Participants:
Series Code: IC
Program Code: IC180109A
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00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues
00:03 related to sexuality. 00:05 Parents are cautioned 00:06 this presentation may be too candid 00:08 for younger audiences. 00:30 Welcome to Intimate Clarity. 00:32 I'm Jason Bradley, and I'm here with Jennifer Jill Schwirzer. 00:35 And she is a licensed professional counselor. 00:38 And today, we are going to discuss 00:41 a very sensitive topic, 00:43 but it's a conversation we need to have. 00:47 You know, because of Internet technology, 00:49 pornography is becoming more and more prevalent today. 00:53 You know, what are some of the effects, Jen? 00:56 Yeah, good question. 00:57 We're going to go into that. 00:58 I want to talk, first, about God's plan for sexuality. 01:01 I always like to start with Eden 01:03 and then show the effects of deviating 01:05 and then how we get back. 01:06 Far away off the path. Yeah, exactly. 01:08 So this is a real far fall, this one. 01:11 So when a couple come together in holy matrimony 01:15 and they have their first sexual experiences, 01:18 what happens is in that process 01:20 there is just boatload of hormone called oxytocin 01:25 that floods the system. 01:27 And that oxytocin is designed by God 01:30 to do a lot of different things involving bonding. 01:32 But one of the things it does is it imprints that man's brain 01:36 with his wife, and his wife, because of that oxytocin 01:40 becomes the most beautiful person in the world 01:42 if I can say it that way. 01:43 I think which is how it should be. 01:45 That's right. 01:46 And so she, thereafter, if it's done right, 01:48 she becomes his standard of beauty 01:50 once he consummates his marriage with her. 01:53 You know, when men look at other women 01:55 to lust after them, this process goes awry, 01:59 and that beautiful plan God put in place 02:01 is blown off course. 02:02 And this is why Jesus condemned lust 02:05 as a form of adultery. 02:06 He said, "If you look at a woman to lust after, 02:08 you've already committed adultery 02:10 with her in your heart. 02:11 I didn't say go ahead and just have, 02:13 you know, just be intimate with her." 02:15 He didn't say that. Yeah. 02:17 But you would be adding 02:18 another layer to the sin problem. 02:20 But He did want to identify lust 02:22 as a sin problem, and He did so. 02:24 So lustful looks are usually the beginning 02:27 but that ends up not being enough. 02:29 Yeah. 02:30 Unfortunately, because of Internet technology, 02:33 for all the good things that have come to us 02:35 through the Internet. 02:36 One of the negative things is 02:38 we have too much available to us, 02:41 and in particular pornography is out of control. 02:45 It's pandemic in our world today. 02:47 There really aren't words to describe 02:50 the seriousness of the pornography problem 02:53 and of the sexual addiction problem 02:55 that has corresponded 02:57 to the accessibility of new images. 02:59 You see, because male sexuality, 03:02 and I'm going to simplify this discussion 03:05 by really focusing 03:07 in on men's experience of pornography use, 03:09 even though women do become addicted to pornography, 03:12 it's both a male and female problem, 03:13 but by and large, men struggle more with this kind of thing 03:16 because as we've talked about before, 03:18 men are visually wired 03:20 and their sexuality is accessed strongly 03:22 through visualization. 03:24 So because of Internet technology, 03:28 we have a new partner available 03:30 to us every second if we want it. 03:33 Wow! 03:34 And male sexuality is driven by novelty. 03:37 Let me give you some examples of this. 03:40 They did studies with rats, 03:42 and male rat, female rat in a cage, 03:45 the rats would be engaging sexually 03:48 and then they would tire 03:49 and they'd just be hanging out in the cage. 03:51 Well, then they would drop a new female into the cage 03:54 and suddenly the male rat 03:56 would feel ready all over again. 03:59 That's right. That's how that works. 04:01 So male sexuality is driven by novelty. 04:04 So that feed of novelty of new sexual partners 04:08 is constant in Internet technology. 04:10 Isn't that kind of tragic? 04:12 Yeah. 04:13 And it's crazy that... 04:15 You know, when you bring up the point, 04:16 like someone's going to have a different partner 04:18 essentially every minute. 04:21 Every second. Every second. 04:23 Wow! Yeah. Yeah. 04:25 So let's go into some statistics about this. 04:29 Porn created $13.3 billion 04:34 in revenue as far back as 2006, 04:39 $13.3 billion in 2006. 04:41 Thirteen point three billion dollars! 04:44 And that was in 2006 more than the NFL, the NBA, 04:49 and major league baseball combined. 04:54 That's right. 04:56 The breast implants were at, like what, one billion? 04:59 Yeah. Yeah. 05:00 The amount of money we're putting into stuff. 05:03 Every second more than $3000 05:06 is spent on pornography. 05:09 And in order to wrap your mind around that, 05:11 you have to realize that 05:12 a lot of pornography is free. 05:17 I'm not recommending this. 05:18 Don't try this at home. 05:20 Never go down that road, ever. 05:21 But there's a lot of free pornography 05:23 on the internet. 05:25 But still, over $3000 every second. 05:30 Not every minute, every second spent on pornography. 05:35 So that doesn't even begin to include 05:37 all of the free stuff that's out there. 05:39 Every 39 minutes, a new porn film is made, 05:44 over $4.2 million porn websites exist, 05:50 68 million daily search engine requests for pornography, 05:53 that's 25% of the total search engine request. 05:58 Wait. Wait. What percentage of the total? 06:00 Twenty-five percent 06:03 of the total search engine requests 06:06 are pornography. 06:08 Wow! Like this is pandemic. 06:09 We're talking a major plague here. 06:11 Put the security thing on your internet at your home, 06:14 get all that going, everything. 06:17 And let's just take a pause one moment and talk about that. 06:21 There are several, you know, products available, 06:25 one is called Covenant Eyes. 06:27 And the company will actually come in 06:29 and not only put these filters on your computer, 06:31 but they'll send your search history 06:35 to an accountability partner. 06:36 And sometimes, they'll have the search history sent to them 06:39 as well, and they will call you, 06:41 the company will call you 06:42 to make you accountable for what you did. 06:43 Wow! Nice. 06:45 They're like really serious because they know 06:47 when you're talking about the accessibility 06:49 of the drug and the intensity of the addiction, 06:52 you have to pull out all the stops 06:53 and really handle this thing seriously. 06:55 Yeah. Head on. 06:56 That's right. That's right. 06:57 So the Covenant Eyes is one. 06:59 There are ones for children called Net Nanny. 07:02 There are a number of different products out there. 07:04 And I'm sure they're getting more and more sophisticated. 07:06 It says the rest in the name Covenant. 07:08 Yeah, that's right. That's right. 07:09 The Lord made a covenant with you. 07:11 He promised to never leave you nor forsake you. 07:13 And you accept that covenant. 07:15 And like Abraham, you believe God 07:17 and it's accounted to you for righteousness 07:18 and then you're given power to obey. 07:21 Over 100,000 websites online have child pornography, 07:25 feature child pornography. 07:26 That's when bad goes to worse. Hundred thousand websites. 07:29 Yeah. Wow! 07:31 And we're seeing a horrible surge 07:34 in sex trafficking. 07:35 That's right. 07:36 Ninety percent of eight to sixteen year olds 07:38 have viewed pornography. 07:40 Younger and younger ages are falling into the porn trap. 07:44 But here's the good thing is that God's plan 07:47 can protect us, 07:49 not just by stopping us from doing bad things, 07:52 in terms of putting up a barrier wall 07:54 saying that's wrong. 07:55 But actually God's kind of sexuality 07:58 is much more pleasurable in the long run. 08:01 So let me read a statement 08:03 from a book called The God Attachment. 08:04 The author is named Tim Clinton. 08:06 And he says... 08:08 He's talking about sexual addiction. 08:09 And he says, "Though dopamine," 08:11 that brain chemical that mediates pleasure, 08:14 "maybe the hormone that creates 08:16 the instinctive pleasure of love and attachment. 08:20 It is oxytocin that makes it possible 08:22 for that pleasure to last for longer periods of time." 08:25 So the significance of that is that when you experience 08:28 that dopamine rush of sexuality 08:30 in the context of a bonded relationship, 08:32 it's actually going to be more pleasurable. 08:33 Wow! 08:34 So you know, like it says, 08:36 you know, "At his right hand are pleasures forevermore." 08:41 Lasting pleasure is what God gives us. 08:44 The enemy gives us fleeting pleasure 08:46 which is very intense in the moment 08:48 but leads to unrest, and dissatisfaction, 08:51 and depravity of soul, 08:53 and then the shame compiles and the problems mount, 08:57 and then those things drive us to want to escape again 09:00 and we're even more incentivized 09:02 to pursue the drug of choice, 09:04 and we end up doing it more and using more 09:08 and we end up in an addiction cycle very, very quickly, 09:11 and it can be so difficult to escape. 09:13 If you're in that situation, get help. 09:16 You know, AbideCounseling.com is a good place to start. 09:20 I tell people to make sure 09:24 to structure their life around recovery. 09:27 If I were to sum up what works 09:29 in overcoming pornography addiction, 09:31 I would say structure your life around recovery. 09:34 And what do you mean by that? Unpack that a little bit? 09:36 Yeah. 09:37 What I mean is that you've been 09:39 devoting your energies, your resources, your time, 09:41 your money, in some cases, your efforts to your addiction. 09:45 Now all of the time, resources, efforts, money, 09:48 you're going to devote to recovering 09:50 from the addiction. 09:52 Jesus told a very vivid story. 09:53 He talked about a man casting a devil out of his home 09:56 and sweeping it clean. 09:58 But He said it was left empty and seven more devils came in. 10:01 Don't be content with just, 10:03 "I'm going to try to cold turkey my way out of this." 10:05 You've got to have replacement behaviors. 10:07 So what I recommend is that people find a good counselor 10:10 and that they see that counselor weekly. 10:13 With Abide Counseling, 10:14 you can counsel a coach on the phone. 10:17 So we can come to you where you are. 10:20 It's my idea. 10:21 And so I recommend that you see a good counselor weekly. 10:25 I recommend that you go to a support group 10:27 for addiction recovery. 10:29 Celebrate Recovery is a great place to start. 10:31 They are in most major cities. 10:33 Attend the group faithfully every week 10:36 if not twice a week if you need that. 10:38 I had a guy come to me. 10:40 Let me just tell you the story in brief. 10:42 He was downloading pornographic images 10:44 on 12 computers in his home all day long, 10:48 and he'd come home and consume those images 10:50 until he killed over in the wee hours of the night, 10:53 and he'd get up the next day and do the same thing. 10:56 True story. On 12? 10:57 Twelve computers. Yes. 11:00 So he came to counseling. 11:02 He was married and his wife died, 11:04 and that was the wakeup call God used 'cause he genuinely, 11:07 in some way, loved her and decided 11:10 he wanted out of the prison, 11:11 and he came to counseling weekly. 11:14 He went to three different 11:15 support groups for a period of time. 11:17 He had an accountability partner. 11:18 He had a net, the filter. He went back to church. 11:21 He went to Bible study. 11:23 This man did everything he could to get well. 11:25 And guess what happened? 11:27 He walked out of that lifestyle. 11:28 Wow! Praise the Lord. 11:30 He had a more clear line to recovery 11:32 than I have seen in anyone, 11:34 and I've worked with a number of people 11:36 addicted to pornography. 11:38 And he had a clear line of recovery 11:39 because he structured his life around recovery. 11:42 It's very interesting, right around the same time, 11:44 a man came with a much lesser addiction 11:47 in terms of the severity of it. 11:49 And I told him, "Yeah, you structure 11:51 your life around recovery. 11:52 This is what works." 11:53 And I explained what had happened 11:55 with this other fellow 11:56 and I said you've got to get a group, counseling every week, 11:57 and you know kind of... 11:59 And he looked at me like I had two heads. 12:00 He was like, "What! 12:01 I have to do... 12:03 You mean, you can't just like 12:04 hose me down with holy water or pray for me, 12:06 and the demons gonna go, 12:07 or just make it go away right now, you know?" 12:09 I was like, "No." 12:10 I said this, "You put a lot of effort 12:12 into developing this addiction. 12:13 You think it's going to go away without effort? 12:15 Like you're not thinking correctly, you know?" 12:17 And I don't know how things ended up with him 12:19 because he didn't like what I said. 12:21 He never came back. But I stand by what I said. 12:24 You structure your life around recovery, 12:26 you get with the people that can help you, 12:29 you be open in a group, 12:30 you be open with your counselor, 12:32 you put a net on your computer, you go back to church, 12:35 you get into Bible study, 12:36 you replace those addictive behaviors 12:40 with healthy behaviors, 12:41 and I believe that God will bless you. 12:43 So in other words, be intentional about it. 12:45 And physiology has a big part in this. 12:48 We need to exercise, 12:49 particularly young males need hard exercise 12:52 to be able to metabolize all those hormones 12:55 that are coursing through their veins, 12:57 and to increase their self-control. 13:00 They also need to be reading the Bible daily, 13:01 they need to be utilizing the part of your brain 13:05 that reasons through a connected thoughts 13:07 which is the Bible is just calculated for, 13:10 and deep spiritual thoughts. 13:11 And first and foremost, 13:13 you need to come to Jesus with your brokenness 13:15 and with your addiction and ask Him to deliver you 13:19 from the demon of sexual addiction 13:21 and pornography, 13:23 and make you hate what you once loved 13:26 and love what you once hated. 13:28 And Jesus is able to do that for you. 13:30 He can change... 13:31 Overtime, He can change our taste. 13:33 You know, there's a statement in the writings of Ellen White. 13:36 She says, "A true conversion will change hereditary 13:42 and cultivated tendencies to evil." 13:46 And usually, with pornography addiction, 13:47 it's the cultivated tendencies. 13:49 God can change that. 13:51 Ask Him to change your heart first and foremost. 13:53 Amen. Yeah. 13:56 He wants us to come to Him with our problems. 14:00 He knows what our problems are. 14:01 He knows what we're dealing with, 14:03 what we're struggling with, 14:04 and He just wants us to bring them to Him. 14:06 Amen. 14:07 Well, Jen, I know people are going to need resources. 14:10 And if you are one of those people 14:12 that need resources, 14:14 make sure you go to IntimateClarity.TV, 14:17 and join us on the next episode. 14:20 God bless. |
Revised 2018-09-10