Every Young Man's Battle: Sexual Temptation by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker

Every Young Man's Battle
by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoker

Reviewed by Aaron Battey

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Below contains a brief listing of some quotes from the book, Every Young Man’s Battle.  This is not a complete list of the quotes that I thought were excellent.   The book uses very blunt, explicit terminology; thus, I decided it best to leave some excerpts off this public posting.  The lust of the eyes and flesh is a major and common problem in the church as well as the world.  Preachers have even been caught up in the sin of pornography and adultery as well as other notable men you would never expect.  I post this note to provide a resource to compliment the Bible so that young and old men alike can overcome the sexual temptations that have pervaded every society but which are more vast with today’s technology.  I recommend the book, Every Young Man’s Battle; however, I must warn the reader: the book is filled with false doctrine regarding salvation and the working of the Holy Spirit.  Thus, I advise anyone who reads the book for themselves to exercise strong judgment whenever these issues come up in the text, and consider in light of God’s Holy Word.  Despite this, there is no other book I am aware of that gives such great advice and techniques for overcoming the sexual temptations of the world.Nearly every book of the NT we’re commanded to avoid sexual impurity.  Here is a list of scriptures quoted and used in application throughout the book, Every Young Man’s Battle.

Matthew 5:28, Mark 7:21-23, Acts 15:29, Romans 6:11-14, Romans 7:21-24, Romans 13:12-13, 1 Cor. 5:11, 1 Cor. 6:13, 18-20, Vs. 18, 2 Cor. 10:5, 2 Cor. 12:21 , Galatians 5:16,19, Galatians 6:7-8, Ephesians 5:3-4, Colossians 3:5-6 , 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5,7, Hebrews 12:16, Hebrews 13:4 , 1 Peter 2:11-12, 1 Peter 4:3 , Jude 7 , Revelation 2:14 , Revelation 2:20 , Revelation 21:8

The book also gives a few old testament passages to consider: Proverbs 5:15-20, Ezekiel 6:9, Job 31:1,9-10.

From this point forward, the text contains direct quotes from the book that I judged to be highlights of the book’s entirety, as well as a glimpse of what the book offers.

• Sexual purity is receiving no sexual gratification from anything or anyone outside of your husband or wife.  That’s a black and white definition that young people need to be taught.
• The Bifurcation Myth = you can do what you want as a teenager because after you move into adulthood, it won’t matter.
• Wrong decisions today get you traveling down a path that leads to more horrible mistakes tomorrow.  These decisions will carry right over into marriage, and you’ll live one life in front of you wife and one life behind her back, trapped by the sexual habits you form now.
• What you view today will stay in your mind a long, long time = maybe forever.  There’s an old saying: “It takes twenty seconds to look at a Playboy and twenty years to forget what you saw.”
• If you’re single and watching sensual R-rated movies, wedded bliss won’t change this habit.  If your eyes lock on passing (wome), they’ll still roam after you say “I do.” 
• Ezekiel 6:9…when we entered the Promised Land of our own salvation, we were told to eliminate every hint of sexual immorality in our lives.  Since entering that land, have you failed to crush sexual sin?
• If we don’t kill every hint of immorality, we’ll be captured by our tendency as males to draw sexual gratification and chemical highs through our eyes.
• Foreplay is any…action that naturally takes us down the road to (sexual behavior).  Foreplay ignites passions, rocketing us forward by stages until we go all the way.  God views foreplay outside marriage as wrong.  We get a glimpse of this in Ezekiel 23:3, where God, portraying the waywardness of His chosen people, uses the picture of virgins in passionate sin: “In that land their breasts were fondled and their virgin bosoms caressed.”  If you’ve ever argued that God doesn’t address “petting” in the Bible, let this verse serve as a corrective to your thinking.
• (In Alex’s case), impurity of the eyes was clearly foreplay, which led to further sin.  It’s critical to recognize visual sexual impurity as foreplay.
• Married or not, you must train your eyes and mind to be pure, or they’ll keep doing what comes naturally.
• Everyone with beliefs gets mocked, not just Christians.  Don’t be so afraid of it!  That’s just a part of life. (see James 1:2-3)
• I’m not saying that God cannot take the desire from you.  He can!  He’s just never done it in my life or in the tens of thousands of people I’ve worked with over the years.  That includes pornographers.  Ninety-nine percent of them had to make a decision.  They had to make a decision to not walk by magazine racks of adult magazines, and they had to make a decision to stay faithful to their wives and their families.
• Holiness isn’t some nebulous thing.  It’s a series of right choices.
• Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12 that we must “not be mastered by anything.”
• Honest sharing must occur in these relationships (this is talking about relationships in accountability groups).  Tough questions must be asked, and true answers given.  After the first three or four weeks of getting to know each other, powder-puff questions like “How’d you like church last week?” must give way to introspective questions like “How were things different this week from last week?” and “What’s changing?”  Otherwise, you don’t have an accountability group at all, but merely a sympathy gathering where each person admits his failure again and again, week after week.  The wounded merely lean on each other, hoping to be told, “That’s all right.”
• Following this conversation, Ron began calling Nathan every day.  Sometimes Nathan needs to be encouraged.  Sometimes he needs to be challenged to do what’s right.  In the end, though, it came down to whether Nathan had made a decision to win, a decision for purity.  Accountability only works when coupled with a firm commitment to win.
• You’ve got a decision to make.  You can’t visually feed on the same films as your school chums and expect to stay sexually pure.
• You can commit to (breaking the impure habit of your eyes) in 4-6 weeks.
• Some people when they fail say, “Well, since I failed, I might as well fail big.”  Have you said this before?
• Cold turkey is the way to go.  You shut off the spigot by totally starving your eyes of all things sensual.  You’ll begin to see your date as a person and not an object eventually.
• Your first step is listing your own “greatest enemies.”  What are the most obvious and prolific sources of sensual images coming your way?  Where do you look most often?  Where are you weakest?  Ask yourselves these questions.

• You’ll need a good Bible verse to use as a sword and rallying point (when in temptation).
• You take a seat in the back of the library, and on the chair is the latest issue of Playboy magazine.  This is when your shield verse-the words from 1 Cor. 6 for example- should come to mind. “I have not right to even consider looking at it.  I haven’t the authority.”
• The apostle Paul said we’re to be like Olympic athletes, beating our bodies and running so as to win.  Most of us haven’t disciplined our bodies to that extent, certainly not in the sexual arena.  But the truth is clear.  We’re to crucify the flesh.  Part of that process is learning not to put yourself in the same old situations that lead to sin.
• Some may think that objecting to Forrest Gump is minor, legalistic meddling.  But such subtle influences, added to hundreds of others over time, provide more than a hint of sexual immorality in our lives.  Soon, the effect isn’t so subtle anymore…
• Dave told us that he and his girlfriend have a rule that they can’t be alone in either home if the parents are away.  And Josh said to us, “kissing isn’t wrong, but when a girl decides to kiss me on the first date, I find it hard to believe she cares much about her purity.  That’s dangerous, because if she doesn’t care much about her purity, she won’t care so much about mine.  So I have a rule not date them a second time.  Limit the times you’re alone and in a highly excitable situation.  Do things with friends of both sexes.  Go on group dates.  Limit the amount of touching and the amount of kissing.  Whatever are your defenses, set your rules and then be disciplined.
• I’d stopped the pornography the day I sang in church…but not the rest of it.  My eyes roamed over every girl I saw.  Looking back, that’s probably why Tracy didn’t look so good to me.  “Honestly, I’d never really guarded my eyes before or even thought about it.  I watched any movies I wanted, and I looked way too long at the girls at school, but I really didn’t think these things affected my life.  But after my mom read your book and told me about it, I began to wonder.  So I paid more attention to my eyes over the next day or so, and I found that they were collecting more sexual gratification than I’d thought.”
• “When Tracy read Every Man’s Battle, she was blown away,” said Garrett.  “She had no idea how men’s eyes work, and she was surprised to learn what Christian girls like her were doing to their Christian brothers with the clothes they wear.
• All impure thoughts generate from processing both visual and live attractions through your senses.
• Even one girl that pushes our boundaries hard can threaten out intimacy with Christ.  If she’s a non-Christian, she’s even more dangerous since she has no moral reason not to go to bed with you.  With such girls, it’s best stopping her by returning no attraction signals.
• “Flee from her” (like Joseph did Potiphar’s wife).  First, prepare with a few “war game” simulations so to speak.  Josh McDowell tells teens to decide what they’ll do in the backseat of the car before they ever get to the backseat of the car.
• Seeking the boundaries of purity is important, but it’s better to seek the center of purity.  For instance, kissing is not technically foreplay.  I’ve kissed Mom, my sister, and even my Aunt Nadine with no sexual overtones at all.  Kissing may be fine for you and your girlfriend.  We have no problem with that in general.  But when I (Fred) look back, I’m not at all certain that kissing was best for Brenda and me during our courtship.  Kissing ignited sensual infernos in my mind and made it only harder for us to remain pure together, while it did little to strengthen our relationship or ensure the success of our pending marriage.  All pain, no gain.

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