The Secret Sin Destroying Marriages

There's a plague among believers that everyone knows about, but few want to talk about. It's taboo, and it thrives in secrecy. It destroys marriages, divides families, fuels human trafficking, separates people from God, and has caused much guilt, shame, and condemnation. And us being afraid to discuss it has enabled it. We're talking about pornography. And because it's been too taboo to discuss, people are still misinformed. Because it's even more pervasive, more destructive, and more conquerable than what most people think. And you can do something about it. Whether you're the one who's addicted, or the friend or a family member, of someone who is. Brothers and sisters, today I'm honored to be joined by my brother, Aaron Cowrie. Aaron, thank you so much, brother. I'm so excited to have you join me and to just discuss this issue at hand today. How are you doing, brother?

Hey, I'm doing good. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I, as I said earlier, it's such a blessing to be able to be on on your podcast to be able to talk about something that— I love the word you used— is plaguing the church. And I think we need to— if there was any other thing that was plaguing the church as much as this is, and we'll get into the statistics, we would be screaming it from the rooftop. But because of the nature of what it is, we want to just sweep it under the rug. So I'm excited to talk about it with you today.

Exactly, exactly. Guys, Aaron is the founder of Release the Strongman. It's a ministry that's dedicated to helping men overcome the bondage of lust and pornography. Obviously, this topic is sensitive, but I want to just put a little bit of a disclaimer out there. Even though it is, I'm going to encourage parents to really pray about whether they want to share this, at least in a conversation with their teenagers as well. Because, Aaron, as you know, brother, this is something that's not just plaguing adults but our children. And I think, you know, that's probably a good place to start is, is how important it is for us to have this wide open in our families instead of— because I think the world has educated our children a lot of times, and that's not the kind of education we want them to have about this. And instead, it's so important for us to, as parents, right, to just open that door of transparency. What do you think about that? And what do you— would you advise parents? In that arena.

You know, I'm 45, so growing up we didn't have the devices and all that stuff. And so, you know, we always talked about the talk, like our parents would have the talk with us. And I just want to encourage parents that that is a long-forgotten memory. There's no such thing as the talk anymore. It's a conversation. And I think that we now need to move into a place where we're having conversations with our children about this topic. It's not a one-off. You don't get to say, hey, this is what happened, this is how it works. That's the beginning of the conversation. And then what we want to do is we want to really start to invite our children into this relationship where this isn't taboo. There is no shame. That we want to help them understand what's happening in the world. And then to the parents out there, as hard as it is to hear this, the enemy is continuing to create new and very effective ways to entangle and ensnare your children from a very young age. I don't say that to be fearmongering. I say that we must be educated. The video games are embedded with chat where there's people that are trying to get your children, and when we are leaving our children unattended in these spaces, we're asking for an open door, and so we're needing to change. You know, I think our generation that's a little bit older, we didn't get and understand what's happening now, but that doesn't give us an excuse not to learn and know what's going on out there.

Right, exactly. Guys, we're going to be talking about the effects of pornography, the industry that's behind it, the prevalence of it among believers, also then a path of healing for anyone who's struggling to whatever degree, and then the responsibility of the body of Christ as a whole. So Aaron, let's begin right there in the beginning with just the effects of it. You know, a lot of people I think who are entangled. The enemy comes with this lie. The lie is this is just harmless. No one's getting hurt. You know, this is what the world's saying, right? This is just, you know, it's even being allowed into marriages. It's just anything goes.

Well, first of all, I think it's important that we make some sort of point that says it would be hard pressed for you to find another sin that's so prevalently talked about in scripture. I mean, immorality is talked about from Genesis to Revelation. If you would do this like a word study on immorality, immorality, you would find it in almost every book. And that's not an exaggeration. I think in the, in the New Testament, it's 21 of like the 27 books are talking directly about immorality. And I wonder if we have just missed that because it kind of goes into those dark areas. But the reality is, is God in his, in his wisdom knew that this is something, and this was the, this was the way that the enemy was going to entangle and snare It's the way that it's going to use to break apart marriages. I mean, he hates covenant. So the idea of covenant to insert adultery. And so it's all over scripture. And I think because it's been such a taboo topic, like you mentioned in your intro, that we're fueled by shame, we're overcome with shame. And so, you know, if we got into the statistics and talked about even like the amount of pastors that are literally pastoring right now but are still dealing with pornography, you can get into the youth pastors. that number goes up even higher. But if we just talk about the general church, we're looking at about 53%. This is a staggering statistic— are not just looking at pornography but actually are comfortable using it in their marriage. So a lot of us know this statistic that it's 70 to 80% that are looking at it, consuming it on a monthly basis. But that statistic to me is more worrying, that they would be allowing it and using it, and we've fully justified this thing within our marriages and within the church.

Wow. I've also— I looked up a study from Barna Group about this. Only 10% of adults say that their churches offer resources for those who are struggling with pornography. You know, I think the question immediately we should ask is, well, what are we going to do about this? Because that's just a staggering number. And the reality is, brother, you know, me and you talking about this today, that's not enough. People listening to us talking about it today is not enough. And we can't keep pretending like it's someone else's problem because this is like our problem. This is the body of Christ problem because this is our brothers, our sisters, our husbands, our wives, our children. And yeah, I'd love for us to get a little bit later to talk about like what we can do for them, but So if we—

I'll jump in on that for a second. I, I have a saying that pornography is everybody's problem, and it should be everybody's problem. And let me tell you why. I'm going to paint it in a picture that might be a little bit offensive, but if, if pornography is just a problem that some random dude has in his room and that affects his family, maybe, but we're in a body of congre— a congregation where over 70% of people are viewing at it. That means if you've got 100 people in your congregation, 70 are consistently looking at it. Now, If we start to get to the intricacies of what they're looking at, now maybe if you knew what those things were, I think you might understand how big of a deal this is, that 7 out of 10 people are walking around looking at the perversion, acting in that way. I think we have this even rose-colored glasses on that says everyone's just looking at— I hate to even say this— normal porn. But it goes off, and the enemy wants to steal, kill, and literally destroy anybody who claims the name of Yeshua. And so it takes us deeper and darker into these places that we honestly never thought we would be. If that many people are looking at this stuff, um, and we can actually do something about it by speaking up and by having a congregation that has a ministry that's dedicating this, what if we got that number down from 70% to 50% to 40% to 30%, where it's not the majority of us dealing with this? I think this is the biggest thing we've got to talk about. That's why, if we care about it, if we all got on board right now and said, No longer in the body of Messiah, no longer a popular thing here. It's not okay. We're all going for it together. We actually could see a massive snowball effect, and that number drop dramatically, and the standard of holiness just shoot up again like it always really ever always should be.

Yeah, and that's the thing, brothers. It's influencing people's spiritual life on a deep level, whether they fully realize it or not. You know, your own self-confidence is going to be influenced. Your mental health is going to be influenced. Your relationship with God, you're going to just feel far from Him. You're going to have the cycle of guilt, shame, condemnation, just like, oh, I repented, and then, you know, tomorrow night is the same thing over and over again. And then my marriage is now struggling more and more and more. And, you know, we read Revelation 22:15. Let me just pull this up because, you know, this is one of those— verses that you, that you were talking about. And it's a very straight-shooting verse, right? Revelation 22:15 says, outside— talking about the kingdom that's to come, right? Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. You know, when we're talking about sorcerers, all of us are like, okay, that makes sense. When you talk about murderers, we're like, that makes sense. We're talking about idolaters, that makes sense. The sexually immoral. By the way, guys, this includes people who are watching pornography, who are habitually addicted. In other words, I'm not talking about someone who's just stumbling in a moment. We're talking about people are practicing this, right? Because that's what these things are. These are practices that they're— this is what that's describing. And so we're, you know, I'm not— we're not— not Amin or Aaron, we're pointing the finger at anyone because we both of us have, I believe, Aaron, right? You too? I have certainly in my teenage years a history where I had to fight this. I had to battle this because I grew up in the age of where the internet became a thing, and like no one's parents knew how dangerous this would be.

And yeah, and so that, that verse in particular that you just shared is, is a, is an incredibly important verse that again, we don't want to talk about. We don't want to point fingers at, and we're not going to really— that doesn't preach very well, to be honest with you. But you did skip over the first one, which is dogs, and that actually has to do with a man of an impure mind. Because I got— I have guys that show up to me and they're like, I don't really deal with pornography that much. It's more just like lust and fantasy and all that. So that word dog is kind of an impure mind, which is interesting because this is the thing that a lot of guys struggle with. And we talk about overcoming pornography, and that's— yes, that is the goal. But really, we want to have pure minds that Job kind of— I've made a covenant with my eyes. not to think or fantasize on a maid. We have to be careful what we put in front of our eyes. And so part of this ministry is, yes, we want to help you stop looking at pornography, but really the goal is that you fall in love with Yeshua more, that we, we become pure in mind, pure in thought, pure in heart. And so we can't say, oh, I'm, I'm taking every— I, I am taking every thought captive. And now there's room for us to receive more from the Holy Spirit. There's room to be used. You know, like you mentioned earlier, we're not so covered in shame and guilt and condemnation that when we receive a calling from the Lord, we don't feel bold enough to be able to do that because we know we looked at last night and last week. It just, it makes us unusable often for the kingdom in the way that the Father would really want us to be used.

Yeah, and I want to share with anyone who is right now, maybe you're listening to this, you're like, man, that's me. Like, I felt that way. I want to just share with you, remember who you truly are. Remember who God has made you and He's called you to be. He's not called you into the place you are right now. He's called you out of it. And so that means that there is a calling, there is a purpose, there is a testimony for you.

Yeah.

And God wants to use you powerfully. He really does. So don't let the enemy come and say you're not worthy of the kingdom that's to come. The thing is, you can today lay all things down and say, Lord, here I am. Use me. I'm done. I'm sick and tired of this. I want to get in the program. I want to get free because there is a process that many times people aren't willing to go through. They think they can do it alone, and sometimes you're just in too deep and you just can't. And so we're going to talk a bit about that. But yeah, go ahead, brother.

No, I think that one of the lies that the enemy uses, and I would say this is like a very consistent lie, is we don't have a problem. We wouldn't say, oh, I have a lie believing that God's good. The lie is that God is good for someone else and not for you. And I think I find a lot of people in this space. Yeah, I know other people break free from porn. I know other people walk in purity. I know, but not me. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know the things I've done. You don't know the things I've looked at, what was done to me when I was a child. And we think, yeah, God's good for everyone else, but he's not for me. And I just want you— I want to point that out as a really strong lie that the enemy uses. And it's the reason that you won't reach out after this podcast to say, hey, I'm the guy, I need help. Because in your mind, really, the root of this is doubt. You doubt that God's good for you. And I just want to remind you that if you have a lie of doubt, that you have to insert that with the truth, which is what the Bible says all throughout scriptures, that you are already an overcomer by the blood of Yeshua. And he has given you everything for life and godliness. And we need to believe that's true for ourselves and that you were meant to be broken free, not in bondage to to sin any longer.

That's good, brother. Thank you for that word. I appreciate it. I want us to touch on the industry itself a bit. You know, I think a lot of people have rose-colored glasses on. We're talking about an industry that's generating billions of dollars. It's a money-driven industry, and this industry really has placed a number on the souls of people. I think we should really understand that. They are trying to create an illusion of a real relationship because all of us desire a relationship. All of us desire, you know, it's not good for man to be alone, right? This relationship between a husband and a wife that is so beautiful. But this content is created to fool you into thinking that, well, they care about me. They are able to give me intimacy. They are able to give me companionship. But it's all fakery. It's all there to mess with our nervous systems, to make us crave something that's the counterfeit of the beauty that God has given us in marriage. Because they don't care. They have no regard for your well-being. In fact, there's no true intimacy. In fact, you'll feel more lonely than ever after partaking. And it's not companionship. It's betrayal because they have no problem putting your soul on the altar of monetary gain. Brother, any thoughts that you have on the industry?

Yeah, when I first started studying this stuff out a little bit more, and just for context for everyone, I struggled with pornography for 30 years of my life into my marriage, 3 children, and never thought that it would take me into that place. I always thought, yeah, when I'm 18, when I'm 21, 25, you have these like moments. But until we get to the point where we're truly desperate and we seek God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is what we're called to do, and we're truly desperate to do whatever, it can keep us in bondage for a really long time. But I want to say about the industry, when I first started studying, I ran across a guy who was in the porn industry for 14 years. And he, from his mouth, he's now— he became a believer. He got pulled out of it. It's an incredible story. and now he's an advocate against it, against the industry, but also helping men get broken free. He says in his testimonies that he's never met a person in the industry that chose to be there, which technically means that someone either had to show up there because they were in a situation where it was out of their control and they felt like they needed to do that, or they were trafficked into this industry. And the dark side of this industry, and I think this is super important for us to understand, you mentioned rose-colored glasses, that's absolutely true, is the truth of the matter is that almost every person that you're watching on that screen hates who they are, wishes they could do anything else, is being abused, is being manipulated, is most likely on drugs, either during it or after it. And they most likely have a handler right off screen. And so if you can understand how abusive and anti-God this is, if it can disgust you enough, if you truly could see the depth of what's happening behind the scenes, think about it. If you have a daughter who— look, it's God's grace that our daughter hasn't been trafficked. This stuff is everywhere. Was it like 600,000 children a year in the United States enter the trafficking world? This is real stuff, guys, and we are not just watching it for our entertainment, but we're actually fueling it. So there's a saying, you can't be anti-trafficking and consume porn. It does— it doesn't work that way. If you are watching porn, you are fueling the industry, period.

Absolutely.

Wow.

Thank you, brother. That's, that's very sobering. So someone's listening to this. They're like, man, I kind of knew some of this. I'm convicted. And what is the next step? What is the path to healing? And what does it take to get free?

Well, I mentioned a little bit earlier that I believe the thing that is required so often for deliverance from a thing that has kept us in bondage is desperation. So the saying desperation precedes deliverance. One of my favorite scriptures that I use in the group is Psalm 107, and it talks about men, specifically 10 through 16, that talks about men who were in bondage. They were in prison. They were in darkness. They were at the shadow of death. They were bound up. They were, they were behind bars and they were behind gates. And they finally got to the end of themselves and they said, I'm literally about to die. I'm literally about to die. And so they finally cry out to God for deliverance. Save me, save me with a desperation. And it says he comes through. Yeshua, this is Yeshua. He absolutely destroys the gates of bronze. He cuts the bars of iron. He cuts this guy free and he takes him out and brings him out into freedom. But we see that every story that, that where someone is truly set free from bondage, there was a moment of desperation. And so we actually do need to, if we don't feel that, that's the first step. Beg God for you to see the sin for what it is, to understand that your sin actually does separate you between you and him and hides his face so they can't hear. It hinders our prayers. It hinders the way we can be effective. Ask him to show you and break your heart for what breaks his. And then once we get to the place where we understand the depravity of our sin and we cry out to God for deliverance, that's the beginning of it all. And then kind of becomes the hard grind work of rewiring our brains, relearning new habits. I think one of the things that most men— the reason most men stay in it for as long as they do, and this was my story, is because of isolation. We think, I got it. I'm doing better than I've ever done. I'm doing good. And the shame keeps us in that place where, like, I got it this year. I'm going to knock it out. And then 1 year becomes 5 years and 5 years becomes 10 years. Before you know it, you're 30 years like me. You've got 3 children. You're successful in so many areas. I had a successful photography business. Marriage was good enough, right? But no true intimacy in that space because I was always walking in the area of shame. If I would have just reached out and really sought after people that knew a little bit about this, that could take me out of the pit. One of the, one of the other failures that people make is that they try to find people that are also struggling with it to help them overcome. But that's the blind leading the blind. You know, someone that's in a deep, deep, deep, dark pit can't help someone else in a deep, deep, deep, dark pit. You need someone on the top that's— that knows how to get out to help you. And so that's where a ministry like Release the Strongman comes into play. And we have a group of men that, that are walking together and working towards overcoming this thing.

Oh, that's good, brother. Some practical things I'd love for us to also discuss, you know, for me what comes to mind is Joseph, you know, Joseph in Genesis 39:12, when Potiphar's wife caught him by his garment saying, lie with me, he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house. And, you know, I think this is so relevant in our day and age because we are surrounded by Potiphar's wives.

Yeah, yeah.

Everywhere we You know, this thing we carry in our pockets, she lives in here. She follows us around everywhere as long as we're on the right apps, right? If we're in the places and the spaces where these things are just coming our way and we are not able to have the self-control, it only takes staying on the wrong image for a few seconds too long for the algorithm to completely shift.

Yeah.

And the reality is, you know, I have a bit of a background in actually in user experience, how apps work and all this in my career before. And, and the thing is, is just because you're a man, you're profiled already. Just because you have certain friends who are into certain things, you're— everything is taken into consideration to curate something, a feed for you to get you engaged. And just by that very nature, social media is really working against us. And so, yeah, yeah, what can men and women who are struggling do in that area?

Yeah, I love that Joseph scripture. And the parallel one that would, that would be in the New Testament is, is flee immorality, flee immorality. It's actually, from what I understand, it's the only sin that's talked about in the Bible that we don't fight against, that we don't stand against. We actually are We're commanded to flee it. You see it with Joseph. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality commits immorality against his own, his own body, right? It's this— it's a sin against our own body. And so, yeah, the command is for us to flee. You know, I have a, I have a thing that I tell the guys. If I'm, if I'm struggling with lust, um, I equate it to like someone who's, who's an alcoholic. So let's just say I'm an alcoholic. I've struggled with it for 30 years, and I, I go and get, get some help and I break free. I'm 6 months clean. I'm doing good. I've been the first time the longest I've ever been clean. And so one day I decide, you know what, I really miss my bartender friend. And so I'm just gonna go catch up with him. I'm gonna go check in with him and see how he's doing. What an unwise thing to do. So my saying is, no recovering alcoholic spends his free time at the bar. And so here we are. I'm thinking, I'm just gonna sit there. I'm not gonna actually buy the drink tonight. But then someone buys you a drink. What are you going to do? So here we are. I want to overcome pornography. I want to overcome lust. But I think that I have the self-control to stay on social media, the thing that's always fed me kind of the small stuff first, and then it plants a seed and then it gets watered and all that stuff. And so that's literally a recovering alcoholic spending his free time at the bar. And we— this is the part of the ministry that most men will choose to probably leave because it does require a cost as following Yeshua always should. There's always got to be a cost associated. But we think that we can go through a program, check off a box without sacrificing, letting go things that are literally feeding us the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. So my saying is this: it's not actually complicated to quit looking at porn, but it's really hard because now we do. We have this phone here. And what if I told you that if you got rid of your computers and you got rid of your phone, that you'd probably stop looking at porn a little bit easier. But the cost is high. Not everybody— and I'm not saying that's the end-all be-all for everybody. But what about the apps? Like, Instagram was always my gateway drug, right? I always started there and I was looking at just like photography stuff. And then the algorithm would feed me a little girl and then I'd look at that and— You're right. Just once it's hooked, you're in. I found out that there was a time when I broke free from porn, I had to delete every social media app for me. for a time for my mind to be renewed. And then over time, 2, 3, 4 years as I started this ministry, I asked the Father, am I, am I able to use this as a platform now? Am I at the place where I'm strong enough to be able to resist temptation? And the answer was yes. Now I'm on social media, but it's because I've earned that right, put in healthy habits. I have accountability in my place. But for now, it is almost— I use it as an example, like, let's put it on the altar. And say, is it, is it gold? Is it silver? Or is it wood, hay, and stubble? And if it burns, it's got to go. If it's offensive to the Lord, it's got to go.

Yeah. A relevant scripture to all of this is Matthew 5:30. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. For it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Very sobering, direct message.

I just actually I just actually put a brand new post on my social media the other day. I had this image in my mind that I wanted to create, and it was— I actually put a bunch of tattoos on someone's arm of all the social media little icons. And because I often find these guys, I'm like, hey, you got to— Facebook's a problem for you. You got to cut it off. And every time I think about that, I'm like, man, just cut the arm off. Cut the arm off that offends you. And social media tends to be the one that's so hard for people to let go of. It's got such a grip on our life, and if we would just cut this thing off, man, if we would pluck our eye out, get rid of the things that are literally feeding all of us the enemy's agenda. I think, if you don't mind me going here for a second, the problem in the church is that we have desensitized ourselves to what God's standard of holiness is. And I will never give the enemy credit, but I will say this, that he has been playing the long game for quite a while. Ever since TV came out, it's been this slow increase and gradual place where we have desensitized ourselves over and over and over again. And now most of us— not me anymore, we don't do this kind of stuff because we've realized that it's an opportunity for temptation— but we'll watch a movie and if there's a sex scene, as long as it doesn't show nudity, I'm good. I mean, we have come so far, guys, you know. 150 years ago before TV, you could never even get close to those situations. You'd have to go do a peeping Tom thing. And now it's in the palm of our hand. And our standard of holiness, our standard of set-apartness is so low. And that's why we're struggling still within the church. It's time to shoot that thing back up and say, God, what, what should I be putting in front of my eyes?

It's like we're in an illusion, right? Because it's like, well, I can handle it. We keep telling ourselves, right? I, I, we— I'm going to put these things on, allow these things in my life or in my family's life, and I can handle it. We can handle it. Oh, there was a little stumble here. Oh, there was a little stumble there, but we can handle it. It's kind of that, these excuses. And that's probably the name of the game, brother, is excuses.

Yeah.

That we just keep telling ourselves.

Yeah.

What is— so in the church itself, right, we just touched on this a little bit, but I want to go a little bit more into this. We talked about the secrecy of pornography, right? Everyone's isolated. They don't want to have anyone involved. There's so much shame. There's so much stigma. There's the fear of rejection, and they're afraid of what would happen if someone found out. So Yeah. They just keep it to themselves, and then eventually it gets so bad that they are exposed. The father allows him to be found out, and then it just gets ugly. Versus if they submitted this to someone who's trusted, who's an elder or someone who can walk a path with them. How can we encourage people To go that way, because I feel like at the, at the bottom of this all is the lack of confession, the, the secrecy of it all.

Yeah, that's really good. I mean, I, I think long-term hope and goal for, for our ministry is that we help, uh, educate and equip churches to be able to deal with it within their own congregation. This is Listen, we're talking about 70%. Our little ministry won't be able to affect the amount of harvest that's going to come over time as people wake up to this and realize they want to overcome. So really what I, what I have a desire to do is to speak to the men out there right now that may be listening and say, that's my story. Yeah, I used to be, I used to be addicted to that. But thankfully that's not me anymore. So irrelevant topic for me. I want to say this, that like Revelation 12 talks about the spirit of the Antichrist, which is what we are living in right now. And we overcome the spirit of the Antichrist by the blood of the Lamb, which most of us that are watching this claim right now, but the word of our testimony and loving our life, not even unto death. And I think for me, when I realized that the power and the word of my testimony was what allowed me the ability sharing that, speaking about the Gospel of Yeshua, the power to transform my life was what was giving me power to overcome the spirit of the Antichrist. I want to say to you, you guys that are out there, there are men waiting to be set free with the power of the testimony of the Gospel of Yeshua in your life. And it just takes a willing vessel to say, I know what it's like to be there. I don't have all the certifications or letters after my name. Neither do I. I'm just a guy who believes in the blood of Yeshua, the authority of Yeshua, and that it has the power and strength to break every stronghold. And so I want to almost incite like this excitement for people out there that are saying like, I don't really have any giftings or talents. Yeah, but you have a testimony and you coming out of a thing gives you the authority to speak on a subject. So I would love to meet those people. Connect me. I'll resource you as much as possible. We'll train you and let's actually like go after this plague that is in the church right now, but it's going to take a lot of people stepping up to the plate saying, not in my house, not in my house. Well, God's house, but you understand, like the church that I go to.

So yeah, you know what I've found, brother, is that I've told you this before, but you know, in my travels when I've like spoken at churches, I'm a guest, right? So I'm from out of town and people know I'm not local. So I just find so often men coming up to me like after I speak, whatever, and then they just start confessing these things that they've never told anyone.

Anyone?

No one. No one knows except me at this point, who's the guy who's just come for a weekend or whatever. And it's because they're so scared of their community isolating them even further if they were to find out. So I think it's also important for us to recognize, well, okay, why did that guy come to me? Right? I'm not special. But he felt safe enough to do so. And so it's so important for us to cultivate environments where what you're saying is evident, where you have men or women, both, right, who are sharing their testimonies of where they were and how God delivered them.

Yes.

Because that breaks the ground. That makes people be like, whoa, this my friend who is so on fire for the Lord today, She or he struggled with this for 20 years, or like, as you said, for 30 years. Man, I can have that. Let me, let me confide. Let me share. And but that means that when someone does share, we don't— we as a community, we come and we rally around them. We encourage them.

Yes.

We don't shame them. We don't make the situation worse. That is a responsibility that is so important. I just think about Yeshua, you know, how His, His, just His heart was towards the sinners when they came to Him with humility, with repentance, with, I messed up. He had always this grace, this mercy to set them free. That was not the place. That was not the time to condemn them. And so let us have that same heart.

Yeah, that's so good. You know, the truth of Scripture is this, that James 5:16 says, when we confess our sins, one to another, we are healed. What an, what an interesting scripture. Now, I always tell guys, I don't have the power to forgive you of your sin in the way that the Father will forgive you for your sin. However, there is this thing that I don't know that I truly understand in my humanity, that scripture says that there is healing when we confess it with our mouth to one another. And so guys, this is actually the first step, is finding a trusted individual, someone that you trust. Opening up and saying, hey, here's the thing. Scripture also says that we bring the dark things into the light, they become visible. Now what happens when something becomes visible? It loses its power. Now the, the light of God is shining on this thing, and now we can start to deal with this thing. And so yes, I love it, man. I love everything you just said. We have to come against shame. We have to realize that the enemy has done a great job Again, I hate giving him credit at telling us that if we bring it out, people will condemn us. I talked to a guy today, a new guy today. He called me and he said, I was so nervous to call you. I've been following you for 6 months. I finally just built up the strength to be able to do it. And at the end of the conversation, I said, how was it, bro? Do you feel shame? Do you feel condemned? Do you feel judged? He said, no, way easier than I thought. And that's actually the truth of people who are led by the Spirit. We're going to love you. We're going to accept you. We're going to say, hey, I'm not— he who's without sin cast the first stone.

Yeah.

It may not be lust, but maybe your thing is gluttony. Maybe your thing is slander. Maybe your thing is gossip. Maybe your thing is lying, because all those are still listed in there as well, by the way, right? So he who's without sin cast the first stone. We've got to take this thing from a place of like, ew, And I understand it. I get it to the place of like, yeah, but you can't stay there and we're going to help you get out of this thing.

Yeah, that's good, brother. Thank you so much for sharing that. So for someone who has a testimony, what can that person do practically? And the person who's struggling right now listening to us, what can they do practically? We talked a bit about some of the practicals of, you know, but like, what are some of the next steps right now that they can start Yeah, it's good.

So if you're— if you have come through and you're walking in freedom, meaning that you're not in bondage to it, um, if you were going to start walking with someone else and you said, yeah, I feel that I want to start helping other people, um, I'd love to have a conversation with you and just resource you with a couple tools that we use at Release the Strongman for free. It's just— I, I just believe that the Father wants— now is the time. He's doing the work to wash the robes, to get the bride ready for the return of Yeshua. We want that to come, but not with a spotted, like, robe. So We all— it's all hands on deck for this. But I'd love to have a conversation and just kind of help you with some little stuff. Or it may just be if you feel that you're at a good place, a lot of this is telling your testimony and then being available to just be a high-level accountability for someone, loving them, checking in on them. There's all kinds of resources. Again, I'd love to share with you screen accountability and stuff like that, some scriptures and things that we could go through that would resource you, and then really being available to hear without judgment, to love and pray and teach. We're ultimately just talking about discipleship. It's time to disciple these people in a very one-on-one space. I'm currently looking for more people that would want to walk with men. We have an influx of guys coming in all the time, and, and we need to continue to add more people to, to release the strongman in a volunteer way. For those of you who are struggling right now, I feel you. I know what that's like. I was 40 years old when I, when I broke free. I know what it's like to be enslaved in bondage to that thing. I may smile a lot about it when I talk about it. It's because I know what it's like to be free. And I want you to feel that this isn't some, like, gross thing. I don't look at you as someone that's gross or anything like that. You know, God's mercy— we talk about God's mercies, how they're new every morning. Do you know what mercy, mercy is? It's looking at someone who is afflicted with the desire to help them out of their affliction. That's God's mercy that's new every morning. And I want to be that type of person. We want to be those types of people that see the afflicted and say, you know what, and I also have a desire to see you broken free from that. That's what we do. And so I would say, if you don't know anybody in your life that you respect, you need to find somebody. We're available. There's other— there's tons of ministries out there that are available doing this thing right now. The best thing you can do is find someone that you can sit across from a lunch or coffee on a weekly basis, because that personal one-on-one, man, we were made— we were made for that face-to-face. But that takes a risk. It's, it's risky to open up about this stuff, but you know what's worse is being stuck in that thing for another 5 or 10 years. Or like you said earlier, PD, you know, our Father Yahweh is very jealous for his name. He's jealous in the way that we carry his name. You see it all throughout the Torah. And when we claim his name, but we continue to practice sins and practice immorality, there's only a couple choices that, that he has. And oftentimes it can come through exposure. I heard someone tell me one time, there are 2 ways that someone can get deliverance from a thing that's got him in bondage. One is through prayer, and that's the preferred method. We get on our face and we beg God for deliverance. But the other is through pain. And God in his goodness will cause pain in our life through exposure or whatever it is, and it's always to the point of repentance, teshuvah, returning to him so that we will be broken enough to truly get on our face and beg him for deliverance.

That's good, brother. A lot of people who are in addiction, no matter what type of addiction it is, they ended up there because something happened in their life. Sometimes it's because they were so extremely chronically lonely. They just didn't have anyone. There was a void. There was maybe a parental void. Maybe there was past abuse from childhood or wherever.

Yeah.

Maybe it's because it was a divorce. Maybe it was because, you know, there's oftentimes these are results of sins that were done against us that drove us to this place to find comfort, right? Even though it's wrong, it's the wrong place to look for it. I think it's still helpful for us to recognize as believers, right, who are coming around people who are struggling, that this brother, this sister is, as you said, Aaron, in bondage. You know, I think most people listening to this, they're like, I don't want to do this. Like Paul said, right? That which I don't want to do, I do. And that what I do, I don't want to do. It's like this Yeah. And I think that it's valuable and to recognize that as pertaining to what you said, which is you're not disgusting. It's part of what all of us in different areas of life have struggled with, whatever our sin is. And that means we can look upon one another in mercy.

If you're someone out there who needs help, now's the day of salvation. You know, we could, we could look back and we could say, well, I got it, but I think, I think I'm going to be okay now that I've heard this. I'm convicted. I got this on my own. I just want to say, like, you can try that, but really, man, when you have a group of men who are all struggling with the same thing, moving in the exact same direction as a big unified body of brothers, that type of healing, breakthrough, deliverance can come in a very, very short amount of time. And that's what we want. You know, God has a specific calling and a purpose for your life. God has created you uniquely different than anyone else, and you actually have giftings and talents and ability that's different than everyone else. We don't want to be bound up by things. We want to walk into the calling that God has given us. And so don't, don't be okay with being bound in this another day.

Guys, thank you so much for joining us. I want to just— Aaron, can we pray for anyone right now who's struggling Yeah, absolutely.

And then will we be able to talk a little bit about a few needs that we have in the ministry as well?

Yeah, go for it.

Yeah, great. Thank you, Father. Thank you so much for this time with, with, with Petey. I just love my brother, that the fact that he would show up and want to use this platform to really talk about something that I believe is so near and dear to your heart. You've called us to be holy and set apart people for your purpose. And Father, we have, we have gone after other gods. We have worshiped other gods. We have committed adultery and we have cheated and lied and manipulated and all these things. And we repent, Father. We repent for the things that we've done. And we just— I know there are so many out there that feel this, to say, I don't want to be this person any longer. And so, Father, I pray that you would Build strength in them right now, Father. Encourage them to reach out, to get help, to say, I am done. I will no longer be a slave to this thing. I am a son of God. That is your identity, son and daughter of God. That is your identity, not a slave to sin. And so, Father, whatever needs to happen. in their life. Father, I pray that you would do that. Give them dreams, give them visions, wake them up, confirm this through scripture, confirm it through other people. But Father, I pray that today would be the day that they take action. And Father, I pray that you would continue doing what you're doing, which is to sweep a wave of purity over the bride of Messiah. As we are washing our robes, getting ready for the return of Yeshua, Father, help us to do our spiritual laundry, to get the spot and the wrinkles and the blemish that are on, on the, the wedding garments, to be ready for the return of Yeshua. I pray for anybody and everybody out there listening. Father, show them what they can do to help push the church towards that space. And give us the ability, the courage, and the strength to do that. Father, I pray that you're glorified through this time, not us, not man, nobody. We deflect and give you all the glory and the honor that you deserve. We want none of it. We give it all to you in Yeshua's name. Amen.

Amen. Aaron, please share a little bit about how people can help you in your ministry.

Yeah, so it's been a beautiful summer. where we feel like we have actually had quite an influx of men coming in, and that's been a good problem. But there are a few things that we actually do need in the ministry. I mean, it's really actually just me, and I've got another guy that kind of helps out, and my wife supports me with prayer and encouragement. But we're at the place where I believe that there's about to be a harvest of men coming that need help. And so forgive me for just reading this off. I wrote it out because there's a couple couple things that I just wanted to specifically reach out to a few people that maybe you find yourself in one of these areas. You have an opportunity to invest in the kingdom and what God's doing right now in the body of Christ. I want to invite you into that space. I've already talked to the men that are out there. If you, if you are struggling, like, please reach out today. But if you're a person, a man or a woman, who has a gift of administration, has an extra 5 hours a week. We are actually really in need of someone to help in that space, to help with emails and to help with just paperwork and stuff like that. I know there are people that are extremely gifted in this area. If you're a prayer warrior and feel led to fight on behalf of the families, the men, the women that are the recipients of this, going through these tough spiritual battles, we're, we're currently looking to build a really robust prayer team that, that would be probably in an online space to consistently pray through the needs of the ministry. That's something that I would be a part of, and I'd update on a consistent basis. And just for the men out there saying, oh no, there's a prayer team, this is completely ambiguous. We don't talk about the details of what's going on. No names are shared. We have an incredibly confidential group of men that we go through, and people sign paperwork and all that stuff. But this is, hey, here's a direction we can be praying for the ministry. We really want to build a prayer team. We want to be fighting this spiritual battle with spiritual things. If you're someone who is gifted in marketing, social media, we're looking for some people who can help manage those channels, post consistently, respond to messages as they come in. That would be a blessing to us. If you have a passion for fundraising and raising support, we're looking for someone who will help make connections with potential donors, and I would love to have a conversation with you. And then lastly, I say this lastly on purpose because I know that the Father is good and And he will continue to provide what we need. But if none of those fit you and you say, I still want to invest in this, I feel this very deeply, and God's blessed you financially and you have a heart to support the work of what we're doing, you can do that by donating at releasethestrongman.com. There's a place to donate. You can set up recurring donations or one time, but whatever God would lead you to do in that, that would just allow us to continue to really do the day-to-day things that we need to continue to grow this and really make a wave in the body of Messiah. Thank you for that, Aaron.

Thank you so much for blessing us just with your presence and sharing a bit about how people can be set free. I think it's such an important conversation. I hope I can continue having it with you.

Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, PD.

Guys, thank you for joining us. Subscribe to the channel if you're new here. Like this video, comment below what you think, and, um, can't wait to see you in the next one. Shalom.