here's the key truth you become a slave to whatever you choose to obey so notice you become now become is not an event become is a process it's very important that you understand that it's not a one-time event it's actually a process all right it happens through repeated decisions over time thank you hey everyone welcome to Lesson Four of porn free in our last lesson we talked about why I can't stop dealing with the spiritual aspect so in this lesson what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the behavioral and the psychological
patterns that develop that really keep us from stopping and I it's really going to Enlighten you what we're going to go into in these next couple lessons but Paul makes a statement and this is our foundational statement for last lesson in this lesson in Romans 7 21-23 I have discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what is right I inevitably do what is wrong have you ever felt that way before we saw last lesson it's because we're constricted by the word of God spiritually rather than it being our Delight so the
spiritual is always the root I mean you always have to go to the root of a tree in order to destroy the fruit so I want to make this very very clear even though I'm going to the psychological I'm going to the behavioral and this this lesson if you don't deal with that root it doesn't matter how much you try to deal with the behavior or the psychological you're not going to get free so it's very important that you understand that I inevitably do what is wrong I love God's law with all my heart but
there's another power within me that's at war with my mind this power makes me a slave to the sin that is still Within Me all right so what makes us slaves Paul gives the answer in Romans 6 16-18 listen very carefully don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey so this doesn't apply to just pornography this applies in any area of life you become a slave to whatever you choose to obey you can be a slave to sin Paul says which leads to death or you can choose to obey
God which leads to righteous living thank God once you were slaves to sin but now you wholeheartedly did you hear that wholeheartedly so my friend in the last lesson didn't wholeheartedly want freedom from the cigarette smoking when you wholeheartedly Paul says obey this teaching we have given you you become a person who lives a righteous life now you are free from the slavery of sin and let me tell you it is a wonderful thing to be free from the slavery of sin and that's where all of us on these lessons are going and I'm so
excited that you're staying the course here's the key truth you become a slave to whatever you choose to obey so notice you become now become is not an event become is a process it's very important that you understand that it's not a one-time event it's actually a process all right it happens through repeated decisions over time so basically you enslave Yourself by repeatedly sinning or disobeying God's word so it's a process what Paul is saying in Romans is now being confirmed by modern neuroscience and this is what's so amazing it's important that we see the
connection between the spiritual and the physical process or the psychological process involved in this addiction so this is what Neuroscience has discovered and I'm going to say this I want you to listen really closely to what I'm about to read repeated behaviors so you hear that repeated repeated repeated get reinforced so you you put you putting the two together repeated reinforced got it repeated behaviors get reinforced in our brains through the formation of neural Pathways which allow our brains to save time and energy in making decisions okay so our brain wants to do that it
wants to be an efficient machine so repeated porn assisted masturbation will shorten it call it Pam forms and reinforces strong neurological Pathways in our brains okay which as long as that pathway is traveled it remains thoughts in the brain function much like a trail system in the woods so this is the way scientists explain it for us novices think about a woods and it's very thick very dense but there's a pathway in the woods I know you've probably hiked trails in the woods before the more you walk the trail the more the um the the
stuff that grows on that trail is trampled down and the more it's cleared and the longer you walk that trail the wider and more reinforced it becomes so this is what happens neurologically when we're going to porn and then we have assisted masturbation from that pornography we start creating a trail and you know what happens our mind wants to go there so it's very very dangerous because we are setting our mind to do something that is actually damaging our lives in the long run and so I'm going to read what what this one science book
says when we seek to change a behavior we have to stop taking the well-traveled path choosing instead to blaze a new Trail that's really important that you understand that obviously this is difficult at first so you changing your behavior from looking at porn and then masturbating to developing A New Path which we're going to talk about is not easy so if you think this is going to be a piece of cake no I'm gonna tell you this is gonna take work this is going to take effort on your part because you are literally see yourself
in this woods and you're blazing a new Trail and you're letting everything overgrow on the previous Trail you see what I'm saying and this is what's happening neurologically science has proven it it's amazing obviously this is difficult at first it will feel like hacking your way through a rainforest with a machete but over time the more you walk the New Path the better it gets eventually it becomes as well worn as the old path the old path which decreases frequency of travel will eventually not be at no use at all it becomes overgrown as the
new one used to be so this is what we're attempting to do neurologically or in our minds and this will happen because we have the power of the machete and you know what that is that's the sword of the spirit which is the word of God and this is what we're going to talk about but I'm just want to prepare you that this is going to be work okay this is going to take effort in the sense I'm not not saying that you're doing it in your own strength God's going to assist you but you
have to make this decision to obey you have to make the decision I'm done with this I don't like it anymore I don't want it anymore I'm sorry that I've hurt God's heart I'm sorry that I'm hurting the people's heart and I'm going to forge this new Trail and I'm going to do it with effort but God's going to supply the grace and it's going to be by his grace not by your own effort I hope you understand what I'm saying there you have to make the effort to decide to obey the effort to carry
it out but God will give you the grace to do it because here's the deal no one when they have really become enslaved to sin can get free In Their Own Strength it takes God to be able to do it it takes his grace to be able to do it so um porn causes changes in the brain they've proven this much like substance addiction all right modern science is now showing that regular use of pornography causes something called frontal lobe atrophy now why is this important okay in our frontal lobes is where we make our
decisions in regard to moral decisions like um willpower delaying gratification all of this is in the frontal lobe if we have frontal lobe atrophy what this means is our willpower will go down so now we don't have the ability to stand against sin because we have developed neurologically this frontal lobe atrophy this is really quite scary when you think about it okay so here's the hopeful thought because we always want to mix hope in here it was previously thought that the brain stops developing during early adulthood however modern science is showing that the brain retains
its neuroplasticity throughout life in other words you can create new paths even when you're old that's what I'm putting that in layman's term although the rate of change declines with age so here's the deal the older you get the harder it's going to be neurologically but it's still able to be accomplished by the grace of God the brain forms neurological Pathways to save energy and prioritize efficiency of behavior over time so you have to understand the more you look at porn the more your brain will want to go right to it all right so frontal
lobe atrophy actually creates a cycle in our life and I'm going to take this cycle from a very good friend of mine named Pastor chip Judd he's actually a pastor and aside psychologist but he says we have four things that happen once we develop this frontal lobe atrophy we have trigger we have response we have reward and we have repeat now this is very interesting let's talk about trigger an event happens that triggers a negative feeling in you that you wish to avoid okay I.E pain rejection boredom loneliness low self-image lack of control hopelessness sadness
stress disappointment these are all these negative feelings that will trigger okay but also it could be an event that triggers positive feelings all right so past excitement arousal climax Etc okay so that trigger will develop a response response is a behavior that is chosen in attempt to either negate the negative feeling that was triggered or reinforce the positive feeling that was triggered all right usually it's a combination of both of them the chosen response gives us that temporary reward that we want to have the pleasure the arousal Etc and a pathway now is created as
I talked about like forging a pathway through the woods in the brain with every repetition of the cycle so of course that reward does what it causes us to repeat because we want that reward again this is what happens in a person's brain so the more you do it the more you want to do it the more you look at porn the more you want to see porn so you need to starve it you need to fast it and this is what we're going to get into in future lessons in the case of porn addiction
every time you have a sexual climax whether it's real through fantasy or your body releases what happens is your body releases a flood of neurotransmitters meant to reinforce the pleasurable Behavior so that you'll repeat it all right though these are naturally produced in your body they are very highly addictive one would be dopamine dopamine often referred to as the pleasure hormone dopamine is highly addictive as your body creates a strong association with whatever you were doing when it was released creating a neural pathway again we're talking about neural Pathways being created that increases your propensity
to repeat that very same behavior okay second is oxytocin oxytocin is the hormone associated with the feeling of closeness now this is so dangerous and while meant to form a strong bond between a husband and wife it can just as easily form a bond between you and that woman or that man on the screen that's dangerous all right oxytocin counteracts cortisol cortisol is one of the main stress hormones which is the reason people are more susceptible to Temptation when they're under stress okay and the final one that I want to talk about is serotonin serotonin
helps regulate our mood and so it's strongly associated with feelings of peace hopefulness and happiness it also helps counteract the feelings of depression and hopelessness common among those who are in porn now isn't that interesting people are thinking okay pornography is relieving me from the depression from the stress but in actuality in the long run it's actually adding to your stress and adding to your moodiness to your depression the important thing to understand is that we do have many god-given and legitimate needs we have need for love we have need for acceptance belonging worth food
arousal sex sleep Comfort affirmation friendship excitement Etc we have need of those God made us that way but he wants us to get it in the right place so addictive behavior now please understand this is rooted in something you know what's rooted in idolatry what is idolatry a friend of mine chip Judd again says all addictive behaviors start with idolatry which is putting someone or something before or in place of God we break the cycle by learning to look to God first to meet our needs so in reality what it does is it creates a
fake intimacy with an image on a screen when in reality you need that in that intimacy and you have to first get it from God and you have to secondly get it from your spouse and so really what pornography addiction of pornography does is it blocks off those avenues that we can really have true intimacy it's very very dangerous anything you say yes to over and over again gains power over you anything you say no to over and over again loses power over you so we began in Romans chapter 7 with verses 21 through 23
two lessons ago we said it was our foundational scripture let me read it again I've discovered this principle of life that when I want to do what's right I inevitably do what's wrong I love God's law with all of my heart but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind this power makes me a slave to the sin that is within me is there any hope for this person absolutely look listen to what the Apostle Paul says a few verses later he's says oh what a miserable person I am who
will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death thank God the answer is in Jesus Christ Our Lord so so how do we find complete total freedom we're going to answer that in the next coming lessons [Music]
