Covenant Eyes Radio – Episode 42
This week we are featuring a series of podcasts for pastors and other ministry professionals who are secretly struggling with pornography and other sexual temptations.
Today we will hear from Nate Larkin, founder of the Samson Society. Nate was a pastor for several years, but eventually his secret sexual sins drove him away from ministry. Today he shares some of his story with us: when he decided to get help for his problem, and how he learned to be honest about his struggles in a way that brought freedom and healing in his life.
Nate will also share a special message to ministers about how they can also learn to be honest about their heart-felt struggles.
Read our book review of Samson and the Pirate Monks.
Thanks for all you’re doing here. I have been free from sexual addiction for now 16 years. About four years ago spoke to me about writing a book on 20+ years of my life. With God’s help and some great brothers I have wrote this book. Our Pastor did a class on Samons and the Pirates, and got a great response. If Nate would be interested would love to share my boo, and add this support for those who are looking for men who will not judge them, but come along beside them and make the freedom possible. My book is titled Rescue. Again thanks for what you’re doing, because most churches are not bringing up this embarrassing issue, but an addiction that destroys more than alcohol and drugs.
I have struggled with masturbation and porn since I was eight years old. I’m 16 now and I have a girlfriend who God has told me is my wife and I love her. But, I can’t stop masturbating. Not to her, any girl I see. I have lustful eyes and I often times feel depressed because I can’t quit. I hate this sin and I want it to die and leave my life, but I feel trapped and I can’t get out. What do I do?
Hi Mark,
I understand the trap, and I wish when I was a teenager that I cared enough about the problem to do something. This is evidence that God is at work in you.
I recently wrote a post on my personal blog about this very topic (I wrote it as a message to parents about the subject, but there’s a lot applicable for you to read).
The main thing we have to understand is that masturbation is the fruit of lust (something you obviously understand). The problem is the lust. Much of this is about new mental habits: not just bouncing your thoughts away from fantasy but replacing those thoughts with other hold pleasures.
Also, it is important to note: a lot of overcoming this has to do with the belief that you can. It is so easy to get into defeated thinking patterns. We get into that space where we typically masturbate and we say to ourselves, “Here I go again. It’s inevitable.” This is something we need to completely rid from our thoughts. Yes, you are a sinner. Yes, sin is real. But because Christ is in you, your relationship to sin has changed. You are no longer a slave to sin, despite what you experience tells you.
One of the things that gives sin power in our lives is the belief that it is inevitable and therefore unconquerable. In some general sense, evil is an inevitability, but it does not mean, therefore, that evil is an inevitability in every given moment. At this moment, if the Holy Spirit lives within you, it is not inevitable that you will sin. Before Christ you were fighting a war with sin you couldn’t win. Now, you are fighting a war with sin you can’t lose. Yes, you will lose plenty of battles along the way as you rid yourself of your sinful habits, but the war is won.
Look at what Paul writes in Romans 6:11: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Notice, Paul does not say we are dying to sin—that would be a process. He does not say we should die to sin—that would be a command. He said that because we are intimately united with the risen Christ, because His resurrected life flows in our veins, we should consider ourselves already dead to sin. Consider it, think about it, meditate on it, get the idea deep into your soul: you are dead to sin.
i have the most disturbing dreams related to this, and i cant even move from my bed. these dreams are like nightmares. It makes me want to kill myself because of how my self esteem has been mutalated. Even if I dont do pornography it shows up in my dreams. I cant live with these disturbing dreams and thoughts, im so sick of ot that im very close to committing suicide.
Sam, I’m so sorry to hear about this. Know that there is hope. Just as sure as someone can trash their mind with pornographic images, they can clean their mind. Have you spoken to anyone about this?
Luke or whom it may concern do you mind if I rebroadcast this on my website? I’ll make sure to attribute and promote your site and service in the process.
@Quitting – No problem. Thanks for passing along our podcasts to others!