# Kyle Thompson: Jesus Is Both the Lion and the Lamb, Ep. 47

An episode of [The Walk Worthy Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1832487476), 29 Jun 2026, 1 h 18 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2526976/episodes/19407081-kyle-thompson-jesus-is-both-the-lion-and-the-lamb-ep-47.mp3

Kyle Thompson built Undaunted.Life on one conviction: a man doesn’t have to choose between godly and manly. He read the Gospels and met a Jesus who is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God, perfect Truth and perfect grace. Joshua sits down with Kyle to hold those two together: the lie that splits strength from tenderness, what it means to push back darkness when you are the darkness in your own house, and how to call sin what it is without crushing the man who already knows. Two men, opposite ends, same question, grace for the one who has already fallen. For the man who’s sure he missed the cut. There’s no such thing as too far gone. Subscribe now so you don’t miss future episodes, and join us as we take a stand for sexual integrity and spiritual wholeness—one step at a time. Get Covenant Eyes Free Today! cvnteyes.co/3QPTlIo Promo Code is: AACC Follow us on social media! Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/walkworthy_ministry?igsh=cHdkeGVoM2tldXV3 YouTube — https://youtube.com/@walkworthy-ministry?si=zG-fa7ENsfvXc_k3 TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@walkworthyministry?_t=ZP-8ymyTw7xVKp&_r=1

## Transcript

[0:02] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Walkworthy Podcast, where honest conversations spark real transformation, and biblical truth meets everyday life.
[0:10] SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Joshua Broom, and every week we'll dive deep into culture's most pressing issues with experts, pastors, counselors, and leaders who are not afraid to tell the truth.
[0:23] SPEAKER_02: From sexual integrity and relationships to purpose, identity, and calling, we're going there.
[0:29] SPEAKER_02: No filters, just freedom.
[0:32] SPEAKER_02: Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1 says this live a life worthy of the calling you've received.
[0:40] SPEAKER_02: So whether you're chasing healing, clarity, or courage to keep standing in today's world, you are not alone, and you're in the right place.
[0:50] SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you're here, and let's go now into today's conversation.
[1:02] SPEAKER_00: This episode contains honest conversations about sin, brokenness, and redemption in Christ.
[1:07] SPEAKER_00: Some topics, such as pornography, sexual brokenness, and trauma, may be difficult to hear for some listeners.
[1:13] SPEAKER_00: We share them to point you to the healing and hope found only in Jesus.
[1:17] SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
[1:22] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another episode of Walkworthy, and I'm here with my friend Kyle Thompson.
[1:27] SPEAKER_02: So you host The Undaunted Life, you host uh the Daily Blade, and man, uh you you you do a lot of uh kick and butt, man.
[1:35] SPEAKER_02: I I as you I see you doing uh, you know, some boxing, some some mue thai.
[1:40] SPEAKER_02: Well, no, I'm actually I'm retired from violence.
[1:42] SPEAKER_02: Uh okay.
[1:43] SPEAKER_01: Anyone that listens to my show, I I ruptured my bicep doing some of those activities.
[1:46] SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm thinking about going the pacifistic route, you know, just kind of allowing darkness to happen without me getting involved.
[1:52] SPEAKER_02: So we'll see how long that lasts.
[1:54] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:55] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think it's really interesting because we're coming out of Father's Day.
[1:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:58] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you we we both are, you know, dads to boys, and uh, we want to to lead by example.
[2:05] SPEAKER_02: And I think there's something, you know, when you get injured.
[2:08] SPEAKER_02: So I was walking uh with my kids and we were going up this ravine, and I I had Judah in my hand, and all of a sudden my feet went into the air and I I saved him but didn't save myself.
[2:20] SPEAKER_02: And I did something uh yet to be discovered to my name.
[2:24] SPEAKER_02: And uh it's it's frustrating, you know.
[2:26] SPEAKER_02: So like when you're when you're walking through an energy uh an injury, I think at times that injury can be humbling, can be frustrating, and it's just that idea of meekness rightly understood.
[2:38] SPEAKER_02: I need to be capable of violence to withhold violence.
[2:40] SPEAKER_02: Um what what are you learning as a dad where not just about your injury, but um for you in this season of life, what does it mean to you to be a good dad?
[2:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean the the injury certainly sucks for me, but it might suck for my boys more than it does me because they're six and four, and their favorite game in the world to play is called Bad Guys, which consists of me sitting on the couch and us fighting to the death for like hours at a time.
[3:08] SPEAKER_01: They're just jumping off stuff, like dropping elbows, like going nuts.
[3:11] SPEAKER_01: And so when I ruptured my bicep boxing, the timing probably couldn't have been much worse because you know, I've been training jujitsu for nine years.
[3:22] SPEAKER_01: I got a couple stripes in my brown belt, like realistically speaking, was knocking on the door of getting your black belt.
[3:28] SPEAKER_01: I mean, for me, that that's a bigger accomplishment than a master's degree or like something because it just takes so much more effort and so much more time.
[3:35] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, physically, you know, I turned 40 this year, I was as strong as I'd ever been on all my lifts, like still fast, could still jump.
[3:42] SPEAKER_01: Like I was still athletically active.
[3:45] SPEAKER_01: And then you get a debilitating injury like this, which leads to like a crazy amount of atrophy in the arm.
[3:51] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you're looking, you're staring down the barrel of a six-month recovery.
[3:56] SPEAKER_01: And by six-month recovery, that doesn't mean, oh, in six months you'll be back to where you were.
[3:59] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, no, no.
[3:59] SPEAKER_01: In six months, you'll be cleared to get back to the activities to start the process of getting back to where you were.
[4:07] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, with big tendon ruptures and all that, people can typically heal, but they're like, okay, am I gonna ever be the person that I was before?
[4:14] SPEAKER_01: And mainly for me, I'm the resilience guy.
[4:19] SPEAKER_01: For 10 years on my show, I've been talking about cultivating spiritual, mental, and physical resilience, forging that on a daily basis.
[4:26] SPEAKER_01: I talk about resilience instead of strength because strength wanes over time, right?
[4:29] SPEAKER_01: So Hal Thor Bjornsson's is probably the strongest man on the planet right now, at least when it comes to deadlift.
[4:33] SPEAKER_01: He won't be in 30 years, right?
[4:36] SPEAKER_01: But he could still be a resilient athlete, even at that age, if he's blessed enough to make it there, because he's doing the right things to take care of his body.
[4:43] SPEAKER_01: And so ultimately I'm trying to uh display toughness, poise, resilience.
[4:50] SPEAKER_01: Um, and even the boys are kind of getting to learn about hey, how does dad deal with adversity?
[4:55] SPEAKER_01: Like, does dad just sit there and curse the whole planet?
[4:58] SPEAKER_01: Is dad just gonna sit on his butt for six months while he licks his wounds?
[5:01] SPEAKER_01: But it's like, no, hey, three times a week I'm doing legs and every day's right arm day.
[5:06] SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
[5:07] SPEAKER_01: Like, and I'm just I'm doing what I can, even though I can't do what I want to.
[5:11] SPEAKER_01: And and ultimately, those boys, I'm trying to raise the most toxically masculine boys possible, you know, in terms of how culture sees it, because if culture calls it toxic, we can pretty much call that biblical, right?
[5:21] SPEAKER_01: And so I just want them to see toughness, I want them to see it modeled.
[5:25] SPEAKER_01: They see me still going to jujitsu practice, yeah, right.
[5:29] SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be watching for six months, but I'm keeping the brain engaged.
[5:33] SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm showing them the lessons that they probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
[5:36] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I think there's something to learn from that because you know, I love training, and uh like sure, there's an aesthetic, you know, component to that, there's um a health component to that, there's a cognitive component to that.
[5:50] SPEAKER_02: But when you get injured, um I I think it's it's sometimes it can throw you off.
[5:56] SPEAKER_02: And I I love what you were saying because one of my favorite books is Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert E.
[6:00] SPEAKER_02: Coleman, and he talks about uh he talks a lot about how most people are not looking for a uh demonstration.
[6:07] SPEAKER_02: Or they're they're they're not looking for an explanation, they're looking for a demonstration.
[6:10] SPEAKER_01: That's right.
[6:11] SPEAKER_02: So how we demonstrate what does it look like to be resilient when it's not easy is important.
[6:17] SPEAKER_02: So you're you're teaching them, well, this is what it looks like to navigate conflict because the probability of them being injured is incredibly high.
[6:24] SPEAKER_02: That's right.
[6:25] SPEAKER_02: You know?
[6:25] SPEAKER_01: When do you want to be the dad that's always saying, Do as I say, not as I do?
[6:28] unknown: Right.
[6:29] SPEAKER_01: You get a few of those, right?
[6:31] SPEAKER_01: As a dad, as you're raising a boy or something like that.
[6:33] SPEAKER_01: But the more you give them, the less respect they're gonna, they're gonna give you.
[6:37] SPEAKER_01: Because it's like at some point they're gonna connect the dots.
[6:39] SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute, dad.
[6:40] SPEAKER_01: If if this is what I'm supposed to be doing, then why aren't why aren't you doing that?
[6:43] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[6:44] SPEAKER_01: It's like you're you're not modeling this behavior, but you're telling me that I have to do that behavior.
[6:48] SPEAKER_01: It's like you just you just don't want to be that dad.
[6:50] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[6:50] SPEAKER_02: And and there's something that um I I would uh when I see you, uh from this is the first time we're hanging out in person, but yeah, when I see you online, uh I see a masochistic quality about you with your affinity for an airdine.
[7:06] SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
[7:07] SPEAKER_02: And uh so you know, me just an OG CrossFitter, so it's whether it be an airdyne or an echo bike or whatever, um, there there is this benefit to threshold training that um it's unlike anything else, but it seems to be something, man.
[7:22] SPEAKER_02: Uh if it correct me if I'm wrong, but there's something that's something that you implement pretty regularly.
[7:27] SPEAKER_01: Oh that that's the end of every lifting session, is that airdyne.
[7:31] SPEAKER_01: And the reason I do it, Josh, is because I hate it.
[7:33] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[7:34] SPEAKER_01: Like that's because it sucks so bad is the reason that I do it.
[7:39] SPEAKER_01: And because I tell people all the time, like, there's this concept I thought of of like, hey, you you've seen you do that before.
[7:45] SPEAKER_01: So let's say, you know, you were tired, you know, whatever, but you get your stuff, you go to the gym, you walk in, and you just kind of meander around, do a couple of sets of whatever for 15 minutes, and then you're like, I just I gotta go take care of my body, I gotta, you know, listen to my body, and then you just leave.
[7:58] SPEAKER_01: Well, you've seen you do that before.
[8:00] SPEAKER_01: You know, you were supposed to do five sets, but you only did four.
[8:03] SPEAKER_01: You've seen you do that before.
[8:05] SPEAKER_01: And the big equalizer is sprints because once you stop sprinting, once you stop jumping, like your body just stops being able to do those things as you age.
[8:15] SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, when I'm healthy and can actually pump both arms, I will run sprints.
[8:21] SPEAKER_01: And I do a, you know, this is after I lift.
[8:24] SPEAKER_01: So imagine doing a heavy deadlift session with a light squat session, and then at the very, very end going to the street and running sprints.
[8:32] SPEAKER_01: And my workout after I warm up is 10 100 yard sprints with a 30-second rest in between.
[8:38] SPEAKER_01: But the last one I try to make the worst.
[8:41] SPEAKER_01: And so I don't just run to the end of the street.
[8:43] SPEAKER_01: I go around the cul-de-sac and then I run back past my house.
[8:46] SPEAKER_01: So it ends up being two, three hundred meters, maybe longer.
[8:49] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[8:50] SPEAKER_01: And if I ever don't do that, I've seen me do that before.
[8:53] SPEAKER_01: Because I lift alone.
[8:54] SPEAKER_01: I lift in my garage by myself.
[8:56] SPEAKER_01: I run sprints almost always by myself.
[8:58] SPEAKER_01: So I don't have a someone at the gym I'm trying to impress, I don't have like any PRs I'm trying to set.
[9:02] SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to like stay like in crazy good shape for my age and build an athletic ability.
[9:08] SPEAKER_01: But if you constantly see yourself negotiating with yourself, like if you constantly negotiate with your alarm clock in the morning, right?
[9:16] SPEAKER_01: No, you predecide yesterday that assuming the light, you know, the lights come on for me in the morning and that my leg didn't fall off while I slept, no, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go lift, or I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna go run.
[9:26] SPEAKER_01: But just most people don't really have that disposition.
[9:28] SPEAKER_01: But how many people do you know, Josh, that do something strictly because it sucks so bad?
[9:33] SPEAKER_01: Like we do everything we can to avoid the echo bike because it sucks.
[9:38] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, we're hey, after a hard workout, we're gonna do 10 minutes on that thing, 20 second sprints with 10 second rest, and we're gonna end with a 30 cal sprint.
[9:45] SPEAKER_01: Why?
[9:45] SPEAKER_01: Because it sucks.
[9:46] SPEAKER_01: That's why.
[9:47] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think there's something beneficial to that in that um to to be able to be successful at threshold training mean that um if if I'm if I'm gonna be successful at 10 you know sets of you know, every 30 seconds at the top of the 30 seconds, I'm gonna do 15 calories or something like that.
[10:08] SPEAKER_02: Uh I have to know what 90% feels like, but to understand what 90% feels like, I've got to understand what 100% feels like.
[10:15] SPEAKER_01: And I gotta do that.
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: You gotta know where red line is.
[10:17] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[10:17] SPEAKER_02: And I think that's scary.
[10:19] SPEAKER_02: So my my point in asking you all that is uh you kind of touched on it regarding the power of predecision.
[10:25] SPEAKER_02: Uh, when I pre-decide something, I'm saying um that discipline is not something that I would like to have, it's something that is intrinsic regarding who I am, and that's a biblical characteristic.
[10:40] SPEAKER_02: Why do you think that implementing physical training has so much of a correlation with our spiritual maturity?
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: Well, part of it is because you use a word that most people don't try, try and achieve, and that's discipline.
[10:54] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: Everyone's talking about motivation, what's getting me motivated, right?
[10:59] SPEAKER_01: And so there's a difference between the man that wakes up, doesn't want to work out, and just goes and does it anyway, because that's what being physically resilient requires.
[11:08] SPEAKER_01: And the man then wakes up, doesn't want to train, and then opens up his phone to make sure that Jocko woke up at 4:30, you know, or that Cam Haynes, you know, ran extra yesterday, or that David Goggins is screaming about the boats and who's gonna carry them.
[11:21] SPEAKER_01: And it's just like motivation's fine.
[11:24] unknown: Right.
[11:24] SPEAKER_01: I'm fine with motivation, but motivation is incredibly fleeting and supremely temporary, right?
[11:31] SPEAKER_01: But if you have a disciplined approach to life, and I always, you're right, Josh, I always look at it in a physical context because that's the easiest one for people to see immediately, yeah, is physical discipline because there aren't a whole lot of options.
[11:44] SPEAKER_01: You are either physically disciplined or you're physically undisciplined.
[11:47] SPEAKER_01: There, there's really no areas of gradation.
[11:50] SPEAKER_01: And so if somebody's physically disciplined, it requires a lot.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: So if you know you're gonna wake up at 5:30 the next morning to go do deadlift in your garage, are you gonna stay up late tonight drinking beer?
[12:00] SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
[12:01] SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna watch that extra, you know, binge episode of whatever show you're doing and get even less sleep?
[12:06] SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
[12:08] SPEAKER_01: Like, are you gonna be, you know, uh abusing drugs, are you gonna be doing those things?
[12:12] SPEAKER_01: No, or are you gonna tuck yourself into bed at around 9:15 so that you're up and ready for the next day?
[12:18] SPEAKER_01: And you're right, the the endorphins and all the positives you get from that.
[12:20] SPEAKER_01: But even setting all that aside, if the most difficult thing that I have to do today I can check off before most people are awake, bro, I'm already at an advantage.
[12:31] SPEAKER_01: And that has nothing to do with how motivated I am.
[12:34] SPEAKER_01: Cause people, I've had this happen before.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: I was on this uh coaching call.
[12:37] SPEAKER_01: This was years ago.
[12:38] SPEAKER_01: It was some sort of mastermind group.
[12:39] SPEAKER_01: This business guru guy invited me to come on to talk to his people, and I talked about the difference between motivation and discipline.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: And the very first question I got was from this real smarmy guy.
[12:48] SPEAKER_01: I could just see it all over his dumb face.
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: He was just like, well, that's okay for people that are like you, people that are wired for discipline.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: But what about for the rest of us?
[12:57] SPEAKER_01: What are we supposed to do?
[12:58] SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, first of all, you just made an agreement with something that's not true.
[13:02] SPEAKER_01: That you can't be a disciplined person.
[13:04] SPEAKER_01: You think I was born this way?
[13:05] SPEAKER_01: You think I came out of the womb looking for the nearest echo bike?
[13:09] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[13:09] SPEAKER_01: Like that wasn't something that happened.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: That is something that I made agreements with the positive side because I realized life is about deposits.
[13:17] unknown: Yeah.
[13:18] SPEAKER_01: And you put deposits in the right account when you need a withdrawal, like right now, yeah, going through this recovery.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: I'm taking a lot of withdrawals from that bank.
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: But bro, I've been making deposits for years and years and years.
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: But if you don't put any deposits, it's like a retirement account.
[13:34] SPEAKER_01: Like if you start saving at 64 and a half, you will never make it, right?
[13:37] SPEAKER_01: You you got to do this a long, long time ago.
[13:40] SPEAKER_01: But again, it's just the paradigm shift for people to where it's like motivation's fine.
[13:44] SPEAKER_01: But I'm like, if if you're motivated to do something, I would all the more advocate for you not doing it simply because you're motivated to do it.
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: It's like, go find something you're not motivated to do and go do that because that'll help you get more discipline.
[13:56] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
[13:57] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think you're talking about this idea of equity, and so that I have X amount of equity so I can pull from it when I need it, because let's say that you were not fit and then you tore your bicep.
[14:07] SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, then that would, you know, your roadback is gonna be terrible.
[14:10] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're you're gonna be at a deficit.
[14:12] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[14:13] SPEAKER_02: Uh and I and I think that's why the Bible over and over again, you see agriculture, you see the military, you see physical training, because it's there's this system and structure that if you implement, it's gonna yield results.
[14:23] SPEAKER_02: Right.
[14:24] SPEAKER_02: And I think what we were talking about earlier is that, well, if I don't have a biblical structure that's not built on my feelings or emotions, then I'm going to bend to the world.
[14:38] SPEAKER_02: I I love uh John 16, 33.
[14:40] SPEAKER_02: It's one of my favorite verses.
[14:41] SPEAKER_02: You know, Jesus has just said, hey, uh to his disciples, he's like, hey, it's a good thing that I go so the Holy Spirit can come.
[14:46] SPEAKER_02: And then he's saying, I've told you all these things so that in me you can have peace.
[14:50] SPEAKER_02: And in this world, you will, not maybe, you will experience trouble, tribulations, but you can take heart, you can be of good courage.
[14:56] SPEAKER_02: Why?
[14:56] SPEAKER_02: Because he's overcome the world.
[14:58] SPEAKER_02: So he's saying, Hey, uh, in me, you can have peace.
[15:01] SPEAKER_02: It's not something you can earn.
[15:03] SPEAKER_02: It's not something you can buy, it's not something that you can build up for yourself.
[15:06] SPEAKER_02: Peace is found in me.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: And in this world, as a believer, you will face trials, you experience pain.
[15:12] SPEAKER_02: You will fail people, people will fail you.
[15:15] SPEAKER_02: You will look at the world.
[15:16] SPEAKER_02: Why is it happening like this?
[15:17] SPEAKER_02: Why did you allow this?
[15:18] SPEAKER_02: Yet you can have a different perspective because he has conquered hell, death, sin, and the grave.
[15:23] SPEAKER_02: And I think in that framework, it's like, okay, I need to deposit peace within myself in the person of Jesus.
[15:32] SPEAKER_02: I need to understand what the Bible is telling me about who God is so I can understand who I am, because trouble is going to happen in this world.
[15:40] SPEAKER_02: The world is going to let me down.
[15:42] SPEAKER_02: I'm going to experience pain.
[15:44] SPEAKER_02: People are going to die, people are going to hurt me.
[15:46] SPEAKER_02: So how am I to respond to this?
[15:48] SPEAKER_02: Well, if I don't have something that's bigger than me, that doesn't, you know, move with the wind and the waves, then when life comes in at me, I'm going to fall apart.
[15:56] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[15:57] SPEAKER_02: So if you don't understand that there is definitive truth that doesn't shake, that that can impact your life.
[16:05] SPEAKER_02: And we were talking about earlier why, even you know, we're in the we're in the great state of Texas, you know, um, and uh I love uh I started studying apologetics because my little brother he adheres to universalism.
[16:19] SPEAKER_02: He is a genetics professor at Clemson University.
[16:22] SPEAKER_02: His name's Michael, I love him with all of my heart.
[16:25] SPEAKER_02: And I pray that the Holy Spirit just absolutely wrecks his life.
[16:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[16:29] SPEAKER_02: Um but I love uh Nabil Kharishi.
[16:34] SPEAKER_02: So he was the under yeah, the understudy to to Ravi Zacharias, and um, he lost his life to cancer at an early age, but absolutely brilliant.
[16:43] SPEAKER_02: And he just this idea of traditionalism in that um he he was brought up as a Muslim and he practiced that religion.
[16:53] SPEAKER_01: And he was a Muslim apologist too.
[16:55] SPEAKER_01: He was trained that way.
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: And then he goes to college and then he he interacts with uh a roommate that actually had answers for the hope that that his roommate had in the person of Jesus, and they started this dialogue, and he just became, you know, after he gave his life to Jesus, he became, you know, one of the most impactful for a short season, Christian apologists, you know, speak speaking everywhere.
[17:17] SPEAKER_02: But just this, he he talks often about this idea of traditionalism.
[17:22] SPEAKER_02: And it's like there's people that maybe they can regurgitate the Quran, but they they're not really committed to it.
[17:30] SPEAKER_02: They just want what comes with it, specific to their family.
[17:33] SPEAKER_02: And they think that because of where they were born and where they live and who they are, well, they would pledge their allegiance as being a Muslim.
[17:42] SPEAKER_02: And I think in the same way, uh we we see in the southern states, it's like, you know, you were saying earlier, man, if I drink sweet tea and I, and I and I and you know, I grew up in a home where my mom and dad were Christian and I have a Bible with my name, you know, imprinted on it.
[17:57] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I, you know, X, Y, and Z, fill in the blank.
[18:00] SPEAKER_02: You know, I go to church, I have a Bible, so on and so on.
[18:02] SPEAKER_02: But if I don't have an independent dependency on the person of Jesus Christ as my Lord and my savior, then I I I'm not just five degrees off.
[18:11] SPEAKER_02: I'm on my way to damnation.
[18:13] SPEAKER_02: Uh, why is that such a problem in places where you would say, um, isn't Texas, isn't, you know, you live in Oklahoma, isn't these places where like these are the Bible belt?
[18:26] SPEAKER_02: Um, but when people would say they're a Christian, I'm concerned.
[18:32] SPEAKER_02: What would you what would you say to that person that's man, um they they they would say they're Christian, but yeah I'm I'm not hopeful they actually are.
[18:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they own Bibles, they just don't read them.
[18:43] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[18:44] SPEAKER_01: So our our mutual buddy Matt Chandler has talked about this a lot because he has friends, you know, back where he used to live in Seattle and other places that are like, you know, literal hell holes, right?
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: So Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, wherever else.
[18:57] SPEAKER_01: And they're like, oh man, it must be so easy doing ministry down in Texas.
[19:00] SPEAKER_01: And he's like, try to convince a person that's not a Christian or a person, a person that thinks they're a Christian that they're not a Christian.
[19:07] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[19:08] SPEAKER_01: Try that on for size.
[19:09] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[19:09] SPEAKER_01: And so, because I mean, because Psalm 9710 is, oh, you who love the Lord hate evil.
[19:14] SPEAKER_01: Well, how do we know what evil is?
[19:16] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[19:16] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[19:16] SPEAKER_01: And so I constantly go back to this.
[19:18] SPEAKER_01: So if if your your listeners or viewers will look up the state of theology survey done in 2025, that was League in your Ministries.
[19:25] SPEAKER_01: That's R.C.
[19:26] SPEAKER_01: Sprouls, uh, the late R.C.
[19:27] SPEAKER_01: Sprouls ministry and Life Way, they got together to do the state of theology.
[19:31] SPEAKER_01: Now, in order to be a part of this survey, you had to answer, I think it was four or five questions that confirmed that you were an evangelical.
[19:38] SPEAKER_01: So if you didn't answer all of them in the affirmative, like, hey, the Bible is my highest authority in my life.
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: I, I, you know, I should share my faith.
[19:45] SPEAKER_01: People can only uh, you know, come, you know, come to the Father through Jesus, like that kind of thing.
[19:50] SPEAKER_01: Just to get into the survey, you had to answer all those.
[19:52] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[19:52] SPEAKER_01: But roughly half of those people said, yeah, you know, people sin here and there, but we're all generally good.
[19:59] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[19:59] SPEAKER_01: That's not a biblical ethic.
[20:00] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[20:01] SPEAKER_01: Only about half of the respondents said that marriage is between one man and one woman and was created by God.
[20:07] SPEAKER_01: About half of the respondents said that God accepts the worship of all religions, including Judaism and Islam.
[20:13] SPEAKER_01: And it's like, hold up, wait a minute.
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: You just said all that, you confirmed all the things that that meant that you were an evangelical.
[20:20] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: And then when it got into the nitty-gritty of answering these questions, you went with what society would say, what a pagan society would say, and not what the Bible says.
[20:29] SPEAKER_01: Well, how in the world does that happen?
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: It's because we have Bibles, but we don't read them.
[20:32] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[20:33] SPEAKER_01: Like, and if you live in the South, you got a stack of them.
[20:35] SPEAKER_01: And I call it country music theology.
[20:37] SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's what I call it.
[20:38] SPEAKER_01: It's like, all right, you were baptized when you were a kid.
[20:41] SPEAKER_01: You know, grandmama and grandpappy were good, you know, Christians.
[20:45] SPEAKER_01: You you stumble into a church every a few times a year.
[20:47] SPEAKER_01: You may even throw a 20 in the plate, right?
[20:50] SPEAKER_01: Every time you vote, you vote Republican, you got a you know, American flag hanging out on your porch.
[20:55] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when you listen to music, it's 90s country, which is the best kind.
[20:58] SPEAKER_01: And God's pro all that stuff, so I get to go to heaven.
[21:00] SPEAKER_01: I'm a Christian, right?
[21:01] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, absolutely not.
[21:04] SPEAKER_01: I was born on the precious red dirt of Oklahoma.
[21:06] SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make me a believer.
[21:07] SPEAKER_01: God doesn't save last names, he saves first names, right?
[21:10] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[21:11] SPEAKER_01: But we just lull ourselves to sleep with the, oh, it's probably good enough.
[21:15] SPEAKER_01: I ain't never killed nobody.
[21:17] SPEAKER_01: I worked hard my whole life.
[21:19] SPEAKER_01: I never wronged anybody.
[21:20] SPEAKER_01: I always paid my taxes, paid my bills on time.
[21:23] SPEAKER_01: It's like great.
[21:24] SPEAKER_01: That makes you a good citizen.
[21:26] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: It doesn't save you.
[21:28] unknown: Yeah.
[21:28] SPEAKER_01: Like what everything you just described to me is filthy rags.
[21:33] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: And you're not going to be saved by your works.
[21:36] SPEAKER_01: It's because it's not by works, it's by faith, by grace through faith alone, so that no man may boast.
[21:41] SPEAKER_01: At what point did you think you would tip the scales over into the world of I've done enough to receive salvation?
[21:46] SPEAKER_01: Because what you're talking about right now is actually Islam.
[21:49] SPEAKER_01: Muslims, unless they die via jihad, they don't know if they're going to heaven or not.
[21:53] SPEAKER_01: They are just hoping to goodness that their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds.
[21:57] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[21:58] SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's the The problem that we get into is a cripplingly low biblical literacy.
[22:06] SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of Christians get lulled to sleep by thinking, uh, I kind of already know what the Bible says.
[22:12] SPEAKER_01: Well, the League of Near Life way, state of theology, proved that wrong.
[22:16] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[22:16] SPEAKER_01: You don't know what it says.
[22:17] SPEAKER_01: Or worse than that, Josh, you know what it says.
[22:19] SPEAKER_01: You just don't care because it's going to make you feel icky if you have to stand up for what the Bible says about things like sex, gender, like law, like those kinds of things.
[22:30] SPEAKER_01: Ah, that's going to seem kind of judgmental and kind of sketchy.
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: You bought into this lie that Jesus was some sort of like wispy-haired Norwegian-looking guy that just went around like kissing people on the tips of their noses, telling them how cute they looked in their tunics.
[22:42] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, this is a Middle Eastern Jewish construction worker that made people so mad with his words that they tried to kill him and eventually did.
[22:48] SPEAKER_01: Like so, so this, you know, model-looking guy that's vaguely blonde-haired, blue-eyed, somehow, that that's that's it.
[22:57] SPEAKER_01: You you only think about the Lamb of God.
[22:59] SPEAKER_01: You don't really talk about the line of Judah.
[23:01] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[23:01] SPEAKER_01: Like you just miss out on everything when you don't take the Bible seriously.
[23:04] SPEAKER_01: And Joshua, honestly, I think part of the reason why people don't read the Bible is because they don't actually believe it's the word of God.
[23:09] SPEAKER_01: They believe, okay, these are the a bunch of ancient writings that were somehow inexplicably all put together in the same bound volume, right?
[23:17] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's probably been some translations because they listen to Joe Rogan.
[23:21] SPEAKER_01: Joe Rogan's obviously a biblical scholar, and they're like, yeah, well, you know, the Bible's been translated so many times.
[23:26] SPEAKER_01: It's been passed down from this language to this language to this language.
[23:29] SPEAKER_01: Things have just gotten lost in translation.
[23:31] SPEAKER_01: They don't know anything about how we got it from Koine Greek to American English.
[23:35] SPEAKER_01: They have no idea how we got it from, you know, even Germanic into old English or whatever.
[23:40] SPEAKER_01: And so it's just we don't spend any time reckoning with what it says.
[23:44] SPEAKER_01: And then when we read something in it that we don't like, we put it below us.
[23:48] SPEAKER_01: We stand on top of it and we make our preferences uh, you know, superior to what it says, and we're not being subservient to whatever the text tells us we're supposed to do.
[23:57] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[23:58] SPEAKER_02: And I I think you you you touched on something that I'd love to kind of lean into a little bit.
[24:02] SPEAKER_02: Uh you were you were talking about how Jesus is both the line of Judah and the Lamb of God.
[24:09] SPEAKER_02: And I think it's it's easy to to to love the you know the the the loving aspect of Jesus.
[24:18] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[24:18] SPEAKER_02: Um and as a man, you know, you we we we both care deeply about uh spiritual formation, physical formation, uh holistic formation for men.
[24:30] SPEAKER_02: Um what what is what does that look like in in a man's life?
[24:34] SPEAKER_02: Like what you know, I I I believe that Jesus is, you know, he's kind, he's you know, he's generous, um, you know, he he he sees uh the widow.
[24:46] SPEAKER_02: Um, but what about this revelation, Jesus, you know, with a sword in his mouth and tattoos on his thighs?
[24:53] SPEAKER_02: Like, like who is that guy?
[24:56] SPEAKER_01: So for a lot of men, and this was a big light bulb moment for me when I was in my 20s.
[25:01] SPEAKER_01: I started to read the Bible for myself uh around the same time, Wild at Heart, a few years after Wild at Heart came out, I think came out in 2001.
[25:08] SPEAKER_01: So early 2000s, I'm reading Wild of Heart.
[25:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm reading the Bible for myself.
[25:12] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, man, wait a minute.
[25:14] SPEAKER_01: This Jesus fella seemed way rougher than how I've seen him depicted in frescas and you know, some movies and TV shows and all of that.
[25:24] SPEAKER_01: And like, man, he this whip of chords thing, like, we don't have any indication that he concealed carried a whip at all times, but like he left the temple, went and made a whip, right?
[25:35] SPEAKER_01: Brought it back and drove out all the animals and all the people.
[25:40] SPEAKER_01: That's an inherently premeditated, violent act.
[25:44] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[25:45] SPEAKER_01: Violence.
[25:45] SPEAKER_01: He did violence to people and animals for his God's glory.
[25:49] SPEAKER_01: So it was, it was righteous anger.
[25:51] SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, wait a minute, I thought anger in and of itself could only be unrighteous because some fat Baptist preacher told me that if you get angry, you're sinning.
[25:58] SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, you know, what do I do?
[26:00] SPEAKER_01: I'm angry all the time.
[26:00] SPEAKER_01: I'm redheaded.
[26:01] SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
[26:02] SPEAKER_01: And so the the issue that I think a lot of men have is if you don't have an understanding of the line and the lamb, then you don't have an understanding of who Jesus is.
[26:11] SPEAKER_01: Like, imagine if your bride didn't know all the parts of you, right?
[26:16] SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean just physically, I mean like emotionally.
[26:19] SPEAKER_01: If she didn't know your disposition when you're mad, when you're sad, when you're tired, when you're joyful, when you're excited, you're you're getting the full panoply of of the view of what somebody actually is.
[26:31] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[26:31] SPEAKER_01: And so, yes, we love grace Jesus, but he's not just 50% grace, 50% truth, 75, 25, 90, 10.
[26:41] SPEAKER_01: He's 100, 100, right?
[26:43] SPEAKER_01: And so what you're gonna lean to is when the you see the scripture says speak the truth and love, you're gonna ignore the truth part and just go to the love part.
[26:50] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[26:50] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[26:51] SPEAKER_01: And so somebody's sinning in a very specific kind of way, and you were put into their life to tell them to stop it, yeah, and you won't do it because you're like, that's gonna be unloving.
[26:59] SPEAKER_01: It's like that's that's what you're gonna lean to.
[27:01] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[27:01] SPEAKER_01: Same thing about the lamb and lion.
[27:03] SPEAKER_01: So when I go speak live, typically at men's events, I will ask this question a lot of times.
[27:08] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, raise your hand if in the last year your pastor has mentioned the lamb of God from the stage.
[27:14] SPEAKER_01: Every hand goes up.
[27:15] SPEAKER_01: And I go, okay, hands down.
[27:16] SPEAKER_01: Now raise your hand if in the last year your pastors mentioned the lion of Judah.
[27:20] SPEAKER_01: Hey, one over there, a couple over there, blah, blah.
[27:23] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[27:24] SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
[27:26] SPEAKER_01: We we have plenty of descriptions of both in the in the text, right?
[27:31] SPEAKER_01: And you're right in Revelation, like Jesus comes back with eyes like fire, a head of many crowns, his hair on his head is like bright white, like he's got a robe dipped in blood.
[27:40] SPEAKER_01: Is it the blood of his enemies?
[27:41] SPEAKER_01: Is it the blood from the cross?
[27:43] SPEAKER_01: We don't know, but he's bloody, sword in his mouth, tattoo on his leg, like feet like bronze.
[27:47] SPEAKER_01: Like there's a bunch of different descriptions, just freaking terrifying, right?
[27:50] SPEAKER_01: But then look at the pre-incarnate Christ that we see throughout the Old Testament, right?
[27:55] SPEAKER_01: The the what is it, Christologies or Christophanies, rather?
[27:58] SPEAKER_01: Christophanes, and these people are terrified at the sight of the pre-incarnate Christ.
[28:03] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[28:04] SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming he didn't come in looking like he just walked off a Swedish runway, like and like onto the scene of history, right?
[28:11] SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I encourage guys, I sign off every episode with keep seeking the lion of Judah.
[28:16] SPEAKER_01: And people are like, What?
[28:17] SPEAKER_01: You don't care about the lamb of God?
[28:18] SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, I'm a pendulum puller.
[28:20] SPEAKER_01: That's my job.
[28:21] SPEAKER_01: Because the pendulum is so far on the lamb side for most guys.
[28:26] SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to yank the pendulum back just a little bit.
[28:28] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[28:29] SPEAKER_01: I would never argue that it's just lying all the time, because that's the exact same problem in the inverse.
[28:34] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[28:34] SPEAKER_01: But I'm like, especially for men, we don't, a man that is typically capital M masculine, it's not as easy for us to understand grace as it is truth.
[28:44] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[28:44] SPEAKER_01: It's not as easy for us to understand peace as it is war.
[28:47] SPEAKER_01: It's something written into our DNA that God put there for a reason.
[28:50] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[28:51] SPEAKER_01: But the church has pushed us towards this capital F feminine way of looking at things.
[28:55] SPEAKER_01: And we get elucidate this quite a bit, but go back to the Industrial Revolution, all of a sudden men are working underground or working in factories in 12 to 16 hour shifts.
[29:03] SPEAKER_01: Go back to the world wars, all the virile, strong, testosterone-filled men are dying in some foxhole in Europe somewhere.
[29:09] SPEAKER_01: If they come back, they're shell-shocked.
[29:10] SPEAKER_01: And so who are the people that are left in the churches?
[29:13] SPEAKER_01: The sickly, the weak, the infirmed, the old, and the women and the children.
[29:17] SPEAKER_01: And so doesn't it make sense that somebody that's more drawn to ministry, which typically tends to ping a little bit more intellectual, a little bit more feminine?
[29:24] SPEAKER_01: I'm not being derisive, it just tends to be a little bit more feminine.
[29:26] SPEAKER_01: Hey, let's talk about grace a lot more because look at the people out in the audience.
[29:29] SPEAKER_01: They don't want to hear about war.
[29:30] SPEAKER_01: They don't want to hear about anything.
[29:32] SPEAKER_01: They need a reprieve from that.
[29:33] SPEAKER_01: Then we get into the worship music.
[29:34] SPEAKER_01: We stop thinking and talking about God as if he's like a, you know, a conquering king and Jesus like he's a conquering savior and like all these ways that we would read through like a psalm or some kind.
[29:44] SPEAKER_01: Now we're singing about boyfriend Jesus and how cute he is and how much we want him to like, you know, be in his bosom or something like that.
[29:50] SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we castigate these men whenever they sit there during worship with their hands in their pockets.
[29:54] SPEAKER_01: Whenever you read the lyrics and you took the name Jesus out and you put in the name Jerry, it seems it sounds like I'm singing to my boyfriend.
[30:00] SPEAKER_04: Right.
[30:00] SPEAKER_01: And I don't have the emotional wherewithal to know why that makes me uncomfortable, but I know that it does.
[30:04] SPEAKER_01: It's because it's homoerotic and I don't like it.
[30:07] SPEAKER_01: And then again, I'm getting into a lot of different subjects here, but we just came off Father's Day.
[30:12] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[30:12] SPEAKER_01: What happens on Mother's Day?
[30:14] SPEAKER_01: Women leave the church feeling like they've never sinned before.
[30:17] SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, we just slobber all over them.
[30:19] SPEAKER_01: How great these women are.
[30:20] SPEAKER_01: Like they're not depraved, they're not awful.
[30:21] SPEAKER_01: Like they don't do terrible, awful things.
[30:24] SPEAKER_01: But boy, do we bring the hammer on Sunday on that, you know, Father's Day, Sunday about the men not stepping up and not doing the right things and blah, blah, blah, and all that.
[30:31] SPEAKER_01: And then that pastor will sit around for the next 364 days doing nothing to infuse those those men with the ability to be able to be the heads of their household, to be able to disciple their families and all those different things.
[30:42] SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of these things are really tied into that.
[30:45] SPEAKER_01: But that leads to your original question, Josh, which is how can men formulate a true idea of what it means to be fully biblically masculine if we have such a paltry understanding of who Jesus is in totality?
[30:56] SPEAKER_02: Right.
[30:57] SPEAKER_02: And I and I think even as well, how do how do you respond to what you don't know?
[31:04] SPEAKER_02: And how do you live out of maybe a wound that you have?
[31:07] SPEAKER_02: I think you kind of touched on something.
[31:09] SPEAKER_02: So for me, when you know, growing up without a dad and trying to figure out what it meant to be a man and the the world was my teacher, and I thought, man, if I was uh is strong and I was ripped and I had the most women and I made the most money, all those things would equate to me being um some aspect of a man that I thought would be respected.
[31:30] SPEAKER_02: And then I walk into a church and I hear 2 Samuel chapter 9 and hear David offer my Fepposheth land, you know, riches, royalty, status, not only to him but his family.
[31:41] SPEAKER_02: And the way that he responded to it was, man, what do you want with a dead dog like me?
[31:45] SPEAKER_02: And I think uh for me, hearing um here is this invitation into grace, this is what it means to to be a man, is is to accept the grace that's been bestowed upon you, offered to you, and then uh weigh your life on a scale and say, Well, grace is awesome for whoever it's for, but I've done too much, I've gone too far, and I've I've never had it modeled.
[32:17] SPEAKER_02: So how am I supposed to do this?
[32:18] SPEAKER_02: So I disqualify myself from it.
[32:22] SPEAKER_02: And then he goes on to Hebrews 12, 2, Romans 5, 8, 7, uh, 5, 7, and 8.
[32:28] SPEAKER_02: And then I just had this shifting moment in my life where I I understood uh the gospel truly and living my life out out of that, it's like you know, for the last 11 years, becoming a man that I didn't ever see modeled.
[32:46] SPEAKER_02: I never was invited, you know, into uh I didn't really have I didn't have a dad, obviously, but I didn't have like a other than a coach, I didn't have a a role model, I didn't have anyone like put their arm around me and say, hey, this is this is how it's done.
[32:59] SPEAKER_02: I think the wounds of that we see because of the level of fatherlessness, and there's just like you know, we we love to talk about uh collateral damage on here in that there's dads that okay, I I gave my life to Jesus.
[33:16] SPEAKER_02: Um I'm trying to do the best I can, and if I do enough and build enough and earn enough and give you enough, then you'll have enough, but you didn't give me the thing that I wanted much, which where we were talking about.
[33:27] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[33:28] SPEAKER_02: Like your kids don't want stuff and trips, they want you know, you to be a jungle drum and and slam them you know on their back a hundred times.
[33:35] SPEAKER_02: Like they want that more than any gift, than any trip, than anything.
[33:40] SPEAKER_02: And if we're not careful, we won't give uh our presence, which is the greatest present that they want.
[33:46] SPEAKER_02: But I think that's an overflow of this belief that man, I I don't have what it takes.
[33:54] SPEAKER_02: And I think that's where I mean I we we'll get into this in a in a moment, but I think that's where um medicating pain, shame, all that stuff that comes with pornography.
[34:07] SPEAKER_02: Um but to the person who's listening, that you know, maybe they have muscles and money, but they have no clue about what it means to be a man, where do they start?
[34:21] SPEAKER_02: Because I I love that we're saying, man, we're we we want to give people instruction.
[34:24] SPEAKER_02: I think there's so many lost men that are capable and they are gifted and they are talented.
[34:31] SPEAKER_02: And on the outside looking in, it's like, man, that's the guy that I want to follow.
[34:36] SPEAKER_02: But then when you press in a little bit and you get close enough to them, you'll you'll see that their life is very fragile.
[34:44] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you got the guys that have the muscles, the monies, and the honeys, and they're absolutely miserable.
[34:48] SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, we have some pretty good hints of that.
[34:51] SPEAKER_01: So go read two chapters or two books of the Old Testament, go read Proverbs and then read Ecclesiastes.
[34:56] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[34:57] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[34:57] SPEAKER_01: We're pretty sure that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes.
[35:00] SPEAKER_01: So he wrote both, uh, the huge chunks of both.
[35:03] SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, by the time you get to Ecclesiastes, this guy's had a lot of sex.
[35:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's had a lot of money, he's had a lot of influence, he's helped a lot of people.
[35:14] SPEAKER_03: Vapor.
[35:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, vanity, vanity of vanities.
[35:17] SPEAKER_01: Life is meaningless.
[35:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he becomes nihilistic, yeah.
[35:21] SPEAKER_01: But he did all the things, right?
[35:23] SPEAKER_01: He he had the money.
[35:24] SPEAKER_01: He got to ejaculate a lot.
[35:26] SPEAKER_01: Like he got to do all the things that a carnal man would want.
[35:30] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[35:31] SPEAKER_01: And how many people try to climb the hill of success as a man only to find there's nothing at the top?
[35:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
[35:36] SPEAKER_01: I remember the story of Deion Sanders, whenever the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, what was that, like 87 years ago?
[35:40] SPEAKER_01: Last time the Cowboys were relevant.
[35:42] SPEAKER_01: Shout out, Texas.
[35:43] SPEAKER_01: Uh, but yeah, so the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl, great.
[35:46] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[35:46] SPEAKER_01: He gets to his hotel room and he broke down.
[35:49] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[35:50] SPEAKER_01: You do his entire athletic life was at he was at the pinnacle, he was at the peak.
[35:55] SPEAKER_01: He was a Super Bowl champion and the best athlete on the field.
[36:00] SPEAKER_01: Paper.
[36:01] SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
[36:01] SPEAKER_01: It was nothing.
[36:03] SPEAKER_01: And there's there's a pressure, Josh, that men are under that women simply cannot fathom.
[36:09] SPEAKER_01: And if they did, I feel like they would be better helpmates.
[36:12] SPEAKER_01: I did a video on my Instagram.
[36:13] SPEAKER_01: I saw someone else do it, and so I kind of did my own version of it.
[36:16] SPEAKER_01: But like when a man lays his head on the pillow, like me, part of the reason why I take melatonin and a magnesium is so I don't have this go for too long.
[36:24] SPEAKER_01: But every category of life, he runs through the Rolodex of things that he's not doing well right now.
[36:29] SPEAKER_01: So it's like, gotta be jacked, gotta have an under seven-minute mile, gotta be able to deadlift four plates, gotta be on PRP, like, or gotta be on TRT, gotta take peptides, gotta do whatever.
[36:39] SPEAKER_01: All right, gotta take my wife on dates, gotta like listen to her heart, gotta know her love language.
[36:43] SPEAKER_01: Oh, her love language changed, so I need to be an expert in something else.
[36:45] SPEAKER_01: Okay, I gotta, you know, date my kids, gotta date my daughter so she doesn't date a bad guy.
[36:49] SPEAKER_01: Okay, I gotta show my son what it means to be a man or he's gonna become a bad one.
[36:52] SPEAKER_01: I gotta, I gotta, oh, I gotta tuck him in.
[36:54] SPEAKER_01: I can't miss a practice, can't miss a game.
[36:55] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I gotta make a bunch of money, can't just make a bunch of money, gotta make a super amount of money, oh, gotta put money away so I can retire someday.
[37:01] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I gotta have enough so we can go on vacation so my wife doesn't complain that we don't go on vacations so we have all this money, but I can't work so much that I'm gone more getting the money than I am with the people that I'm supposed to be spending time with.
[37:12] SPEAKER_01: But if I'm spending too much time with them and I'm not at work, that I'm not making enough money to on and on and on and on and on and on.
[37:21] SPEAKER_01: And there's no stopping it until you finally pass out.
[37:25] SPEAKER_01: That's it.
[37:26] SPEAKER_01: And so that's what men are constantly trying to live up to.
[37:30] SPEAKER_01: So most of the pressure that men have is pressure that's just in there.
[37:34] SPEAKER_01: It's innate.
[37:35] SPEAKER_01: Whereas most of the pressure that women have is pressure that they put on themselves.
[37:39] SPEAKER_01: Like it's like, oh, I'm not being a good enough mom because you know, I gave them a water cup that had phthalates in it or something on accident.
[37:46] SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's more like they're allowing external pressure.
[37:49] SPEAKER_01: Like they see some mom on Instagram that's faking it, by the way.
[37:53] SPEAKER_01: She's, you know, uh multi-six figure uh, you know, sales agent or real estate agent or something like that.
[38:00] SPEAKER_01: But she's also making breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the kids and picking them up and homeschooling them.
[38:04] SPEAKER_01: And also they've got chickens and all that.
[38:06] SPEAKER_01: It's all far, it's all a lie, but that's all the pressure the woman's under now.
[38:10] SPEAKER_01: Before the man, it's it goes back to what we talked about earlier.
[38:13] SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we were talking about it off air or on air.
[38:15] SPEAKER_01: It's like most men just need a little bit of instruction.
[38:17] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[38:18] SPEAKER_01: They need a little bit of direction, and they need that direction to be reinforced by a foxhole of guys around them.
[38:24] SPEAKER_01: So that if you're on the right path, on the right path, you start to veer off.
[38:27] SPEAKER_01: You got a guy that goes, hey, hey, get nah, stop, get back, get back on the path.
[38:30] SPEAKER_01: Oh, my bad, dude.
[38:31] SPEAKER_01: And then you just kind of get back on the path.
[38:33] SPEAKER_01: But most men don't have a direction, right?
[38:36] SPEAKER_01: They don't have a foxhole of guys, a king's table, mat carriers that can point them and keep them in that direction.
[38:42] SPEAKER_01: You know, mat carriers, Mark II, they don't have guys that will take them to the feet of Jesus when they're unable to take themselves to the feet of Jesus, right?
[38:49] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that just leads to this overall idea of just there's a sickness in masculinity because you either believe the cultural lie that masculinity in and of itself is toxic.
[38:59] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[39:00] SPEAKER_01: Or you go the other direction where you're just listless or you're you're spinning your wheels or you're constantly going in circles, whatever way you want to look at it, because you don't know which way you should be going at top speed.
[39:11] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[39:12] SPEAKER_01: And so you end up just doing these little like miniature sprints, like left, right, back, up, down, diagonal, this way, that way.
[39:17] SPEAKER_01: And then so you end up spinning a lot of energy.
[39:20] SPEAKER_01: Like imagine trying to do a heavy deadlift and also break dance at the same time.
[39:24] SPEAKER_01: Like you can't do, you can do one or the other, but you have to focus all of your weight through the floor to get that bar off the ground and to, you know, punch it out.
[39:33] SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
[39:34] SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of guys, we just get so distracted by the shiny and we think, okay, Solomon maybe just didn't do it right.
[39:42] SPEAKER_01: It's almost like socialism.
[39:43] SPEAKER_01: Oh, it just hasn't been done right.
[39:44] SPEAKER_01: No, maybe it's just a bad way of operating.
[39:46] SPEAKER_01: Maybe it just sucks in general.
[39:47] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[39:48] SPEAKER_01: And so seeking out muscles, monies, and honeys is just isn't going to lead to where you think it is.
[39:55] SPEAKER_00: Hey, real quick, if you've been telling yourself, I'll deal with this later, let this be your moment.
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[40:15] SPEAKER_00: And right now, you can try Covenant Eyes with a 30-day free trial.
[40:18] SPEAKER_00: Just use the link in the show notes or visit CovenantEyes.com and use promo code AACC to get your 30 days free.
[40:26] SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be perfect.
[40:27] SPEAKER_00: You just have to be willing to take the next step.
[40:29] SPEAKER_00: Covenant Eyes.
[40:30] SPEAKER_00: Take the step into the light.
[40:34] SPEAKER_02: You touched on something regarding uh a foxhole.
[40:37] SPEAKER_02: Um, what I what I like to talk about is um I think everybody needs definitely a group of guys, but at least one person.
[40:46] SPEAKER_02: Um, the way I would describe it, everybody needs a church, a group, a person.
[40:50] SPEAKER_02: I call them Proverbs 27, 6, friend, woo's with a friend.
[40:54] SPEAKER_02: And uh I have a one of my best friends, Andrew.
[40:57] SPEAKER_02: Uh he's a pastor in Englewood, California.
[40:59] SPEAKER_02: And um I my book came out two years ago.
[41:03] SPEAKER_02: Traveling a ton, life was great, you know, excited about the book.
[41:06] SPEAKER_02: It did relatively well, tons of speaking, tons of travel.
[41:10] SPEAKER_02: And he's like, um, hey man, could you FaceTime me real quick?
[41:14] SPEAKER_02: I'm like, ah, well, you know, in the in the middle of something, you know, I'll text you, you know, like he's like I need to FaceTime you.
[41:19] SPEAKER_02: It's like I you're you're not in proximity to where I could meet you for coffee.
[41:23] SPEAKER_02: I need to see your face.
[41:24] SPEAKER_02: And I was like, fine.
[41:25] SPEAKER_02: And I call him, he's like, hey man, um, how are you doing?
[41:27] SPEAKER_02: I'm like, man, yeah, yeah, I'm doing this, doing that, you know, like crushing it.
[41:30] SPEAKER_02: He's like, You look fat.
[41:33] SPEAKER_01: I love it.
[41:34] SPEAKER_02: I love it.
[41:35] SPEAKER_02: I was like, what?
[41:38] SPEAKER_02: He's like, you look fat.
[41:39] SPEAKER_02: He's like, you have you have circles under your eyes, and your face looks bloated.
[41:43] SPEAKER_02: You look like you look ridiculous.
[41:45] SPEAKER_02: What's what's wrong with you?
[41:46] SPEAKER_02: I'm like, and he's like, yeah, I he's like, you've been lifting.
[41:49] SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, I've been lifting.
[41:50] SPEAKER_02: He's like, you've been in, you know, you've been card, you've been doing cardio, you've been like, how what's your food look like?
[41:55] SPEAKER_02: I'm like airport, gas station.
[41:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like pretty bad, you know, and and um uh you know, I I just started TRT at the time and just, you know, I was I was had a 20s mentality where it's like I can out train uh a really bad diet and and I and a lot, you know, uh a lack of sleep.
[42:15] SPEAKER_02: But he loved me enough to say me some tell me something that stung in the moment, but I got my craft together.
[42:21] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[42:22] SPEAKER_02: And I think um I I've heard you talk about that, you know, that 3 a.m.
[42:27] SPEAKER_02: friend.
[42:27] SPEAKER_02: That's right.
[42:28] SPEAKER_02: And if you don't have someone that has full permission to stand in front of you trying to wreck your life, to wreck your family, you're really missing out on something like most certainly it's biblical, but it's just practical.
[42:44] SPEAKER_02: Um, would would you speak to that?
[42:46] SPEAKER_02: Because I think the thing that I hear the most, well, I counsel probably 2,000 guys a month, both in person and digitally, that are struggling with pornography addiction.
[42:55] SPEAKER_02: And the common denominator is like, do you have at least one deep friendship?
[43:00] SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, uh, you know, you might even have the appearance of friendship.
[43:05] SPEAKER_02: You might be a part of a group, but does someone know the intricacies of your life?
[43:09] SPEAKER_02: Do you know the thing that you're afraid of?
[43:11] SPEAKER_02: Do you know what would take you out?
[43:12] SPEAKER_02: Do you know like what you're hoping for?
[43:15] SPEAKER_02: It's such a big God dream that you would even, you know, it it would be cringy to say it out loud.
[43:20] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[43:20] SPEAKER_02: If you don't have someone in life in your life, it's so dangerous and you're missing out on something that's so helpful.
[43:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's one of our bread and butter topics that we talk about.
[43:29] SPEAKER_01: I do want to quickly go back to something you just said about, you know, guys that you're counseling that are struggling with pornography.
[43:34] SPEAKER_01: So I have a coaching program called Dominion.
[43:37] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[43:37] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, during the interview process, I'm trying to get a sense of like, okay, you're on this call with me.
[43:41] SPEAKER_01: It took a lot to even get you here.
[43:42] SPEAKER_01: There's an application, you know, got to hop on an interview, all that.
[43:45] SPEAKER_01: So I kind of get an idea of why you need this.
[43:48] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[43:48] SPEAKER_01: And this was, I don't know, a year or two ago.
[43:51] SPEAKER_01: And I'm doing interviews and I had a bunch of bad ones in a row.
[43:55] SPEAKER_01: And it was the person on the other end.
[43:56] SPEAKER_01: Like I was doing my normal thing, but I just kept hearing the same thing.
[44:00] SPEAKER_01: And I'm really struggling with pornography.
[44:01] SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm really struggling with my weight right now.
[44:03] SPEAKER_01: Man, my wife and I were really struggling.
[44:05] SPEAKER_01: I'm really struggling to have good influence on my kids.
[44:06] SPEAKER_01: And finally I snap on a guy.
[44:08] SPEAKER_01: And hopefully it was positive.
[44:10] SPEAKER_01: But I just go, you know what, bro?
[44:11] SPEAKER_01: You're not struggling, actually.
[44:13] SPEAKER_01: Because if you struggled, you would actually have more victory by now.
[44:17] SPEAKER_01: You're not struggling.
[44:18] SPEAKER_01: You know what it takes to get over your, which by the way, you don't have a pornography addiction because if pornography just didn't exist anymore, you wouldn't die.
[44:25] SPEAKER_01: You're not addicted.
[44:26] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[44:27] SPEAKER_01: It's a proclivity.
[44:28] SPEAKER_01: It's something you want to do because you think it's awesome, right?
[44:31] SPEAKER_01: Same thing.
[44:32] SPEAKER_01: If you struggled more, you'd be in better shape.
[44:34] SPEAKER_01: If you struggled more, you and your wife would be in a better place.
[44:37] SPEAKER_01: If you struggled more, you would be catechizing your children and not letting them be discipled by Instagram.
[44:43] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[44:44] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[44:44] SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's the part of the difference about people living from failure and living from victory.
[44:49] SPEAKER_01: It's like, especially if you're a Christian, it's like, can we start to live from victory a little bit more and stop the navel gazing and stop pretending?
[44:56] SPEAKER_01: But then it does dovetail directly into do you have guys in your life that just aren't that impressed by you?
[45:02] SPEAKER_01: Right?
[45:02] SPEAKER_01: Are they willing to interrupt you?
[45:04] SPEAKER_01: Because your buddy, I love that story every time you tell it.
[45:08] SPEAKER_01: Because he loved you enough to interrupt you, because you're important, right?
[45:12] SPEAKER_01: You got your face on screens and on Instagram feeds, and you got this book, and you're going around, you're and you're the guy with the microphone on your face.
[45:20] SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants to hear from Josh.
[45:21] SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Yeah, hey, time out.
[45:22] SPEAKER_01: Hey, Fatty.
[45:23] SPEAKER_01: Like, like, what are you doing?
[45:24] SPEAKER_01: And you just needed someone to be that way with you.
[45:27] SPEAKER_01: I've got several guys in my life, because you know how it is.
[45:30] SPEAKER_01: If you're the guy that's being paid to go and speak, you're the center of attention.
[45:34] SPEAKER_01: No matter where you walk inside the, you know, facility or something like that.
[45:38] SPEAKER_01: People are defaulting to you, they're laughing at your jokes that aren't funny.
[45:41] SPEAKER_01: They're, they're, they want to hear you talk, you're the center of attention.
[45:44] SPEAKER_01: But when you have guys in your life that are like, oh, that's great.
[45:47] SPEAKER_01: Time out.
[45:47] SPEAKER_01: By the way by the way, um, have you been giving at all?
[45:51] SPEAKER_01: Have you been tithing like at all?
[45:53] SPEAKER_01: So one of my best friends is my CPA.
[45:55] SPEAKER_01: So I can't get anything past him at all.
[45:56] SPEAKER_01: Like he has all my dirt, he knows where all the money is, he knows where all the bodies are buried.
[46:00] SPEAKER_01: But it's the concept of that's the most heartbreaking thing for me, Josh, whenever I talk to people with my Dominion program, when people see me in person and they can't identify a single foxhole guy in their life.
[46:13] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[46:14] SPEAKER_01: The mat carrier thing's easier.
[46:15] SPEAKER_01: What Joby does is because there are four corners of an of a mat.
[46:18] SPEAKER_01: He does the thing, and he's like, Do you have four guys that'll pick you up and take you to the feed of Jesus and God's blue?
[46:22] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
[46:22] SPEAKER_01: It's like, all right, write their names down.
[46:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[46:25] SPEAKER_01: Oh shoot.
[46:26] SPEAKER_01: Well, I got Jimmy, I mean Tommy might show up, and then they then they got a message.
[46:31] SPEAKER_02: There's a guy from high school that right.
[46:33] SPEAKER_01: A guy from high school that might come.
[46:35] SPEAKER_01: I got a cousin that lives a couple of counties over, or something like that.
[46:38] SPEAKER_01: And same thing with the concept I talk about a 3 a.m.
[46:41] SPEAKER_01: friend, right?
[46:41] SPEAKER_01: And if people haven't heard me talk about it, it's like we have plenty of fellas.
[46:45] SPEAKER_01: Guys that'll show up until about six o'clock, right?
[46:48] SPEAKER_01: If you need, you know, need something moved, yeah, you need to patch up a fence, like you need to take kind of take care of business or whatever.
[46:54] SPEAKER_01: But how many guys can you call at 3 a.m.?
[46:56] SPEAKER_01: Know that they're gonna answer and know that they're getting ready to do whatever it takes to fix whatever situation is happening.
[47:03] SPEAKER_01: Because at 3 a.m., only things are going wrong.
[47:06] SPEAKER_01: You're not at 3 a.m., hey, we just closed the deal, celebrate with me.
[47:10] SPEAKER_01: No, there's no ticker tape parades.
[47:12] SPEAKER_01: It's things are falling apart.
[47:14] SPEAKER_01: Your life, your health, your marriage, something has gone awry.
[47:17] SPEAKER_01: But then you even talk, so those are the dramatic situations, right?
[47:22] SPEAKER_01: Let's just talk about the practical ones because you mentioned practicality as well, right?
[47:26] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[47:26] SPEAKER_01: One of my best buddies, he's currently on vacation over in Europe right now.
[47:31] SPEAKER_01: We had a terrible uh overnight, severe thunderstorm a couple of nights ago in Oklahoma.
[47:36] SPEAKER_01: And at his house, this enormous tree had to be over a hundred years old, fell on his house.
[47:43] SPEAKER_01: Well, he's in Italy or somewhere.
[47:45] SPEAKER_01: I don't know where he's at right now.
[47:46] SPEAKER_01: He could be in the middle of the Mediterranean.
[47:49] SPEAKER_01: He can't do anything about the tree, right?
[47:52] SPEAKER_01: Well, we knew about the tree before he knew about the tree, and we're already coordinating chainsaws, people to go over there.
[48:01] SPEAKER_01: Hey, who's your insurance agent?
[48:03] SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, hey, is your neighbor going to be available?
[48:06] SPEAKER_01: I'm out of town myself, but and you know, I got this one arm thing going on right now, but I got a steel chainsaw sitting in my garage.
[48:12] SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, hey, here's my garage coat, go and get it, and so you can go do.
[48:15] SPEAKER_01: There's practical foxhole stuff right there.
[48:18] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[48:19] SPEAKER_01: Because our brother was out of town.
[48:21] SPEAKER_01: And if if you know, if he was here, he would be the one coordinating, but he's not.
[48:25] SPEAKER_01: So we're just taking care of business.
[48:27] SPEAKER_01: I talk about this story when I was my son, my first son was six weeks old.
[48:30] SPEAKER_01: We had to rush him to the hospital in the middle of the night for what ended up being uh an almost emergency surgery.
[48:36] SPEAKER_01: It was a serious life or death situation, right?
[48:38] SPEAKER_01: Rushing out in the middle of the night with our first kid, like it's crazy.
[48:41] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we got a lot of the texts.
[48:43] SPEAKER_01: Oh man, praying for you.
[48:44] SPEAKER_01: If there's anything I can do, you know, let me know.
[48:47] SPEAKER_01: Which all you've done when you say that, by the way, is you've transferred the burden onto me to come up with something for you to do so you can feel better about the fact that my life sucks right now.
[48:55] SPEAKER_01: So it's actually not as helpful as you think it sounds.
[48:57] SPEAKER_02: It's just kind of just do the thing.
[48:59] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just a southern thing.
[49:00] SPEAKER_01: Well, I had a buddy, one of my foxwell guys, one of my guys that's 3 a.m.
[49:03] SPEAKER_01: that doesn't mind interrupting me.
[49:05] SPEAKER_01: He sends me a text.
[49:06] SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm on my way to your house to take care of the dogs.
[49:10] SPEAKER_01: Let them go pee, give them food and water, do the whole thing.
[49:13] SPEAKER_01: I don't have the code to your garage.
[49:15] SPEAKER_01: Can you just let me know how I can get into the house so I don't have to break a window?
[49:19] SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, hey, do you have anyone taking care of the dogs?
[49:22] SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, hey, brother, praying for you, right?
[49:24] SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying prayer is bad.
[49:26] SPEAKER_01: But he just he was like, I'm on my way.
[49:28] SPEAKER_01: I'm on my way.
[49:30] SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of guys, if you don't have guys like that in your life, I would venture to bet you're not one of those guys either.
[49:39] SPEAKER_01: You're the guy that's hard to get a hold of.
[49:42] SPEAKER_01: You're the guy that doesn't answer the text at 7:30 because it's gonna mildly inconvenience you to go help your friend.
[49:47] SPEAKER_01: You're the guy that isn't gonna notice the speck in your brother's eye before it turns into a log.
[49:54] SPEAKER_01: You're just not one of those guys.
[49:55] SPEAKER_01: And so I asked these guys, I was like, okay, so you're not a foxhole guy, but you want a bunch of guys around you.
[50:01] SPEAKER_01: Bro, you're not, you don't want foxhole brothers, you want servants, you want a court of people that will clap when you come in the room and talk about how good you are and how great you are and how much you're crushing it.
[50:12] SPEAKER_01: That's not the same thing.
[50:14] SPEAKER_01: And so if you're if you're at a deficit of foxhole brothers, of Mac carriers, of King's Table, a band of brothers, whatever your modality is, you need to look at yourself first.
[50:24] SPEAKER_02: I I think for me, it was that was a a difficult thing to to navigate through.
[50:30] SPEAKER_02: Because I remember um I posted about it this morning, but I had uh a good friend Joe, and we were in the porn industry together, and he was, you know, good good old southern boy.
[50:40] SPEAKER_02: And uh you know, he was from Tennessee, and you know, he would like literally give you the shirt off your back, like he would I've literally seen it.
[50:48] SPEAKER_02: On that industry, yeah, I'm thinking.
[50:49] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
[50:50] SPEAKER_02: But uh just you know, just like a good dude, you know.
[50:53] SPEAKER_02: Um and uh when I left the industry, if if I'm honest, he was a better friend to me than I was to him.
[51:01] SPEAKER_02: Like he was still in the industry, and I'd found Jesus.
[51:05] SPEAKER_02: And he's the one calling and checking on me.
[51:08] SPEAKER_02: He's the one inviting me to, you know, uh, we're still playing fantasy football, still like doing March Madness brackets, you know, still uh asking me about, you know, you know, what what you know, what what's the the fastest 400s you written, you know, you've you've ran lately.
[51:22] SPEAKER_02: Like what's you know, what's your PR time on this crossfet workout?
[51:26] SPEAKER_02: And I I found myself in this this complexity of I feel like I need to keep people at an arm's distance.
[51:38] SPEAKER_02: And it was so hard for me to to find community, really.
[51:43] SPEAKER_02: And I think just to the person that that that might be that way, where you grew up and you thought, man, I I don't want to bleed on people who didn't cut me, and it's it's gonna be best for them that I keep them at arm's distance, and I don't want you worrying about my stuff.
[51:59] SPEAKER_02: Like how how would you advise someone that says, okay, uh, I'm acknowledging that the way that I'm living is unhealthy.
[52:06] SPEAKER_02: I've been selfish and prideful and broken and I've believed lies.
[52:10] SPEAKER_02: I've given my life to Jesus, but this is new for me.
[52:13] SPEAKER_02: Um, how do I navigate friendship and why is it important?
[52:17] SPEAKER_01: Part of it is like, can you just get over yourself and do the thing?
[52:21] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[52:22] SPEAKER_01: Just get over yourself.
[52:23] SPEAKER_01: Like maybe you're a little cocky, maybe you're a little arrogant, maybe you're a little shy, maybe you're a little, oh, okay.
[52:29] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[52:30] SPEAKER_01: So when you got in shape, were you thinking about that?
[52:32] SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're a little undersized, maybe you're a little oversized, maybe you're a little uncoordinated, maybe you're a little bit this, maybe you're a little bit that, or did you just go train?
[52:40] SPEAKER_01: Right, right?
[52:41] SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, yes, it doesn't matter what I do, I will never have the speed of you saying bolt.
[52:46] SPEAKER_01: It's just never gonna be there.
[52:48] SPEAKER_01: It's not in the genetic cards for me.
[52:49] SPEAKER_01: That does, but does that mean I have an excuse to not be fast for my frame and age?
[52:53] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[52:54] SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing with being a friend.
[52:56] SPEAKER_01: And it's it's the word that no guy wants to hear.
[52:58] SPEAKER_01: And the moment I said it, guys in your audience are you gonna go, vulnerability.
[53:02] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[53:03] SPEAKER_01: Being vulnerable, telling guys in your life, hey, I actually don't have it all figured out.
[53:08] SPEAKER_01: I'm not the cock of the walk.
[53:09] SPEAKER_01: Like I do make mistakes.
[53:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm currently making one right now.
[53:13] SPEAKER_01: Because it's one thing if your brother discovers something about you, it's another thing if you bring something to your brother.
[53:18] SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, you're you're in the world of accountability and covenant eyes and all that kind of stuff.
[53:23] SPEAKER_01: Accountability is not your accountability partner calling you to check in on you.
[53:29] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[53:29] SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's Sunday at 8 a.m.
[53:31] SPEAKER_01: It's my normal check-in time.
[53:32] SPEAKER_01: Have you jerked off this week?
[53:34] SPEAKER_01: Like that's not the thing, honestly.
[53:36] SPEAKER_01: True accountability is hey, you go to him and you say, brother, I sinned, which what is sinning?
[53:43] SPEAKER_01: It's missing the mark.
[53:44] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[53:45] SPEAKER_01: I missed the mark in this area.
[53:47] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
[53:48] SPEAKER_01: I said I was gonna do this, but I did this instead.
[53:51] SPEAKER_01: This is, I understand this is part of my sanctification journey.
[53:54] SPEAKER_01: Can you help me write the shift faster than if I did it by myself?
[53:57] SPEAKER_01: That's accountability.
[53:58] unknown: Right.
[53:59] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[54:00] SPEAKER_01: Because we know how to lie, we know how to judge.
[54:02] SPEAKER_01: You know what?
[54:03] SPEAKER_01: We can get around our filters on our phone.
[54:05] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
[54:07] SPEAKER_01: We know the sites we can go to where the filter's not gonna trip and send an email to our accountability partners.
[54:12] SPEAKER_01: We already know that.
[54:13] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[54:13] SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it has to come down to are we gonna do the thing?
[54:16] SPEAKER_01: And I'm not anti-filters, like I have covenant eyes, I haven't looked at porn in 15, 16 years.
[54:20] SPEAKER_01: I still have it.
[54:21] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[54:22] SPEAKER_01: If for nothing else, it just here, I have it.
[54:24] SPEAKER_01: So I could say that I can I have it.
[54:25] SPEAKER_01: And so if somebody else wants it, I can be like, yeah, you should have it because I have it or whatever.
[54:30] SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, for so many men, they just don't want to be vulnerable.
[54:34] SPEAKER_01: They want to constantly feel like they've got it squared away.
[54:36] SPEAKER_01: And also, they don't want to be deputized to hold someone else accountable because they're afraid that it might come back on them eventually.
[54:45] SPEAKER_01: Because one of the problems people make is they'll say, Hey, Josh, you're my brother.
[54:49] SPEAKER_01: Like, I love you.
[54:50] SPEAKER_01: Like, I give you permission to speak into my life, even if I don't like it.
[54:53] SPEAKER_02: Joby, sorry, Joby spoke a little bit about that.
[54:56] SPEAKER_02: Would you kind of lean into that a little bit?
[54:58] SPEAKER_01: Like how he stole it from me.
[54:59] SPEAKER_02: He steals everything from me, that guy, the stupid beard and all the tattoos or whatever.
[55:03] SPEAKER_02: But just the fact that you if if you're gonna have people in your life, yeah, like it's important that you say, Hey, I want you to hold me accountable in this way.
[55:13] SPEAKER_02: And but yeah, you go on.
[55:15] SPEAKER_01: Well, the the thing about it is is so you deputize a guy to hold you accountable.
[55:19] SPEAKER_01: Six months later, he finds an opportunity to do so.
[55:22] SPEAKER_01: He does so, and you flame him.
[55:25] SPEAKER_01: Hey, man, you don't you don't know me, like you don't understand how hard it is right now.
[55:28] SPEAKER_01: Things are so rough at home, or they're so rough at work, and blah, blah.
[55:32] SPEAKER_01: What you just did is you prove to that guy that you were unwilling to take correction.
[55:38] SPEAKER_01: Because what men do in that type of scenario, I know when I'm coming to somebody and I'm like, hey, brother, you're a little fat, or hey, brother, you've been kind of mean to your wife, like in front of people, and I don't think she really appreciates all those jokes.
[55:50] SPEAKER_01: Hey, man, you went way too far with your kids.
[55:53] SPEAKER_01: Like that was a two, and you went to a 10 immediately.
[55:56] SPEAKER_01: What I'm doing, Josh, is I'm putting relational chips and I'm risking them by putting them in the middle of the table.
[56:02] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[56:02] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[56:03] SPEAKER_01: And here's how men work all of our corrective mechanisms are at the threat of violence eventually.
[56:08] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[56:09] SPEAKER_01: Right?
[56:09] SPEAKER_01: Because if you hate what I said so much, you might hit me.
[56:14] SPEAKER_01: I have to be willing to enter into that type of a scenario where physical violence could be on the table because you reacted so poorly.
[56:22] SPEAKER_01: That's what your brother is doing whenever he's trying to hold you accountable to something.
[56:27] SPEAKER_01: And so if you're going to deputize somebody and then all of a sudden try to, you know, take the steering wheel back from them, bro, you're messing up worse than you could ever do.
[56:36] SPEAKER_01: Now, that doesn't mean you can't have some ego trips.
[56:39] SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, your flesh kind of gets involved and you kind of respond poorly, but you're on ramp back onto the highway and back to repent, repentance should be pretty quick.
[56:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[56:48] SPEAKER_01: Because Josh, I used to be there where it would take me a few days and I'd circle back around my brother, like, oh, okay, yeah, you're right.
[56:54] SPEAKER_01: Now it's probably in the same conversation where I respond poorly and then I go, time out.
[57:00] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[57:01] SPEAKER_01: I'm wrong, right?
[57:03] SPEAKER_02: Because when you're wrong, truth stings.
[57:05] SPEAKER_02: Oh, it should.
[57:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[57:07] SPEAKER_01: It should because when you're wrong, you've you've got some wound somewhere, and you just need that brother that's just throwing that salt right there on that wound a little bit.
[57:14] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[57:15] SPEAKER_01: Because it should sting.
[57:16] SPEAKER_01: Because you know what stings?
[57:18] SPEAKER_01: Sin.
[57:18] SPEAKER_01: You know where sin sends you to the place of eternal stinging, right?
[57:22] SPEAKER_01: You know, they they talk about wailing and gnashing of teeth.
[57:24] SPEAKER_01: I assume that we're just getting stung by demonic volcano wasps for eternity, right?
[57:29] SPEAKER_01: That's what hell's gonna be like.
[57:30] SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, do you want this sting or do you want the worst sting?
[57:34] SPEAKER_01: And the what I kind of tell people is well, I think God uses accountability partners, foxhole brothers, kingstable, mat carriers, so that he doesn't have to yell.
[57:43] unknown: Yeah.
[57:44] SPEAKER_01: He tries to use one of your brothers to talk.
[57:47] SPEAKER_01: Because look, let's say, like this is uh not a huge room, but let's say there were 50 people in this room.
[57:52] SPEAKER_01: You were in that corner, I'm in this corner.
[57:54] SPEAKER_01: I've had two vocal cord surgeries, I can't really yell, right?
[57:57] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[57:57] SPEAKER_01: And let's say I was like, hey, Josh, uh, what are you doing today?
[58:00] SPEAKER_01: Okay, you want to go to lunch?
[58:01] SPEAKER_01: All right, cool.
[58:02] SPEAKER_01: Uh, what kind of lunch are you thinking?
[58:04] SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna be able to hear me.
[58:05] SPEAKER_04: Right.
[58:05] SPEAKER_01: Right now, let's say I were able to yell.
[58:08] SPEAKER_01: I could probably get over the noise, but it's gonna be uncomfortable.
[58:11] SPEAKER_01: People are like, why is that ginger in the corner yelling?
[58:13] SPEAKER_01: Right, it's gonna be one of those, it's gonna be one of those things.
[58:16] SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, I asked guys, I was like, do you want God to have to yell?
[58:21] SPEAKER_01: Hey, you're not spending any time in the word, you're not spending any time in prayer, you're not spending any time without podcasting or music in or driving here to go there to do this, to respond to the email, to respond to the message.
[58:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[58:32] SPEAKER_01: Do you want God to yell?
[58:34] SPEAKER_01: Because he will.
[58:35] SPEAKER_01: Can we go to scripture and look at the times when he had to yell at his, yeah, because we're all descendants of God, but we're not all sons of God.
[58:42] SPEAKER_01: And he yelled at his descendants and he yelled at, right?
[58:45] SPEAKER_01: You know, when you hear people say, like, oh, you know, the Bible's pretty silent on things like homosexuality and all that, don't you think it was loud at Sodom and Gomorrah, right?
[58:52] SPEAKER_01: When everything was being torched by fire from the heavens.
[58:56] SPEAKER_01: And so it's like, God's going to communicate, and like Hadzjobi says, you will either bow or you will bow.
[59:01] SPEAKER_01: And so I would rather bow in submission and make sure that I'm listening.
[59:05] SPEAKER_01: And God uses foxhole guys to help you do that.
[59:07] unknown: Yeah.
[59:08] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, a lot of what I do is trying to help people get out of the habitual behavior of going to porn.
[59:17] SPEAKER_02: And I think, um, I think more often than not, porn has little to do with the fact that, you know, we have this like overt perversion about sex.
[59:28] SPEAKER_02: Like we're it's really about connection.
[59:29] SPEAKER_02: It's really about intimacy.
[59:31] SPEAKER_02: And I think so many people use the tactic that you were talking about when we talk about things like that.
[59:37] SPEAKER_02: You know, you you minimize, you redirect, you deflect.
[59:42] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[59:42] SPEAKER_02: Um, you don't want to deal with the problem at hand.
[59:44] SPEAKER_02: It's but and it's because it's it's medicine that works, and you don't want anyone to take away your medicine.
[59:51] SPEAKER_02: Because it it never rejects you, it numbs what you don't want to feel, it covers up what you want to hide.
[59:56] SPEAKER_02: But sure, like it causes an array of problems, you know, on the back end.
[1:00:01] SPEAKER_02: But the fact that you do use it, you're not dealing with something that is sublinear, and it's preventing you from being the person you could be.
[1:00:10] SPEAKER_02: Uh, would would you would you speak into that?
[1:00:12] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think for a lot of guys, we all have our pet sin.
[1:00:17] SPEAKER_01: And I remember Matt Chandler was talking at Acts 29 conference a couple of years back, and he talked about, you know, where you have you get like a pet lion, right?
[1:00:28] SPEAKER_01: And he he talked about some show where someone had raised this bear cub, like from the point of being a you know, a cub to all the way being like a full-size bear.
[1:00:35] SPEAKER_01: And one day the bear realized I'm nature's like garbage disposal and like mauled someone to death.
[1:00:39] SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, that thing happens.
[1:00:41] SPEAKER_01: But we have our pet sin that we pet it and we feed it and we can kind of like we can control it, but one day it becomes an apex predator that we've been feeding, right?
[1:00:52] SPEAKER_01: And we've been sustaining the predator so that it could eventually consume us, right?
[1:00:58] SPEAKER_01: And I think what a lot of men don't realize is they are orchestrating their own downfall and demise.
[1:01:04] SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, the the easy kind of low-key way of thinking about is like, okay, somebody will scroll their phone, like everybody's gone, or maybe everyone's asleep, or something like that.
[1:01:11] SPEAKER_01: And they just sit there and scroll TikTok or Instagram.
[1:01:13] SPEAKER_01: They're not looking at porn or girls twerking or anything like that.
[1:01:16] SPEAKER_01: There's all right, hunting video, all right, sports video, all right, funny video, whatever.
[1:01:20] SPEAKER_01: And then they look up and 90 minutes has gone by and they're like, they feel like, oh God, I'm a sludgy piece of garbage.
[1:01:27] SPEAKER_01: Like I just literally have done nothing for 90 minutes other than be a slug.
[1:01:31] SPEAKER_01: When it comes to things like self-medication, whether your chosen medication is porn of masturbation, whether it's methamphetamines, whether it's opiates, whether it's alcohol or something like that, we all know now that it's higher than that.
[1:01:46] SPEAKER_01: You're trying to prove something to somebody, you're trying to numb something, you're trying to escape or whatever.
[1:01:52] SPEAKER_01: But if guys were to think about it, we would never want to cut our own legs out from underneath us right before a foot race.
[1:01:59] SPEAKER_01: Like we would never do that.
[1:02:01] SPEAKER_01: That'd be the dumbest thing ever.
[1:02:02] SPEAKER_01: No one wants to sabotage the pitch before they go in and give it.
[1:02:07] SPEAKER_01: But then there are guys that run this train of like, oh, maybe I, maybe I don't deserve this promotion.
[1:02:13] SPEAKER_01: So they self-sabotage.
[1:02:15] SPEAKER_01: Maybe I don't deserve this marriage.
[1:02:18] SPEAKER_01: So they go have an affair.
[1:02:20] SPEAKER_01: Oh, maybe I maybe I don't deserve these kids.
[1:02:23] SPEAKER_01: So they rail on the kids all the time and yell at them and all those types of things.
[1:02:28] SPEAKER_01: So, yes, there's a sin brokenness in there, right?
[1:02:31] SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're in Adam, you're just broken without hope.
[1:02:34] SPEAKER_01: And if you're in Christ, there's still brokenness there that has to be dealt with, right?
[1:02:38] SPEAKER_01: Most guys are unwilling to, I hate the phrase do the work because it has so many different connotations, but they're unwilling to walk down the path of struggle to get victory in those areas.
[1:02:47] SPEAKER_01: And also, I think part of the issue we have now in 2026 is everything is a diagnosable mental disorder.
[1:02:55] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[1:02:56] SPEAKER_01: Nothing's just, oh yeah, you're just being lazy or oh yeah, you're just making bad decisions.
[1:03:01] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, I have a disorder.
[1:03:02] SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, if you act like a jerk to your husband, but some weird influencer on Instagram said, oh, it's because you have perimenopause or because you're in your cycle for the month or whatever, then oh, you're without excuse.
[1:03:15] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:03:15] SPEAKER_01: Or no, you have an excuse, right?
[1:03:16] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I that's not me that did it.
[1:03:18] SPEAKER_01: You know, people that do the Enneagram, which don't do it, it's satanic.
[1:03:21] SPEAKER_01: Like, go look at the origins.
[1:03:22] SPEAKER_01: I did a whole podcast on it.
[1:03:23] SPEAKER_01: But like you're like, oh, sorry, I acted that way in the meeting, but I'm an Enneagram eight.
[1:03:27] SPEAKER_01: What can you do?
[1:03:28] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[1:03:28] SPEAKER_01: So I think we've we've given people way too many excuses to suck.
[1:03:33] SPEAKER_01: And people are taking them.
[1:03:34] SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, it's way easier to just say I suck and not I suck because of my own decision making.
[1:03:38] SPEAKER_01: It's because I have this problem.
[1:03:39] SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm very uncomfortable with the sex addiction and porn addiction language.
[1:03:44] SPEAKER_01: And the reason is is because there's an easy proof for whether something is an addiction or not.
[1:03:49] SPEAKER_01: It's will you become will it, will you die or will you physically collapse if it were to disappear?
[1:03:56] SPEAKER_01: Because if alcohol were to disappear disappear in the snap of a finger right now, there would be a lot of people around the world that would die because of if you stop cold turkey with alcohol as opposed to like, you know, kind of weaning yourself off, you can die.
[1:04:11] SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of drugs that they don't, they don't just get you right off cold turkey.
[1:04:14] SPEAKER_01: They kind of have to wean you off.
[1:04:16] SPEAKER_01: There's no one on this planet that would die physically if porn disappeared.
[1:04:20] SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
[1:04:20] SPEAKER_01: Uh gambling, right?
[1:04:22] SPEAKER_01: That's the new thing.
[1:04:23] SPEAKER_01: We've gamified things on our phone.
[1:04:24] SPEAKER_01: So guys can't just watch a fight or a ball game.
[1:04:27] SPEAKER_01: They got to, you know, bet 25 cents on whether or not the first pitch is going to be a ball or a strike, or they got to bet a dollar on the first person to get a steal or whatever the thing is.
[1:04:35] SPEAKER_01: Everything's been so gamified to where we think we're addicted.
[1:04:38] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, no, no.
[1:04:39] SPEAKER_01: You've just you've replaced what you need to be doing with your time with something else that's easier.
[1:04:44] SPEAKER_01: And your phone is the escape.
[1:04:46] SPEAKER_01: The needle is the escape.
[1:04:48] SPEAKER_01: The gym could be the escape.
[1:04:49] SPEAKER_01: The girl could be the escape.
[1:04:50] SPEAKER_01: The boy could be the escape, whatever the escape is.
[1:04:53] SPEAKER_01: That's just what you've chosen.
[1:04:55] SPEAKER_01: And again, we've just made some agreements in some areas that aren't helping us.
[1:04:59] SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, you don't, you don't have a mental disorder.
[1:05:01] SPEAKER_01: Like you, you just make a bunch of bad decisions and you're paying the price for it now.
[1:05:05] unknown: Yeah.
[1:05:05] SPEAKER_02: And I and I think, I mean, you're you're right in that it I think people will use labels and language to minimize them not wanting to do the things.
[1:05:19] SPEAKER_01: They don't want to.
[1:05:20] SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think people like there are demonic assignments.
[1:05:26] SPEAKER_02: Like Satan does want to kill, steal, and destroy you, but I think sometimes we'll say, Man, this is uh this is an attack from the enemy, or um you're attacking you.
[1:05:36] SPEAKER_02: What are you talking about?
[1:05:37] SPEAKER_02: It's like, or am I like living in self-sabotage?
[1:05:40] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, gosh, man.
[1:05:42] SPEAKER_02: I I I think because there I I did a uh interview with um a doctor and just talking about if you look at a CT scan, like you can see the damage in the brain from pornography, um, like significant consumption over a 10 year period.
[1:05:58] SPEAKER_02: If you look at someone who's doing hard drugs and contrasts so much.
[1:06:01] SPEAKER_01: Rewires your pleasure, yeah, pleasure pathways.
[1:06:03] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:06:03] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[1:06:04] SPEAKER_02: And so it's like why in the heck would you do that?
[1:06:08] SPEAKER_02: Like why would you uh why would you drink poison?
[1:06:11] SPEAKER_02: And I think to your point, it's like we're trying to escape something.
[1:06:16] SPEAKER_02: And it's like, you know, it's not like man, uh sign me up for 10 years of addiction.
[1:06:22] SPEAKER_02: You know, sign me up to I wanna, I want to ruin the marriage I prayed for.
[1:06:27] SPEAKER_02: Sign me up to to lose my ministry or or whatever it is.
[1:06:32] SPEAKER_02: But why do you think, I mean, I I I would love to hear your opinion, like why do you think so many people wrestle with this thing that if you look at the data where you know 20, 30 years ago, maybe 30 years ago, people were smoking cigarettes on a baseball field.
[1:06:49] SPEAKER_02: There was the the marble, you know, the marble man you know everywhere then all of a sudden it's like oh there's empirical data and uh a lot of testimony it's like oh it it actually is detrimental for the individual maybe we shouldn't do it, you know, or maybe we should address it differently.
[1:07:07] SPEAKER_02: Why don't you think we've gotten to that point with porn so I'm reminded of uh Jordan Peterson saying this on a podcast.
[1:07:14] SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the context but he goes when people ask drug addicts why they do drugs, it's the wrong question.
[1:07:21] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:07:21] SPEAKER_01: And the person's like, what are you talking about?
[1:07:23] SPEAKER_01: He's like, we know why they do drugs because drugs are awesome and they make you feel awesome.
[1:07:28] SPEAKER_01: So the question isn't why don't why do you do drugs?
[1:07:31] SPEAKER_01: It's why don't you do them all the time, right?
[1:07:35] SPEAKER_01: Because like because that's the thing.
[1:07:37] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:07:37] SPEAKER_01: But there's the there's the property of diminishing returns, right?
[1:07:41] SPEAKER_01: So we see that in all the data.
[1:07:43] SPEAKER_01: So the first time you take the ride with crack or cocaine or meth or something like that, you're constantly chasing that first high because it's so insane.
[1:07:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[1:07:52] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[1:07:52] SPEAKER_01: You're constantly getting there.
[1:07:53] SPEAKER_01: Charlie Sheen, this is pretty crass, but you know we talk about adult stuff here.
[1:07:56] SPEAKER_01: He was talking about whenever he got oral sex while high on crack and he's been chasing when he was at his worst he was chasing that.
[1:08:05] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:08:05] SPEAKER_01: Because it's like over your central nervous system is completely overwhelmed by all the stimuli in a situation like that.
[1:08:12] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[1:08:13] SPEAKER_01: And so we're constantly looking for that thing.
[1:08:15] SPEAKER_01: And you know how it goes with porn.
[1:08:17] SPEAKER_01: My first exposure to porn was at a buddy's bedroom and you know the guys just started talking about vaginas and I was like I've never seen one and he's like you never seen a vagina he lifts up his mattress and he had like printed out little pictures of vaginas and then there was the buddy who was able to score some Playboys when he went back home to Arkansas and brought him back back home to Oklahoma with him.
[1:08:36] SPEAKER_01: And then it was you know video porn and the ubiquity of that then it was smartphone porn and all of that.
[1:08:42] SPEAKER_01: And so you get into all these different modalities but when you see people that eventually go to prison for raping children and you go back John Fobert is a guy who went to my church he wrote a book called how pornography harms and he goes through like the what's going on in the brain and the restructuring of the neural pathways and all those types of things even with serial killers.
[1:09:02] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:09:03] SPEAKER_01: Like Ted Bundy talked about how he was tortured by by pornography, right?
[1:09:09] SPEAKER_01: But it always starts innocent, right?
[1:09:12] SPEAKER_01: It's just pictures of naked women and then it's pictures of people having sex and then it's video of people having normal sex and you know how it goes.
[1:09:18] SPEAKER_01: It gets into violent porn rape porn murder porn where people are raped and then killed bestiality like you it gets into all the levels of depravity that your imagination can't even comprehend.
[1:09:31] SPEAKER_01: And when they find these men that have child pornography or they've started to engage in child pornography in some way it always started way before that.
[1:09:40] SPEAKER_01: Because you're right no one's gonna be like yeah hey in 10 years your marriage is going to completely explode because of your bad decisions.
[1:09:46] SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be like oh that's insane.
[1:09:48] SPEAKER_01: I would never do that.
[1:09:49] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:09:50] SPEAKER_01: But we just do it little by little by little until it happens all at once.
[1:09:54] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[1:09:54] SPEAKER_01: So I do a lot of jujitsu and I I try to tell people about when you're being choked unconscious, there is a tunnel.
[1:09:59] SPEAKER_01: And that tunnel is closing.
[1:10:01] SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when you're in a pretty good rear naked choke, that tunnel seems to be closing at the same speed.
[1:10:06] SPEAKER_01: But you know what happens when guys get past unconscious because they think it's gonna keep going at the same speed and then it whams shut at some point.
[1:10:13] SPEAKER_01: And so it's like when you see that tunnel like starting to get a little dim, you tap or you're you're gonna be alcohol and we're all going to laugh.
[1:10:20] SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing with pornography is I think Satan is able to use it with such minimal effort because even things that aren't pornographic are going to be turned into it.
[1:10:31] SPEAKER_01: My boys when they were really young were watching something on YouTube and an ad popped onto a kid's show and it was a rap video with girls like half naked like twerking in the first 10 seconds of the video.
[1:10:43] SPEAKER_01: And so pornographic images or lustful images are just going to be infused into so much of our entertainment you know advertisements people were talking you know during the during the Super Bowl during big sporting events they were like having to turn their kids' eyes away during just normal commercials because it's like what what are we doing here trying to expose our kids to that and so the ubiquity of it how effective it is at destroying marriages and because if Satan wants to destroy anything he wants to he Satan wanted to destroy the marriage from the beginning because he was jealous that God created something that was more important than the angels right that goes back to the fall that goes back to everything.
[1:11:22] SPEAKER_01: He's trying to destroy Adam and Eve and he's still trying to do it today easy way to do that is pornography.
[1:11:27] SPEAKER_01: And there's even more nefarious ways.
[1:11:29] SPEAKER_01: Oh hey husband and wife just watch porn together right and then see if you want to try some of that stuff out and all of that.
[1:11:35] SPEAKER_01: And then what does it lead to them both consuming it by themselves and pleasuring themselves to the images without their spouse available.
[1:11:42] unknown: Yeah.
[1:11:42] SPEAKER_01: And it's just it's incredibly pernicious but Satan's incredibly crafty he can't be the father of lies unless you know what truth is and he knows what truth is and that's why he's keep trying to keep especially married couples away from it.
[1:11:51] SPEAKER_02: Yeah I mean uh unfortunately as as we try to to land the plane uh early on this conversation because I I think we'll have I would love to have uh the conversation that we had earlier again yeah what are we not talking about Tel Rico all kinds of stuff needs to be talked about um but but it it would answer that question because we were talking about um you know politicians people who are running um trying to uh manipulate truth to further an agenda and it it's really the answer for what I'm gonna ask if if you are a dad that are is I'm just trying to lead my family best um the obvious answer is well I need to lead myself yeah uh so to the man that is saying hey uh I'm not where I want to be uh maybe I'm not leading my home in the way that I should be um but today's the day I want to draw a line in the sand.
[1:12:49] SPEAKER_02: Uh would you spend just two or three minutes just talk to the man say hey I'm I'm ready to change.
[1:12:54] SPEAKER_02: You know I I I know what I know what I need to do um but I just need a little instruction.
[1:12:58] SPEAKER_02: Like I I I know that there's things that need to change but I don't exactly know how to do it.
[1:13:04] SPEAKER_01: Yeah I think even to go from your last question on this one, you can't stand firm if you're sitting down in front of a computer with your pants around your ankles.
[1:13:11] SPEAKER_03: Right.
[1:13:12] SPEAKER_01: That's you just can't do you can't do both.
[1:13:15] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[1:13:15] SPEAKER_01: And so I think for a lot of men they need to do exactly what you just said which is they need to draw a line in the sand and say I'm gonna forever be on this side of the line.
[1:13:24] SPEAKER_01: It comes down to predecision.
[1:13:26] SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing Josh with most men they know what they need to stop doing and they know what they need to start doing.
[1:13:31] SPEAKER_01: They know they've gotten a little fat.
[1:13:33] SPEAKER_01: They know they've gotten a little lazy they know that they haven't read a book since high school because they were convinced that that made you gay I guess if you read books like as an older adult.
[1:13:42] SPEAKER_01: I I don't it's just like oh I ain't gonna read no book like it's they know they've made some agreements with some really bad ways of operating because you brought up cigarettes earlier.
[1:13:51] SPEAKER_01: Do you think anyone knows now in 2026 that cigarettes do you think there's anyone that is just unaware that they're dangerous and that they can lead to cancer I don't think so.
[1:14:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah I don't think that person exists.
[1:14:02] SPEAKER_01: They just do it anyway because they don't care.
[1:14:05] SPEAKER_01: And so I think for a lot of guys I'm kind of the put up or shut up guy.
[1:14:09] SPEAKER_01: Like when I do my coaching program like I said I'm not anyone's personal cheerleader.
[1:14:13] SPEAKER_01: I'm not their their personal like uh accountability buddy like gonna make them do it.
[1:14:18] SPEAKER_01: I'm like I'm gonna I'm your guide here you're the hero in the story I'm the guide.
[1:14:23] SPEAKER_01: And if you don't do what I'm asking you to do and what I'm guiding you to do that's your own choice but please do not expect a different results by doing the exact same and giving the exact same inputs right so for that man that is stuck change your inputs change where you're depositing your energy you only have so much of it you only have so much of your attention.
[1:14:43] SPEAKER_01: And so so many guys are like oh man I wish I knew the Bible more.
[1:14:46] SPEAKER_01: Are you studying it at all?
[1:14:48] SPEAKER_01: No.
[1:14:48] SPEAKER_01: Are you reading it at all?
[1:14:49] SPEAKER_01: No it's like well I'm a genius and I just figured out one of the first things that you need to start doing.
[1:14:55] SPEAKER_01: Well I don't really have time for that.
[1:14:56] SPEAKER_01: Do you really want me to break down your day for you?
[1:14:59] SPEAKER_01: Do you really want me to get an accounting of every single minute you spent during this day?
[1:15:03] SPEAKER_01: Do you want to have that embarrassment or do you just want to tell me where you can start shaving off some time okay you you spent an hour setting your fantasy football lineup this week.
[1:15:11] SPEAKER_01: Bro you played Call of Duty for three hours with your buddies the other night after your wife went to bed.
[1:15:15] SPEAKER_01: You've looked at this much porn you scrolled TikTok for a half hour on the toilet at work.
[1:15:20] SPEAKER_01: Bro we like we got time to consume the Bible.
[1:15:23] SPEAKER_01: And it's just making those small changes that are going to make them feel uncomfortable that are going to lead to change.
[1:15:29] SPEAKER_01: I carry a physical Bible with me everywhere I go, right?
[1:15:32] SPEAKER_01: And so if I'm stuck you know waiting for somebody or at a meeting or something like that, I'm not opening my phone, I'm opening my Bible when the server brings me their brings me my food, one of the first things I say when they say hey is there anything else I can get you is hey we're about to bless our meal.
[1:15:45] SPEAKER_01: How can we be praying for you?
[1:15:46] unknown: Yeah.
[1:15:47] SPEAKER_01: So man who's trying to guide your your wife and lead your wife and your kids maybe they've never seen you do that before they're going to look at dad like what is dad on like what is but they're gonna hear you pray for the waiter or waitress like and you may not be very good at it.
[1:16:02] SPEAKER_01: You may be clunky at the beginning but you'll get better.
[1:16:04] SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of guys just need to burn the ships on who the old self was and they just haven't done it yet because they like going back and visiting the old ship.
[1:16:12] SPEAKER_01: But it's like if you want the transformational change if you want to be the head of your household if you want to love your wife in an Ephesians 5 way if you want to raise your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord you can't do that and still be a knucklehead.
[1:16:22] SPEAKER_01: So it's kill the knucklehead and move forward.
[1:16:25] SPEAKER_02: I appreciate your time so much we got to do a part two.
[1:16:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah we'll do it we'll make it happen before the uh midterm how about that sounds good thank you so much for joining me today on the Walkworthy podcast and if this conversation challenged you or encouraged you don't keep it to yourself share it with someone who needs to hear it.
[1:16:45] SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't already hit subscribe and leave a review.
[1:16:48] SPEAKER_02: It helps more people discover truth and walk in purpose.
[1:16:52] SPEAKER_02: Be sure to follow us on social media and you can find those links below in the show notes.
[1:16:58] SPEAKER_02: Remember Ephesians 4 1 reminds us to live a life worthy of the calling we received the calling is real the walk is hard but you don't have to walk it alone so until next time stay rooted in the word stay faithful in the fight and let's keep walking worthy one step at a time hey real quick if you've been telling yourself I'll deal with this later let this be your moment if you want to live with integrity online and you're tired of fighting private battles in secret CovenantEyes can help.
[1:17:34] SPEAKER_00: It's accountability software designed to bring transparency to your devices and support healthier choices not just through willpower but through trusted relationships.
[1:17:42] SPEAKER_00: And right now you can try Covenant Eyes with a 30 day free trial just use the link in the show notes or visit covenanteyes.com and use promo code AHCC to get your 30 days free.
[1:17:53] SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be perfect you just have to be willing to take the next step Covenant Eyes take the step into the light

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