John Bevere - This Changed My Mind on Watching Porn
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Hey, welcome to lesson two of Porn Free. Again, I can’t tell you how proud I am of each and every one of you watching this course. I just hope that right now it’s like me sitting across the table talking to you; that’s the way I feel in my heart. I can literally sense your presence, your desire, and your passion to be free. I want to commend your bravery and humility, and I want to tell you how much I love and care for you deeply. That’s because God loves and cares for you deeply; He is your Father.
In this lesson, we’re going to address the motivation for wanting to be free. I had the wrong motivation, and it kept me from getting free. I really want to expose this to you to help you understand why it is so important to have the right motive. As I shared with you in the first lesson, I was introduced to pornography around the age of 12. It was magazines; it wasn’t tablets, computers, or phones; it was magazines. I started getting the Playboys, Hustlers, and Penthouses. I repeatedly kept looking at these magazines every month as my friends and I figured out how to get the new editions. By the time I was in high school, I was consumed by lust. By the time I got to college, I was in a fraternity. You talk about adding fuel to the fire; it was unbelievable. I was on the varsity tennis team, a Division 1 university athlete, and girls were interested. Everything was going wrong; everything was heading down the road to destroy my life.
When I finally got saved in my sophomore year of college, I thought everything would leave my life. The interesting thing was that I cussed like a drunken sailor. I couldn’t construct a sentence without cursing, but that left when I got saved; alcoholism left my life too. However, the pornography addiction didn’t. I remember when I got married to Lisa, I thought it would go away, but it didn’t. It got worse and it was affecting our relationship both in and out of the bedroom.
In 1984, I was working for a church in Dallas, Texas, with 450 paid employees. We were one of the biggest, well-known churches in the United States, so every major ministry was coming to our church. My job was to pick up the guest speakers and take care of them. One of the men who frequently came to our church was a man who probably had the most powerful deliverance ministry in the world in the 20th century, Dr. Lester Sumrall. He was a very strong, gruff man, but he really cared about people. He deeply cared for me, and I knew that, so I felt safe to open up to him.
It was September of 1984 when I said, «Dr. Sumrall, I am bound.» I remember him looking at me and saying, «Stop it.» I kind of reverberated from him saying that, and then he started preaching to me. Now, I’m going to tell you, he was really strong with me, but I knew he cared, so I listened. When he was finished, I listened to every word he said. I asked if he would please pray for me; I wanted deliverance. I wanted this out of my life forever. He said, «Absolutely, John. Come close.» He laid his hands on my head and prayed a really strong prayer. You know what happened? Nothing. Let me be more specific: absolutely nothing.
I thought, «Well, I guess I better find another pastor.» No, you’re not going to find anyone with more power and authority than Dr. Sumrall at that time. I was baffled. I humbled myself, wondering what was going on. But nine months later—this was the fall of 1984; let’s just say September—by May of 1985, I went on a four-day fast. On the fourth day of that fast, May 6, 1985, I got completely set free from lust and pornography, and I’m still free today. I’m going to say it again: it is wonderful to be free. I have been in bondage, and being free is so much better, and that’s where you’re going.
However, as I was walking in this freedom for a couple of years, I had this nagging question I just couldn’t shake. So, one morning in prayer, I finally brought it to the Lord and said, «Father, I just don’t understand. I really humbled myself with Dr. Sumrall. I opened up with him; I did what the Word of God said. Why didn’t I get delivered in September of 1984? Why wasn’t it until nine months later that I was delivered?» God, interestingly enough, started showing me my prayer life.
Now, I have to back up a little further. In 1982, I read a book by Ian Bounds called The Power of Prayer. I was so impacted by that book that I made up my mind to pray every single morning. So, I set my alarm for 4:45 every morning, got out of bed, and was outside in a remote place by 5 a.m. I would pray from 5 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. every day and then get back to my apartment to go to work by eight.
When you pray for 90 minutes every single morning in a remote place—without a Bible to read—you end up talking to God and trying to listen. You run out of things to pray about, so you have your «default prayer.» What is your default prayer? That is the thing you want more than anything else. My default prayer was, «God, use me to lead multitudes to Jesus. God, use me to heal sick people. God, use me to get people set free.» Man, I’d pray outside and scream, «God, give me souls or I’m going to die!» You know, because I knew the old timers said it, so I’m trying to do it.
I remember one morning—I don’t know if it was September or October 1984, but it was around the same time that I opened up with Dr. Sumrall—I was outside praying when God said, «Son, your prayers are off target.» When I heard that, I thought, «What? I’m praying for people to be saved, healed. What do you mean my prayers are off target?» Then the Lord said, «Son, you can get people set free, heal people in Jesus' name, get people saved, and they can end up in hell forever.»
When I heard that clearly, I thought, «This is the devil!» But yet I knew it was God. Then He said something I had never thought of, never read, never heard anyone else say. Our church talked about faith, about receiving from God, about blessings; we never discussed this type of stuff. He said to me in a pleading voice, «Son, Judas left everything he had to come follow me for three and a half years. Judas healed the sick in my name, got people free in my name, preached repentance in my name, and Judas is in hell forever.»
Wow! When he said that, I started trembling. Cautiously, I asked, «Then what should be my number one prayer?» The Lord said, «To know me intimately.» I thought about that. That was Moses’s number one heart cry; he finished well. That was King David’s number one heart cry; he finished well. That was the Apostle Paul’s number one heart cry: to know Him in the power of His resurrection; he finished well.
So my prayers started changing. I began praying, «God, I want to know You the best a man can know You. God, I want to please You the best a man can please You. Lord, I want to love You as deeply as a man can love You. I want to know Your heart; I want to love what You love and hate what You hate. What is important to You? I want it to become important to me. What is not so important to You? I want it not to be important to me.» I started crying this out.
You may ask, «John, what does this have to do with getting free from pornography?» It has everything to do with it because Paul makes a statement in 2 Corinthians 7:10 speaking to the Corinthian church: «For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation.» Now, the Greek word there for salvation is «soteria,» which means healing, preservation, soundness of mind, or deliverance. So don’t think just dying and going to heaven; it means all of that. We are talking deliverance here. Let’s put «deliverance» in there: «For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to deliverance, not to be regretted.» Now, listen to this: «But sorrow of the world produces death.»
So you have two sorrows. Now, ladies and gentlemen, listen to me: they are both genuine sorrows. It’s not that one sorrow is authentic and the other imitation; they’re both very real and authentic. What’s the difference? One produces the repentance that leads to deliverance; the other produces death. What’s the difference between these two sorrows? You can see it in the lives of two kings in the Bible, King Saul and King David.
King Saul disobeys God. Let me tell you, all sin is disobedience to God. If you look at Adam, he didn’t jump in bed with a prostitute or look at pornography in the garden; he just disobeyed God. This is the root. Saul disobeys God, and the prophet Samuel comes to him and backs him into a corner—that’s what prophets do. Finally, when Saul realizes there’s no getting out of this, he tries to blame the people, tries to make excuses. Finally, he goes, «I have sinned.» But the next words out of his mouth were these: «Yet now honor me, Samuel, in front of my leaders and my people.» In other words, «You’ve embarrassed me.» The focus of his sorrow was himself.
If you look at King David, he commits adultery and, to cover up the adultery, he murders the woman’s husband. This is unthinkable. But when the prophet Nathan comes to him and backs him into the corner, David goes, «I’ve sinned against the Lord!» He falls on his face and stays there for seven days; he couldn’t care less what his leaders and the people thought. You hear his heart cry in the Book of Psalms when he says, «God, against You and You only have I sinned.» The focus of his sorrow was God.
Worldly sorrow focuses on us—on me. What are the consequences I’m going to face? Am I going to lose my marriage? Am I going to lose my position in ministry? Am I going to lose my job? Am I going to be judged? Am I going to burn in hell forever? The focus of your sorrow is you; that’s worldly sorrow.
Godly sorrow, on the other hand, focuses on Him: «I’ve hurt the heart of the one I love so much.» God showed me that when I opened up with Dr. Lester Sumrall in the fall of 1984, I was scared that this sin of pornography and lust would keep me from the international calling on my life to preach the gospel. The focus of my sorrow was me. But after nine months of crying out to know God intimately, to love Him as deeply as a man could, He said to me, «Son, when you went on that fast, nine months later, your heart was breaking because you were hurting My heart.» That was the godly sorrow that produced the repentance that led to your deliverance.
So, I want to ask you: Why do you want to be free? Do you want your wife to give you good sex again? Do you not want to lose your position in ministry? Do you not want to burn in hell one day? All of that is worldly sorrow. I can preach to you for the rest of this course and you won’t get free. You have to be really honest: What is your motive for wanting to be free? If your motive, first and foremost, is «I am hurting the heart of God,» then you’re going to get free. If your second motive, almost as strong, is «I’m hurting the heart of my wife, my family, and the people who are close to me,» that’s godly sorrow.
The focus is on God and others because the number one commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Those are the people who are closest to you. If you’re in this course because «man, it’s embarrassing; I got caught,» or «my wife made me take this course,» or «my pastor or counselor told me to take this course,» I could teach 50 lessons and you won’t get free. You have to want to be free because you’re hurting God’s heart and you love Him deeply, and because you’re hurting the people who are close to you and you love them deeply.
I hope you will take the time. I’m going to pray because God will reveal the motives of your heart. I’m going to ask Him to do that right now, and I want you to really be honest with your assessment.
Heavenly Father, I thank You for my brother and sister watching right now. As we go through this course, we are journeying together. Your Word will set us free, but Holy Spirit, You’re the one who can reveal to us what’s in our heart. You’re the one who can shine the Light of Truth and Love in our hearts to expose our motives. I’m asking that You would show every single one of us the motives for wanting to be free from pornography and lust. I ask that You would do this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
I love you guys so very much and I’m so excited because now that we’ve hit the motivation, we’re going head-on into how to get free from pornography and sexual lust. God bless you guys; we’ll see you in the next lesson.