Navigating Purity in the Digital Age

"At that time Gibraltar marked the edge of what the British at least considered the civilized world they had an outpost there and it was considered British territory and so their ships would leave England and they would sail around Portugal in Spain and they would land there at Gibraltar they would pause there and take on new supplies and then they would cast off and head down the African coast and as they sailed beyond Gibraltar they left civilization behind their understanding of civilization and they sailed into an entirely different part of the world as they left civilization behind them they left behind all the trappings of civilization and that included morality." [00:31:48]

"Today Gibraltar has come to us it's come to our living rooms it's come to our bedrooms has come to our purses has come to our pockets see the frontier today is not a geographical it's a technological one and here on the digital frontier every man every woman every teenager every child has the ability and the temptation at times to live beyond Gibraltar every one of us there has the opportunity the ability to leave behind ethics and morality and to live by this entirely different set of rules by this different set of standards." [02:07:00]

"I think you know that within each one of us there's this temptation to have a bifurcated life a life of respectability when we're in the public eye and a life of immorality when we're outside of the public eye that's just what Nelson saw in his sailors when under the eye of polite society they behaved by the rules of polite society one that I was no longer on them well that's when their true selves came pouring out and we faced that temptation to live one kind of life in the offline world and a very different life online." [02:44:00]

"Exposure to internet pornography happens early the average age of first exposure to internet-based pornography is now age 12 and most people think it will soon settle in at around age 11 we just talked to people about when they were first exposed to pornography and you hear just these heartbreaking stories of people finding dark ugly depraved stuff long before they were old enough to even understand what they were seeing many cases it was inadvertent they didn't mean to see it it just popped up on their screen in a lot of cases it was pure curiosity they had questions questions about their bodies or questions about a word they had heard." [05:23:00]

"Half of Christian men and 20% of Christian women say they are addicted to pornography just think about that half of Christian men say they're addicted aaaghh Rafi we know now that pornography actually rewires our brains it actually changes the way we think changes the way we behave we're learning that it's addictive in much the same way as drugs or alcohol are it impacts the way we view other people it changes our perception of sexuality changes our perception of other people which means that today's young people are being formed by violent misogynistic pornography from before they're old enough to even be thinking about God views on sexuality." [09:09:00]

"Think of Romans chapter 12 do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that's the very opposite of what's happening today with our young people you know you can watch pornography from the time you're 12 until the day you get married and you will never learn the true meaning and the true value of sexuality as God intends it every single message in pornography goes directly against God's plan for sexuality it's opposite in every way and as people give themselves over to it they become pornified you could say so over time they start to see everything through the lens of pornography." [09:45:00]

"Finally exposure to pornography causes shame people don't just look at it they look at it and they try to cover their tracks 7 out of 10 teens admit they've done something to hide what they've seen online from their parents so they erase their history or they change their password or something husbands hide it from their wives and wives from their husbands friends try to find ways of changing those accountability reports we know that pornography is wrong we know that it's shameful like Adam and Eve we try to cover our tracks we try to hide try to hide her try to hide our guilts." [10:36:00]

"I know this sounds intimidating but we can't run away from it we need to deal with this issue head-on and I'm confident that we can this is not a hopeless situation not at all God's Word speaks directly into our despair here and it assures us that we have all we need from him to combat even the biggest issue our hope here is God working through his word I think we have this habit of looking to the past and thinking everything was so much better than there was this golden age then and now we've entered into this age of shame and depravity." [12:14:00]

"As Christians we need to commit to developing godly character godly character that despises sexual sin and that loves and embraces that purity you've probably heard it said something like this before who a man is when he is alone that is who he really is right who you are when no one's looking that tells you a whole lot more about who you are than when everybody's eye is upon you there aren't two of any of us right each of us is just one person who may choose to conform to different forces at different times but our heart tends to express its deepest desires when we are alone." [13:13:00]

"The Bible assures us that pain comes when we ignore his boundaries when we choose to create our own gods where it assures us there is forgiveness for all of our sin there's freedom from the power of every sin the Holy Spirit dwelling within is infinitely more powerful than the power of pornography it tells us we must confess our sin before God and man we must get that sin out into the light we must commit to taking radical action to put that sin to death I know 50 men who are battling porn right now I don't just one who cares enough to just get rid of his computer." [14:47:00]

"As parents we need to take responsibility for what our children do and how they behave online our children need discipleship we need them to develop godly character and we need to understand that they plummet down into pornography they will delay or destroy that character we don't just need to train our children how to behave when they're at school or at church or at the store we need to train them how to behave when they're online they need to know how to behave when it's late and they're tired and the lights are out and they have a computer or a mobile phone." [15:22:00]

"We need to allow them to access these things so we as their parents can train them while they're under our care under our authority and protection we've got just a few years with our kids and in that time we need to teach and train them how to honor God through these things with these devices they need to know that temptation will come but they also need to know the great opportunities they have to do good to others and glorify God through these very devices you need to understand that they're restless sinful hearts will at some point be tempt use even these great gifts." [16:11:00]