Latest / Intentional Guy / The Numbers Don't Lie

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The Numbers Don't Lie · Intentional Guy

• Michael chestnut: Three out of four men sitting in your church this Sunday morning are viewing pornography. Not men who walked away from their faith, not men who stopped going to church, but men who raised their hand during worship, men who took communion, men who shook your hand in the parking lot and said, I'm doing fine. Seventy five percent And of those men, eighty two percent say no one is helping them. No one. That's not a porn problem. That's a silence problem. And today we're going to break it. For men chasing purpose over comfort. This is the Intentional Guy Podcast. Welcome to the Intentional Guy Podcast. I'm Michael Chestnut. This is a show for men who are done pretending. Men who are ready to stop managing their sin in the dark and start walking in the light. Today we're talking about pornography. We're going to look at the numbers. We're going to look at what God's Word says. And then we're going to sit with one of those most Overlooked chapters in the entire Bible. Proverbs 7. Because Solomon saw this trap coming 3,000 years ago, and he described it so accurately, it could have been written this morning. I want to start with the data. Because sometimes we need to see the scope of the problem before we can feel the weight of it. These numbers come from the Barna group. And pure desire ministry. This isn't a secular research company trying to shame the church. This is the church taking an honest look at herself. Seventy-five percent of Christian men and forty percent of Christian women report viewing pornography on some level. That's an eleven point rise for men in just eight years. fifty four percent of practicing Christian people who are in the church who say their faith matters admit to viewing porn at least occasionally. eighty two percent of Christian who struggle with pornography says no one is helping them. Nobody knows. Nobody is walking beside them. Seventy four percent of Gen Z men are And sixty four percent of Gen Z women in the church say pornography is a problem for them. Our kids are drowning and we haven't said a word. The average age of first exposure is now approximately eleven years old during critical brain development. Only one in ten churches has any type of program to Specifically for those struggling with pornography. Online porn consumption has risen ninety-one percent since the year 2000, and nearly one in five pastors say they personally struggle with it. So let me say this plainly. If you are in that number, if you are one of the men sitting in silence, carrying this alone. You are not a freak. You are not beyond hope. And you are in the majority of men sitting at church. That doesn't make it okay, but it does mean you are not alone. And it means this conversation is long overdue. Now, what does God's word say about this? Some guys think, well, pornography. Isn't mentioned in the Bible, and technically that's true. The word isn't there, but the heart issue behind it, God addressed that with laser precision. This is Jesus in Matthew five, twenty seven through twenty eight. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Jesus didn't loosen the standard. He exposed the root. He went deeper than behavior and straight to the imagination. You see, pornography is adultery of the mind. And Jesus said it plainly, not to crush you, but because he refused to let you call your sin something smaller than it actually is. Paul in Corinthians six eighteen through twenty flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whosoever sins sexually sins against their own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Paul doesn't say manage it, moderate it, white knuckle your way through it. He says the Flee, run, because there's someone living in that body of yours, and pornography defiles the very place the Holy Spirit calls home. Job thirty one one I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. Job didn't stumble into purity. He decided it in advance. Before the temptation showed up, a covenant isn't something it's a commitment you make before the door opens. That's the kind of intentionality God calls men to. Now I want to take you to the chapter that I believe is one of the most important passages in all of Scripture for this men in this season. It's in Proverbs seven. And if you've never read it slowly, I want you to hear what Solomon is actually describing. Solomon is standing at a window looking down at the street below, and he watches a young man, inexperienced, unguarded, wondering, walking directly toward a trap he doesn't even know is there. Here's what he sees. And you can find it in Proverbs seven, six through nine. For at the window of my house I look through my lattice. And I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men a youth who had no sense. He was going down the street near her corner, walking along in the direction of her house at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in. And then Solomon watches the whole thing unfold. The woman finds him, she flatters him. She pulls him in with smooth words and promises, and then he writes this, and this is a verse that stops me coldin' my tracks every time. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing. It will cost him his life. Proverbs seven twenty two through twenty three. Now, here's what I want you to see, because this is the part that should shake every man listening. Look at how the young man ends up there. He's not dragged, he's not ambushed in broad daylight. Solomon tells us exactly what happened. He was going in the direction of her house. At twilight, when the day was fading, when the dark of night set in. He made a series of small choices. He wasn't inside yet. He was just headed that way, just walking down the street, just that direction, just this once. Your phone at eleven PM is the street near her corner. The incognome needle tab is the direction of her house. One click becomes one more, and little by little the day fades, the dark of night sets in. Pornography never introduces itself as something that will cost you your life. It introduces itself as a moment of relief, a way to unwind. Just a few minutes. No one will know. That young man didn't wake up that morning saying, Today I will destroy myself. He just made a turn, and then another. And by the time the arrow came, he never saw it. But here's the second thing I want you to notice. And I think this is what the church has missed. Solomon is not yelling down to the boy. He doesn't call out to him. He doesn't warn him. He watches the whole thing happen from the window. And the boy never hears a word. The boy on the street is not the audience of Proverbs 7. Solomon Is speaking to his son. He says, I watched a young man walk into that trap. I saw where it ended. And I'm telling you now, before you ever step foot on the street, so that you'll recognize the road. The boy on the street had no one, no father at the window, no man to call out to him, and he paid for it. with his life. That is the eighty two percent in two thousand twenty-six. Men who are walking down the street right now, headed toward the house, and not a single person in their life knows where they are. Solomon's hope was that his son would read it and recognize the road before he ever stepped into it. And God put it in the book. For every man in every generation, because he wants us to be the father at the window for each other, not to watch our brother walk into destruction. But to speak up before the darkened night, said sin. I know that young man. I was that young man. I didn't walk into the worst of my life in one giant step. I walked down the street, I turned toward the house, I told myself it was just this once. And by the time truth finally came out, it wasn't because I let someone in. It was because the walls came down on its own. I had kept every door locked, no one in, no accountability, no honesty, and when it finally came apart, it wasn't on my terms. It never is when we wait that long. What I wish someone had done, what I needed someone to do was stand at the window and call out to me before the dark of night set in. That man didn't exist in my life. That's why I'm in yours. If you are one of the eighty-two percent carrying this alone with no one who knows, I'm talking directly to you right now. You don't have to have it all figured out today. You don't need the perfect words. You don't need to walk in with a recovery plan already written. You just need to take one step. Tell one person the truth. Not a screen, not an anonymous forum, one real man in real life who can sit across from you and walk beside you. If you don't have that, I want to be that for you. And I mean that. Let's get coffee. Let me be your friend. Let me walk beside you. Reach out to me through the show. Share this episode with a man you know who is fighting this battle in silence. And if your church is one of the nine out of ten with nothing in place for men struggling with pornography, bring this conversation to your pastor. We cannot keep leaving men on that street alone. Solomon watch from the window. And wrote it down so his son would know what the road looked like before he ever walked it. God put it in the book for you right now in 2026. You're not beyond hope. You're not too far gone. But you cannot do this alone. Thank you for being here. I'll see you next time on the intentional guy.