Purity Tool Box – 2 Sam 11

Purity Tool Box – 2 Sam 11
Shared by the Men of SC
Jan 31, 2009

† No movie channels – cable subscription – fleeing is biblical – it’s not a sign of weakness
† Nathan – risked death to confront a king – accountability has to happen
† Confessing temptations – takes the fang out of Satan
† Who can you trust when your brain is lying to you – I need to be talked out of what I am about to do
† Turn off the TV in the hotel room when traveling
† No such thing as innocent flirting
† Make sure compassion doesn’t become passion when “ministering”
† Business Travel – make sure you know your spouse knows who is on the trip and what gender they are
† Keep the consequences in mind – they hurt
† You must know the weaknesses –the enemy will hit there
† American Family Filter – software filter on internet
† More careful use of email
† The more we have our THE WORD on our heart the more we have the WORD to pull from in times of struggle
† Get plugged in a small group in addition to the main Sunday assembly
† Reduce the image intake – if initial intake is reduced the less the “further intake will occur”
† You have to rid of the “trigger” points in your journey – if something “triggers” a thought and a temptation you have to rid your journey of trigger points
† Eph 6:13 – put on the full armor now to prepare for the day of evil – prepare now for future evil
† It’s not a secret sin – all are impacted
† Remember the initial love of your wife – remember her beauty
† Admitting the addiction – 12 steps
† Make better decisions on what is brought into the house
† Share your struggles and fantasies w/ your wife
† Jesus truly wants to heal you of struggles and baggage
† Psalm 32, 38, 51

Screwtape

Alias


My Dear Wormwood: For your careful review, I have outlined below our strategies for destroying faith and family life. Destroy this secret message immediately after reading it. This classified material comes from the lowest regions. The chief way we attack the family is by neutralizing the protector. Once we neutralize the father, then the children are ours whenever and wherever we want them. And want them we do! Those despicable little ones make my black blood boil. Every time I see one of these wretched children, it reminds me of the Enemy's holiness and love of purity. Our plan is to attack their purity so that they will belong to us for all time. Therefore, we need only to neutralize the guardians of these little monsters - and then we can pollute their miserable souls. Thankfully, my enemies in the modern era are slow to realize the importance of a father in protecting his family. They play into our hands when they think that a father's protective role ended in the bygone era when he defended the family against wild animals and invading savages. This incredible ignorance is utterly delightful! Little do they know that a father's guardianship of his family is more valuable now than at any time in history. Spiritually, they are sound asleep. For a little while they paid heed to the Enemy's warning to Pope Leo XIII about our plans for the modern era. It even looked like we would be defeated when our enemies enlisted the aid of our arch-opponent Michael. Fortunately, most of our little targets have forgotten about the arch-opponent Michael, and our plans proceed apace. Towards the end of the century, just when our plans for destroying the faith by destroying the family were nearing completion, the Enemy sent that contemptible "pope for the family." Decades of work were at risk when for the first time in history a pope (Ugh! I hate that word!) wrote a letter directly to families throughout the world. Amazingly, he seemed to know just how to warn families about our subtle (and not so subtle) plans for destroying the family. When things looked as if our work was about to be undone - the most wonderful thing happened! The families of the world didn't even bother to read the contemptible pope's letter. Oh, how wonderful this was. In our lower realm there was rejoicing for months over the nearly complete apathy concerning this teaching. Now as we begin this new millennium, we must use technology to bring our master plan to completion by utilizing Internet pornography. Already we have spiritually neutralized millions of the Enemy's men with pornography. Over the next few years we can surely make millions more spiritual midgets, who we can then manipulate at will. With Internet pornography we can finally bring down the guardians of the Christian family. The fools still don't realize that the technological temptations are waging war against their very souls, bringing to completion an over-a-century long campaign to destroy the faith by destroying the family. Since it is working so exceedingly well, I suggest that we continue to use every technological innovation to pump pornography to Christian fathers. Just think of the wonderful new digital temptations we will soon be sending out over broadband! Remember, every man addicted to pornography is caught in the snares of what the Enemy calls grave sin. With pornography we have crippled their ability to spiritually protect their families. After they are ensnared in pornography, their families (their marriages and their children) are vulnerable to our attacks. Sure, these men still appear fine on the outside as they go to church, but we know that their hearts have been captured by pornography. And since sons usually follow in the father's footsteps, the sins of the fathers will run down through the generations, and we can rest assured that the future generations will belong to us. A delightful by-product of pornography addiction is that it is so effective in creating turmoil in marriages. Of course, we have been attempting to destroy marriages as a vital part of our overall plan. A husband's pornography addiction has shown a unique ability to undermine trust and intimacy between spouses. The addiction creates turmoil, heartbreak, and bewilderment in the hearts of those detestable Christian wives. As far as Sundays in church go, there is only one thing to do. Just make sure things stay as they are - nice and quiet. The last thing we need are homilies about specific sins, like pornography. If a damaging homily is somehow preached, make sure you scramble any attempts to organize support groups to assist men unable to free themselves from our work. Just let the poor devils struggle alone - of course we know that they are not alone in their pornography addiction, don't we? Finally, we must keep up our guard against the Head of THAT family. Never forget how the Head of THAT family was used by the Enemy to ruin our dear servant Herod's plans to kill the so-called Holy One. There are centuries-old rumors from the upper regions that the Head of THAT family will be brought into service at a critical time in history. The last thing we want is a repeat of the first century. It has taken immense effort, but we have managed to thoroughly confuse modern man (and much of the church) about the meaning of true manhood and masculinity. We need impure men, especially fathers, to continue leading the culture towards our regions. We must therefore keep fathers from contact with the Head of THAT family, so that they don't have any effective models of manly purity and righteousness. Yet we need to be realistic in our strategies. If we cannot keep men away from the Unmentionable One, then at least we can chip away at some of the truth to keep things manageable for us. Keep their beliefs abstract. Men look up to tangible role models. Just be sure they don't discover the Enemy's perfect model for fathers, or our plans will get derailed. We can never hope to lead fathers devoted to that so-called "Just Man" deeper into the depraved delights of pornography. Yours Diabolically, Screwtape

“False Intimacy”

A book my husband has found helpful is “False Intimacy.” (author – Schaumburg)

More Tools

There are a couple other resources that I found really helpful:
Joshua Harris
Every Man’s Battle
Christians in Cable
The TV Channel Blocker

Internet/Computer Filtering / Other Resources

SafeEyes – a one-time fee of $49.95 gets you this software
Setting Captives Free ISP
Integrity Online
pkFamily
Yahoo! Directory of filtered ISPs
NetNanny

Kids in Mind – my favorite site for pre-screening movies (guarding my eyes on the TV)
Family Safe Media – everything from power cord locks to TV timers to prevent physical access to media
Lowe’s – great place to find just the right size hammer for smashing any necessary TVs, computers, movies, CDs, etc.

General Resources

Setting Captives Free – a HUGE set of resources for Christians held captive by things of the world
Desiring God Ministries’ sexuality section – John Piper’s God-centered approach is a personal favorite
Pure Intimacy – Focus on the Family’s help on “recovering the heart of sexuality”
XXX Church – a less reverent (potentially offensive) take on the issues, strewn with blatant honesty and good resources
Every Man’s Battle – good resources, including quality books and conferences
Genesis Counseling – books, counseling, and other assorted resources
Accountability
x3watch – free software that reports your Internet activity to an accountability partner
x3watchPRO – x3watch for $15, with added tech. support, up to 3 accountability partners, and some other added options
Covenant Eyes – excellent software that reports your Internet activity to unlimited accountability partners and comes with lots of options for around $7/mo.

Book Studies - Tools for the Journey

Not Even a Hint : Guarding Your Heart Against Lust by Joshua Harris (recommended by Kevin Conrow)
Lust can destroy our relationships and our lives. This book is for those struggling with lust or just facing temptations of lust. The author looks at how one can fight back against lust.
When Good Men Are Tempted by Bill Perkins (recommended by Jamie Johnson)
This book shows men how to master lust, achieve the holiness by following a plan for sexual integrity to achieve a purity in marriage, family, and revitalize their walks with God while strengthening relationships with their brothers in Christ.
Every Man's Battle : Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by Stephen Arterburn,et. al. (recommended by John Kuebler)
This book confronts the enemy of every man: lust. It offers practical principles for sexual purity, which involves courage, commitment, and self-discipline.
Eternal Impact: Investing in the Lives of Men by Phil Downer with Chip MacGregor (recommended by Jamie Johnson)
This book discusses leaving a legacy, which is built through discipling and mentoring, helping men discover Jesus Christ's role in marriage, fathering and relationships, and then become effective in fulfilling His command to make disciples (true significance as opposed to success).
The Man in the Mirror: Solving the 24 Problems Men Face by Patrick Morley (recommended by Jamie Johnson)
This book discusses issues pertinent to men: identities, relationships, finances, time, temperament, and integrity. It then offers making a lasting change.

Porn-Free Thoughts

Control Thoughts (courtesy of Porn-Free Thoughts)
Previous page in Freedom Journey: Train Eyes
Controlling our thoughts is perhaps the most difficult task of walking in freedom. Pornography is a powerful source of sinful images that our memory can easily recall. If you have been letting sexual fantasy run wild in your thoughts, you're probably wondering if its even possible to get control over the thoughts. What is impossible in our own strength is possible when we have the Holy Spirit helping us. Our responsibility is to work in partnership with the Holy Spirit to bring our thoughts into obedience to Jesus.
Brainwashing: Earlier in Freedom Journey we mentioned the problem of the memories that sex addiction causes. One of the challenges we face is to stop lusting over those memories. I have found it helpful to first ask God for help in washing the sinful memories out of my mind. A simple daily prayer to pray is:
"Father God, please wash my memory with the blood of Jesus and help me die to any sinful pleasure I have in it. Please forgive me for any sin I have committed in my thoughts. Thank you, Father. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."
The basis for this prayer is found in Hebrews 9:14 and Hebrews 10:22. These verses state that Christ’s blood cleanses our conscience from our sinful works so we can serve God. If I'm tempted to recall the memories each day, I then verbally apply the blood of Jesus to the memory. I say something like, "The blood of Jesus cleanses my mind from that memory." I often repeat this until the temptation subsides.
In addition to the problem of sinful memories, we have spiritual enemies (Ephesians 6:12) who are masters at tempting us in our thoughts (examples: Luke 4:5-6, Acts 5:3). These temptations cater to our minds' natural evil desires (Matthew 15:18-19). Satan's goal is to persuade us to engage our imaginations and lead us to sin.
The power of the imagination: Our imagination is a powerful gift from God. Imagination is a collection of focused thoughts that creates a reality in our mind. As we are made in God's likeness, our imagination is a scaled down version of God's imagination. God spoke the universe into existence from his imagination. Similarly, we can create things in our imaginations. For example, with one glimpse at a porn picture, I can imagine what it might be like to have sex with the person in the picture. Where the picture only gives me a visual impression, my imagination fills in the rest of the details: sounds, feelings, words, scenario, etc. Through such a fantasy, I commit sexual sin with the person in my mind (Matthew 5:28).
Satan has been baiting people's imaginations ever since the Garden of Eden. He enticed Eve to imagine having God-like knowledge. She wanted the knowledge, she liked the fruit's looks and she saw it was good for food. The combination of those factors motivated her to sin. Satan himself fell to sin by using his imagination to envision himself exalted like God. Satan said in his heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13-14 NIV). Satan was cast out of heaven as a result. Likewise, using our imaginations sinfully places an obstacle between us and God. Thankfully, we have the power to control our thoughts and honor God with them.

Porn's a tough issue

Porn has affected my life for as long as I can remember. And the Internet has made it so easy for my generation to not have to sneak around dark alleys and corners. Now, men sneak past their loved ones in the living room to go to a dark corner of their own home to get immersed in sin. I love my beautiful wife immensley. Amazing how Satan tells me "Yeah, she's hot. Yeah, God put you two together. But I got something hotter!" Huge deal in our own church that is swept under the rug. Any wonder our divorce rate matches that of "the world!" Thanks for the blog! More to come!

Epidemic

A few years ago, when I was working with a Honduran medical mission that included an addiction recovery program, I dropped in to visit the man who headed the successful Addiction Ministry of a large church in Texas. He shared some of the stories of their program's work with alcohol and drug addicts. Then the subject turned to pornography. He expressed the opinion that Internet porn is the Devil's most successful weapon in centuries. He said, "Ninety-five percent of the men in our churches are watching Internet porn... and the other five percent are lying." I don't think there's any way to verify that expert's statistics... but I do believe he is right on target about "the Devil's most successful weapon in centuries."

Band of Brothers

You are one of the SC Band of Brothers. If you are a male age 13 to having a heart beat you are in the Band of Brothers. The BOB is who we are. It's not just a blog site or a Men's Retreat (Jan. 31st mark your calendars), or a huge time commitment. It's who we are. When you became associated yourself with SC you became my brother and I became yours. I am your responsibility and you are mine. It's just that we are going to begin to recognize this fact more over the coming days, months and years.

We men are independent creatures. We are too independent. Friendly to all, close to few. Satan uses this to pick us off as we have no covering fire to protect us. I don't REALLY know you and you don't REALLY know me and we like to keep it that way. "How was the game? Dude, can you believe that Auburn/Tennesse game?" All fine and good. Please don't stop that conversations, I love it! However, there is a real spiritual battle going on and Satan uses his minions to take out the men (God's Spiritual Leaders), one by one. With it Satan guts the Church and the Christian Family.

Let's be different. You will be hearing more about how the Band of Brothers will become closer, stronger and more powerful. Thanks for being a BOB, even if you didn't know you were.

All in?

If SC is to be the place God wants it to be, it's men have to be radically different from the world. It is easy and comfortable to slide in and out of church and the world. We become convinced we are OK as look at all the filth and justify occasional use of porn, lusting but not acting out, spending only one full day of the weekend playing golf, etc. We need to quit thinking in terms of how I am better than the worst of these. We need to ask ourselves, "What is the better choice? What is the eternal choice."

Mike Neill

Philippians 4 is a great challenge, thanks!

The context around our passage
to Paul's coworkers he says-
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:4-7

Live rejoicing (people will notice). Be gentle (a challenge with testosterone). Do not worry (wow). Pray (talk to God) and supplicate (pray for something) in a thankful manner, and God will care (we need him) for us (he is actually near you and me). We should test this in our lives until we meet.

"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Phil. 4:8-9

This way of thinking and the actual mimicry are not what we necessarily do (for me at least) or have been taught and warrants consideration (and change) as we continue to walk with God. Again, let's test for God's peace. Great passage guys, thanks.

II Sammuel 11 - David, A Man After God's Own Heart

There is forgiveness at King's Table - "A Broken
Psalm 32
Psalm 38
Psalm 51

Psalm 51:17
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.