up and says, hey, I need a battle buddy. Of course you do. Yeah, right. Of course you do. Like, is this the first time you've ever asked for this? I think for me, and just candidly, like I grew up in a pastor's home. It was like just saying, hey, I need accountability was like, I'm going to ruin myself. This is going to ruin my dad. You know, I'm just thinking of like how devastating that can be on an individual going like this.

You know, no one is expecting I need this. Yes. And that's a lie. Yes. But I think one thing that I've tried to do, and I encourage those watching this, I encourage you, like I have my hand hovering over the eject button of ministry. And that may sound weird, like totally. Like Gifford, what's the matter? Like that's your livelihood. You've done this for 15 years. I would be willing to say I'm out,

bam, for the sake of holiness. Like I want to have that conviction. I'll go work at Home Depot and be a holy Christ follower at Home Depot before I start to conceal and shove it down and push it down and let all these societal and cultural pressures. Like I want that to be my mantra. Like I'll love Home Depot. I'll be great there. I'll be free in the garden section.

Totally. But I don't want to have to maintain this image that I'm perfectly put together. Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's so, it's so important, you know, like, obviously there's, there's so many men in my life, you know, that, that helped me. And, you know, I think that I, I need, I want that, like, how's it going? Are you lying? You know, because that's true about ministry, but it's true about it just in a sense of being a Christ follower. I want to be holy. And this is a dangerous thing.

And I think you use, even going back to your example of plutonium, you know, private sin isn't really private. You know, it spills over into every area of your life. And so this is in many ways, the will of God for Thessalonians 4.3, your sanctification, right? You abstain from sexual impurity. This is the first rung of the ladder and ascertaining God's will for your life. And I think confession and accountability are so important. I think Chris Lungard uses that terminology of dragging your sin into the light and, you know, just saying, Hey, I need, I need someone to come

and help me here. Right, but at a level that guys have to think through because it is hard to confess to someone you don't really have a relationship with. 100%. So you go from like, hey, my name's Greg. I'm struggling with pornography. It's easier to tell someone you don't know, for sure. You're like, uh, okay, well, nice to meet you, Greg.

Like, it's hard to hear that. Yeah. But if you have like real strong bros in Christ, seriously, like guys that are encouragement and accountability, I think it's a little bit easier to broach that conversation. Say, hey guys, you know, like,

can you pray for me in this way? Can you ask about my use of this phone or the way that I've been talking to so-and-so? Can you ask about that? Yeah. If you're already in community, but if you don't have any Christian friends, any bros in Christ, then what happens?

It's like, I need to go to my pastor because I don't really have anyone that's doing one anothering. So think of one anothering as part of the offensive measures. It's like, yes, I'm meditating on the glory of Christ, but I'm embedded in Christian relationships. So the problem doesn't get as big.

And what started as a small temptation, I can just go to my bros and say, hey man, you need to ask about this or hey, hang on to my phone for a bit or hey, follow up about that girl. Instead of, I have no one to talk to, so the problem grows. And then I don't want to come out with this huge problem,

which really started as a small problem. So think of like Christian community, the one anotherings as part of protecting us. You said, I'm just a part of my church. I'm known. I think too, that's a huge misconception that keeps people trapped.

You know, I've talked to, remember I was talking to students when I was here and at the Master's University and they would say like, I've always wanted to confess my sin as a retroactive struggle.

Like I used to find, you know, six months ago, I was struggling with this. I found a lot of victory and I just want to get it off my chest. Yeah. And so they're kind of waiting

until they get beyond at a certain distance to be able to confess it because it's almost like I was struggling with this. I found a lot of victory and I just want to get off my chest. And so they're kind of waiting until they get beyond at a certain distance to be able to confess it because it's almost like I've got beyond this and it's not as ugly. And I don't even really think the Lord grants much victory to that type of thinking. So this is helpful. You know, I, I think, um, I'm just praying for people, you know, that listen, I, you know, I have seen you do it at the end of some of your podcasts on the Transform podcast. Would you just maybe pray for someone as we close that's struggling just to get accountability, to confess, for the power of God's grace to change their heart? Yeah, sure. Let me pray for us.

Lord, we are both men, Johnny and I, we're men that want to be pure. And we want to influence others to follow you in this way. That we could be fit vessels for your use. And that does mean that we're pure men. But I do pray for those that are ensnared in pornography right now, that they would be serious. They would cut off. They would pluck out.

They would remove any temptation towards sin and the things that are encouraging that sin. But they would also know that you're merciful and gracious. They're settling in their sin and that your son Jesus is superior. Lord, help them to move from that place of hardness in their own sin to seeking satisfaction in Christ. That is the well that they must learn to drink from.

Lord, draw them into that so that they could experience not only the freedom from sin, yes, but also the conformity to be like Jesus, we pray. We ask these things in his name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Craig.