(upbeat music) - We're honored to be joined again by author and speaker Paul Tripp on the Ask Pastor John podcast. As we finish out this week, he is the author of the book, Sex and Money. Paul, we recently polled DG readers on their use of technology, and 8,000 of our readers responded.

And those who admitted to an ongoing use of internet pornography, it was clearly a particular struggle among men. Women struggle at a far less rate, but for both men and women, the struggle is stronger the younger the person. And almost 50% of men, 18 to 29, the youngest demographic that we polled, almost 50% of men here who read Desiring God admit to ongoing struggles with porn use.

But what's also interesting is that most of these men have accountability structures in their lives. So this is not a surprise to others. Other people in their lives know this is a struggle for them. So what would you say to a Christian man who is stuck and trapped in this powerful sin?

- The first thing I would say, and I think this is very important, it's a cultural analysis. I don't think we do these kinds of cultural analyses as much as we should. You have to understand, you now live in a pornified world. Pornography is Western culture. It's everywhere. You'll never safely escape the pornographic influences of the surrounding culture.

You just can't. You can't look at your computer, you can't follow the news, watch television, go to a movie, read a magazine, go to the mall for Pete's sake, without having your morals assaulted. So you have to understand the world that you're living in. Don't be naive. The thing that somehow you can purify your environment to the place where it won't be a problem for you.

We are all gonna be faced with the temptation we just need to get a grip. Second thing is, I think that we haven't talked about the why so many Christian men are addicted to internet pornography. And I wanna say it this way. If I've accepted, and I think many, many Christian men have done this without knowing it, that sex is fundamentally about my pleasure.

That it's, let's say in marriage, it's a legal means of me getting pleasure. And that's what drives me in marital sex. And so what happens when I'm in the sexual bed with my wife, I don't care about her. I don't care about God. I don't care about loving and serving her.

All I care about is getting off. All I care about is my satisfaction. Now what that does is that reduces sex and reduces my wife to an object for my pleasure. I'm gonna say this. She becomes little more than a tool of my masturbation. It's totally anti-relational sex. It's not about relationship with God.

It's not about relationship with my wife. In fact, the physical relationship, my love relationship to that person almost doesn't exist in that moment. It's just my body getting what my body wants. If that's happened and she has now been objectified, I have little defense against the computer which offers me the same thing, because it's all about me.

And in fact, the computer may be a more efficient tool of sexual climax than my wife is. What defense do I then have? But see, if it's been about God, if it's been about relationship, if it's been about loving her and loving God and wanting this thing to be what God designed it to be, the computer is weird, strange, and out of place.

And so I think that what is being revealed is not a problem with the computer. What's being revealed is a problem that exists in our marriages, that exists in our low view of sexuality and marriage, that set us up to be defenseless against this temptation. - So singleness is an opportunity to die to this lie that sex is selfish, a lesson that any man or woman will need in marriage.

- It is a key place where contemporary singles can submit to the fact that in all areas of boundary setting, God is smarter than me. - Very good, thank you, Paul. I appreciate this. And if you're looking for solid wisdom on fighting sexual sin, see Paul Tripp's book, "Sex and Money." We must break for the weekend, but we will return on Monday.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a wonderful weekend. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)