The Lie of

Every Man’s Battle

The Lie of

Every Man’s Battle

How to undo the spiritual damage

wreaked upon the sexes by the

Christian bestseller

martin zender heidi colpo

Starke & Hartmann, Inc.

The Lie of Every Man’s Battle

© 2024 by Martin Zender & Heidi Colpo Digital Edition

Original Source: The Lie of Every Man's Battle By Martin Zender and Heidi Colpo

Paperback Edition 2021

Published by Starke & Hartmann

P.O. Box 6473

Canton, OH 44706

www.starkehartmann.com

330-454-1061

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021944068

ISBN 978-1-956293-00-5 (Paperback Edition) ISBN 978-1-956293-01-2 (Digital Edition) Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.) Names: Zender, Martin, author. | Colpo, Heidi, author.

Title: The lie of Every man’s battle : how to undo the spiritual damage wreaked upon the sexes by the Christian bestseller / Martin Zender [and]

Heidi Colpo.

Description: Canton, OH : Starke & Hartmann, Inc., [2021]

Identifiers: ISBN 9781956293005 (paperback)

| ISBN 9781956293012 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Arterburn, Stephen, 1953- Every man’s battle--Criticism, Textual. | Sex--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Sexual freedom--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Christian men--Religious life.

Classification: LCC BT708 .A773 2021 (print) | LCC BT708 (ebook) | DDC

241.66--dc23

Contents

1. Battle of the Sexes 8

2. The Problem 24

3. Sexual Immorality 52

4. Nudity & Pornography 106

5. Everything the Bible

Has to Say About Porn 131

6. Nature Itself Teaches You 149

7. Feminine Beauty 210

8. Sexual Lust 234

9. Sexual Gratification 253

10. The Matthew 5:28 Lie 270

11. Religious Lust 295

12. Porn Addiction 335

13 The Wives 364

14. The Cure 416

15. Wrapping It Up 432

To Lisa Pay,

who was there

when it happened.

Acknowledgments

Thanks, first of all, to my friends Derek Wilder and Lisa Pay of Indiana. The three of us were standing in Derek’s kitchen one fall day of 2010, discussing how the book Every Man’s Battle had tricked millions of men into waging an unnecessary war against the way God had made them. At the time, Derek hated the book even more than I, although I think I have since eclipsed him.

He said that somebody should write a book against that book. He looked at me and grinned as he said it; he knew I was a writer. I played the game. “What should the hypothetical writer of such a hypothetical book call it?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Derek. “What would you call a direct refutation?”

“Hm. Probably something like, The Lie of Every Man’s Battle. Or is that too obvious?”

I started the book in Greenwich, Ohio in the spring of 2011, continued it for a year in Colorado Springs, upstairs at

Pike’s Perk Coffee and Tea House on Tejon St. (since renamed

“The Perk Downtown”), then finished it in Windber, Penn-sylvania in October of 2014.

You would not be holding this book were it not for my typesetter, Colombian-born Katherine Quintero Torres, who not only made these words look nice on the page, but believed in the project and kept my feet to the production-schedule fire. (Being not much of a schedule man, myself, her many

“to do” lists kept me on task.)

Heartfelt thanks to Drew Costen of Toronto, who found so many mistakes in the text—after I thought it was clean—

that I considered getting Lasik surgery. Drew was also a great encouragement along the way, telling me, “I have so many friends who can’t wait to read this book.”

My dear friend Clyde Pilkington of studyshelf.com, painfully aware of my expertise in the ways of procrastination, prodded me for six years to get the manuscript into print. (I told you I was a procrastinator.) His last prod worked.

This book would not be half of what it is (literal y) without my bril iant co-author Heidi Colpo. I’d finished the manuscript in 2014, but one of my early readers said, “Martin, this book is great, but it’s the male perspective only.”

“It’s the only perspective I’ve got, Laura.”

“Get a female co-author,” said my friend Laura, “and I think you’ll have a bestseller.”

Instantly realizing the wisdom of that advice (I’m a procrastinator, not an idiot), the choice was easy.

I’d known Heidi, her husband Danny, and their four wonderful children for about two years. Like me, Heidi Colpo believed that sexuality was a gift of God—a thing to be celebrated, not wrestled against. And certainly nothing to be ashamed of. As staunch a champion of grace as I, Heidi immediately said “yes” to my pitch. I told her where I needed

her comments, and she delivered. Boy did she deliver.

I am still stunned, today, by the brilliance of Heidi’s perspective. Her knowledge on this topic comes, not by studying New Testament Greek, but by the on-the-job wisdom stemming from wifedom and motherhood. Her struggles, like yours and mine, have been far from theoretical. The same can be said of her revelations.

Final y, thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Who has graced me with the gift of being male—and with the desire, courage, and the talent to write about it.

I based this critique on the original 2000 edition of Every Man’s Battle, which will explain any page-reference discrepancies when comparing to later editions.

I bleed for the unnecessary suffering inflicted upon millions of well-meaning men by the original book. May the Lord Jesus Christ—and this book—deliver them from discouragement, self-condemnation and guilt.

In the spirit of revelation, therefore, I am remaining yours from the edge of the bottom of the Floridan pen-insula (otherwise known as Ft. Lauderdale),

—Martin

Zender

Foreword

Foreword

Satan has hijacked human sexuality and used it against the race so effectively that a majority of people—

especially religious ones and those affected by religious ones—despise the very way that God has made them. Satan, through the agency of religion, has succeeded in making a majority of the race ashamed of the very hormones coursing through their bodies and making them who they are. And what has God made them? Male and female.

Humans are primarily identified by their gender. When a baby is born, the first question asked is: Is it a boy or a girl?

Gender is so central to our identity that, upon the creation of the race, it is the first thing noted by God—

So Elohim created humanity in His image; in the image of Elohim He created it: male and female He created them.

— Genesis 1:27

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The Lie of Every Man’s Battle refutes a popular Christian book by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker called Every Man’s Battle. Arterburn and Stoeker’s book essentially tells men that they are in a battle for their moral and spiritual lives simply by virtue of God having made them male. The battle created by these writers (they created it, God didn’t) is the battle of a man against his lust (desire) for the opposite sex.

(This is probably a good place to let my readers know that I’m focusing primarily on the desires of men for women because that’s what Arterburn and Stoeker’s book focuses on.) The book unscripturally condemns men for obeying their natures and teaches them to do ridiculous things against that nature, such as bouncing their eyes. (There is a specific chapter in Every Man’s Battle dedicated to teaching men how to bounce their eyes from feminine beauty. “All it takes is six weeks”—so say the authors.)

I wrote a book refuting this book because I hated the condemnation that was being heaped upon men. I not only hated it for the men, but also for the women who could not help but be adversely affected by their men striving to squelch a natural, God-given bent. The ensuing pressure, felt all around, eventual y harms rather than helps both sexes. Nothing is ever helped when religious prohibitions that were never authorized by God repress natural human inclinations. Such prohibitions may work for five minutes or five months—or maybe even five years—but when the volcano finally does erupt (and it always does), the emotional and spiritual fallout is considerable.

This is so avoidable. My desire is for males and females to live peaceably with one another.

Stranger things have happened. — MZ

2

ZENDER & COLPO

Heidi

Perhaps you have been married for years. Perhaps you have only recently married and you have discovered that it is much more difficult than you expected. Many of the arguments you have with your spouse arise, no doubt, around the topic of sex. There is help for you in the Word of God.

I hope that this book, which quotes hundreds of Scriptural passages, will set you free from the bondage of unnecessary legalism and help you to understand your spouse and to then bond with him or her in a deeper way. In order for this to happen, you must be willing to let the Lord take you to a deep place within yourself and heal you from whatever has damaged both your sexuality and your very self. It was not long ago that the Lord took my husband and me to a low place. In this place—a place that seemed terrible at the time—God stripped us of our self-reliance and religiosity.

This opened our eyes to heretofore hidden truth—things that were in the Bible for a very long time but that we suddenly became aware of. The Lord used trial to bring us to an awareness of our need for Him.

I earnestly pray that God does this for you. I pray that God will open you to whatever He would have you to know from the reading of this book. I honestly believe that the truths found here will change your married life, beginning with the world of sex. —HC

1 BAttle oF the sexes

9

BAttle oF the sexes

A battle of the sexes is raging. Men and women love one another—somewhat—but they do not like one another very much. Communication has broken down, and the respective parties hunker down in their respective caves. It is believed that only men retreat into caves, but this is not true. Women also retreat into metaphoric subterranean getaways, although their caves are much better decorated.

Did I mention that, additional y, there is a terrible lack of trust between the sexes? I should have. Men and women are doubting one another to death, especial y on the topic of sex.

All of what I have said above concerning men and women has reached epidemic proportions. But what about married men and women?

Dear reader, these are the people I am talking about. I know it, and you know it: The number one source of discord among married couples is sexual miscommunication. Some

10

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

sil y part of you may object: “But no, the problem is money.”

Not real y. A couple undergoing financial strain can see itself through this crisis, or any crisis, with great sex. But the couple whose sex life is under water can barely survive arguments about how to wal paper the bathroom, let alone about drastic financial crises. How ironic. The one thing God meant to be the ultimate comfort and joy in marriage—sex—is the thing sending people into their respective caves (or worse) the fastest.

This book is about sex. It is about what God—rather than Western culture or self-proclaimed moralists—has to say about sex. It is about refuting the terrible condemnation heaped upon both men and women by two authors of a popular Christian book that, instead of helping husbands and wives, has perched them on the brink of three ultimate and avoidable disasters: 1) condemnation, 2) guilt, and 3) divorce.

2

Men, did you know that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on your behalf can be effectually eradicated by a single pair of red, high-heeled pumps?

Let me ask you this: Have you prayed to God lately?

Splendid. Follow-up question: Have you, a married man, admired another woman’s beauty in the last twenty-four hours, and said to yourself, That woman sure is sexy? I’m sorry to hear it. There goes your prayer life; you just severed your connection to God, friend. In addition, you may as well have grabbed a knife and run it through your wife’s left ventricle. Your wife is a lamb, and you just slaughtered her by admiring the beauty of another woman. You are no better than an adulterer. In fact, you are an adulterer.

12

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Fortunately, there is a solution. It isn’t easy, but it’s better than being on God’s and your wife’s blacklist. Here it is: As long as you can remove every single hint of sexual thought from your mind every day for the rest of your life—for any woman except your wife (if you don’t have a wife, then you can’t have a single sexual thought for any woman , sorry)—

then just maybe you can restore your marriage and your relationship with your Creator. Jesus Christ wants to like you, but if you keep looking at those bra ads in the newspaper, your personal claim upon the cross of Calvary is on hold until you can learn to behave yourself.

2

Incredibly, this is the teaching of a Christian book that has, for over twenty years, been destroying men and marriages under the guise of helping them: Every Man’s Battle.

According to the back cover, this book is a “phenomenal bestseller” that presents “a practical, detailed plan for any man who desires sexual purity.”

What exactly is involved with becoming sexually pure?

And what exactly is meant by “a detailed plan”? I’m glad you asked. Here is a quote from page 126 of Every Man’s Battle, in a chapter titled “Bouncing the Eyes.” The writer is Stephen Arterburn:

You can win this battle by training your eyes to “bounce”

away from sights of pretty women and sensual images. If you

“bounce your eyes” for six weeks, you can win this war. You need to build a reflex action by training your eyes to immediately bounce away from the sexual, like the jerk of your hand away from a hot stove. Let’s repeat that, for emphasis: When your eyes bounce toward a woman, they must bounce away immediately.

ZENDER & COLPO

13

This is not a joke. You have just read an actual quote from the book. How in the world are mil ions of men buying this book and then, of all unlikely things, buying into the aberrant concept of hating beauty?

Two reasons. The first reason is that wives are buying this book for their husbands and licking their chops. The wives of these men are so deep down angry and disgusted at their husbands for some actual or perceived wrong (a wrong that has something to do with sex, I’m betting) that the wives subliminally—if not overtly—enjoy the thought of their husbands carrying out the perverted penance described in this book.

Before I get to the second reason, it may also be true that these wives actually believe that the unnatural practices described in Every Man’s Battle will help their marriages rather than cause their husbands to eventually resent and despise them. There are two dynamics, then, transpiring here with the wives. I represent these in the form of inner dialogues:

a) it serves the insensitive bastard right b) this might actual y help our marriage A good Christian woman, of course, would never say the word “bastard,” but I am guessing that many are thinking it—and worse.

The second reason why normal, healthy men are willing to buy Every Man’s Battle and become unhealthy, beauty-denying automatons is that religion is a powerful, seductive force. Religion loves more than anything to turn normal, happy people into guilt-ridden ascetics.

Satan works overtime transferring people from the grace and liberty of God and Christ (Who actually love bra ads, by the way) into the misery and bondage of law.

How does Satan do this? He dresses up law in a righteousness suit.

14

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

“Bouncing your eyes away from God’s most beautiful, pleasing creatures is a righteous thing for you to do,” proposes the King of Deception. “Look at how many other men are doing it. Don’t you feel bad for not doing it? Why aren’t you joining all the good men of this world? Think of how many times you have hurt your wife. Think of how many times you have hurt God. Don’t you want to do something now to make up for it? To make up for your sins against both your wife and God? Then buy Stoeker and Arterburn’s phenomenally bestselling book!”

This is a powerful argument. Satan knows that hard-won self-righteousness feels very good to people. He knows that

‘‘If it weren’t for my husband, we’d be the perfect couple.”

ZENDER & COLPO

15

any man taking this bait will eventually become embittered and will destroy rather than heal his marital bond. Not only this, but the God of Happiness, Beauty, and Peace will now become a God of challenge, condemnation, and fear.

Yippee. Where do I sign up?

There is no bigger enemy of true manhood than the diver-sion and perversion of man-made religious exercise, especial y that exercise which hopes to “please God” by denying the flesh its God-given bent. This is what the book, Every Man’s Battle, is. It is a perversion of truth and a condemnation of the way God made men. Whenever a religion or a sect tries to tell a man that the draughts of testosterone coursing through his body, given him by God, are something to overcome rather than celebrate, something is terribly wrong.

Times without light

Remember the Middle Ages? Google them, my friend.

The Middle Ages were a time when religion controlled everyday life, and human nature (that is, the way God made us) was considered evil. Everything naturally good to the human was considered evil by religion: art, literature, alcohol, music, food, sex. Another name for the Middle Ages was the Dark Ages; they called it “dark” for a reason: fighting the way God made us is a grim, light-free pastime.

Talk about an uphill battle. Fighting the flesh and denying natural impulses eventually exhausts people, making them lash out at the ones they feel are denying them.

In the case of husbands, that would be wives.

This wonderful time in history, by the way, was brought to us by the Catholic Church, the ridiculously fun-free religion populated by monk-like creatures in scary hoods who liked torturing people.

16

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Speaking of monks in scary hoods who like torturing people, Fred Stoeker, who co-authors Every Man’s Battle along with Stephen Arterburn, also believes men must train themselves (be brave; it only takes six weeks of intense practice) to “bounce the eyes,” quickly, from any beautiful female. From page 149—

Okay, you’ve made a covenant with your eyes to starve them and to train them to bounce. Maybe you’ve defined your weak areas, creating a custom defense for each one, and have picked up your sword and shield. What can you expect to happen over the next few weeks, even years?

Um, gee—I don’t know, Fred. A nervous breakdown, perhaps? A killing spree? Alcohol addiction?

A normal, natural man can only force himself into unnatural religious gymnastics for so long before he blows.

This is how it is when normal people determine to become abnormal and adhere to artificial laws of religion: they all eventually crack.

There is an insistent move in Christian churches today to domesticate men. By “domesticate,” I mean make men more like women, that is, calmer, nicer, more “spiritual,” less sexually insistent. A lot of the women like this because they think that it “evens things out.” Good though gullible men are willing to outwardly cooperate. A good albeit gullible man is willing to do anything to make peace with his wife, get along with his pastor, and please the angry God. And so these good yet stupid men will smile, shake the pastor’s hand, hug their wives, and then, when no one is looking, dive headfirst into real and cyber sexual candylands.

This disaster is so avoidable.

18

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Men:

▶ Do you want to stay normal and not crack?

▶ Do you want to be able to openly and honestly celebrate female beauty without alienating your wife?

▶ Would you like to arrive at a place of such love and understanding and grace in your marriage that your wife actually points out feminine beauty to you, rather than condemning it and feeling threatened by it?

▶ Would you like your wife to discover, for perhaps the first time in her life, how her acceptance of your God-given bent would wash you in such grace that it would drive you in thankfulness to her feet, and hers alone?

I know you. All you want is to be accepted. All you want is to be loved for who you are. All you want is to not have to hide your deepest self from the person nearest and dearest to you.

Women:

▶ Do you really want to live with a human time bomb?

▶ Do you want to know what God has to say, in His Word, about female beauty? Are you willing for this revelation to clash with the standards of Western, religious culture?

▶ Would you like to become so sexual y confident that no other woman on Earth can ever threaten you? Would you believe me if I told you that your husband wants to adore you, but that it is hard for him to do that when you no longer adore yourself?

▶ Would you like to be married to a man who weeps in your arms and gives himself totally to you because you finally grasp and accept the depth of his sexual longing and no longer condemn him for it?

▶ Would you believe me if I told you that the key to having your man all to yourself, forever, is to celebrate his

ZENDER & COLPO

19

freedom to admire feminine beauty? (This strange, amazing principle, by the way—which works every time—is known as “grace.” You may have heard of it. It is the one thing, however, you will not find anywhere in Every Man’s Battle. ) If any of my readers have answered “yes” to any or all of these questions, then this book is for you.

Do you have testosterone coursing through your veins?

Are you in love with someone who does?

Then The Lie of Every Man’s Battle will change your life.

—MZ

2

Heidi

Appreciation of female beauty begins at birth. When women find out that there is a baby girl to buy clothes for, they laugh and say, “Oh, this will be so much fun!” After having two boys, my sister found out that she was expecting a girl. Did people tell her that the new baby could get by with just a few drab outfits like her boys did? Nope! The clothes started coming in by the boatload. Ruffles, bows, shoes, dresses, and every kind of girly outfit imaginable started filling the drawers and closet. There was no shame at this early stage about demon strating and celebrating female beauty.

Try this statement on for size: The only reason that baby girls are put into frills and other adorn ments is so that they will be seen as good future wives and mothers. I hope that sentence makes you laugh derisively, because it’s ridiculous.

These little girls are dressed so that they will be appreciated by others as pretty. Since all this prettiness is removed from the context of sex, other women are happy to celebrate the little girls’ beauty.

20

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

So why is it that, as soon as they develop breasts, long legs, hips, and curves, these young women are made to feel ashamed for the very same beauty? The same friends and relations who coo-cooed over the young girl now may potentially become envious of her and even despise her for her sexuality. Yet is it not God Who has caused these girls to bud like the opening of a flower? Why would the early beauty be considered pure, while the later beauty sinful, or evil? In God’s sight, the bud is pretty, but the mature flower displays the true glory of Womanhood. Let the flower bloom!

Somewhere along the blossoming process, how ever, someone—almost always a religious parent—swoops in and convinces the newly-blossomed wom an that she is to be ashamed of herself for having what it takes to turn heads.

I am speaking chiefly concerning fathers now. Girls crave attention from their fathers, and the girls who get it are far less like ly to make wrong relationship choices later in life.

In a healthy family, fathers appreciate the beauty of their daughters, no matter what the girls’ age. No girl would think less of her Daddy for saying, “You look so beautiful today!”

What girl doesn’t crave this sort of attention from the most important man in her life?

2

In my opinion, the misunderstanding and con demnation concerning sex and sexual attraction begins early in childhood. Parents decide whether their chil dren will eventually consider sex a God-given joy or a guilt-producing burden.

Here is where healthy teach ing about sex and beauty must begin. But if the parents themselves fail to grasp God’s design and affirmation of human sexuality, then how can things not go wrong?

ZENDER & COLPO

21

I think that even a two-year old knows when he or she has been shamed. It is usually in the bathtub where these young children first begin exploring their sexual organs. One slap on the hand and a “No! No!” from either Mommy or Daddy could begin a lifelong struggle with sexual guilt and shame. The potential disaster courted by sexual misinformation increases exponentially with the onset of puberty.

2

As young children, girls celebrate their femininity. They comb each other’s hair, look at pictures of women in magazines, experiment with makeup, and dress up. They love to impress their friends with how pretty they look. Girls even enjoy bathing and using the toi let together. It is in us women—even as young girls—to be proud of our bodies. I have heard many women say that they take special care to dress up ahead of a special time with girlfriends. If women not only enjoy, but cannot seem to help, looking at each other, why are we so quick to blame men for looking at us?

I plead with my female readers to get back in touch with the little girl inside of them that finds great pleasure in looking beautiful. I am guessing that this innocent, joyful person is alive and well. It is God Who made you want to see and display beauty. Why do we, as adults, feel the need to squelch this? I blame it on re ligion—not on God, mind you, but on the systems invented by human beings that attach God’s name to their personal hang-ups.

2

Before the age when girls are told that their breasts and hips—which God created to be intriguing—were evil, they did what they could to be noticed. Before the age when boys are made to think that their God-given reaction to female

ZENDER & COLPO

23

beauty is unholy and wrong, they enjoyed how God made them. It seems that all one has to do to turn a lovely (feminine) situation bad, and a joyful (feminine) situation into sin, is to add the male counterpart to the sexual mix, that is, the erection. Ev erything is fine, it seems, until the hard penis shows up. Now we have just turned what was pure and holy into a “nasty scene” unfit to exist in God’s holy world. But why? Girls grow up to have breasts, hips, and shapely legs. Boys grow up to have erections. Is not God the Maker and Planner of all this? By calling what God made good “evil,” we risk ruining our children for life and creating self-fulfilling prophecies.

I believe that the girl inside of a woman and the boy inside of a man is where the true righteousness of God is displayed. In order to understand God’s plan, a childlike faith is necessary—that’s child-likeness, not childishness.

No one is jeopardizing anyone’s matu rity here. Those who grasp God’s truths the most are those who revert to the simple faith and love from childhood of a great, glorious, and loving God.

2

It has occurred to me that men, at least, do not deny their God-given natures for very long. No man encounters long-term success with bouncing his eyes from feminine beauty—unless he joins a monastery, where no women exist. Women, on the other hand, squelch their desires to be beautiful, sexy, and admired by the opposite sex. This holier-that-thou attitude (excuse me, but it infuriates me) eventually drives the women themselves crazy, and the men into porn. Congratulations—we’ve created life-draining guilt for everyone. Can we solve this problem once and for all? Yes!—HC

2 the ProBlem

25

the ProBlem

The authors of Every Man’s Battle are frightfully unaware of the grace of God and the power of the cross to combat flesh. It is as if they have never heard of grace. Instead of grace, they tout the power of law-keeping and the ability of flesh and blood to not only accomplish the dictates of God, but also to please Him.

My goal is to liberate you from the tyranny of the law.

My goal is to rescue you from a battle you were never meant to fight.

You may be a porn addict, or the wife of a porn addict.

Or perhaps you’re someone who enjoys looking at beautiful women. Or you may simply be a wife who absolutely hates the fact that your husband enjoys looking at beautiful women. This book will solve both of your problems, simul-taneously, with a technique you would never in a million years imagine could work.

26

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The biggest shock for me when first reading Every Man’s Battle was that it was like reading Moses all over again, except now the rock-hurling patriarch was wearing a Jesus suit. Every Man’s Battle occasionally uses the language of grace. It does use the name of Jesus Christ. But in the end, these are false fronts. Behind almost every sentence lies the wolf of law and condemnation. In Every Man’s Battle, a man is one glance away (a glance at a lingerie ad, or an R-rated movie, or a glistening jogger, or a pornographic website) from disappointing God and ruining everything.

STEVE ARTERBURN: God offers you freedom from the slavery of sin through the cross of Christ, and He created your eyes and mind with an ability to be trained and controlled.

We simply have to stand up and walk by His power in the right path (pg. 4).

FRED STOEKER: You’ll be holy when you choose not to sin (pg. 92).

Oh. Is that all I have to do? Stand up and walk in the right path? Choose not to sin? Wow. I guess I didn’t realize how simple holiness was. All I have to do is not sin. I’d really like to do this, Stephen and Fred. I do want to follow in your holy footsteps. But can I start Monday? I would like to enjoy the weekend.

“[God] created your eyes and mind with an ability to be trained and controlled.”

Really? I thought God created my eyes so that I could see and imbibe of the pleasures and colors of His world. Not according to Arterburn and Stoeker. According to them, the human eyes—especially male eyes—are a huge problem.

According to Arterburn and Stoeker, God created male eyes to be controlled. The measure to which a man can control

ZENDER & COLPO

27

his eyes, therefore, becomes the measure by which that man pleases God.

The apostle Paul teaches the futility of such feats of asceticism.

Arterburn and Stoeker never got that memo.

Here is Paul in Colossians 2:20-23 from the J.B. Phillips paraphrase:

So if, through your faith in Christ, you are dead to the principles of this world’s life, why, as if you were still part and parcel of this world-wide system, do you take the slightest notice of these purely human prohibitions—“Don’t touch this,” “Don’t taste that” and “Don’t handle the other?” “This,” “that,” and

“the other” will all pass away after use! I know that these regulations look wise with their self-inspired efforts at piety, their policy of self-humbling, and their studied neglect of the body. But in actual practice they are of no moral value, but simply pamper the flesh.

Every Man’s Battle concentrates on what it supposes to be sin and focuses on failure. Whenever one engages in such exercise, he or she actual y ends up pampering the flesh rather than fixing it. How? Religious humans love a battle.

The news that there is “now therefore no condemnation”

(Romans 8:1) actually disappoints some people. This is what Paul means when he says the studied neglect of the body ends up pampering the flesh; victories over the flesh won by terrific feats of self-effort set some people above others. Some people are tougher than others; some are more disciplined than others; some can control their minds and their eyes better than others. The ones who manage this cannot help but look down upon the sorry saps who don’t or can’t fight as hard. —MZ

2

ZENDER & COLPO

29

Heidi

The God-given instinct to judge situations and people has saved many of us from harm, or even from death. When used for good, this God-given ability to judge a situation rightly is what tells a woman, for instance, to walk away from a would-be molester. It is what makes a person turn from bad company to more acceptable associations. We must all exercise judgment. But many of us, I am afraid, have taken judgment to extreme and unhealthy levels, especially when it comes to our mates. A hasty judgment that quickly condemns another without inquiry seeks, not to right a situation, but to harm another’s reputation while at the same time bolstering one’s own self-opinion. Married people, especially, must be careful to not abuse their spouses in this way. Words can heal, but they can just as easily kill. Before we judge a situation or a person—especially a spouse—let us make sure that we understand both the situation and the person. This can be as simple a matter as asking, “What are you thinking?” —HC

2

MZ

This enterprise of comparing one’s life to other lives (and worse, comparing one’s life to the life of Christ—the WWJD

Syndrome) is a rol ercoaster ride of frustration, guilt, and condemnation. Yet mil ions of men have chosen to buy tickets to this ride, entering into mortal combat against the legitimate God-given bent of their flesh, as though “natural” were commensurate with “evil.”

“God offers you freedom from the slavery of sin through the cross of Christ.”

30

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

No, Stephen. God does not offer this freedom, He declares it to be so. Freedom from sin is an objective declaration of God operating in spite of our failures. The apostle Paul told the saints in Rome, “Now, being freed from Sin, you are enslaved to Righteousness” (Romans 6:18).

Even if looking at beautiful women could possibly be considered a sin, the apostle declared the Romans to be free from sin right then, exactly where they stood. But didn’t the Romans still sin? Of course they did. Consider the very next verse: “As a man am I saying this, because of the infirmity of your flesh.”

The Romans were free from sin even while infirm in the flesh. The flesh need not be “straightened out” before freedom from sin is attained. This is because freedom from sin is an objective declaration of God, based on an objective act of Christ, operating independently of our acts. Otherwise, who in the world could be free from sin? Can anyone stop sinning? The miracle of the gospel of grace is that God declares us to be something in fact that we are not yet in act.

In other words, God “calls what is not as if it were”

(Romans 4:17).

Thus, we are enslaved to Righteousness. And this is the only thing that will curb our flesh. Only when we realize how righteous God considers us (it’s called “justification”) will we find power to cope with sin.

This occurs in spite of our failings.

How are we, then, free from sin, even while sinning? We are free from the guilt and condemnation of sin. We are free from worrying that sin will wreck our God-life and make Him not like us any more.

The essence of religion, in a nutshell, is this: YOUR SIN WILL KEEP GOD FROM LIKING YOU, SO

ZENDER & COLPO

31

YOU HAD BETTER START TRYING HARD TO DELIVER

YOURSELF FROM IT.

This is the message of Satan, not God. It is also the message of Every Man’s Battle. Satan wants us absorbed with the performance of our flesh, because then our affections are taken away from the accomplishments of Christ. Here is the essence of religion in an even tighter nutshell: FIX YOUR FLESH.

Such a disposition denies the effectiveness of the cross.

What an insult to God and Christ.

Those focused upon fixing their flesh miss the joy of justification.

But don’t we have to fix the flesh in order to be responsible Christians?

No. Fixing the flesh is the occupation of unenlightened Christians.

Fixing the flesh is the juiciest bait Satan offers humans.

The paradox is that, only by ignoring the flesh and focusing on the grace and deliverance of Christ, can the flesh actually be permanently curbed. Any other method (such as that proposed in Every Man’s Battle) is doomed to failure.

Trying to fix the flesh with prohibitions and laws (“control the eyes”) only aggravates the problem, as I shall prove when I tackle the context of Romans, chapter 7 later.

“God offers you freedom from the slavery of sin through the cross of Christ,” writes Stephen Arterburn.

Well, Stephen, I’ve read your book, and it’s actually an introduction to the slavery of sin. A man who must live the rest of his life bouncing his eyes from beauty as though he were removing his hand from a hot stove—in what way is this man free from sin?

Even allowing, for the moment, your absurd premise that appreciating beauty could somehow be sin, such a man

32

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

setting out to battle it becomes the very thing you claim to deliver him from: a slave of sin.

A slave of sin, Stephen, is just as much someone who is constantly worried about his or her flesh, as someone constantly indulging that flesh. “A slave of sin” describes someone who is sinning like crazy, as well as someone trying like crazy not to sin. The common denominator in both cases is the same: sin.

Even in a book supposing the admiration of beauty to be sin, true freedom from sin would say, “Men, even if you do look at bra ads in the newspaper—twelve hours a day—or even if you do drool over the Sport’s Illustrated Swimsuit Edition until your mouth goes dry, you are free from sin.”

That is the message of the cross. It’s called grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Unmerited favor—get it? Grace is God saying to us, “No matter what You do, I love You. This is because I now see you as justified in my Son. I don’t see you, I see Him.”

From this solid foundation of grace, we are now in a relaxed enough state to deal with whatever sins do vex our lives. Better yet, let’s determine what is sin and what isn’t; we shall eventual y do just that in an upcoming chapter. —MZ

2

Heidi

“Little white lies.” Lies sound so harmless when given such a cute name as “little white.” As a child, lying was a huge problem for me that landed me into almost constant hot water. Have you ever seen the “Funniest Home Video”

episode where a mother asks her child, “Did you eat the cookie, Johnny?” Johnny—guilty as sin—has chocolate chip residue all over his mouth, and yet he says to his mother in

34

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

a squeaky little voice (the perfect voice for little white lies),

“No, Mommy! I didn’t eat the cookie!” Everyone thinks this is so cute and the parents go home with a $10,000 prize. This ticks me off! My mom probably wishes that she could have made money from my career of telling tall tales, but then again, no amount of money is worth destroying a child’s moral foundation by calling lies “little,” “white,” and “cute,”

and then sending them off to contests.

I had to learn though pain, rejection, loss of a loved one’s trust, and several lost opportunities that lying does nothing but destroy. One day, the Lord got hold of my heart and, like a flash of lightning that illuminates the night, drove from my being the desire to deceive. Only God could have done this. I had felt helpless in my own sin. The temptation for me was always the ease with which I could fall into a story or embellishment to extricate myself from a tight situation. I still sometimes fail on this count, but the Lord tells me that I am justified by His faith, and that I am still covered by His grace. In fact, where sin increases, grace superabounds (Romans 5:20). Knowing that God’s grace is unconditional, I am completely relieved and happy. This happy relief makes me want to do the right thing, to please the One Who would be so gracious toward me. How different this is from the decrees of the law! The law of Moses never made anyone righteous (Galatians 2:21). It only increased the desire to do sin (Romans 7:8). —HC

2

MZ

I am not making light of sin. I am saying that the only way to deal with sin is to realize our freedom from it, and that because of the cross of Christ it can no longer condemn us. The last thing able to curb the flesh is worrying and

ZENDER & COLPO

35

fretting over it, imagining God is somehow unhappy with us until we stop being bad. Unfortunately, this is the very message of Every Man’s Battle. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. Men who have been enjoying a taste of grace will lose it before even finishing the introduction of Arterburn and Stoeker’s book. Those who never imagined they were in a battle for their lives will soon become “enlightened”

and launch upon a gargantuan fight they will inevitably lose.

This is precisely what Satan wants people to do. Such battles undo the peace and security of the cross. Satan cannot undo what the cross did, but he can sure keep people from knowing about it.

As we shall see, it is not simply that Arterburn and Stoeker insist that bouncing the eyes from beauty is a good thing to do. That would be ridiculous enough. Rather, they are telling us that one cannot truly please God unless one eliminates “every hint of sexual immorality” from one’s life.

This is what makes the book dangerous, which is to say, spiritually damaging. And of course, it is Arterburn and Stoeker—not God—who define “sexual immorality,” as we shall see in the subsequent chapter.

ARTERBURN: So why did I start writing a book? Because I felt deeply that if God would grant me such a voice in His kingdom, I could help give even more men some practical steps toward victory and to help set them free to help others.

Dear Stephen, the most practical step you could have taken to free men spiritual y would have been to quote them Romans 8:1. But since you did not do that, I wil . Here it is: “There is now therefore no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.”

This is victory, Stephen, and it was won by Jesus Christ on the cross, not by you bouncing your eyes from supposedly

36

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

evil bra ads. If you define victory from sin as “bouncing the eyes” and never looking at bra ads for the rest of one’s life, then victory from sin waxes and wanes, depending on one’s own daily efforts and successes. It means that today one may be free from sin because of good behavior, but tomorrow one misbehaves and loses one’s freedom from sin. God likes a particular man today, but tomorrow He frowns upon the same man, all based upon the man’s behavior. Is this the way you see it? Apparently so.

ARTERBURN: The following verse inspired me to keep plodding away on this book night after night, month after month:

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions ...

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. (Psalm 51:1,12-13) Get it? God’s plan is to set sinners free and then use them to teach others. God has been using me in just that way, and I trust He will use you as well.

What can we say about a man who sets himself up as a teacher of sinners, who has not even realized that Jesus Christ’s death on a cross saved the world from sin, condemnation, and death? What can we say about a man who constantly refers to a verse from the Old Testament, written during a time when people gathering sticks on the Sabbath got stoned ... when God required people to kill bulls and lambs and goats for their sins ... when penitents relied upon

ZENDER & COLPO

37

the efforts of a high priest, who himself entered with fear and trembling once a year into the Holy of Holies, hoping to avoid death by dressing correctly?

Is this a man we can trust? To fuel and inspire himself to write his portion of a book introducing men to a monumental battle against flesh that they’re not even supposed to fight, this man concentrates on and is inspired by a passage of Scripture showing King David begging for mercy and praying to have his transgressions blotted out.

Is there anything wrong with King David begging for mercy and praying to have his transgressions blotted out?

Not at all. Neither was there anything wrong with Noah building an ark. The thing is, ark-building is out of God’s timing today, as is begging for mercy. David lived before the coming of Christ. King David, as spiritual as he was in his day, had never read Romans 8:1. He had no clue that a human could be justified by faith. How could he? The coming of Christ was 1,000 years away. David lived during an era of “Do this, or else.”

Stephen Arterburn can’t claim David’s excuse. Therefore, Stephen Arterburn is simply ignorant. He writes from a time warp—from a land far, far away.

Trusting Stephen Arterburn to teach us about sin is like resurrecting Stonewall Jackson to teach us about combating terrorism, or raising Copernicus for a seminar on the iPad.

Arterburn is fighting Sin with sticks, stones, and slingshots.

David is dead, Stephen. So is Moses.

Mr. Arterburn, what if someone saved your son from drowning? Would you spend the rest of your life praying for your son to be saved from drowning? Would not this be like receiving a gift, and then saying to the giver: “Where is my gift?”

What an insult to the giver.

Your reliance on David disservices Christ.

ZENDER & COLPO

39

If only you had tacked up a passage from Romans next to your computer instead of Psalms, you would not have been forced to “plod away” on a book proposing law-keeping as the answer to what you suppose to be sin. No wonder you plodded.

I got depressed just reading your book; I cannot imagine the depression you must have felt writing it.

So now you propose to teach others the wonderful “liberty”

you have stumbled upon by reading the Old Testament, attempting Mosaic law, begging for forgiveness, and ignoring the cross. How wonderful! Thank you for the offer of help, but we don’t need it. You may as well tell us to build an ark, circumcise our sons on the eighth day, and explain to us the most efficient way to transport our sheep to Jerusalem.

Mr. Arterburn, you are stuck in the Stone Age. Your book would be helpful—if only you had written it in 1000 B.C.

Unfortunately, it’s A.D. 2021. You are only 3000 years behind the curve, Mr. Arterburn. No wonder you invite us to battle.

You do not realize that the battle has been won. The war is over, Stephen. Wake up and smell the justification.

Wake up and gaze at some real y great bra ads.

Just when one might hope that maybe Fred Stoeker gets a glimpse into the grace of God—a glimpse eclipsing that of Stephen Arterburn—one discovers that Fred is in fact the worse off of the two. The only people worse off than Stephen and Fred are the poor souls cajoled into reading what amounts to the Law of Moses on steroids, minus testosterone.

2

Fred Stoeker’s very first section, titled “Wall of separation,”

is about the wall between God and Fred that has been created by ... Fred—

40

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

It happened every Sunday morning during our church worship service. I’d look around and see other men with their eyes closed, freely and intensely worshipping the God of the universe. Myself? I sensed only a wall of separation between the Lord.

What was the cause of this wall of separation between God and Fred?

I continued to feel that distance from God during the Sunday morning worship services. The true reason for that distance slowly dawned on me: There was a hint of sexual immorality in my life. There was a monster lurking in my life.

What was this hint of sexual immorality? What was the monster? Fred explains—

It surfaced each Sunday morning when I settled in my comfy La-Z-Boy and opened the Sunday morning newspaper. I would quickly find the department-store inserts and begin paging through the colored newsprint filled with models posing in bras and panties. “It’s wrong,” I admitted, “but it’s such a small thing.” It was a far cry from Playboy, I told myself.

Fred’s perceived sin, according to him, continual y kept God at arm’s length. We know that this distance and wall of separation between God and Fred was on Fred’s side of the windowpane, not God’s. But Fred did not see it that way—

By worldly standards, I was doing just great. Just one little problem. By God’s standard of sexual purity, I wasn’t even close to living His vision for marriage ... my Father had higher hopes for me than I had dreamed. I could never look God in the eye.

I could never ful y worship Him ... I continued feeling distance from God.

ZENDER & COLPO

41

Poor Fred. Every Sunday morning, he dashed God’s high hopes for him. God’s standard for sexual purity was way beyond not looking at Playboy magazine. Fred never looked at Playboys. He did get credit for that, at least. Even so, he still “wasn’t even close” to living God’s vision for him. What would be close? Giving up the newspaper ads, of course.

Then Fred would be close. If only Fred could give up the newspaper ads, he would arrive at a proximity to God available only to the people at his church who, due to their states of perfection, could worship God exuberantly. But because Fred continued to disappoint God each and every Sunday morning, God could not fully look upon Fred, and Fred could not fully look upon God.

People around me disagreed, saying, “Oh, come on! Nobody can control their eyes and mind, for heaven’s sakes! God loves you!”

For all the efforts of his friends, Fred could not stop looking inward, toward himself, for the answer to his agony.

Fred never could see past himself to set his eyes upon Christ.

For some reason, Fred could not escape the debilitating self-occupation of measuring his flesh against what he imagined to be God’s pure and holy standard.

But I knew differently ... My prayer life was feeble ... I had no faith in my own prayers because of my sin ... I had no peace

. . I was paying a price for my sin ...

Fred’s friends no doubt tried to tell him that Christ had paid the price for his sin. Christ had suffered and died the most horrible death imaginable for the sake of Fred’s failure with the newspaper ads. Fred must have known this intellectually. Everything else in Fred’s life was pure and

42

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

perfect—according to Fred. We can only assume this, since this thing with the bras and panties in the newspaper was the only flaw truly troubling Fred. It was this one continuing nagging flaw that beset him and ruined everything else in his life that was so perfectly aligned to a righteous God. It was this one flaw keeping Fred’s relationship with God from being everything God hoped it could be. It must have been so frustrating for Fred to be such a small step away from perfection. So near and yet so far—one step away from a life of obedience that would at last allow him to look his heavenly Father in the eye with confidence—

Every week I said I wouldn’t look at those ad inserts, but every Sunday morning the striking photos compelled me ... The distance from God grew wider ... my impurity still ruled ...

His friends gave up. It was Christ Who ruled, but Fred could not get it out of his head that his own impurity trumped that. I know Fred’s friends gave up, because Fred ended up co-authoring a book with Stephen Arterburn called Every Man’s Battle, offering men a step-by-step procedure for engaging in a lifelong battle against an enemy that Satan, not God, had set up for men to conquer.

What did his friends know, anyway? They were weak and compromising. They had settled for mediocrity. Where they had failed, Fred would succeed.

Fred was at a crossroads. He could listen to his friends who had surely become the voice of Satan in his life (how ironic; Fred’s inner dialogue to perfect himself was the true voice of Satan), or he could go his own way and answer the call to “total purity”—

Since Christians don’t read their Bibles very often, many men have no clue about God’s standard for sexual purity. —pg. 45.

44

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

2

Fred’s is a classic example of a man struggling against law. Like everyone else in history who has received a whiff of the glory, perfection, and righteousness of God, Fred became acutely aware of what he considered to be sin in his life. Some people are murdering people and raping women, but at least Fred was only looking at lingerie ads. I am not belittling him. I am pitying him. I think we can all feel his pain. Fred was a failure to God, and knew it. Whatever a man thinks is sin, it is sin to that man. “Now everything which is not out of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).

We have all felt this way at one time or another. It is called the conviction of sin. We know we are big fat losers as we stand before a righteous God. It’s a terrible feeling.

The apostle Paul struggled just like Fred. Paul’s cry and Fred’s sound hauntingly similar.

Fred writes on page 19 of Every Man’s Battle—

Every week I’d vow to avoid watching R-rated “sexy” movies when I traveled, but every week I’d fail, sweating out tough battles and always losing. Every time I gazed at some glistening jogger, I’d promise to never do it again. But I always did.

Paul writes in Romans 7:17-23 (from The Message)—

For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s

ZENDER & COLPO

45

commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

Like Fred, the apostle Paul had discovered a connection between his failures and his distance from God. This is where Paul and Fred part company, however, for they reach radically different conclusions as to what might cure the problem. Paul discovered the problem to be—

. . the power of sin within me ... something has gone wrong deep within me.

The apostle is so despairing of his ability to please God that he arrives at the low point of his dilemma when he finally says—

I realize that I don’t have what it takes (vs. 18).

Fred does not quite see it as that deep of a problem—

I’d merely found a middle ground, somewhere between paganism and obedience to God’s standard (pg. 19).

Rather than giving up—as Paul does—Fred hears a battle cry. If only Fred can obey God’s standard, then everything will be restored. If Fred can just overcome the lingerie ads, he will probably at the same time overcome the R-rated movies and the glistening joggers. If only he can overcome these things, he will at last be able to regain confidence in his prayers, and will finally be able to look God in the eye. He will finally have attained obedience to God’s holy standard.

Like Paul, Fred had tried everything. Nothing helped.

Like Paul, he eventually came to the end of his rope. When

46

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Paul came to the end of his rope, he asked one of the most pertinent questions a human can ask. Listen to the cry of the apostle in verse 24 of Romans, chapter 7, again from The Message—

I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

That is the real question! It is the most important question that can be asked. Is there no one who can do anything for me? The answer to this question is vital to our lasting peace.

The apostle Paul reaches a profound answer. The question, again, is: “Is there no one who can do anything for me?”

Here is Paul’s answer, in verse 25—

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

The Concordant Literal New Testament has—

A wretched man am I! What will rescue me out of this body of death? Grace! I thank God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Fred also answers the question, Is there no one who can do anything for me? Or, as the CLNT has it: What will rescue me out of this body of death?

At stake with both Paul and Fred is nothing less than God’s acceptance of them. At stake is nothing less than the ability to look God in the eye with peace and settled assurance.

Paul realizes his condition is not only desperate, but hopeless. Looking deeply, he finds nothing within himself

ZENDER & COLPO

47

to answer the bell for another round of struggle against sin.

This surrender and lack of self-confidence is a shocking confession from an ex-Pharisee who once testified concerning himself—

And am even I having confidence in flesh, also? If any other one is presuming to have confidence in flesh, I rather: in circumcision the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, in relation to law, a Pharisee, in relation to zeal, persecuting the ecclesia, in relation to the righteousness which is in law, becoming blameless. But things that were gain to me, these I have deemed a forfeit because of Christ. But, to be sure, I am also deeming all to be a forfeit because of the superiority of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, because of Whom I forfeited all, and am deeming it to be refuse, that I should be gaining Christ (Philippians 3:4-8).

In his own eyes, Paul used to be blameless. In those days of self-imagined purity, however, Paul had not even begun his walk of grace. Interesting that the same place of self-delusion (“blameless”) from which Paul launches to appreciate true freedom, Fred makes his goal. This is what Fred wants to become: blameless. Fred’s dream is to land at the place Paul now considers garbage (“refuse,” Philippians 3:8) in light of the greater revelation, which is grace.

“A wretched man am I! What will rescue me out of this body of death? Grace! I thank God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

Paul’s revelation causes him to laud Jesus Christ rather than his own successes against sin. He exalts in the answer to his personal trauma (and failures): “Grace!” To Paul, the battle has ended. He is still pulled by the influence of sin, but Christ has set things right in spite of his sin, and now Paul looks to Him, Jesus Christ, his Savior.

48

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Fred, however, looks to himself. Paul’s answer is “Grace”

and “Jesus Christ acted to set things right.” Fred’s answer, however, is much different than Paul’s.

Fred heard his friends’ pleas, but in the end decided to go his own way. Distancing himself from the counsel of his associates—that God loved him no matter what (“Christians don’t read their Bibles very often,” Fred said of his associates)—the “light” finally dawned on Fred. He now knew why God was stonewalling him:

I finally made the connection between my sexual immorality and my distance from God ... I looked pure on the outside to everyone else. But to God, I’d stopped short. I merely found a middle ground, somewhere between paganism and obedience to God’s standard.

There it was, then: “To God, I’d stopped short.” God was expecting so much more of Fred. Fred had not gone far enough! Like the apostle Paul, Fred knew he was at a crossroads. He could either give up and relax in God’s grace, as did Paul, or double-down and push his powers of self-control and asceticism to the brink. To Fred, the choice was easy.

He would show his friends what was possible!

Fred found his “deliverance.” Fred once again found the confidence in his own prayers that he used to have before looking at lingerie ads. In the good old days before the ads, Fred had this self-confidence. He knew his prayers went purely to God. He knew it because he “knew” that there was no sin in his life before the advent of lingerie ads.

“My prayer life was feeble ... I had no faith in my own prayers because of my sin.”

One can only assume from this that Fred’s faith was—or, rather, “is”—in his ability to pray. One can only assume that

50

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Fred’s confidence in his own prayers hinged upon eliminating sin from his life.

“I had no peace ... I was paying a price for my sin.”

Many would see the phrase, “paying a price for my sin,”

and think of the Lord Jesus Christ. Fred does not think this way. In not one place in Every Man’s Battle does Fred Stoeker even entertain the thought that Christ paid the price for his sin. And neither does Stephen Arterburn. Rather, “By God’s standard of sexual purity, I wasn’t even close to living His vision for marriage ... to God, I’d stopped short. The distance from God grew wider ... my impurity still ruled ... ”

From this foundation of sand, Fred instructs the doomed readers of his book—

▶ “To aim for obedience is to aim for perfection” (pg. 49).

▶ “God is waiting for you to rise up and engage in the battle”

(pg. 92).

▶ “Let’s put together a battle plan” (pg. 101).

▶ “The landing-craft ramps are falling open, and it’s time to hit the beach” (pg. 101).

▶ “You’ll be holy when you choose not to sin” (pg. 92).

▶ “By winning this war, your life will be blessed in tremendous ways” (pg. 93).

▶ “Your victory will recover what was lost through sin” (pg. 93).

▶ “Your victory will help you regain and revitalize your relationship with God” (pg. 93).

▶ “You can win this battle by training your eyes to bounce”

(pg. 125).

▶ “If you bounce your eyes for six weeks, you can win this war” (pg. 125).

▶ “When your eyes bounce toward a woman, they must bounce away immediately” (pg. 125).

▶ “So there’s your battle plan. Setting up defense perimeters and choosing not to sin” (Pg. 105).

ZENDER & COLPO

51

▶ “Looking back at the details of our plan, even we will admit that it all sounds slightly crazy” (pg. 150).

Slightly? Paul’s revelation caused him to give up, look to a Savior, and shout, “Grace!” Fred’s revelation causes him to gear up for a war with his eyes and shout: “Hit the beach!”

(pg. 101).

No wonder the key word in Fred’s book title is, “Battle.”

Whose plan would you rather follow—Paul’s or Fred’s?

Which plan do you think has a chance of actually working? —MZ

3 sexuAl ImmorAlIty

53

sexuAl ImmorAlIty

In the previous chapter, I showed you how Every Man’s Battle is founded upon law rather than grace, and assumes that God cannot be happy with a man until that man masters his flesh and refuses to look at anything even remotely sexual y attractive. To Arterburn and Stoeker, a man who would master his flesh must remove “every hint of sexual immorality” (page 9) from his life, which includes the God-given desire to behold feminine beauty.

We know what “sexual immorality” means to Stephen and Fred. The big question is: What does it mean to God?

In this chapter, I will show you how God’s idea of sexual immorality differs vastly from Stephen Arterburn’s and Fred Stoeker’s. You may question my use of the word “vastly,” as if it is hyperbole and I could not possibly mean it. I’ll admit it may be the wrong word. The right word may be “stupen-dously,” or perhaps “unspeakably.” The authors not only

54

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

make their standards for what they call “sexual immorality”

higher than God’s, they assume their standards to be God’s.

I would only make this charge if I were able to prove it from Scripture—and I can. If a book purporting to teach you how to curb your flesh and be a good Christian and a good man starts out on the wrong foot, then the entire project eventually tumbles into a ditch from which everyone must crawl and start from scratch. Isn’t it better to lay a proper foundation? This is why we have written The Lie of Every Man’s Battle. We do not want anyone wasting months or even years of self-imposed piety, only to end up ditched and desperate, no better than they were before they started, if not far worse. —MZ

2

Heidi

God is the author of a story so erotic that it makes the Harlequin novels on your bookshelf blush. It is human history. I happen to think that Adam and Eve had a really good time, sexually. It was watching the animals nuzzling and gallivanting with one another that brought to Adam his first pang of loneliness. Every animal had a mate—but not him. Were it not for the frisking, frolicking beasts (especial y the monkeys, I’m guessing), how would Adam have known that he was missing something?

When a man tel s himself that he must contradict all of his own desires and turn his eyes from the beauty of a woman, he is putting himself in a higher position than God. He is acting as though God made a mistake with the human race that he, the man, has to correct. What astounding arrogance! If a wife thinks that it is a sin for her husband to merely look at a beautiful woman, then she is tacitly admitting that he has

56

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

sinned by being with her, or wanting to be with her, before the marriage ceremony. His pre-marriage attraction to her must have been ungodly because he was, at that time, not married to her. All of this follows if the act of merely appreciating a woman’s beauty is sinful.

Let Scripture be your guideline through this madness. As you look into God’s Word on this important topic, you will see that God is very creative with sex and with your desire for sex. Sexual pleasure actually highlights the glory of God.

Our pleasure is a part of His glory.—HC

2

MZ

Here is how Fred Stoeker starts chapter 1 of Every Man’s Battle:

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity” (Ephesians 5:3). If there’s a single Bible verse that captures God’s standard for sexual purity, this is it. And it compels this question: In relation to God’s standard, is there even a hint of sexual impurity in your life?

At the outset, Fred presents us with Ephesians 5:3 as the

“single Bible verse” that “captures God’s standard for sexual purity.” This is it, then. This is the big gun, and Fred has unhol-stered it in the very first sentence of Every Man’s Battle. It is this verse that inspires and informs the remainder of the book, and is set forth as the standard by which all men must live. It is by this standard that al men must now ask themselves, Is there any hint of sexual immorality or impurity in my life?

Everything hinges on what God considers “sexual immorality” to be.

“Sexual immorality” sounds broad to me. I am surprised at God’s non-specificity. If this is what God actually said,

ZENDER & COLPO

57

I’m not complaining. I’m just saying it would have been helpful for the Deity to have enumerated His sexual prohibitions. Seeing as how this is His standard, wouldn’t a laundry list have benefited us? After all, Fred makes the following all-important self-discovery on page 19, spending the balance of the book applying it to everyone: I finally made the connection between my sexual immorality and my distance from God.

Fred purports to know God’s thoughts, writing on page 42: We’ve said earlier that God’s standard is that we avoid every hint of sexual immorality in our lives.

Do you want to be holy and honorable? According to Fred Stoeker (page 48), there is only one way: Therefore it is holy and honorable to completely avoid sexual immorality—to repent of it, to flee from it, and to put it to death in our lives.

Why is it so important to understand God’s thoughts on sexual immorality? Because if you either purposely or inad-vertently entice someone to do something sexually immoral, then—well, I’ll just let Fred tell you himself: If you entice others to sexual immorality (maybe in the back-seat or back room), Jesus Himself has something against you!

Take His command seriously—Flee sexual immorality! (pg. 48) Do you now see how vitally important it is to grasp just what this “sexual immorality” of Ephesians 5:3 is?

Again, too bad God wasn’t more specific. Because, my goodness, if a man’s standing before God—if a man’s ability

58

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

to look God in the eye and pray effectively—depends on abstaining from “every hint” of “sexual immorality,” one supposes it would have behooved God to have itemized precisely what constitutes this. What could be more important to know? Must we depend on mere humans to define this important term?

The thing is, God has itemized these things. God is specific.

The very first sentence of Every Man’s Battle, where Fred quotes and comments upon Ephesians 5:3, is fine except for one slight problem. In Ephesians 5:3, God never said,

“sexual immorality.” In the Greek, there is only a single word here, and it is the Greek word porneia.

Porneia does not mean “porn”

What does porneia mean to God? That’s the al -important question. Thankful y, we can know for sure. This is the Greek word from which we have derived our English “porn” and

“pornography,” but in not a single Scriptural context does this word mean “pornography” as common English usage has come to define it. To us, “pornography” is a catch-all term meaning “sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.”

If we apply this broad definition to the Scriptural contexts where porneia appears, it fails on contact every time. Here is but one example: At the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said (Matthew 5:32):

Everyone dismissing his wife, outside of a case of porneia, is making her commit adultery.

Let’s test our popular understanding of pornography against this context:

ZENDER & COLPO

59

Everyone dismissing his wife, outside of a case of her looking at sexually explicit pictures or reading sexually explicit writing, is making her commit adultery.

Hmm.

Jesus is setting forth the one case in which a man can dismiss his wife. There is one case, and one only. According to Jesus in Matthew 5:32, what is the one sexual crime for which a man can dismiss his wife? Obviously, the answer is not reading a romance novel or gazing upon calendars depicting hard-muscled construction workers, both of which can be construed as “pornographic” by our broad definition.

So what is it?

Here is the verse from the Concordant Literal New Testament (CLNT), which I consider the most accurate translation available:

Everyone dismissing his wife, outside of a case of prostitution ( porneia), is making her commit adultery.

Here is the verse from the New International Version (NIV): Anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality ( porneia), causes her to commit adultery.

Here is the King James Version: Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication ( porneia), causeth her to commit adultery.

“Prostitution.” “Sexual immorality.” “Fornication.”

Which is the proper term? We need to know. At least we’re getting close. We have eliminated the thought that porneia means pornography as modern culture has defined it, that is, racy pictures or writing.

60

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Again, why is it so important to nail down the meaning of this word? Because the entire premise of Every Man’s Battle, stated on page one of chapter one, is that God hates

“porneia” and expects everyone to stop it; just knock it off. The premier thrust of Every Man’s Battle is that those committing “sexual immorality” deceive themselves into thinking they can still look God in the eye. If there is something that, according to Arterburn and Stoeker, should make us feel that guilty and ashamed, doesn’t it behoove us to discover precisely what that thing is? According to the authors of Every Man’s Battle, this “sexual immorality” is God’s standard, and we are supposed to “kill every hint of”

that immorality (pg. 59).

I don’t care what Stoeker and Arterburn think porneia is. I want to know what God says it is. I want to be careful, too, because, as Clyde Pilkington warns in Due Benevolence; A Survey of Biblical Sexuality:

Many Bible words have lost their true meaning through years of relentless religious tradition. Fornication ( porneia) is clearly such a word. It has been well molded to suit Christendom’s moralist agenda.

Arterburn and Stoeker—not God—are the ones using the phrase “sexual immorality” (they quote from the NIV).

God never said it. Not once in the whole of Scripture does the phrase “sexual immorality” appear. How can I be so bold? How do I know this for sure? Because God did not write His revelation in English. The NIV is a translation, and is therefore the work of humans. God wrote the Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, and He wrote the New Testament in Greek.

Not all translations are accurate. How can every translation be accurate when there are hundreds of translations, and none of them are alike? This is potentially frustrating.

ZENDER & COLPO

61

How can we know which translation is correct? Do we have to rely on scholars and translators? Is there a way we can find out for ourselves? Did God give the common man a tool?

Thankfully, He did. It’s called a concordance. A concordance is an objective reference tool listing every single appearance of every single word in the divine vocabulary.

With the help of a concordance, anyone can look up any specific word in its divine contexts and determine for him or herself the meaning of that word. It is divine contexts that determine the meaning of a word. The context tells us what the word meant to God when He wrote it. In other words, the company a word keeps gives away its meaning.

While a word may have various usages, each word has only a single meaning. This is not the case in English (“I swung my bat at the bat after feeding a date to my date”), which is why God did not reveal Himself in English.

Hebrew and Greek are precision languages. Each word has its own meaning, and no two words mean exactly the same thing. (I’m not trying to be mean about what words mean.) Scriptural context tells us all we need to know. By examining Scriptural context, anyone with an iota of intelligence can determine the meaning of a Scriptural word. We will know we have the right English word for the Greek word when that English word fits every Scriptural context.

The word God said was “porneia.” Our big question, again, is: “What did this word mean to God?” As William Barclay famously said in his Daily Celebration: If we fail to study the meaning of the words of Scripture, then we will be in very serious danger of making Scripture mean what we want it to mean, and not what God wants it to mean.

Here is an example of the power of context, and the use-fulness of it. Your children will never know what “yucky”

ZENDER & COLPO

63

means unless you say it while smelling dog poop. When you smell dog poop and say “yucky,” your children will know “yucky” means a bad smell. If you want to ruin your kids for life, say “yucky” while eating ice-cream. Or say

“yummy” while smelling dog poop. For the rest of their sorry lives, your kids will confuse “yummy” and “yucky,”

and will probably become social outcasts by the time they reach third grade.

You say, “But, Martin, what if there were a country where

‘yucky’ does mean ‘yummy?’” The same rule applies. All one has to do is study that country’s context. Read their writings; listen to their conversations. If they say, “I just kissed the winner of the beauty pageant, and it was yucky,” then you will know.

Such is the power of context.

Scripture defines its own words by where the words appear, in context.

There are three different forms of the word porneia in the New Testament. Porneia is the noun, that is, the thing itself.

This noun is used in Matthew 5:32 when Jesus gives the one case in which a man can dismiss his wife. Used in a sentence, we could say, “Mrs. Tamale got caught in a case of porneia. ”

That’s the noun.

There is another form of the word, porneuo, which is the verb form; it means to do the thing itself. Paul uses this form twice in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. The CLNT translates this,

“commit prostitution.” Paul speaks of the Israelites exiting Egypt and warns the Corinthians to avoid their sin. Here is the context:

Nor yet may we be committing prostitution ( porneuo), according as some of them commit prostitution ( porneuo), and fall in one day twenty-three thousand (1 Corinthians 10:8).

64

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

There is one other form of porneia that will solve everything. Before unsheathing it, let’s examine the 1 Corinthians context. By doing so, we will discover what Paul meant by

“porneuo” and, by extension, what God meant. We need only investigate the Old Testament sin Paul referenced to discover what exactly made God kill those twenty-three thousand people. Was it looking at bra ads? Ogling female joggers?

Paging through a Playboy? Watching R-rated movies?

We shall see.

Paul refers to Numbers, chapter 25. We must look here.

You mustn’t settle for religion’s vague ideas and dim theories.

We don’t care what Arterburn and Stoeker think porneia is, because they may very well have an agenda. We don’t even care what the NIV thinks, or the CLNT for that matter.

Everyone may have an agenda. God will show us Himself what it means by the divine context. God defines His own words by inspired context. When we fix the definition according to God’s contexts, we will then be able to return to our original passage (Ephesians 5:3) and be founded on facts rather than fog. We will discover a strong prohibition against a specific thing rather than a loosey-goosey, uninspired, catch-all phrase (“sexual immorality”) used by agenda-ridden moralists to clobber people.

In 1 Corinthians 10:8, Paul says, in essence, “Don’t commit porneuo like those people back in the Old Testament committed it, which resulted in the death of 23,000 of them.” What exactly did those people do that caused 23,000

of them to die? Now you’re asking the right question.

Here is Numbers 25:1-9 from the King James Version: 1And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.

2And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods:

ZENDER & COLPO

65

and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods.

3And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

4And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.

5And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor.

6And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

7And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;

8And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.

9And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.

First of all, the discrepancy between Paul’s 23,000 and the 24,000 here in Numbers, chapter 25, is that Paul chose not to include the “heads of the people” of verse 4 who were hung (this amounted to 1,000 people), but referenced only the 23,000 common people beneath these heads, slain with the sword (verse 5). In any case, this is harsh judgment.

In the margin of his Companion Bible, E. W. Bullinger elaborates upon the specific crime committed by Israel in Shittim. Concerning “Baal-peor,” (“Slay ye every one of his men that were joined unto Baal-peor,”—verse 5), Bullinger writes:

66

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Baal=Lord; Peor was the mountain on which he was worshipped (25:18 Josh. 22:17). Baal was a Moabite idol, and those who called (verse 2) the Israelites were the prostitutes necessary for his worship by others. Cp. Hos. 9:10; Jer. 11:13. Peor also means “opening,” and may have relation to this “worship.”

Here is the horrible truth: Nearly every nation besides Israel worshipped false gods. The chosen way to approach these deities was via sexual intercourse. Why? For the same reason attractive women sell everything today, from car insurance to coffee filters. The purveyors of the false gods therefore installed their prostitutes in the deities’ respective temples, or on the “high places,” that is, atop mountains.

By engaging with these prostitutes (“engaging” is my euphemism for having sexual intercourse with them), a man identified himself with the worship of that particular deity.

These were the infamous “cult-prostitutes,” the bane of Israel’s existence and objects of God’s wrath.

The Shittim Israelites slain by hanging and sword, therefore, were not merely glancing at Midianite pamphlets promoting Baal-peor, however attractive those pamphlets may have been. Neither were they watching R-rated videos titled “A Beginner’s Introduction to Baal-peor.” Rather, Israel’s leaders and princes were inserting their penises inside the vaginas of the cult prostitutes dedicated to the service of the rival deity. By doing so, the Israelites officially joined, in body and in soul, the detestable Baal-peor.

The very first mention of “fornication” in 2 Chronicles 21:11, confirms our findings:

Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto.

ZENDER & COLPO

67

This horrible enticement and sexual sin was not the exclusive property of Old Testament Israel. Paul constantly confronted this sexual scourge in Corinth, which explains his insistence that the Corinthians avoid prostitution.

In his book on the topic of sex in the Bible, Tom Gruber writes—

To corroborate, the Greek historian and geographer Strabo (64 BC - AD 24) writes: “In ancient Corinth, having sex with a temple prostitute was an act of idolatry. Sex was an act of worship that bonded a man to a pagan goddess. In pagan cultures, fornication and idolatry went hand in hand. Having sex with a cult prostitute was a way of worshiping one’s favorite god or goddess.

Corinth was famous for prostitution. The Temple of Venus was the most magnificent building in the city. The temple employed a thousand prostitutes financed with public funds. Many early converts to Christianity continued their old practices, which included going to the temple and engaging in orgies dedicated to the worship of Venus. They saw nothing wrong with this. Paul, however, warned them to “flee fornication ( porneia).” Many have taken Paul’s warning out of context. The words “flee fornication” have been widely misap-propriated, battering potential transgressors like a ministerial billy-club. Meanwhile, Christendom seems oblivious to what fornication meant in biblical times.” (Tom Gruber, What the Bible Really Says About sex, 2001, Trafford Publishing, pp. 22, 44-47.)

In his History of Athens, Bulwer writes concerning the temple of Venus in Corinth:

There were more than a thousand harlots, the slaves of the temple, who, in honor of the goddess, prostituted themselves to all comers for hire, and through these the city was crowded, and became wealthy. (Bulwer’s History of Athens, Book 8, p. 151.)

68

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The crime for which 24,000 Israelites died, then, was putting their penises inside the vaginas of prostitutes. And not just any prostitutes, but prostitutes whose sole purpose was to join a man with their god via sexual intercourse.

If it had not been this serious, and this blatant, and this obviously wrong, would God have ordered the slaying of 23,000 people, and the hanging of the 1,000 men (the leaders, the princes) responsible for the wholesale sin?

Do you know what this hanging involved? I loathe sharing the specifics of this hanging, but you need to know.

In his Companion Bible on page 218, Bullinger describes the phrase “hang them up” (God’s precise instruction, KJV), the penalty due these lawless Israelites:

“hang them up: i.e. impaled or nailed to a stake, as in crucifixion.”

God ordered these sinning Israelites—that is, the leaders and the princes of Israel who had literally implanted themselves into the cult-prostitutes—to either be lowered upright onto a sharpened stake through their rectums, or to be nailed onto those stakes and left to die.

I’m not sure which would be worse. All I know is this: Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker have no right to turn porneia into some one-size-fits-all condemnation to describe what mil ions upon mil ions of average, healthy, God-fearing males do every day beneath the smiling gaze of He-Who-Created-Women-Beautiful-In-The-First-Place.

God killed people in the most horrific manner possible for porneia. To God, and to Paul—who tells the modern saints in 1 Corinthians 10:8 not to “commit porneia” as the Israelites of Numbers, chapter 25 did, and who says in Ephesians 5:3, “But among you there must not be even a hint of porneia ...”— porneia is an easily-identifiable, specific sin.

70

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Specifically, it entails a man putting his penis into an illegal vagina. The specific sin of porneia, or prostitution, has to do with penises and vaginas. And not only with penises and vaginas, but penises entering vaginas. And not only penises entering vaginas, but penises entering il egal vaginas. There are other illegal vaginas besides those of cult prostitutes (as we shall see), but this is the mother of all prostitutions.

Therefore, how dare Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker turn porneia into a laundry list of personal religious prohibitions they struggle against? (Sorry, gentlemen, but most men have no qualms looking at bra and panty ads—that is, until they read your book.) How dare they take normal male interest in things feminine (not all men consider their prayer lives threatened when appreciating a fine pair of legs in a miniskirt—that is, until they read your book) and confuse it with cult-prostitution, whereby God ordered 1,000 men to be either nailed to posts or lowered onto sharpened stakes?

How dare these two men so casual y pervert the holy word porneia (it is holy in that God purified it in a furnace seven times before employing it—Psalms 12:6—knowing exactly what He meant and what He wanted to say) and define it in the most careless manner possible to accord with their own personal whims (not every man considers beauty evil—until they read your book) rather than in accord with the precise meaning, as defined for us by Scriptural context, easily verified in a readily-available research tool, namely a concordance.

How dare they take “prostitution” and so casually accept the inconsistent NIV rendering of “sexual immorality.” Does this satisfy a self-righteous craving for religious perfection? Whatever the reason, thousands of normal men (they were normal, that is, before reading Every Man’s Battle) are seduced into the same sexual bondage (yes, forbidding

ZENDER & COLPO

71

oneself to look at beautiful women is just as much sexual bondage as that which the pornography addict experiences) ensnaring the authors. How dare they take this terrible, specific sin (males putting their penises into illegal vaginas) and illegally generalize it in order to engage men in a battle God never meant them to fight?

God wants us men to be “sexual y pure,” these authors say (pg. 48). God wants us to “aim for perfection,” they say (pg.

49). “God’s standard,” they tell us, “is that we avoid every hint of sexual immorality ( porneia) from our lives” (pg. 42).

Well, gee. That doesn’t seem so hard any more.

God is much more rational and sympathetic to basic human needs than authors Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker.

By ignoring God’s definition of “sexual immorality,”

Arterburn and Stoeker rake everyone else through their personal religious coals, making “sexual immorality” whatever they want it to be. The result is that mil ions of wel -meaning men believe everything Arterburn and Stoeker say, ignorantly adopting cruel, unusual, and ungodly sexual constraints.

—MZ

2

Heidi

How can someone who is constantly in a battle with his or her own flesh or sexual imagination come home to a spouse and then enjoy a fulfilling sexual experience? The guilt and remorse of the day’s struggle would surely carry over to the marriage bed and dampen a potentially beautiful encounter. Life is long and stressful. For me, the bedroom is the place to truly be myself, to let it all hang out, to express myself unabashedly to the man who chose to spend his life

72

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

with me. And yet, in my past life, there were so many times when I let my insecurities get in the way of enjoying a full sexual experience. I missed out on a connection with my husband that I know could have been there but that was missing in action because of religious struggle and guilt on both of our parts.

I regret that this ever happened, but today is the first day of the rest of my life. It is never too late for any of us to turn things around. Why wait? Tonight is the night.—HC

2

MZ

Before listing those things Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker dredge from their swamp of personal hang-ups and include under the vague, unscriptural umbrella of “sexual immorality,” let’s drive the last nail, and hammer home the Scriptural meaning of porneia.

Again, porneia is the noun. Jesus used it in Matthew 5:32 to teach the only reason a man could divorce his wife.

We also looked at the same word in its verb form, namely, porneuo, which means to do the thing. This is the form Paul uses twice in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, warning the Corinthians not to “commit prostitution” (CLNT). This prostitution, we now know, involved men putting their penises inside the vaginas of cult prostitutes.

Now we turn to the third Scriptural form of the word, describing the person who engages in porneia. This form of the word is porne, and it is translated “prostitute” 11 times in the Concordant Literal New Testament. The only variation from this consistency in the Concordant Literal New Testament is the rendering of pornos as “paramour” ten times in this translation, to define a male committing the sin of prostitution.

ZENDER & COLPO

73

A law of language dictates that the various forms of a word cannot mean more or less than their root form. Consider, for instance, “day” and “daily.” “Day” is the noun, “daily”

the adjective. The adjective, “daily,” cannot mean something different than its noun, “day.” That is, if “day” means “day,”

then “daily” has to do with a day. “Daily” cannot suddenly mean “hourly.”

As inconsistent as the NIV is with the translation of porneia, it can’t help but translate porne “prostitute” in 1

Corinthians 6:15, which is the correct rendering. Remarkably, however, from verses 16-20, where its cognate ( porneia) appears, the NIV reverts to the vague and meaningless “sexual immorality” (verse 18), and then unaccountably translates its verb form yet another way—“sins sexual y”—also in verse 18.

I quote this entire passage because from this we can easily see not only the inconsistency of the NIV (an inconsistency fueling and wrongly justifying Arterburn and Stoeker’s anti-sex crusade), but also Paul’s allusions to the spiritual prostitution associated with men putting their penises into the vaginas of cult-prostitutes, leading 24,000 people away from the true God (i.e., “idolatry”).

Here is that passage from the NIV. I have pointed out all forms of the Greek word porneia: 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute ( porne)? Never!

16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute ( porne), becomes one flesh?

17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

18 Flee sexual immorality ( porneia). All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually ( porneuo) sins against his own body.

74

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

20 You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

The NIV was forced to make the first two occurrences of porne “prostitute” because a “sexually immoral” person did not fit the context. After al , when a man unites himself with a person who is merely sexually immoral (in some vague, undefined way), does he become one flesh with her? No.

There must be sexual penetration. The NIV is right here.

But why do the NIV translators suddenly become interpret-ers and stop consistently translating the same exact word ( porne), though now in its verb form ( porneuo)?

In other words, why do they make porne “prostitute,” but make porneia “sexual immorality” and porneuo “sins sexual y”? If porne is “prostitute,” then porneia cannot rightful y be anything but “prostitution,” and porneuo must be “committing prostitution.” This accords with the laws of language (e.g., “day” and “daily”). Is there a version of Scripture that translates in accord with the laws of language? There is.

Here is the same passage from the Concordant Literal New Testament:

15 Are you not aware that your bodies are members of Christ? Taking, then, the members of Christ away, should I be making them members of a prostitute ( porne)? May it not be coming to that!

16 Or are you not aware that he who joins a prostitute ( porne) is one body? For, He is averring, the two will be one flesh.

17 Now he who joins the Lord is one spirit.

18 Flee from prostitution ( porneia). The penalty of every sin, whatsoever a man should be doing, is outside of the body, yet he who is committing prostitution ( porneuo) is sinning against his own body.

ZENDER & COLPO

75

19 Or are you not aware that your body is a temple of the holy spirit in you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?

20 For you are bought with a price. By all means glorify God in your body.”

What is so hard about translating consistently?

What would be the reason for not translating consistently? An agenda, perhaps?

Here is a comparison of the NIV and the CLNT. Notice the inconsistency in the NIV, and the beauty (and common sense) of consistency in the CLNT:

VERSE 15

NIV: “ ... unite them with a prostitute ( porne)”

CLNT: “ ... making them members of a prostitute ( porne)”

VERSE 16

NIV: “ ... unites himself with a prostitute ( porne)”

CLNT: “ .. joins a prostitute ( porne)”

VERSE 18

NIV: “Flee sexual immorality ( porneia).”

CLNT: “Flee from prostitution ( porneia).”

VERSE 18

NIV: “He who sins sexually ( porneuo) sins against his own body.”

CLNT: “He who is committing prostitution ( porneuo) is sinning against his own body.

The reference to “your body is a temple” in verse 19

should not be lost on anyone. Paul is comparing Christ dwelling in us to the practice of the cult-prostitutes who drew men into the worship of false gods.

Paul says, “he who joins” a prostitute “is one body” with the prostitute. The joining here is literal, that is, it’s the sexual union between a male and a female that has the penis of the male entering the vagina of the female. This is what makes a man and a woman one flesh; it does not happen when they

ZENDER & COLPO

77

hold hands, it does not happen when they kiss, and it does not happen when they sexual y fantasize about one another, or sit on the couch watching R-rated videos, or look at erotic photographs of one another. We are clearly talking about intercourse.

Why are we talking about intercourse? Because the comparison is: “he who joins the Lord is one spirit.” Even Arterburn and Stoeker would admit that joining the Lord is more than just reading about Him, or using His name, or going to church. It is an intimate relationship. And yet, while admitting to this, they make porneia out to be watching R-rated videos that might feature some sexuality, or even something as innocent as looking at bra ads in the newspaper.

“He who is committing porneia is sinning against his own body.” How can a man looking at bra ads in the newspaper be sinning against his own body? This is a matter of flesh penetrating flesh, not eyeballs gazing upon paper, or upon a woman running down the sidewalk in Spandex.

“The penalty of every sin, whatsoever a man should be doing, is outside of the body.” Looking at a bra ad is outside of the body, and so is watching a woman run. It is all outside the body. Prostitution, however, is a sin that involves the coming together of two bodies. Thus, prostitution, according to Paul’s context, is inside the body.

The CLNT is not the only version translating porneia and its various forms consistently. Young’s Literal Translation also gets it right:

15 Have ye not known that your bodies are members of Christ? Having taken, then, the members of the Christ, shall I make them members of an harlot? ( porne). Let it be not!

16 Have ye not known that he who is joined to the harlot ( porne) is one body? “For they shall be—saith He—the two for one flesh.”

78

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

17 And he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit; 18 flee the whoredom ( porneia); every sin—whatever a man may commit—is without the body, and he who is committing whoredom ( porneuo), against his own body doth sin.

Here are our three translations under consideration—

from worst to best—and their treatment of porne and its related forms ( porne and porneia being the nouns, and porneuo being the verb) in the four references from 1 Corinthians 6:15-18. I have highlighted the most damaging translation (NIV) in boldface type—the translation that has sent Arterburn and Stoeker on their mission of error—

I am taking so much time making a case for consistent translating because it is vital y important to your peace and freedom in Christ. Likewise, it is important in protecting you from Arterburn and Stoeker’s personal mission against, and fear of, all things sexual. As you can see, it is the faulty rendering of the NIV that has given Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker license to make porneia whatever they want it to be, which is precisely what they do. Thus, they have built their entire book—including all of its stern warnings against “sexual immorality”—on a faulty foundation. This would not bother me so much, except that thousands of men have, without question or investigation, taken the words of Arterburn and Stoeker and the grammatical y-warped NIV as

ZENDER & COLPO

79

gospel truth. The result is that thousands of men have entered upon an unnatural and thus unnecessary sexual battle against their natural, God-given instincts, at the same time jeopardizing their marriages by harboring resentment against their wives, who for the most part promote this course.

If porne is specifically and obviously a prostitute in verses 15 and 16 of 1 Corinthians 6 (even the NIV admits that), then porneuo (the verb form of porne) in verse 18, by the laws of language, must be “committing prostitution” (and porneia must simply be “prostitution”). It’s that simple. We understand it clearly in real-world cases. Why is it that we somehow lose our minds when it comes to Scripture?

For instance, we have a specific English word for a person who propels him or herself through the water, and it is

“swimmer.” This is the noun. The verb form is “swim,” and the thing itself is called “swimming.” Same word, different forms. Now let’s say someone writes a book, warning people with a fear of water (there actually is such a thing; it’s called

“aquaphobia”) against swimming. Here is a passage from that hypothetical book—

If you have aquaphobia, would you want to be a swimmer? I would hope not! Why would you even want to hang out with other swimmers? Flee swimming, because every aquaphobe who swims is sinning against his or her own fear.

Now let’s say an esteemed Mexican writer wants to translate this book into Spanish. This esteemed writer is looking at the English book, and sees the word “swim” (verb) and its various forms, including “swimming” (a noun; the thing done) and “swimmer” (also a noun; the person who does the thing). The writer translates “swimmer” correctly into the target language, making it nadador both times. But when

80

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

this translator gets to the other forms of the word ( natación for “swimming” and nadar for “swims”) he decides to get creative and take literary license. Why? This hypothetical writer doesn’t like any kind of physical activity. The author, himself, is weak, frail, and al ergic to exercise, and he believes most people should avoid exerting themselves. Here, then, is the resultant translation (in English with selected Spanish, to help you understand it)—

If you have aquaphobia, would you want to be a swimmer?

I would hope not! Why would you even want to hang out with other swimmers? Flee every sport [oops; the word here in the target language ought to be natación, because the original English word was “swimmer,” but in Spanish, this author writes cada deporte, which is Spanish for “every sport”] because every aquaphobe who participates in sports

[the author commits another literary crime here; instead of simply translating the single word “swims”—from the source language—into nadar, he invents the phrase “participates in sports,” so that his Spanish readers read, participa en deportes, instead of nadar] is sinning against his or her own fear.

Because this writer is esteemed in his native country, everyone reading his book (with no access to the original English book) takes him seriously and stops engaging in any and all physical activity. Before long, thousands of people are becoming unnecessarily sedentary, all because the translator took a liberty and inserted a personal bias—based on his own weakness, personal qualms, and hangups—into his translation. The only way a Spanish reader would know of the purposeful deception is if he or she had access to the original book and understood English. Then would come the realization: this author has tricked us!

What would you do if you had a heart for people, and

82

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

you found out about this crime? Would you not write a book to these poor people in their language, making them aware of the original work and the original intention of the original author, and thus freeing them from a terrible prohibition (“don’t participate in any sports”) they were never meant to bear? —MZ

2

Heidi

I have many years ahead of me, and I will continue to learn what God wants for me and for my husband. This is not to say that I haven’t already been around the block a few times. I have. If I can help you in your relationship by sharing my experiences with you, I will count it a blessing.

God is dear and real to me. His freedom can bring you peace. Yes, I realize how hard it is to make changes. That is why the apostle Paul has to talk to us so specifically about topics that matter to us. If this change were easy and fun, then Paul wouldn’t have to exhort us so many times. And these are exhortations, by the way, not laws dressed up in sheep’s clothing.

When it comes to practical guidelines concerning sex, what works for one couple could be a disaster for another.

It takes time and willingness to learn about one’s spouse in order to make a marriage succeed. More importantly, it takes a deep desire to follow the Spirit’s leading.

In this book you are finding out—especially from Martin—what the Scripture says about you and your sexual partner, and the freedom that you actual y do have in Christ.

Now take that knowledge and let the freeing information actually free you. “For freedom, Christ frees us” (Galatians 5:1). That’s right. This freedom that we have in Christ is

ZENDER & COLPO

83

not meant to be theoretical only, but is meant to be lived out with boldness. So go on and love your partner as you love yourself. The rewards of doing so will cause even more blessings to settle upon your head and heart.

Some of you will find instant relief from the burdens with which religion has loaded down your sex life. Others are going to feel lost, not knowing where to start the process of unraveling and lifting the condemnation and guilt. As the Lord walks you through this, I would like to encourage you to give yourself permission to hurt. Give vent to your pain and/or frustration. Just don’t let the pain and frustration make you run away from what God is trying to teach you.

Like a loving parent disciplining a child, God uses pain to bring the objects of His love closer to Him, and closer to their loved ones.

As Martin has shown us from Scripture, grace is the cure for all of our sins. God’s grace covers us even when we fail.

In fact, grace can’t cover us unless we fail. This doesn’t mean that we ought to go out and sin to test grace. I’m just telling you that grace will answer the bell every time. When we are lost, confused, and making all sorts of mistakes, a remem-brance of God’s grace restores our minds to the facts about God’s opinion concerning us: “Nothing, consequently, is now condemnation to those in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

When we extend this same grace to our spouse, it allows us to get past the daily annoyances of a person that we just sometimes don’t really understand.

Wives, your husband is going to do things that bother you. When this inevitably happens, you are going to have to make a decision whether to let it destroy you or to let the grace of God destroy it. If you filter all of your major and minor irritations through the filter of grace, you will then be able to react kindly and with love to the man you’ve

84

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

dedicated your life to. Husbands, just because your wife is now on a journey of understanding you, there are still things embedded in her mind that she will find difficult to overcome. When you show grace toward her, she will see your patience and it will help her to heal. —HC

2

MZ

The bottom line is that porneia ought to be translated

“prostitution” across the board, that is, in every single occurrence where the word appears in scripture.

So what is prostitution?

The CLNT defines it as: “Unlawful intercourse of the sexes.”

The key word is “intercourse.” It is a man putting his penis into an illegal vagina. Prostitution not only includes cult-prostitution, but any such unlawful intercourse, such as that found in 1 Corinthians 5:1 —

Absolutely, it is heard that there is prostitution among you, and such prostitution, which is not even named among the nations, so that someone has his father’s wife.

This sinner was not merely fantasizing about his father’s wife. He was not watching her jog in tight shorts. He was not even masturbating to pictures of her modeling bras in the women’s undergarment section of The Corinthian Gazette.

“Someone has his father’s wife.” For the love of God, this man was putting his penis inside of the vagina of his father’s wife.

I know you are probably getting tired of me using the terms “penis” and “vagina.” Martin! Stop using the words

“penis” and “vagina.” We are tired of hearing them!

86

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

I know you are tired of hearing them. I understand how tired you are of the words penis and vagina. The words penis and vagina are completely exhausting you; I get it.

Good! I want you to never forget them. Because every single occurrence of porneia in the Greek Scriptures has to do with penises entering illegal vaginas. God has never changed His definition of it. Prostitution ( porneia), according to Scriptural usage, is “unlawful intercourse of the sexes.”

There is no phrase in the entire Bible that says, “sexual immorality.”

Let me repeat that, this time in boldface type: There is no phrase in the entire Bible that says,

“sexual immorality.”

God would never leave it to us to decide what is right and wrong in an area as important and insistent as human sexuality.

Before I show you the short list of sexual things that God does prohibit, I have one more nail to add to the coffin that will convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt that Arterburn and Stoeker have taken radical and damaging license with the specific sin of porneia.

I will soon be showing you a list of the improbable and crazy things that Arterburn and Stoeker consider to be porneia. You already know that looking at bra ads is one of the biggies. Watching women jog on the beach is, to these men, another serious form of porneia. Since these things are considered porneia by Arterburn and Stoeker, then certainly adultery and homosexuality must be included. Remember, the verse that they begin the entire book with is Ephesians 5:3, from the NIV: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality . .” (pg. 9). Immediately fol owing this, Stephen shares a terrible personal incident of girl-watching from his car near the beach, where his “eyes locked on to this

ZENDER & COLPO

87

goddesslike blonde” (pg. 10), who was at the same time a

“remarkable specimen of female athleticism,” causing him to become “embarrassed, humiliated, saturated with guilt.”

In another part of the book, Fred weaves his traumatic yarn concerning “a monster lurking about” (pg. 13) which turns out to be “models posing in bras and panties” (pg. 13), who are “always smiling.”

Here is 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, from Arterburn and Stoeker’s version of choice, that is, the New International Version. For the various types of sexual offenders of this passage, I have provided the corresponding Greek noun: Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral ( pornos) nor idolaters ( eidololatres) nor adulterers ( moichos) nor male prostitutes ( malakon) nor homosexual offenders ( arsenokoites) nor thieves ( kleptes) nor the greedy ( pleonektes) nor drunkards ( methusos) nor slanderers ( loidoros) nor swindlers ( harpax) will inherit the kingdom of God.

Question: If “sexually immorality” ( porneia, and its various forms) includes every kind of sexual sin imaginable, including adultery and homosexuality, then why is the “sexually immoral” person, in this NIV context, listed separately from adulterers and homosexuals?

Answer: It is because God is careful and specific, while Arterburn and Stoeker are reckless and have failed to do their homework. This verse proves that so-cal ed “sexual immorality” is distinct from sins such as adultery and homosexuality.

Let’s concentrate on the sexual sins of this passage. I already told you that Arterburn and Stoeker’s key phrase—

the phrase they use throughout the book to challenge everyone to live in accord with God’s supposed standard, namely, “sexual immorality”—appears nowhere in properly

88

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

translated Scripture. 1 Corinthians 6:9 is proof. To warn the “sexually immoral,” as the NIV does here, and then to call out (in addition to the “sexually immoral”) adulterers and homosexual offenders, is like saying, “Sinners, line up to my left. And all you people who lie, cheat, and steal, line up to my right.”

A “sexual y immoral” person, even according to this NIV

context, is different from an adulterer. And an adulterer is different from a homosexual offender. I don’t know how the NIV “translators” could look this passage in the eye and not see the mistake of making pornos “sexually immoral.” I don’t know how Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker could stare at this translation and go on their merry way using porneia to condemn everything from looking at underwear ads to admiring female fitness enthusiasts.

The NIV makes a mess of this passage; God is not so sloppy. Rather, God is so specific and careful that what He actually said in this passage (ignoring for a moment the nefarious nature of the characters here listed) is beautiful.

Here is how the CLNT translates 1 Corinthians 6:9; I’m sticking only with the sexual sinners: Neither paramours ( pornos) ... nor adulterers ( moichos), nor catamites ( malakon), nor sodomites ( arsenokoites) ... shall be enjoying the allotment of God’s kingdom.

What fabulous precision.

A pornos is specifically a paramour, which in this context (due to the fact that “adulterers,” “catamites,” and “sodomites” are listed as different kinds of sinners) refers to a man who becomes one flesh with a cult prostitute. (The NIV

is up to its usual “sexually immoral” trick here, not even realizing that the translation, in this passage, is unworkable.)

ZENDER & COLPO

89

In the CLNT, A. E. Knoch translated malakon as catamites. What is a catamite? I had to look it up myself.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a catamite is “a boy kept for homosexual practices.”

Wikipedia has: “A young man involved in a sexual relationship with an older man.”

The English element of this Greek word is “soft.” The Scriptural definition of catamite, according to the keyword concordance to the CLNT, is “a male used for unnatural purposes, joined with a sodomite.”

So we know that a catamite in this verse is referring to a male who has anal sex with another male, but that’s not enough since there’s another word which also speaks of a male who has anal sex with another male ( arsenokoites), which means one of these words must be referring to the

“giving” party while the other refers to the “receiving” party, so to speak. Based on the definition and history of the word malakon, we know it’s the word referring to the party who is penetrated, which means arsenokoites would be referring to the one doing the penetrating.

A friend suggests—based on the context of pornos, porne, porneia, and porneuo in the rest of this chapter—that Paul was speaking of cult-prostitution here when using the words malakon and arsenokoites (just as he was when speaking about paramours and prostitutes), but I do not believe this to be the case. To my knowledge there are no instances in Scripture (or in profane history) where men penetrate men in cult prostitution.

Either way, the sin of the malakon and arsenokoites is illegal penetration of a very specific part of a man’s body by another man. And so a sodomite would specifically be someone who illegally sticks his penis into the rectum of a catamite, and nothing else. Got it.

90

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Oh, the marvelous specificity of God. In 1 Corinthians 6:9, God does not leave it for anyone to guess anything.

God will have none of this loosey goosey “sexual y immoral”

talk for the word pornos. God is precise. God knows what He wants to say. He knows exactly what He wants to warn against, and it is these four things:

▶ males who stick their penises into illegal cult vaginas,

▶ people who steal other people’s spouses,

▶ men who put their penises into illegal rectums, and

▶ the men who let them do it.

God does have a few more sexual prohibitions than these.

Does He list them anywhere? Of course He does. He lists them in the toughest, sternest, strictest, most comprehensive list of do’s and don’ts in the entire Bible, namely, the law of Moses (more specifical y, the book of Leviticus). Behold, then, God’s complete catalog of what you just aren’t supposed to do in the sex department. Not surprisingly, Paul’s New Testament warnings coincide precisely with what God prohibited in Old Testament days. Just as predictably, the most serious sexual sins have to do with penises entering il egal vaginas.

God’s prohibitions

Here, then, are God’s sexual prohibitions, from Leviticus, chapter 20. I will put these in list form, to make them easier to see. You can go to Leviticus, chapter 20, and check this out for yourself (“lies with,” by the way, is a Scriptural euphemism for “has sex with”; it is sexual penetration)—

“Any man of the sons of Israel and of the sojourner sojourning in Israel who should give any of his seed to Moloch shall be put to death” (vs. 2).

ZENDER & COLPO

91

“I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family and will cut off from among their people him and all those prostituting after him, to prostitute after Moloch” (vs. 5).

“As for a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife

. . the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death, yea death” (vs. 10).

“As for a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has exposed his father’s nakedness. The two of them shall be put to death, yea death” (vs. 11).

“And a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, the two of them shall be put to death, yea death” (vs. 12).

“As for a man who lies with a male as if going to bed with a woman, they do an abhorrence. The two of them shall be put to death, yea death” (vs. 13).

“As for a man who takes a woman and her mother, this is lewdness. With fire shall they burn him and them so that no such lewdness may come up in your midst” (vs. 14).

“As for a man who gives his emission to a beast, he shall be put to death, yea death, and the beast shall you kill” (vs. 15).

“As for a woman who approaches to any beast to copulate with it, you will kill the woman and the beast. They shall be put to death, yea death” (vs. 16).

“As for a man who takes his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, this is a base thing, and they will be cut off before the eyes of the sons of their people” (vs. 17).

“As for a man who lies with a menstruous woman and exposes her nakedness, he causes her fountain to be naked, and she exposes the fountain of her bloodflows. Then the two of them will be cut off from among their people” (vs. 18).

“The nakedness of your mother’s sister or your father’s sister you shall not expose, for he who does so causes his kin to be naked; their depravity shall they bear” (vs. 19).

“As for a man who lies with his aunt, the nakedness of his uncle he has exposed. Their sin shall they bear; heirless shall they die” (vs. 20).

“As for a man who takes the wife of his brother, this is impurity.

ZENDER & COLPO

93

The nakedness of his brother has he exposed; heirless shall they become” (vs. 21).

“You will observe all My statutes and all My judgments and keep them so that the land, where I am bringing you to dwell in it, shall not vomit you out” (vs. 22).

People you can’t have sex with

Two chapters earlier, in Leviticus, chapter 18 (verses 6-22), God tel s an Israelite who he can and can’t have sex with. It’s a pretty straightforward list; check it out for yourself. It’s pretty much the same as chapter twenty. You may be surprised who is not on the list. If a person is not on the list, it means you can have sex with that person. This list deals purely with the individuals involved in the sexual activity, and not with any wrongdoing committed against such individuals, addressed in other portions of the law. For instance, rape was a sexual crime punishable by death (Deuteronomy 22:25). The rape law would have included sexual violation of children, as they were spoken of under Mosaic Law as, “your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil ..” (Deuteronomy 1:39).

Pedophilia, then, was included under the Mosaic rape law, answering to our “statutory rape.”

2

Have you read Leviticus chapters 18 and 20? Congratulations, then. You have a strong stomach. Not only that, but you have learned a lot. These are the only sexual sins that bother God. It is all fairly simple and straightforward. I can put the sexual prohibitions of the Old Testament in a nutshel :

▶ Don’t rape people, including children.

▶ Don’t steal another man’s wife.

94

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

▶ Don’t screw your relatives.

▶ Don’t screw horses (sheep, goats, elephants, etc.).

▶ Males, do not put your penises into each other’s asses.

▶ Don’t screw cult prostitutes.

▶ If a woman is menstruating, leave her alone.

▶ Don’t look at your naked sister.

That’s it. This is God’s list of sexual acts He considers to be unlawful and thus forbidden. Anyone adding to this list has a higher standard than God, mocking God’s prohibitions.

Not everything in these passages entails prostitution.

Every case of a penis entering an illegal vagina (screwing your relatives, stealing another man’s wife) is specifically prostitution, and is specifically what the New Testament refers to every time the word porneia appears. This is an important point. Every time porneia appears in the New Testament, it refers to these prohibitions from the Old Testament. How do I know? Besides cult prostitution (which was not so much related to sex but to idolatry), there were never any other standards. These are God’s sexual standards; these are God’s sexual prohibitions. These are God’s only sexual prohibitions. (And even these came only to Israelites.) Anyone adding to them adds to the Word of God, and does so at his or her own peril.

For the cases of prostitution (penises entering illegal vaginas), people were killed. For merely looking at naked relatives, offenders were cut off from other people. Exposing a woman’s menstrual blood was not a capital offense, but it got one ostracized.

This passage shows us the marvelous specificity of God.

It shows us how God could have said many other things, but didn’t. (Arterburn and Stoeker take over where God left off;

ZENDER & COLPO

95

lucky for God.) Of course, the thing immediately jumping out at a person is what God does not prohibit. People have told me, “You cannot say that, just because it is not on these lists, God doesn’t prohibit it.” Yes, you can.

There is nothing here against masturbation, or oral sex, or looking at bra ads (or even against lusting after women, as we shall see in detail in Chapter 8); there is nothing here against lingerie, high-heels, battery-operated vibrators, sexual bondage, watching a woman swing naked from a chandelier (as long as she’s not your sister), looking at Playboy, or masturbating to Playboy. There is nothing here against paying a woman for sexual favors. There is nothing here against two single people having consensual sex.

God loves sex. Why wouldn’t He? He invented it. In the Bible, He talks about it all the time. He loves the variety; His universe throbs with variety. God meant for us to play with ourselves and pleasure ourselves. He meant for us to admire every beautiful thing in His wide creation, not bounce our eyes from it. God loves role-playing. God loves spontaneity. God loves pictures of naked people; why wouldn’t He? He created people naked. God loves the sex act. He loves orgasms. He loves sexual lust; He invented sexual lust; He invented all the hormones that make people desire one another (“lust” merely means “desire”; don’t shoot the messenger; don’t pre-judge me; don’t throw the book against a wall; hang onto your hormones; more information on “lust” coming up in Chapter 8). God loves all the noises and the fluids of sex. He loves the “dirty talk.”

Just don’t whisper sweet nothings into the ears of horses.

Is this too much to ask?

What does God hate? It’s a legitimate question. He tel s us.

There is a specific list in the sixth chapter of Proverbs detailing for us everything God hates. Judging from the wide-ranging

96

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

and arbitrary sexual prohibitions found in Every Man’s Battle, one would think everything God hates has to do with sex.

After all, doesn’t God hate sex and sexual lust more than anything? Let’s take a look. From Proverbs 6:16-19—

These are six things Yahweh hates, Even seven that are an abhorrence to His soul:

Exalted eyes,

A false tongue,

And hands that shed innocent blood;

A heart engrossed with lawless devisings, Feet that make haste to run to evil,

A false witness who breathes out lies, And one who instigates quarrels among brothers.

There are the seven things God hates. Not a word about sex; not a word. Hmm. Drawing any conclusions?—MZ

2

Heidi

I shouldn’t be surprised when someone tells me, “My parents never talked to me about sex.” My parents never talked to me about sex either. It still amazes me, though, that so many have never benefited from parental sexual guidance at an early age, when everything is so untainted and fresh. So many parents unfortunately lose the opportunity to help their children establish healthy sexual attitudes. Thus, few people today have a healthy, godly view of sex. Because of this, I decided early on that I would do all I could to tell my children about God’s purpose for human sexual relations. My goal is to give my children a lifetime of enjoyment and fulfillment in the thing that God made specifically to be enjoyable and fulfilling.—HC

2

ZENDER & COLPO

97

MZ

Apparently, God’s list of sexual no-no’s is incomplete.

God is too liberal. He had no idea how sexually immoral we would become. If God could modify His list of sexual prohibitions and the things He considers to be crimes of porneia (He desperately wants to), then surely He would have given that task to religious, careful, and very zealous men such as Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker. Thank God He raised up these men to expand upon His prohibitions and give us a completely new list of things that, if not controlled, will put one on shaky moral ground with the God of the Universe.

Here, then, is a partial list of the things Arterburn and Stoeker consider acts of porneia, that is “ungodly sexual actions” (pg. 3):

looking at bra and panty ads (pg. 13) looking at Gallery magazine (pg. 14) looking at Playboy (pg. 146)

watching Forrest Gump (pg. 20) imagining sex with Sally Field (pg. 22) admiring female fashion trends (pg. 23) watching women’s fitness shows (pg. 24) masturbating (pg. 26)

sexual fantasizing (pg. 87)

watching Baywatch re-runs (pg. 116) looking at suggestive billboards while driving (pg. 117) looking at female joggers in “tight nylon shorts” (pg. 126) watching “beer and bikini commercials” (pg. 126) watching “movies rated PG-13 or higher” (pg. 126) looking at “receptionists with low-cut or tight blouses” (pg. 126) 2

ZENDER & COLPO

99

STEPHEN ARTERBURN:

We’ve been ridiculed by the world’s sophisticates who find God’s standard ridiculous and confining. That’s fine with us, because we have a bigger concern—you.

Thank you, Stephen, but mind your own damn business.

We were all doing quite well until you showed up. I only wish the world’s sophisticates were sophisticated enough to realize that it is not God’s standards which are ridiculous and confining, but yours. I have an even bigger concern than yours, Stephen, namely, that your book makes people imagine that your personal standards for sexual behavior are God’s personal standards. It is the very reason Heidi and I wrote this book—to refute your book.

From publisher Dan Rich (from the Introduction to Every Man’s Battle)—

When I read Fred’s manuscript, I was immediately struck by its potential. Here was an example of what we at WaterBrook look for most: books that offer Christians encouragement, support, and challenge by authors who can communicate ‘old truths through new eyes’ and lead readers to renewed hope and redemption.

Hey, Dan: by “renewed hope and redemption,” do you mean “profound despair and condemnation”?

From Fred Stoeker, warning against the perils of

mixing God’s standards with our own:

▶ “Because our own standards on sexual purity have been so mixed with God’s, and since many Christians don’t read their Bibles very often, many men have no clue about God’s standard for sexual purity” (pg. 45).

▶ “Why do we so easily mix in our own standards with God’s?” (pg. 43).

100

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

▶ “We aren’t victims of some vast conspiracy to ensnare us sexually; we’ve simply chosen to mix in our own standards of sexual conduct with God’s standard.”

▶ “Sometimes we choose wrong sexual standards not because we’re naive, but simply because we’re rebel ious” (pg. 43).

▶ “Mixture can destroy a people.”

▶ “Mixing in your own standards leads to being ensnared, and even worse” (pg. 44).

▶ “If we followed [God’s] standards we would never see sexual bondage” (pg. 42).

Fred, you are guilty of the very crime you warn others about! It is you who have mixed your standards with God’s, while vainly supposing that it is the world that has watered down God’s standards. No. The world is much smarter than you. You are the one—you and your Pharisee friend Stephen Arterburn—who have chosen (invented, rather) the wrong sexual standards. Therefore, you are the naive person; you are the rebellious one.

“If we followed God’s standards we would never see sexual bondage.”

That’s right, Fred. But since you don’t follow God’s standards (you mix your personal standards with His), you have fallen into the worst sexual bondage of all: battling your natural instincts and—by extension—God Himself.

Even more heinous, you have written a book causing millions of gullible men to join you in your stupid, misguided, self-righteous battle for some homemade, nonexistent, unnecessary sexual and religious perfection.

2

In Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition, Philo Thelos writes:

102

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Biblical sexual morality does not even resemble modern Christian sexual morality… Nothing is sinful because “it just seems to be wrong.” Subjective opinions, even if followed by the masses, can never establish a thing as sinful; otherwise sin becomes whatever people think sin to be. Sin is only what God says it is … Preachers, pastors, church leaders in general, learn their concepts from their peers just like all people do. Few of them are willing to expend the time and energy required to examine, for themselves, every line of biblical text. It is just too easy to take for granted what passes muster in the majority of churches, as being the “biblical norm.”

As an ex-pastor I can say from experience that it is unusual to find preachers who do their own study. Most of them are pressed for time and know too little about using Bible study tools. Copying their messages from another’s material is a standard solution for many Christian teachers.

Thus in many areas, what is preached is merely what has been preached, and only occasionally does it meet the test of true biblical scholarship.

What rules the day as “biblical morality” is not truly biblical at all. It is religious morality … Modern religious sexual standards have been developed over time by the human penchant for filling in the gaps left by God’s silence on most sexual topics.

That these human standards have become almost universally accepted in the church does not make them anything other than human standards. They still lack God’s authority. The Bible still does not teach them despite the many who believe otherwise … The modern Christian church is a self-appointed, worldwide enforcer of a multi-tude of heavy sexual burdens that it has “laid upon men’s shoulders” (Matthew 23:4), threatening people everywhere

… Millions of people are afraid of sex, confused about sex and “guilty” about sex, all because of the faulty standards set by an apostate church.

Sex has become the unmentionable subject, and a “nasty”

practice because of the church’s ignorance … Where God has

ZENDER & COLPO

103

granted liberty, the church has denied it. What God has not seen fit even to comment on, the church has boldly and ada-mantly legislated …

Only after understanding what God says about sex in the Bible, will any person be able to form a right opinion about it.

And it is useless to answer with, “But there are some things that are just obviously wrong.” … What is obviously wrong to one group of people is just as obviously right to another group of people. Our subjective opinions, regardless of how deeply we feel them, can never be made the basis for moral standards. Our obligation is simple.

Let God be God! Let God do all the legislating about all sexual matters … Religious leaders have much to gain by not questioning the status quo, and many will not even seriously consider any alternate viewpoint in any sexual matter. They have been trained by their mentors, pressured by their peers, and threatened by their financial insecurity to give nothing but the majority report on sexual issues. So if you want to be confident that you are getting close-to-objective Bible truth, look for yourself. You will be amazed, even flabbergasted, at what you find when you look for yourself, with eyes that want to see what is in the Bible. You may even be angry at what has been kept from you by those who were responsible to tell you,

“just the truth ma’am,” but who, for many reasons, could not find the truth for themselves.

2

One can hear the condescending sneer of a Pharisee when Fred writes on page 43, “Or maybe you’ve considered God’s standard too ridiculous to take seriously.”

Fred again, from page 43:

When someone suggested that God expects even singles to avoid every hint of sexual immorality, one attractive young woman blurted out, “Nobody could possibly expect us to live that way!”

104

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

By mixing God’s standards with their own, the Pharisees also laid unwarranted, additional burdens upon people’s backs (Mark 7:1-9), to the point that Jesus rebuked them, saying—

“You are repudiating the precept of God, that you should be keeping your tradition” (Mark 7:9).

Substitute the phrase “personal prohibitions concerning sex” for “tradition” in this verse, and would not our Lord level this accusation against Arterburn and Stoeker? “You are repudiating the precept of God, that you should be keeping your personal prohibitions concerning sex!”

“Many men have no clue about God’s standard for sexual purity,” says Fred Stoeker on page 45.

I’ll say. You and Stephen are the poster boys of “no clue.”

Fred again, from page 48—

We should not be in close association with another Christian who persists in sexual immorality.

It was for this very thing that the Pharisees derided Christ, Who “came eating and drinking” (Matthew 11:19), and was well-known to be “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19), some of whom were no doubt

“loose women.” Our Lord’s association with such women inspired Him to tell the startled Pharisees at a later time (Matthew 21:31)—

“Verily I am saying to you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are preceding you into the kingdom of God.”

And so guess who is going to precede Stephen and Fred into the kingdom of God? Probably the smiling women in the bra and panty ads.

ZENDER & COLPO

105

The result of mixing one’s own standards with God’s is—as Arterburn and Stoeker tell us—“destructive.”

“If we followed [God’s] standards we would never see sexual bondage,” says Fred Stoeker on page 42.

“Mixing in your own standards leads to being ensnared, and even worse,” says Fred again on page 44.

I agree on both counts. Therefore, I exhort everyone to read God’s standards for sexual behavior in Leviticus, chapters 18 and 20, and stop mixing them with their own. By doing so, our readers will avoid the ensnarement and sexual bondage that is Every Man’s Battle. —MZ

4 nudIty & PornogrAPhy

107

nudIty & PornogrAPhy

Is pornography nudity? Is nudity pornographic? I shall boldly answer my own questions: No, and no.

There is nothing wrong with the naked human body.

In fact, much is right with it. After all, God created it and saw that it was “good.” Michelangelo’s “David” is a mas-terpiece. But doesn’t that famous sculpture depict a totally naked man? Indeed. What about the “Venus de Milo,” displayed at the Louvre in Paris? The sculpture depicts a topless woman. Are we all fine with that? Can we all look at de Milo’s marble breasts, with God, and pronounce them, “Good”? Can we say the same about David’s circumcised penis? I believe we can. I hope we can.

Many people can’t.

It is clear to me that the naked human body—even a beautiful female body—does not constitute pornography.

What, then, does constitute it?

According to Collins English Dictionary, pornography is: “. . writings, pictures, etc. intended primarily to arouse sexual desire . ”

ZENDER & COLPO

109

Is sexual excitement bad? This is the trickier question.

Many Christian wives would say that sexual excitement is bad (for their husbands) if it is aroused by or directed toward anything or anyone besides them. These wives think that God frowns upon sexual lust. But if He does, then how does a man, in good conscience, become attracted to the woman who might one day become his wife? At the time he first feels the aforementioned thrill of sexual excitement, the person inspiring it is not his wife.

Nowhere in the Bible is sexual excitement spoken of as evil. In the last chapter, I listed sexual sins from the law of Moses, and you noted that “sexual excitement” was not among them.

What about in the New Testament? If grace is more stringent than law (which of course it isn’t; I’m being facetious here), then we should find sexual excitement condemned there. But of course we do not find it.

Sexual excitement is part of being human; in fact, it’s one of the most wonderful and enjoyable parts. God made humans to like and want sexual excitement. We may just as well pose the query: Is being attracted to the sight and smell of food a sin? No. The sin, of course, is overeating the food (“gluttony”), not smel ing it. Our question concerning sexual excitement, then, ought to be: What does one do with sexual excitement? That is where potential sin arises.—MZ

2

Heidi

I had a conversation recently with a lady who talked about the way other women dress in front of their husbands.

Her concern was that the temptation for her husband to look at the other women who “dress with a flirty style” would be too great. I asked her if she thought her husband would

110

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

like her to dress up and be feminine. She was very sure that he would not like this because then other men would be tempted to look at her. I really wondered if she had ever consulted her husband on this. I later found out that she hadn’t. She only assumed it. Her husband, of course, said,

“I’d love for my wife to dress sexy! Other men can look, but they can’t touch. But I can touch! So these other men can just eat their hearts out.”

A common refrain I have heard lately among Christian wives is that God wants us to operate in the spirit at all times and that things that pleasure the flesh, or our soulish side, should be put aside. As I was talking to my friend about this, and listening to her plea for me to put aside the flirty things I allow myself (dressing up, wearing makeup, wearing heels and push-up bras), I reminded her that God is the One Who gave us our bodies. He gave us our senses. He has made us sexual for a reason. And yet so many people say that it is wrong to feel too good. We can feel good, but just not too good. A few of my friends actually think that sex feels just too good to be godly. Surely God wants us to deny ourselves and maybe go into a corner in a pair of large bib overalls and pray for a hormone drop.

Although this mindset has a seductive side to those uncomfortable with their sexuality, it is inconsistent with how they otherwise live their lives.

Take a good look at the nay-sayers. How many of them are taking good care of their physical appearance? It strikes me that, many times, the person who venomously opposes the pleasure of sexual expression is at the same time eating tons of sweet and/or salt-covered, greasy, wonderful-tasting junk food. Is not the lust for food just as much of a lust as the lust for sex? Would the loss of control in either of these categories be any different? Isn’t the indulgence of the flesh to

ZENDER & COLPO

111

the point of potentially destroying one’s health, a sin? I can see it now: A woman points to her husband and, with fire in her eyes, says, “How dare you give in to your flesh and look at that attractive jogger!” All the while, she has consumed her bucket of fried chicken for lunch and has cookies in the oven for a dessert (after the Pizza Hut Deluxe Special) that she plans on eating in one sitting in front of the television.

Would a woman cast such aspersions at a husband who is enjoying the pie that she just baked in heart-disease-producing quantities? I doubt it. What if he’s eating a pie baked by a female neighbor? Would the wife huff and puff indignantly because her husband lusted for a pie baked by another woman?

Forget the pie. Would she be angry should her husband enjoy a meal at another person’s house? What about at a restaurant where he is served by females?

Clearly, there’s a double standard here. Why is sex evil but food pure and holy? Aren’t these both things of the flesh?

I could probably make the case that food is more about the flesh than sex, but I’ll leave it there.—HC

2

MZ

The Bible says nothing about so-called pornography.

In fact, if judged by the modern definition of pornography—writings, pictures, etc. intended primarily to arouse sexual desire—the Bible itself can be considered (minus the word “primarily,” I suppose) pornographic. Whether they intend to or not, several passages of Scripture clearly feed the human desire for sexual excitement. (I, myself, have become aroused reading Esther. ) Have you ever read the Song of Solomon? It beats oysters as an aphrodisiac. Here are some choice passages from this amazing book:

ZENDER & COLPO

113

♀ Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

♀ A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

♀ My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice.

♂ How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

♀ Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

♀ Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

♂ How beautiful are thy feet with sandals, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.

♂ Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.

♂ Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

Men, if you can read this without becoming sexually excited, perhaps you should try testosterone supplements.

As I was saying before becoming sexually aroused by the Word of God ...

The word “pornography” never appears once in all of Scripture. The Greek word porneia (which many assume should be translated “pornography”) is properly translated

“prostitution”—every single time. I proved this from divine contexts in the Bible itself in the previous chapter.

This word porneia is consistently translated “prostitution” in the Concordant Literal New Testament. As already discussed, porneia is a specific sexual sin. It is certainly not

114

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

a collection of images or writings intended to arouse sexual desire.

Sin is whatever one thinks is sin

The main issue vexing husbands and wives in this department, then, is not whether images and words causing sexual arousal are sin, but whether or not a person thinks such things are sin. If any person thinks such things are sin, then to that person, such things are sin. The converse is also true, that “all is clean to the clean, yet to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is clean” (Titus 1:15). Paul writes in Romans 14:14—

I have perceived and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is contaminating of itself, except that the one reckoning anything to be contaminating, to that one it is contaminating.

Everyone has different ideas about what constitutes sin.

God has His ideas, but we’re not much interested in those; we’re too busy concocting our own. Some Baptists think dancing is sin. As the old joke goes, Baptists object so stren-uously to pre-marital sex because it might lead to dancing.

One guy I know thinks it is an abomination for Christians to enter strip clubs. What if Christians visit bars? “That’s fine,” he says. Huh? Why the discrepancy? Because the friend I’m referring to drinks. Whatever he approves of is okay for others. Whatever he condemns, however, is condemned for everyone else.

This is called Pharisaism.

Some call it hypocrisy.

I call it “Christian.”

116

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Men in front of computers

Many men, Christian and otherwise, spend a lot of time in front of computers looking at pictures of naked and scantily-clad women. This has endangered many marriages.

Why does this happen, and what can be done about it?

Every Man’s Battle combats this problem in the worst possible way, with those three wonderful words from Leviticus: “Thou shalt not!” This method never works in the long run. It might work in the short run, but the short run is called that for a reason. (Some “short runs” last a matter of hours.) Whether it is hours or days, no permanent or healthy change comes when people impose upon themselves unnatural prohibitions. Whenever that happens, resentments build and the cookie eventually crumbles.

The law of Moses was designed to prove human inability.

It came to produce more offenses, not fewer (Romans 5:20), but not many stone-throwers got that memo. Certainly, the authors of Every Man’s Battle were busily bouncing their eyes from Sally Field in Forrest Gump when the memo arrived.

In an upcoming chapter (“Porn Addiction”), I will discuss the generally unknown Scriptural principle that law incites more sin. The seventh chapter of Romans solves the problem of pornography addiction, not by name, but because this addiction is like most others in that it results from religious prohibition.

Another memo lost.

Better yet, this coming chapter will tell you how to avoid making things like alcohol, chocolate, shopping sprees, and large-breasted blondes a problem in the first place. Again, there is nothing wrong with pornographic pictures and words themselves; it’s how we’re dealing with these things that upsets really nice apple carts.

ZENDER & COLPO

117

Grace and pornography

Grace is one of the most powerful forces on earth. But let’s forget about grace for now and keep talking about our own personal ideas about pornography.

You will at first think I am justifying pornography and the men who look at it. It is true that I will offer an explanation for it, but I will never tell you that overdosing on anything (work, alcohol, chocolate, tobacco, decorative pillows, beautiful women) is not sin. When it comes to pornography, both husbands and wives are sinning. Most of my readers could easily cast stones at the husbands. After all, there they sit looking at nude photographs of Abigail O’Neill. But what about the wives who are condemning the husbands? Are they committing sins? Yes, by the dozen. In fact, the sins of the wives are worse. The sins of the wives are, in many cases, driving the husbands to Abigail O’Neill. Few dare discuss this. Modern Christian culture, I notice, never asks why a man is looking at porn. It is nearly universally assumed that the husband is a backsliding pervert, while the wife is Doris Day. I will broach this delicate topic in a future chapter titled “The Wives.”—MZ

2

Heidi

Part of my own sexual journey has included the discovery that my husband Danny had been looking at porn. As much as I at first hated the thought of him appreciating other women’s bodies, the porn made me curious. Just what was this all about? I tried looking at what he was looking at. I asked myself a question that you may have a hard time accepting, and that at first shocked even me. I asked

118

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

myself, I wonder what my husband is interested in? If I real y love this man, shouldn’t I want to know? This relieved me of much of my fear of pornography. And so, I actually sat down with him with the stuff, and we talked. What started out as anger—and could have remained anger—softened into understanding. I believe that the understanding is more God-like. My husband was not rejecting me for the porn.

For him, the porn was an adjunct; a side-dish. I needed to find out why he was doing it.

As I said, I became curious about the things that he was looking at and conducted an investigation. I felt angry and rejected at first, yes, but I fought these instincts and, for the most part, overcame them. I made an effort. Many of you may believe that the effort to understand porn is a sin in its own right—but I disagree. My husband is human. I know him to be a loving person and a good father.

I tried to analyze the source of my initial irritation. I soon realized that it came from a place of insecurity. Was my husband’s porn any sort of commentary upon me? Although it was difficult at first, I refused to look at it that way any more. It was no more a commentary on me than would be his glance at an attractive women in a bikini at the beach.

Why can’t he appreciate me and another human being (there are lots of other human beings in the world), as long as he honors, pleases, and satisfies me first and leaves the other women at the beach?

The mixture of anger, intrigue, and then understanding made for quite a cocktail of emotion.

Religion’s judgmental poison—injected into my bloodstream compliments of my upbringing—had produced in me a bitterness that made me want to turn elsewhere for relief.

This was the time of my life when I engaged in my own little sexual forays. It may have been the swinging of the pendulum: 1) growing up sexual y stilted, and then 2) exploring for

ZENDER & COLPO

119

myself all the nooks and crannies of sex. I found that my own sexual nature, final y freed of false religious constraint, started dancing a little bit. I credit this (yes, credit it) for my investigative forays into Danny’s world and my wil ingness to peer into it with uncondemning eyes. I at first did this surreptitiously, then openly. What a wonderful thing openness is between husbands and wives. Because of my new attitude, Danny and I final y started talking about porn and its appeal. It turns out that all my husband wanted was a measure of understanding.

He didn’t want a secret life. I never would have realized this without being honest with myself.

Like a cancer, the lack of communication between Danny and me was the thing that was killing our love. It was our lack of communication, then, not porn, that was killing us. I want to make it clear at this point that I do not think that looking at porn is perfectly good all the time and in every situation. This is not, in my mind, an apology for porn viewing, because some people clearly overindulge. I am simply pointing out that understanding and communication beats the heck out of anger and condemnation—every time.

Perhaps you should try it. You might discover a new world, both sexually and relationally, with your husband.—HC

2

MZ

The problem with pornography is not pornography. The problem is our attitude toward pornography. If our attitude toward it were Scripture-based rather than religion-based—or if it were nature-based rather than culture-based—the problem would disappear. There would be no problem, no epidemic, no broken marriages. The sexes would live in harmony and probably enjoy the same movies again. Can you imagine that? But instead of calmly considering the topic of “images

120

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

or writing that arouse sexual desires” in light of what God’s Word says about it (or doesn’t say), we: 1) invent sins that are not sins, 2) condemn one another according to our moral standards, not God’s, and 3) kill our own selves with the guilt cast upon us either by religions, by morally-cramped parents, or both.

Inventing sins that are not sins

Concerning sexual images and writing, we are steeped in Puritanical rather than Scriptural standards. One would think, listening to Baptist preachers, moral crusaders, or our overly-careful parents, that the words “moral,” “morality,” “immoral,” and “immorality” are plastered throughout Scripture by a dour-faced Deity. The thing is, none of these words appear anywhere in Scripture. Ever.

“Morality” is a vague, subjective term having nothing to do with the Scriptures themselves. “Morality” is loosely defined as the customs of one’s particular social or religious culture. In fact, “custom” is the actual meaning of the word

“moral.”1 Thus, instead of an absolute standard, like the Scriptures, morals are based upon the customs and traditions of ever-changing cultures.

Clyde Pilkington writes in Due Benevolence: In spite of the fact that the “moral” family of words do not appear in the Bible, a society’s system of morality is often made equal to the Scripture. One can hear the religious moralist: “A good Christian would never _____” —and the blank would be filled in by a currently accepted traditional religious moral taboo.

1 Late Middle English: from Latin moralis, from mos, moral ‘custom’, (plural) mores, ‘morals.’ —Oxford Dictionary.

ZENDER & COLPO

121

The fact is, religion loves and incubates things like the

“Moral Majority,” i.e., customs based upon popular consensus (the so-called “majority”). Religious legalism feeds upon dominating others by pressing its version of morality upon the masses. They are moral lords over the people. This practically defines the oppressive heart of Roman Catholicism, and is likewise alive and well in Roman Protestantism. One must be careful not to confuse religion’s idea of what is or what isn’t immoral with the biblical concept of sin, which literally means, “missing the mark.” God has no problem identifying sin. We need not assist Him by adding our customs as “sins.”

Adultery, theft, murder, slander, and gossip, for example, are all wrong. They are not wrong because they have anything to do with “morality.” They are wrong because God’s Word says they are wrong. Religious customs and traditions have nothing whatsoever to do with it.2

Condemning one another according to our moral standards, not God’s

Romans 14:3— Let not him who is eating be scorning him who is not eating. Yet let not him who is not eating be judging him who is eating, for God took him to Himself.

Paul speaks here about those things we are free to do in Christ. What things are we free to do in Christ?

Romans 14:14— I have perceived and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is contaminating of itself, except that the one reckoning anything to be contaminating, to that one it is contaminating.

It is tempting for the one eating all things with enjoyment to scorn those whose conscience disallows such 2 Chapter 9 – Morality: Social and Religious Folkways

122

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

pleasures. Scorn is ridicule. The weak person is made fun of because he or she refuses to enjoy simple pleasures created by God for human enjoyment. Yet, for one influenced more by social and personal mores rather than by God’s standards, the temptation is to judge the person exercising the freedom.

A damaged conscience resents the freedom.

Paul discourages this as well as the other. Paul refuses to say why we ought not scorn the non-partaker, at the same time readily volunteering why the eater ought to go free:

“God took him to Himself.”

Scripture is plain about what is sin and what isn’t. If it’s not on the list, there is freedom in Christ. (Even if it is on the list, Christ saves sinners.) The Pharisees added to the law of Moses until the Jews could barely move without examining themselves. Grace frees us. Nevertheless, I would rather live under the law of Moses than under the religious/social scruples of Scripture-ignorant Christians.

Christians invent new sins every day—and they throw bigger and bigger rocks at those refusing to conform to their artificial standards.

Killing our own selves with the guilt cast upon us either by religions, morally-cramped parents, or both Due to the application of strict religious confinements unknown to the Word of God, pastors’ kids general y indulge in sin sprees the moment they leave home, or sooner. It’s easy to see why. The religious confinements are likely of human invention, dictated not by correctly-grasped Scripture, but by arbitrarily-assigned social mores, i.e., society’s ideas of “morality.” Being culturally rather than Scripturally based, these stricter-than-God moral imperatives likely clash against what God made humans to like and to want. Listen, Pastors:

124

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

You fight against what God made humans to like and to want at your own peril. Listen, Arterburn and Stoeker: You fight against what God made humans to like and to want at your own peril. —MZ

2

Heidi

As I learn more and more about the freedom of Christ, I look back at my past experiences and I think, “Boy, did I suffer needlessly for that!” Memories of an event can bring as much guilt as that engendered by the event itself. To be happy, it is critical to release guilt. Once we discover what the Scriptures have to say about our standing before God (He considers us to be righteous, through Christ) and our justification by faith (our sins don’t count against us), then we can more easily let go of the past. In a marriage, letting go of the past is critical. Your husband is not in the past, is he? No.

He’s part of your now. This is also where you live. Stop living with the past, then. Instead, live with your husband.

Women tend to carry huge burdens. We are told to be good wives, good mothers, good housekeepers, good business people. It gets to be too much. Perhaps you are coming apart inside from the stress produced by these burdens. As if all this weren’t enough, you are now being told by “experts”

such as Arterburn and Stoeker that, if you are beautiful, not only are you causing the physical downfall of half of the world’s population (the male half), but you are hurrying along their spiritual downfall as wel . How could any woman handle such pressure—were it true? Well, it’s not true. This lie is abusive not just to men but to women. It burdens us with needless guilt. And like most guilt, it comes upon us via a false premise. It’s self-imposed when we believe the false

126

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

premise. Make no mistake: guilt kil s. Be sure of the truth—

or the lie—of what you’re being told before you let guilt eat you alive. The presence of guilt at all ought to tell you that there is a lie afoot. I can only say this because I know what Christ accomplished for all of us at the cross.—HC

2

MZ

Judgment and condemnation based on personal or societal moral notions get shot either from the cannons of society, or from specific people in that society, such as wives, husbands, pastors, fathers, priests. Either way, the cannonball victims generally die. The cannonballs are hard, and they travel at maniacally high speeds. If the person being judged and condemned believes the judgment and condemnation to be from God (Who is merely—in the viewpoint of the poor, deceived cannonballed person—using the wife, or the father, or the priest as a delivery vehicle), then that person will become wracked with guilt. The guilt will do one of two things. It will either 1) make the person deny things God made humans to like and to want (in which case the person becomes a human time-bomb on the brink of a sin spree), or 2) over-indulge in the God-made “like and want” department, at the same time drowning beneath billows of guilt.

Pornography captures men; why?

I am unaware of too many cases where women find themselves addicted to pornography. This billion-dollar industry caters primarily to men. One reason for this is that men are much more desperate to see beautiful women than women are to see beautiful men. But the main reason, I think, is

ZENDER & COLPO

127

that our religious Western culture has made men feel like sinners for appreciating and reveling in female beauty, even the beauty of their own wives. (I have actually heard some Christian women say that it is wrong for husbands to lust even after them. ) Because some men cannot even look at the beauty of their own wives, they turn to females who will not roll their eyes at them.

This is the Martin Zender definition of pornography: Pornography is a bunch of beautiful women doing and wearing sexy things and not rol ing their eyes.

Condemnation and prohibition lead to addiction. Mem-orize these six words. It shouldn’t be too hard; it’s only six words. Those who consider sexual images or sexual excitement to be evil, and who prohibit themselves from partaking of these and other God-given things catering to what humans like and want, will be able to think of nothing but these images and this excitement. The sexually-hungry may very well resist these images optical y, but the need for the images will rise in proportion to the insistence of the prohibition.

Thus, religious men (pastors, priests, self-condemning men, or those with condemning wives, avoiding all images for the sake of offended humans) are walking time-bombs, a moment away from addiction. Only one lapse, and down they will go.

This is ever the way of religious prohibition.

I will discuss this principle in depth in Chapter 12. For now, I just wanted you to know there is a cure for pornography addiction, and the cure, surprisingly, is not prohibition and condemnation. The cure is a healthy acceptance of beauty and sexual excitement as gifts from God. Again, religious prohibition and condemnation only make matters worse. Don’t panic. This occurs by divine design. Once we grasp and believe the design, we can work within both its confines and its liberations.

128

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Why do men do it?

I do not believe that the majority of men who like and want to see clothed and unclothed feminine beauty on websites or in magazines are desiring the women themselves.

Rather, they desire to see the women. I will say it this way: The men desire the desire. They desire a non-condemning attitude concerning the desire. Thus, I also contend that the greatest attraction of men to sexual websites and magazines is not primarily to the feminine image. The image is secondary.

The primary attraction, I believe, is that the women in the images accept him. He can be himself in front of them. None of them roll their eyes at him. In most cases, the man is not getting this acceptance from his wife.—MZ

2

Heidi

I go pretty hard on myself sometimes. I suspect that most women look at themselves and see nothing but their flaws.

This is a dangerous business. On the other hand, when my husband compliments me, the effect of his words do wonders for my self-esteem.

For many years after Danny and I got married, I wore shorts in the summer and jeans in the winter, and always with a pair of sneakers. Danny usually never said anything either positive or negative about this. Then, after sixteen years of marriage, the guy finally worked up his nerve and said, “I like when you wear dresses.” He said it so subtly that I almost missed the earth-shaking significance. When it occurred to me that this was a sexual statement above all else, I realized that I had a new power—new to me, anyway—to please my husband. I made a beeline for the

ZENDER & COLPO

129

closet to see if there was a dress there that was still fashion-able. Why hadn’t Danny told me this sooner? Did he think that maybe I was too religious to hear it? I don’t remember what that dress looked like, but I do remember how happy Danny was to see me in it.

The reason this is so monumental to me, as I think back upon it, is because I needed Danny to be pleased with me, and he needed me to care about his preferences in the female wardrobe department. It is those times when we are honest with our loved ones and they are honest with us that progress occurs. This ought to be so obvious. It is when we then go out of our way to make sure to verbally affirm such honesty that deeper sexual bonds become possible.

What if you liked to play the piano and were really good at it, but your husband said that he didn’t want you to play because there are pianos at some bars and he was afraid that you would eventually play piano at a bar, where you would attract other men? What if you liked to play games and even joined a bridge club or played golf for recreation, but your husband stood in the way and told you that games were pleasures of the flesh and that it was wrong for you to indulge in them because playing games might lead to gambling? Aren’t these ridiculous scenarios? What if anything that you were inclined to do was shot down by your husband as a flesh-pleasing sin that would necessarily lead you down the path to destruction? I don’t believe that you would tolerate such irrationality for a second. More likely, your husband’s very prohibition would spark rebellion, and you would think about nothing but the very things that you were told not to do.

And yet, here you are, condemning your husband for simply admiring the beauty that he never intends to possess for himself. For the overwhelming majority of men, looking at beautiful women is merely recreational. Your husband has

130

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

no intention of running into the arms of another woman.

The only thing that could cause him to do that would be your rabid prohibition of his even looking. Thus, by trying to “save him,” you end up working against yourself and potentially ruining him, and yourself as well. His looking at another woman’s breasts will not—in the overwhelming number of cases—drive him to the strip club for a lap dance, or into his secretary’s arms for a horizontal tango. But if you condemn him for the recreational gazing, it only increases the chances that to the strip club or into the secretary’s arms he will go.

Give him a chance, for crying out loud. Let him prove to you his loyalty, even in the face of great temptation.

Don’t light a stick of dynamite underneath your marriage.

Pick your battles. Every Man’s Battle isn’t one of them. The authors of this book are, in my mind, religious nuts. Condemning your husband for recreational gazing at the fair sex is the same as filling up his gas tank and giving him a two-for-one lap dance coupon for the local gentleman’s club. —HC

2

MZ

Full disclosure and grace from both parties—the husband and the wife—is the first step toward solving this problem, which should not be a problem at all.

The second step is a sober, detailed inquiry into everything the Bible has to say about pornography.—MZ

5 everythIng the BIBle

hAs to sAy ABout Porn

132

ZENDER & COLPO

ZENDER & COLPO

133

134

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

135

136

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

137

138

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

139

140

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

141

142

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

143

144

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

145

146

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

147

148

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

6 nAture ItselF

teAches you

150

nAture ItselF teAches you

There is a reason why God left the field open and condemned so few sexual things. It is because He likes sex. He is a rollicking God; He created the peacock, for crying out loud.

It has always struck me how the Amish could dress in such dreadful dreariness, when the Creator of the Universe, Whom they claim to love and imitate, invented the peacock. It is as if the Amish are saying that God is much too lavish and too much of a show-off. The Amish will show Him how He should have done things. The Amish will make a career of drabness. They will beat the life out of God’s life—after running over the peacock with a metal tractor wheel—and hold up the result to God, asking Him to sniff it. God sniffs it all right—and spits it out.

“Away with your ridiculous black bonnets!” He says.

He prefers the ridiculous blue feather atop the head of the peacock.

151

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

It smells Amish to me

I have invented a new phrase for Christians such as Every Man’s Battle authors Arterburn and Stoeker, who consider the color, variation, and beauty of God’s sexually-pulsating universe, and then toss it back in His face with a disgusted

“humph!”: Stealth-Amish.

The Amish have serious issues—in case you haven’t noticed. Try to think and see beyond the politically correct assessment you are supposed to have concerning this dreary tribe (“Oh, they are so quaint and God-fearing, and they make such wonderful pies and baskets!”), and then tell me how the Amish do not slap God’s face and tacitly scream from the rigid benches of their black, horse-drawn buggies:

“God sinned by inventing the peacock and the penis!”

Listening to Arterburn and Stoeker warn us about sex from the figurative benches of their figurative buggies, one gets the notion that God must have sinned by forgetting to list “looking at bra ads” and “watching beautiful women run on the beach” when He drafted His list of sexual no-no’s and dictated them to Moses.

I do not hate the Amish. Neither do I hate stealth-Amish like Arterburn and Stoeker. I just hate their sin.

The sin of the Amish and stealth-Amish is the sin of promoting a strictness and rigidity unknown even to God, then condemning the rest of us for being normal, natural people enjoying life.

I hate the sin of trying to out-God God.

2

153

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Heidi

Have you ever been told, “Out of consideration for other men, you should wear a modest swimsuit on the beach or at the pool”? I have. But what ever happened to consideration for our husbands?

In a group of women who are all wearing shorts and tank tops, who would stand out more—one of the women in shorts and a tank top, or a woman wearing an Amish-style dress and head covering? You might say, “Well, at least the Amish woman is covered up and isn’t displaying any of her shocking Amish flesh.” But where does the Bible condemn a woman’s skin? Is it the epidermis that is sinful? Of course not. What is sinful is pride. Pride is a famous Biblical sin.

I contend to you that the Amish, Mennonite, or sexually repressed woman who thinks to herself, I am more spiritual than the rest of these women because I cover more of myself, harbors more pride than the bikini babes. It’s not what a woman wears but rather the disposition of her heart that makes for pride. Ever hear of the sin of self-righteousness?

This offends God more than any string bikini possibly could.

2

MZ

Babies stare at women’s breasts because they know that’s where food comes from. Just as nursing mothers will lactate at the cry of a baby ( any baby), nursing babies will stare at and strain for any pair of breasts coming within sucking distance.

Are these mothers and babies just a bunch of perverts, or are they obeying what God made them to like and want?

Can babies even be perverts? Nursing babies do love cleavage; they love women in halter tops; they go crazy at the

ZENDER & COLPO

154

beach; strip clubs make them hungry. Nursing babies only get milk from one set of breasts, generally, but sometimes a baby will acquire a surrogate breast feeder, i.e., a wet nurse.

It is not uncommon.

Should we call the cops?

Consider the photo on the next page. This baby lusts for female breasts—see his evil stare—and appears to be fine with the way God made him. He obviously seeks any occasion to indulge his basic need and is not impartial to statuary. The bottom line for this pre-weaned fetishist is this: He sucks mammary glands. Period. If he could talk, he would add, “And frankly, I do not care which ones.”

Why is the mother in the photo laughing? If this were an Arterburn/Stoeker-type Christian woman, she would condemn her baby’s nature and seek an occasion against him. Well, here is the perfect occasion: the pervert sucks metallic tits. Why doesn’t the mother slap this disobedient son of Adam and tell him to bounce his eyes? In six weeks, he could be a good boy instead of a pagan-baby.

Where is the Christian author writing about this problem? We need a book titled Every Baby’s Battle. This book will be all about breasts. The photo you are now considering (specifically, the bottom one) will be the cover of the book. The subtitle will be the same as that which now graces Arterburn and Stoeker’s offering, with the change of only one word: “Winning the War on Nursing Temptation One Victory at a Time.”

Are instincts evil?

I hate to be the one to break this to women, and particularly to wives, but pretty much all men are like this baby.

That’s right. A man is no different—in the sense of what

155

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ZENDER & COLPO

156

God made him to like and want—than this baby. This baby desires female breasts because of hunger, and so does the grown man. We are simply dealing with a different kind of hunger. Sexual hunger is no different, at its root level, than the hunger of this baby for food.

The baby in the photo lacks self control—I admit that to you. The fruit of the spirit is not overly developed in this diaper-clad deviant. But he will grow into a man who will be able to control his impulses. He will still look at random breasts, but he will not randomly suck them. The control of impulses does not eliminate impulses. Why should they?

How can they? Why would we want them to? Without impulses, no one could even speak of controlling them.

Without impulses, spiritual fruit would have no foil.

Of what use is self-control if there is nothing to control oneself against?

Woman: the love of your man

Woman, your man loves you. Every day, he sacrifices for you. You do not realize how conscientiously, every day, he controls his sexual instincts.

Are you telling him, by giving him Every Man’s Battle, that self-control is not enough? Is it not enough for him to possess the fruit of the spirit? Would you now ask him to eliminate his instincts as well? (As if he could.) To want to look at and suck female breasts is programmed into your man’s hard-drive, and it’s the only reason he wants to suck your breasts. If you seek to destroy his very instinct, then you cut off your nose to spite your face. To make him deny what God made him to like and want, you make him deny the very source of his passion for you.

By rebelling against your husband’s basic desire for all things feminine, you rebel, by extension, against God

157

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Himself. For it is God Who has given your husband his basic desire for all things feminine.

If your man does bend to your attack and agrees to attempt the perverted protocols of Every Man’s Battle, you will be living with a nature-denying, religious automaton who may very well behave himself with the artificial drug of self-will and asceticism, but who will secretly resent you and mourn his lost ability to unburden his deepest soul to you. He will ultimately be doing this because he loves you, but that will be the only reason he’s doing it. The truth is, Every Man’s Battle is merely a cosmetic fix; it only patches the underlying “problem” until your man finally can’t take it any more and subliminally ratchets up the resentment.

Do you see how badly he wants to stay married to you?

I sure hope so, because what you are demanding of him goes against every fiber of his being.

2

Heidi

There’s a song somewhere that goes, “It takes two to make a thing go right. .” A marriage might plod along with one partner or the other doing most of the work, but to make it go right, it takes two. When Danny takes the time to compliment me on how I look, it is so much easier to overlook the little things he does that could fester and make me jealous.

But I need to tell him this. I need to tell him that this is how it works for me. Remember, men can’t read our minds. We’re lucky if they understand direct statements, let alone read our private thoughts. It’s real y hard for me to claim that Danny wants the woman in the miniskirt when he’s got his hand firmly planted upon my rear end. Likewise, Danny knows that I want him to look at me when I put on an outfit that he

ZENDER & COLPO

158

has told me catches his eye. (Here we go with communication again.) Danny will take the time to affirm me when I present myself to him as sexual y interested. Then, when his eye does wander when we’re away from home, I don’t feel slighted. I don’t feel slighted because I know that we have connected and communicated at home.—HC

2

MZ

God made penises. Most penises are smarter than their owners. Penises don’t belong to religions. Remember it was Martin Zender who told you: Penises are non-denominational.

Penises don’t feel the need to read Every Man’s Battle. Not one vagina in history has ever handed a copy of Every Man’s Battle to a penis and said, “Here. Read this.”

This is because penises and vaginas are the way God made them to be. They are the way they are by the grace and design of God. It takes a religious owner to screw this up.

The lucky penis whose owner is religion-free just kind of hangs there being a penis, and being continually aware and in awe of its wonderful Creator and of the beauty of women and their vaginas.

When a penis perceives a beautiful woman, it wants to get hard—and sometimes does. Why does it do that? Gee, ask me a hard question. (Ha ha.) If the penis does not get hard, it cannot enter the vagina of the beautiful woman.

This is a God-given, biological process. All the penis knows is: “Good Lord. Look at that woman, will you? She is so beautiful. Are we going to go inside her? I want to. I’ll just go ahead and get ready, just in case.”

The moral owner of such a penis (all penises are “such a penis”) will reason with it; it happens all the time:

“No, Penis. I know you’re just trying to be helpful, but this woman is off limits to us.”

159

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

“How come?” the penis will ask.

“Because there is a wonderful woman at home for us.”

“You are right. I knew that. Are you mad at me?”

“How can I be? You are doing what God made you to do.”

“I’m glad you see it that way. I’m not mad at you, either.

I just thought I should be ready. That’s what I do.”

“I know. Relax.”

“Do you mean that literally?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, okay.”

“See? I knew you could do it, Penis. We’ve got everything under control.”

“That did feel good for a second, though.”

“Of course it did. It always feels good. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

“Would you say it’s the best feeling in the world?”

“Yes, Penis. I would.”

“I’m glad you don’t condemn me.”

“Well, I’m glad that you listen to me.”

“God made us both the way we are.”

“Yes. Including our essential, God-given conscience.”

Human nature and the conscience

Human nature—referred to hereafter as “the way God made us”—has been devitalized by sin, but it is not, itself, wrong. In fact, it is right. I can prove this from Scripture.

Romans 2:14-15—

For whenever they of the nations that have no law, by nature may be doing that which the law demands, these, having no law, are a law to themselves, who are displaying the action of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying together and their reckonings between one another, accusing or defending them.

ZENDER & COLPO

160

This is from the Concordant Literal New Testament. For verse fourteen, the King James has—

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.

If human nature is sinful, how can the Gentiles “do by nature” the things contained in the law?

Again, I am not saying humans are not sinners, but God gave us natures and consciences to guide us. Yes, the conscience can be defiled (Titus 1:15), but this only proves that the conscience itself is aligned with God; it has to be defiled in order to sin. When not defiled, it is in accord with God.

Else how could Paul say in 2 Corinthians 4:2, “We are commending ourselves to every human’s conscience”?

Paul would not commend himself to something that was continually evil and wrong.

The conscience is the thing telling a person what is right or wrong. The nature serves the same purpose. Just as the conscience can be defiled, so can the nature. This is made plain in Romans 1:27, when Paul writes:

“The males, besides, leaving the natural use of the female, were inflamed in their craving for one another.”

If “natural” is wrong, then why does Paul contrast the males craving males in this verse with “the natural use of the female”? Apparently, the natural use of the female is good.

In 1 Corinthians 11:14-15, Paul actually calls nature a teacher—

Is not even nature itself teaching you that if a man, indeed, should have tresses, it is a dishonor to him, yet if a woman should have tresses, it is her glory?

161

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

If nature is bad, how can the apostle Paul call it a teacher?

A person looks at a man with hair down his back and thinks, “That is rather strange and uncomely. I don’t know why I don’t like it, I just don’t.” This same person looks at a woman with hair down her back and says, “That is glorious beauty. I’m not sure why it’s glorious beauty; it just is.”

The reason long hair comes across as “strange” in one context, and “glorious” in another, is that human nature is aligned with God. Nature is a teacher. Another name for it is “instinct.” Arterburn and Stoeker, with their doctrines of bouncing the eyes, could never see it this way. They would not write what Paul wrote. Instead, they would write:

“Nature itself teaches you that when you see a woman with long hair, you should immediately bounce your eyes from her.”

These authors are completely wrong.

Someone might say that there is no sexual impulse attached to a man’s desire to appreciate the glory of a woman’s long hair.

This is untrue. The people saying this are merely trying to excuse the apostle Paul for not recommending eye-bouncing.

The religious people leveling such an objection cannot imagine that a man’s sexual impulse toward any woman’s hair (it is not the hair of his wife) could possibly be of God.

It can be, and is.

The very ability of a man to look at a woman’s hair (someone other than a close relative) and say, “How glorious,” arises from a sexual root. Without the sexual impulse, the term “glorious” could not apply.

Think about it. The basic difference between men and women is sexual. This is why women are called, “the opposite sex.” Therefore, anything a man notices about a woman (again, aside from close relatives) that is different from him is—at its root—sexual.

163

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

It doesn’t mean he screws the gloriously-haired woman.

This is the mistaken assumption of Arterburn, Stoeker, and many jealous wives.

It is a sign of our whacked-out, religious, puritanical age that such a simple thing needs explained and defended.

In another chapter, I’ll be speaking of the sin of jealously.

While there are surprisingly few references in the Bible to sexual lust (there are many warnings about other kinds of lust, however, as we shall see), the Bible does quite often warn against jealousy.

Since it requires a twitch of sexual feeling for a man to call a woman’s long hair “glorious,” and since Paul tells us the result of looking at such tresses is not only natural but glory-inducing, my conclusion is that sex is natural and glory-inducing.

According to Paul, a woman’s long hair is to be celebrated, not bounced from.

According to Arterburn and Stoeker, a woman’s long hair is to be bounced from, not celebrated.

I wonder who is right?

The very nature hardening a man’s penis and leaning his eyes toward beautiful breasts, long hair, and vaginas is the same nature (combined with the spirit-fil ed conscience) making him stop in his tracks and control himself for the sake of a greater good. Therefore, if we condemn the one thing (the desire), we by default negate the other thing (the control of the desire), for both things spring from the same root.—MZ

2

Heidi

Do you know how it feels when you are admired by a member of the opposite sex? Of course you do. I do.

ZENDER & COLPO

164

It feels great. Can we all just please admit that? I am not claiming to be a supermodel. What I have discovered is that a woman with a smile on her face is not only rare, but appealing to men. If you happen to smile at a man, then that man tends to find you attractive. People are born needing affirmation and acceptance. When you reach out and give it, you are beautiful, and it doesn’t matter that you are imperfect. Being desired is foundational to feeling sexy, so set that foundation now and start presenting yourself in a pleasing way.

One of the things that women say to a man when they see him noticing another woman’s beauty is, “You have committed adultery with your eyes!” Another is, “You are coveting another man’s wife!” (The exclamation points are always included, believe me.) I would challenge my sisters on this point. Most of my female readers will agree, I think, that women—starting at a very young age—admire one another. In fact, were women to compete with men in a

“who-looks-at-other-women-more” contest, I believe that women would take the gold medal. So who is doing all the coveting here? The man looking at another woman is thinking something along the lines of, “Now that is a beautiful woman. And look at those remarkable breasts.” The woman looking at another woman, however, is likely to think something along the lines of, “There’s another gorgeous woman, damn it. I am not happy with myself, and I wish that I had breasts like that hussy .” The angry, female woman-gazer wants what the other woman has to the point of not wanting that other woman to have it. There is a term for this kind of thing, and it’s “jealousy.” Jealousy is a poison that destroys other people, relationships, and self. What I am about to say may not endear me to some of my female readers, but I am going to say it anyway because I believe it to be the truth: A

165

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

wife’s attitude of, “I don’t want my husband in any way bolstering another woman’s self-esteem; I want her self-esteem destroyed and all attention directed to me,” is more sinful and psychological y whacked than the man’s simple admiration.

Who needs the therapy here?—HC

2

MZ

One of the most troublesome mistranslations from the King James Version is its treatment of 1 Corinthians 2:14—

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Here, the KJV makes the nature the thing that opposes the spirit, and vice versa. The natural man must be bad because he cannot receive the things of the spirit of God.

The only thing that can overcome a natural thing is a spiritual thing. So if you are spiritual—according to the KJV—you can’t be natural. And if you are natural, you can’t be spiritual. If you want to do spiritual things, you have to become unnatural.

This is a misconstruction, and a lie.

The problem is that God did not say, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God.”

The Greek word translated “natural” here is psuchikon.

This is an adjective taken from the noun psuche. Remember our English lesson on nouns and adjectives? An adjective cannot mean something different from its noun; it is only a different part of speech, not a different word. The KJV

translated psuche as “soul” 58 times. Why did they do that?

Because the Greek word psuche means “soul.”

167

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

What is the soul? The soul is not a thing existing in our bodies. It is not like an organ. A surgeon cannot perform a soulectomy. The soul is a figure of speech for our awareness.

It is our consciousness of life delivered via our five senses.

Keep that in mind.

If God wanted to say “natural” in 1 Corinthians 2:14, He would have used the Greek word for natural, which is phusikos. This word means, according to Young’s Analytical Concordance, “belonging to nature.” The King James translators themselves translated phusikos “natural” in Romans 1:27. Remember that verse? I quoted it a few pages ago:

“The males, besides, leaving the natural ( phusikos) use of the female, were inflamed in their craving for one another.”

Phusikos clearly means natural. So here is the question: Why does the KJV translate phusikos “natural” in Romans 1:27, but then in 1 Corinthians 2:14, where a completely different Greek word appears (namely, psuchikon), they also translate this word “natural.”

Because, like the NIV, the KJV is inconsistent. The KJV

wanted 1 Corinthians 2:14 to say “natural,” so they forced a word that in no way meant “natural” to say “natural.”

Again, the Catholic church believed that nature—as wel as the human body—was evil. This was Gnosticism dressed up in Christian garb. This is why Catholics (and Protestants, and all other religious people) like to deny themselves. They feel holy when they do it. They feel that by denying their natures—or, as I like to say, “things God made us to like and want” (sex, food, water, beauty, etc.)—they become spiritual.

Why would they think that? For one reason, because of this mistranslated verse.

This is why I am showing you the correct translation. I don’t want you to think that what God made you to like and to want is evil. Sin has very much wrecked our natures, yes,

ZENDER & COLPO

168

but again, the nature itself is God-given. If you condemn nature as essential y evil, you might start doing ridiculous, barbarian things, like bouncing your eyes from long, beautiful, feminine hair, or giving up Hershey bars for Lent.

Since the noun psuche means “soul,” then the adjective psuchikon can only mean “pertaining to the soul”

or “soulish.” This is precisely how the Concordant Literal New Testament translates it. Here is the CLNT version of 1

Corinthians 2:14—

Now the soulish man is not receiving those things which are of the spirit of God, for they are stupidity to him, and he is not able to know them seeing that they are spiritually examined.

The word “soulish,” in this Scriptural context, means

“swayed by the soul, rather than the spirit.” The soul, again, is a figure of speech for that which we perceive through our five senses. Paul is tel ing us here that it is the person viewing the world only through the prism of the emotions who is not receiving those things which are of the spirit of God.

Giving up Hershey bars and bra ads; i.e.,

“Gnosticism”

Much of Christianity has unconsciously adopted a teaching called Gnosticism. Gnosticism is a pagan philos-ophy claiming the material world to be evil. Gnosticism derives its name from gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge.

Gnosticism promises salvation through a secret knowledge possessed only by its followers. This knowledge grants the devotee the ability to overcome the evil nature and the evil human body.

169

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

To Gnostics, spirit and matter are continually opposed.

To them, there is no way a physical, natural thing can be spiritual. To be Gnostic, one has to renounce physical desires and practice a strict asceticism in order to overcome the body. Through purification rites, a Gnostic is supposed to be able to liberate his or her soul from the evil matter of the world, including his or her own body. In Gnosticism, therefore, the human body needs to be overcome, certainly not celebrated.

Most Christians, hearing of Gnosticism, would say,

“That’s weird.” And yet this weirdness flourishes today in the Christian midst. I think specifically, but not exclusively, of the Catholic church. What is penance, but the denying of oneself? During Lent, does one determine to have more sex, eat more delicious food, go to more museums, or sleep longer? No. One denies oneself.

Old-time Catholics used to go around whipping themselves. Modern Catholics merely give up chocolate. The sin here (and, yes, it is a sin to consider what God declared good to be evil) is only a matter of degree. The common denominator is that what God made us to like and want must be overcome. The body must be subdued. Jesus cannot truly be happy with us unless we deny ourselves pleasure.

He died on the cross—can’t we at least give up Kit-Kats and stop looking at bra ads? The sacrifice of Christ is supposed to make us thankful, happy, and determined to live fully in the freedom He bought us. Instead, for religious people, the sacrifice of Christ makes them want to suffer for Him and do many religious works, such as giving up chocolate and beautiful underwear.

This insults Jesus Christ, Who must be saying, “Wasn’t my sacrifice good enough for these people? Now they feel

171

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

that they need to add to it? I died to remove guilt from their midst. And now, here they are feeling guilty—and they think they’re doing me a favor? They’re wasting their emotions.”

“For freedom Christ frees us” (Galatians 5:1). If this verse said, “For religious bondage and guilt-based dedication to religious suffering, Christ frees us,” then I could see the need and desire to deny oneself legitimate pleasures. Otherwise, no.

“The age-old problem of the eyes”

STEPHEN ARTERBURN:

While Every Man’s Battle is directed to men, it can also give women a greater understanding of what men are up against as they battle the age-old problem of the eyes (pg. 4).

And now, for the first time in history, it is revealed to both men and women (and to God, as well, for He had no idea about it) that the organ of sight given human beings by their Creator—the organ with which humans visually imbibe of the marvelous order and symmetry and beauty of creation—is in fact an “age-old problem.”

Who knew?

Let’s look for a hint of this in the book of Genesis—

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them . . And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Maybe I’m reading the wrong version. According to Arterburn, this ought to say—

173

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them ... And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good—all except for the stupid eyes, which were actually very bad, and would prove to be an age-old problem, especially for men; well, in fact, only for men. Because the eyes of the woman are perfectly fine. Women, for instance, are able to look at flowers with divine-like immunity without ever having to “give men a greater understanding” about “what they are up against” when they just can’t take “the age-old problem of the eyes” off a purple daffodil.

Here, then, is encapsulated the premise of Every Man’s Battle: What God intended for good is in fact evil.

The fact is, no free man ought to be up against his own eyes. Any man who does enter into a battle with his eyes does so, not by a decree or a plan of God, but by the designs of a self-imposed religious standard, devised, ultimately, by Satan. Satan desires to make drones and slaves of free people.

He has made great strides along this line with the writing of Every Man’s Battle.

My goal, on the other hand (I don’t really like Satan), is to give you real help, teaching you to work with the way God made you rather than struggle your whole life against it.

The unnatural fears and prohibitions of Arterburn and Stoeker

My poor male readers. All my poor male readers ever think about is sex. Do you want to know what your problem is, poor male readers? Do you want to know the root cause of all your trauma? Well good, because Fred Stoeker has figured it out. That’s right; the co-author of Every Man’s Battle nails it on page 61, in a chapter titled, “Just by being male.”

ZENDER & COLPO

174

Oops. I gave it away. Yes, that’s the problem: You’re male.

Malenes is your problem. You were born handicapped, dude.

God doomed you to an uphill battle the second your father’s disobedient sperm cell penetrated your mother’s egg to produce a disobedient Y chromosome. Sorry about your luck.

Here is the first paragraph of Fred’s male-condemning chapter:

Even apart from our stopping short of God’s standards, we find another reason for the prevalence of sexual sin among men. We got there naturally—simply by being male (pg. 61).

We discussed not long ago how God made us the way we are. At the forefront of revelation, God tells us in Genesis 1:27—

And God created humanity in His own image, in the image of God He creates it. Male and female, He creates them.

Well, at least He got half the thing right: the female half.

The male half of the deal was the sin-bag.

And yet—forgive me—I beg to differ.

Here is a list of the things in Genesis that God considered to be “good” —

Genesis 1:4—THE LIGHT; “It was good.”

Genesis 1:10—THE LAND; “It was good.”

Genesis 1:12—FRUITS AND VEGGIES; “It was good.”

Genesis 1:18—THE SUN AND THE MOON; “It was good.”

Genesis 1:21—CREATURES OF SEA AND AIR; “It was good.”

Genesis 1:25—GROUND ANIMALS; “It was good.”

Then, God creates humanity. It happens in Genesis 1:27.

Then, in verse 31, God says:

175

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

And seeing is God all that He had made, and, behold, it is very good, except for the man, who was a sexual sinner, simply by virtue of being male.

Oops; He didn’t really say that. The male of Day 6 was just as good as the light of Day 1, and the celery of Day 3.

A man’s sex drive contains no more sin than a stalk of celery.

Yes, Adam had a sex drive before the so-called fall of humanity. This will disappoint Arterburn and Stoeker, I know. It ruins the whole premise of their book to consider the pre-sin Adam a sexual being. Our beloved authors don’t say it in so many words, but one clearly gets the doctrine from Every Man’s Battle that the male sex drive is evil, sin-suffused, and in desperate need of censure.

Adam and Eve do not eat of the forbidden fruit until chapter 3 of Genesis. And yet it is in Genesis 2:18 where God says, “Not good is it for the human, for him to be alone.” It is then in verses 21-23 of this chapter that God creates Eve, who had breasts, curves, full lips, a vagina, and one hell of a waist-hip ratio. Verse 24 then says—

Therefore a man shall forsake his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and the two become one flesh.

Adam and Eve became one flesh about six seconds after Adam looked down—dumbstruck but smiling—at the world’s first erection.

If only Adam had a copy of Every Man’s Battle. Then he could have effectively bounced his eyes from Eve. He could have avoided the temptation of sexual sin and could have instead gone off and re-named the hippopotamus or

ZENDER & COLPO

176

something—anything to get his mind off his evil nature and those damned breasts of this new human named Eve. From Every Man’s Battle—

Our maleness brings a natural, uniquely male form of rebelliousness. When Paul explained to Timothy that “Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (1 Timothy 2:14), he was noting that Adam wasn’t being tricked when he ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Adam knew it was wrong, but he ate it anyway. In the millennia since then, all of Adam’s sons tend to be just as rebellious (pg. 62).

Not true. Adam’s was not an act of rebellion, but of love; Adam was not seduced (1 Timothy 2:14). In eating of the fruit, Adam became a type of Christ, Who “became sin” (2

Corinthians 5:21), to save us from sin.

God had told Adam to be fruitful and multiply, but now his wife languished on the other side of the iron curtain of sin and death. Adam knew it was wrong for him to eat of the fruit. But in another sense, he knew how right it was. He had to be with Eve; he could not leave her alone; he could not be fruitful and multiply without her. It was his love for Eve that compelled him to eat.

Listen to more theological fiction from Every Man’s Battle:

“Your maleness looms as your own worst enemy” (pg. 71).

“Our maleness is a major root of sexual sin” (pg. 70).

“The male eyes give us the means to sin broadly and at will”

(pg. 114).

“Our natural rebelliousness provides the arrogance necessary to stop short of God’s standards” (pg. 63).

“Our natural dislike of the straight life gives us the desire to stop short” (pg. 63).

177

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

“If we get into sexual sin naturally—just by being male—then how do we get out?” (pg. 70)

God-damned hormones

I call this section, “God-damned hormones,” not because I want to talk that way, but because I am pointing out that, according to Arterburn and Stoeker, the hormone testosterone was a divine curse that causes men to almost constantly desire women. Therefore, according to the “wisdom” of Every Man’s Battle, God damned us with the male hormone testosterone.

In “What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women,” Focus on the Family founder Dr. Dobson writes—

When sexual response is blocked, males experience an accumulating physiological pressure which demands release. Two seminal vesicles (small sacs containing semen) gradually fill to capacity; as maximum level is reached, hormonal influences sensitize the man to all sexual stimuli (pgs. 63-64).

Darn those sacs, anyway, and the semen that disobediently fills them. If not for the sacs and the semen, we would not be sensitized to all sexual stimuli. But because of the sacs and the semen, we are sensitized to all sexual stimuli.

At least now we have fingered the culprit. Is the culprit our sacs and semen? Relatively, yes. Absolutely, the “culprit”

is God. More good times from Dobson—

Our body often breaks ranks, engaging in battle against us.

This traitorous tendency pushes our sexual drive to ignore God’s standards. When this sexual drive combines with our natural male arrogance and our natural male desire to drift from the straight life, we’re primed and fueled for sexual captivity (pg. 65).

ZENDER & COLPO

178

I bet you didn’t realize that, by filling your sacs with semen, your body is “breaking rank” against you. By doing this natural thing God tells them to do, your sacs are actually “engaging in a battle against you.” They are not for you, but against you. God is not for you, but against you. Your sacs are so against you. Why can’t the sacs just tell the semen:

“Go away!” It’s because they are “traitorous”—that’s why!

Your sacs have a battle plan against you, which is why you need a battle plan against them. Your sacs torment you by pushing your “sex drive.” The worst thing God ever gave you, by the way, was your sex drive.

If only you weren’t so natural y arrogant, you would not have this sex drive. Yes, I know the sacs play their part, but never mind them for now. Forget the traitorous sacs. Why are you so rebel ious? Oh, yes. It is because you are male. If only you were female, you would not be rebel ious. You would be pure and holy. But you are male, and not only are you male, but you are a male with eyes and sacs. Thank God females do not have sacs, or the entire race would be doomed. Yes, females do have eyes, but they use their eyes for pure and holy things such as lusting after decorative pil ows.

Never mind the sacs and the semen, then. I am sorry for continuing to mention them. I know they are the cause of your horrible bondage and battle, but let’s forget for a moment that this is a cause-and-effect world. Let’s forget for a moment that God is the absolute cause (the sacs are the relative cause) of your sex drive. Let’s reject the premise we just offered and say instead that the problem is that you are rebellious and your desire to look at beautiful females is due to your “desire to drift from the straight life” and “ignore God’s standards.”

What are God’s standards again? Oops—we already covered that in a previous chapter. Dobson again—

ZENDER & COLPO

179

Although it sometimes feels like an evil gremlin inside you is driving you to sin, these are merely the compulsions of your bad habits and hormones (pg. 110).

Oh, shoot. Here we come back to those darn hormones again, given us (I mean, cursed upon us ... damned upon us) by God. I get the feeling that were it not for these irritating hormones giving us a strong, regular sex drive (thank you, James Dobson, for the elucidation), we could possibly overcome our rebelliousness and disdain for the straight life, and for God’s standards, and live a perfect life. And yet, these blasted hormones keep creeping into the picture (along with the traitorous sacs) to sabotage our pure intentions. Because really, all we want to do is knit and mow grass. If not for the hormones and the sacs and the semen, we would all just sit around knitting sweaters—as some women are wont to do—and making grass shorter. But now, back to the eyes.

If there is anything more deadly than sacs, it is what Stephen Arterburn calls on page 4 of Every Man’s Battle

“the age-old problem”: the eyes. Sacs and eyes; eyes and sacs. Without these, we men would be pure and holy and knitting sweaters every day. With them, we are doomed to battle sin every day.

First, let us review three natural “gifts” from God that combine to doom us to lifelong battle. Let’s hear it one more time from Super Christian James Dobson—

Your body often breaks ranks, engaging in battle against you.

This traitorous tendency pushes our sexual drive to ignore God’s standards. When this sexual drive combines with our natural male arrogance and our natural male desire to drift from the straight life, we’re primed and fueled for sexual captivity (pg. 65).

180

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The three enemies, given us by God to ensure us a lifelong battle, are therefore—

1) our bodies

2) natural male arrogance

3) natural male desire (if only we were women!) to drift from the straight life.

Are you ready now to hear of the fourth enemy?

We have already noted how bad the sacs are; in fact, they are beyond bad—they are traitorous. Sacs would fall under the “body” category above, but there is a body part even worse than the sacs (hard to believe, I know) that deserves its own category. I’ve already given you a hint of it, but here it is in all its optical (big clue there!) malignancy—

The means of ignition, meanwhile, comes from the fourth of our natural male tendencies—and the most deadly: MALES

RECEIVE SEXUAL GRATIFICATION THROUGH THE

EYES ( Every Man’s Battle, pg. 65) If you thought your sacs were traitorous, you haven’t seen anything yet—

Our eyes give men the means to sin broadly and at will. We don’t need a date or a mistress. We don’t ever need to wait. We have our eyes , and we can draw sexual gratification through them at any time. We’re turned to female nudity in any way, shape, or form. We aren’t picky. It can come in a photograph of a nude stranger just as easily as in a romantic interlude with a wife. We have a visual ignition switch when it comes to viewing the female anatomy (pg. 65).

So there you have it. A normal man would read this and say, “Wow. Two simple little organs allowing me to draw

ZENDER & COLPO

181

sexual gratification any time. Any form of female nudity will do, even the Venus de Milo. Even pictures of Eve in my kids’ picture Bible bring me a small jolt of happiness and help me survive this evil world. What convenience! I have my own visual switch allowing me little jolts of happiness throughout the day, simply by looking at God’s most lovely creation. What a deal! Thank you, God!”

Ah. But no. That would be a normal man’s reaction. In Every Man’s Battle, normal is under assault. Normal is to be targeted and kil ed. In Every Man’s Battle, whenever a normal or natural man does show up, he is labeled as condemned, as flawed, and as rebel ing against “God’s standards.”

Women seldom understand this because they aren’t sexually stimulated in the same way men are (or so Arterburn and Stoeker would have you believe). As I said, thank God that at least one half of the sexes is pure. At least one half of the sexes follows a straight line and diligently aligns itself with “God’s standards.”

(Actually, women are just lucky God didn’t give them sacs. It makes me want to say, “No fair!” Why do we have the sad sacs and the insensitive semen, but women don’t?

Because of this horrible disparity, they get to be pure, and we have to walk around under the condemnation of religion all day—and of most women. Other men used to be our allies, but now even some of them—Arterburn and Stoeker, for instance—are practically becoming women and condemning us for being men. This is a discouraging development.)

“[Women’s] ignitions are tied to touch and relationship” ( Every Man’s Battle, pg. 244).

As I said, women are pure as the wind-driven snow.

The reason, again, is the absence of sacs. I know I keep

182

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

saying this, but I am reeling over this revelation, thinking it through and marveling at it on the page as I write. I can’t quite get over it. I swear, if it weren’t for our sacs, then our ignitions would be tied to touch and relationship too, just like women’s. And then we would be just like women. (How simple life would be, if we were all women!) Why aren’t men and women exactly alike? This drives me crazy. This is the first thing I’m going to ask God when I get to heaven. I will be mulling over the creation of the sexes in the Garden, and will say to God—

“Look, God. Either you give us all sacs, or you give none of us sacs. Because, if you ask me, it all comes down to the sacs—the sacs that hold the semen. I’m not condemning the semen, even. I could have stood the semen, God, as long as you denied it a handy place to pool. But no. You had to make sacs. You had to provide sacs for the God-damned—sorry—

for the You- damned semen to pool in, and in which to mount their forces. Thanks to these sacs—these traitorous sacs that rebel against me al the time—the semen enjoys a convenient place to congregate, accumulate, and conspire to sensitize me to all sexual stimuli. Thanks a lot, God! ”

“[Women] view this visual aspect of our sexuality as shallow and dirty, even detestable” ( Every Man’s Battle, pg. 244).

That’s because it is! Since our sacs are detestable, what else would one expect from the fruit of the sacs? I am beginning to see the wisdom of castration. Since being male—and having sacs, as well as the semen that fills the sacs—is the source of all “sexual sin,” then the elimination of the sacs would bring us to the moral level of women (lucky them; their problem is not being female). Just think about how

ZENDER & COLPO

183

many knit sweaters there would be in the world if we were all female. My God! We would be living in a Utopia!

“Often, any effort from husbands to put a positive spin on this ‘vision factor’ by suggesting their wives use it to advantage in the bedroom is met with disdainful scorn” ( Every Man’s Battle, pg. 66).

Why in the world would a man even attempt to put a positive spin on the way God made him? Are Arterburn and Stoeker suggesting here that the insistent male sex drive could actually play some vital role in the sexual lives of men and women—or, even crazier, that women could derive some sort of benefit by utilizing it? I’m confused. Since Arterburn and Stoeker insist in so many other places that the male sex drive is a flaw of divine design and the cause of sexual sin, how can the application of it be anything but an outflow of the flaw, and therefore flawed itself? According to Arterburn and Stoeker, the very experience of sexual impulse—apart from the presence of the wife—is sin. And yet that very impulse can—apparently now—be used for the advantage of the wife?

Sexual impulse

Where does God say that, in order to be moral, sexual impulse must start exclusively with the wife?

A husband walks past a restaurant, smells food, and comes home primed to enjoy a succulent dinner prepared by his wife. Was the smelling of the food from the restaurant sin? If the impulse originated from somewhere other than his wife’s cooking, then why wouldn’t it be sin? Let

184

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

us be consistent. Is not food-hunger just as natural as sexual-hunger? Would the man smelling food on the way home be asked by Arterburn and Stoeker to bounce his nose from the restaurant? Why not? Is not a voracious appetite one of the classic male traits, right along with the desire to ogle female breasts? And do not men, according to Arterburn and Stoeker, get themselves into trouble simply by being male and seeking to excuse their evil natures?

Love and lust

As I will write in an upcoming chapter on lust, sexual stimuli do, indeed, come from many places. We men are not—in accord with how God made us—particular.

(Remember? We are like that baby; we have simply learned not to steal what belongs to someone else.) Some men can smell steak and become sexual y aroused. Some men become sexually aroused by the shapes of certain clouds. Is this wrong? Why is it wrong? Why is sexual stimulation that does not come via the wife wrong? Who made that rule? Did the wives make it? (I really can’t find it in the Bible.) Are the wives jealous of the shapes of certain clouds?

The important thing, I would think, is how desire is channeled. If the wife wants to condemn all sexual stimulation except that which comes from her, will she also channel how or where the man smel s food? If a poem stirs feelings of love in a man, will his wife reject that love because it originated from a heart other than hers? Is she jealous because she did not write the poem? Who creates these arbitrary lines?

Surely it is not God.

God’s universe throbs with love, sex, and beauty. Some men are more attuned to this than others.

Back to love. Let’s say a man walks home from work and sees, in the park, a mother bouncing a little boy on her lap,

186

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

loving him. The man forgets the stress of his job and softens at the sight of the loving mother. Seeing her, he thinks of his own loving wife and the care she takes for his family.

Returning home, he hugs and kisses her. The wife is happy and says, “What got into you?” He tells her of the mother and child in the park. She does not resent it or blame him for it. In fact, she says, “Oh, that’s so wonderful!”

Why doesn’t this happen with sex? Let’s try it, just for the heck/condemnation of it. A man walks home from work and sees, in the park, a tall woman in a sexy skirt and heels. The man forgets the stress of his job as he focuses on the beauty of this woman and her movement as she walks.

Seeing her, he thinks of his own beautiful wife and how she sexually satisfies him. Returning home, he hugs and kisses his wife. The wife is happy and says, “What got into you?”

The husband answers: “I was walking home from work, and I saw this gorgeous woman in a really sexy skirt and heels.

Her swaying hips and beautiful legs made me forget about the office and want to come home and love you.”

How is that going to go over? Arterburn and Stoeker would say, “You should have bounced your eyes, dude.” The wife will say, “How dare you derive any sort of sexual thrill or consolation from anyone except me!”—right before she slaps her dearly beloved in the face.

Now, let us transfer this condemnation to the mother/child scenario and see how it plays. Arterburn and Stoeker would potential y write—

Dude, you should have bounced your eyes from the mother and her son. That exchange in the park gave you feelings of love apart from your wife, and your wife is to be your only source of love. Whenever you see love in the world, and it is not sourced in your wife, you must bounce your eyes from it as fast as you would remove your hand from a hot stove.

ZENDER & COLPO

187

What are we to conclude from this? There is only one conclusion: Love is pure and holy, but sex is dirty. It is the age-old Gnostic, puritanical view of sex: It is dirty. As much as these so-called mature Christian men try to present a mature, Christian self-help book for couples, the underlying theme is: sex is dirty, and so are men. Sex is inherently wrong, and men are inherently wrong for being drawn to women, and therefore—by extension—God was inherently wrong for giving men sacs and filling them with semen.

The sex drive is a problem that must be overcome. Love need not be controlled and tamed, but sex must be.

Why? —MZ

2

Heidi

I really like to hear what turns Danny on. Ladies, you need to encourage your man to tell you just what “does it”

for him. If I don’t know what starts Danny’s engine, how can I race with him down the highway of sex? It wasn’t always this way, but I think differently now. If Danny came home and told me that he saw a woman in a really sexy miniskirt and that he couldn’t wait to see me in such a skirt, I would now ask him, “How short was it and where can I buy one?” Can you imagine what this would do for the guy?

I’d have him eating out of my hand. Isn’t that what I want?

Isn’t it what you want? I realize that not everyone looks great in a miniskirt. Leg-baring outfits may not be your style, but it is your new attitude concerning leg-baring outfits that could change your marriage overnight. Your attitude about sexy clothing articles is much more important than actually wearing the articles. It’s your acceptance of what your husband finds erotic that is critical here.

188

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Can Danny help it that he likes what he likes? Can he help it any more than you can help liking certain styles of bathroom fixtures? That Danny would come home to me and unburden his very soul to me goes a long way toward increasing my love for him. It didn’t used to, but now it does.

The acceptance of your man’s soul may be the greatest gift that you could ever give him. It is so brave of him to unburden his soul to you. How can you not reward such honesty with as much love and affection (and leg exposure) as you can?—HC

2

MZ

On page 66 of Every Man’s Battle, Lisa Stoeker (Fred Stoeker’s wife) said—

“So I suppose I have to buy one of those cheap teddies and prance around like some saloon girl!”

Yes, Lisa! Fabulous! You don’t have to, but it would be really nice of you to do it. And you would not believe the reciprocating rewards if you would just—for maybe 15

minutes a week and without condemnation or eye-rolling (I think eye-rolling is the female version of the masculine optical sin of merely having eyes)—cater to your husband’s God-given tendency toward the visual. And it really does not have to be an expensive teddy. There are some very reasonably-priced teddies that I’m sure you would look fabulous in, Lisa.

Now, no one is saying you have to prance around like a saloon girl, but if you get the notion to prance around like a saloon girl then, by all means, obey the urge. We will not stop you.

190

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Visual foreplay

Did you realize that merely looking at a woman is the same as stroking her breast and rubbing her inner thigh?

No? That’s because you have not read Every Man’s Battle.

Let’s restate this fourth natural tendency in different words so you don’t miss the point: For males, impurity of the eyes is sexual foreplay. That’s right. Just like stroking an inner thigh or rubbing a breast. Because foreplay is any sexual action that naturally takes us down the road to intercourse. Foreplay ignites passions, rocketing us by stages until we go all the way.

Perhaps you did not realize this. Looking at a beautiful woman, which Arterburn and Stoeker call “impurity of the eyes,” takes us down the road to intercourse. It is unavoidable. “Foreplay ignites passions, rocketing us by stages until we go all the way.”

Have any of my male readers ever experienced this when appreciating passing female beauty? I never have; not once.

I have been alive for some time now, have been appreciating beautiful women for a good percentage of that time, and I cannot tell you the number of women I have looked at and not put my penis into. For some strange reason, I was able to look at the legs of a woman at the grocery store the other day, for instance, and not be “rocketed by stages” until I went all the way with her in the frozen food section. Can you imagine?

Distrust of God, spirit, and grace My guess is that some one or some thing ruined Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker somewhere along the way.

Somewhere in their youth, sex was condemned. Somewhere

ZENDER & COLPO

191

in their holier-than-thou religious training, someone taught them sex was bad and the male impulse evil. At the coming of this false realization, sex overtook them to a degree stronger than anything a natural man would experience. This is because religious prohibition is un natural. To fetter the eyes given us by God is un natural. What is natural are a man’s sacs and semen. What is natural is the human sex drive. It is natural and beautiful. To call good evil, is sin. To call good evil, is to produce people like Arterburn and Stoeker, who cannot trust the spirit of God to guide them into al righteousness. Rather, they must make laws. Men raised in law and condemnation need law and condemnation to stay straight.

Men never tasting freedom need incessant religious bondage.

Free men need none of this. We can look and resist. We trust the spirit, and we trust grace. We can look, enjoy, and not eat. Men like Arterburn and Stoeker know they can’t resist. They neither trust themselves, nor God. So they fetter themselves with outward prohibitions. Grace would free them from sin while imparting natural limits. But they can’t trust grace, so they try to kill the source of temptation instead. Not even Jesus did that. He never bounced His eyes from Satan.

He confronted and overcame the temptation. Not that sexual lust is satanic, but if we don’t trust the spirit to overcome illicit desires, we become monks and build nunneries.

Does monasticism overcome temptation? How can it, when no temptation exists for the people within the convents and monasteries? Where in Scripture does Jesus recommend that we escape into seclusion? In Colossians 2:20-23, Paul openly mocks the very concept —

If, then, you died together with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as living in the world, are you subject to decrees: “You should not be touching, nor yet tasting, nor

ZENDER & COLPO

193

yet coming into contact,” (which things are all for corruption from use), in accord with the directions and teachings of men?

—which are (having, indeed, an expression of wisdom in a willful ritual and humility and asceticism) not of any value toward the surfeiting of the flesh.

Again, there is nothing inside these whitewashed sepul-chers (monasteries and nunneries) to overcome. Neither is there anything to enjoy—not even within the boundaries of a spirit-fil ed conscience. Who needs a spirit-fil ed conscience in a nunnery? Even the Reverend Mother in The Sound of Music told Julie Andrews to get the hell out of the abbey and go seduce Captain von Trapp. Maria hoped to avoid life, love, and responsibility, but the abbey wasn’t for that.

Rather, it was a place to train young women in the art of removing carburetors from Nazi cars.

Yet seclusion (stupid seclusion) is the very recommendation of Every Man’s Battle—

Visual gratification is no laughing matter in your fight for sexual purity. Given what the sight of nudity does to the pleasure centers of our brain—and these days it’s pretty easy to see many naked or near-naked women—it’s no wonder our eyes and mind resist control (pg. 66).

It is said that inmates grow accustomed to prison and cannot survive the outside world. Thus also, Arterburn and Stoeker. These men have known imprisonment to law and guilt and condemnation for so long, they can no longer breathe free air and trust grace to manage flesh. Instead, they write a bad check to cover a bad check. The first bad check is assuming masculinity to be evil, and feminine beauty a challenge to overcome. The second bad check is binding the flesh with laws and regulations it can never keep. The result of

194

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

this dual error and sadness is a false and flimsy morality, able to maintain itself only in proportion to a man’s wil -power.

The opposite of all this terror is the grace, peace, and rest of Jesus Christ.

Masturbation

From a section titled, “Release for Singles,” Fred Stoeker writes on page 118-119 of Every Man’s Battle (I swear I am not making this up)—

There remains the male seventy-two-hour cycle of sperm production. Without the impurity of the eyes, the pressure generated by lust is gone, but there’s still a natural physical pressure for release, though much weaker. “What am I going to do about that? you might ask. “How will I get release?”

God has supplied the way of release, something with which you’re familiar. Clinically it’s called “nocturnal emissions.” But somewhere in a dank, smelly football locker room, some kid decided to call it a “wet dream” and that name stuck.

The good news for singles is that nocturnal emissions can work for you in your quest for purity (They can also work for married guys who aren’t as sexually active as they would like to be.) You may wonder how such dreams will work toward purity. After all, some of these dreams are pretty hot and heavy! The same pure eyes and mind that keep you from actively seeking release during the day will limit the impurity that your mind can use in dreams at night. Even these dreams will be dramatically pure in scope and content.

Pure dreams! Now we’re making tracks toward real perfection! This is what I have always wanted: dreams with women in them who behave themselves, who wear dresses past their ankles, who wear burlap bonnets, bake muffins, and work as the church secretary.

ZENDER & COLPO

195

As for the wet dreams, I have apparently been misled over the years. I always thought wet dreams were God’s way of relieving sexual pressure from complete morons who didn’t know how to take care of it themselves.

On page 64 of Every Man’s Battle, Fred writes—

This [sexual] pressure men experience does not justify seeking release through pornography or masturbation. The body has built-in mechanisms of release (including nocturnal emissions and overflow into the urine), and in fact I’ve talked with many single men who, by consistently keeping their eyes and minds pure of sensual things, haven’t had sex or masturbated for years. The pressure “dries up,” they say.

Oh, how great this all is! Isn’t this a happy little recipe for singles?

“But Dad, I have this tremendous sexual pressure.”

“Don’t worry about it, son. Simply let it overflow into your urine as you sleep. After that, all your desire should dry right up!”

“Okay, Dad!”

Once again, I think we need to talk to the babies. Before babies learn to talk, they grab for their gonads. It is the most natural thing in the world—unless, that is, one thinks natural is evil. Unless, that is, one believes sex organs are to be overcome rather than enjoyed. I envision yet another spinoff book. Our dynamic duo has already turned their little anti-sex cult into a complete series consisting of at least half a dozen books, no doubt full of even more prohibitions and guilt. This new spinoff book would be titled Every Baby’s Battle, with the subtitle: “Winning the war on grabbing your gonads in the bathtub one victory at a time.”

“If God had not meant us to play around down there, He would not have put the toys within reach.” This is a famous

196

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

quote. I can’t remember who said it. (Oh, wait. It was me.) This reminds me of a Rodney Dangerfield joke: “When I was a kid, we were so poor, if I hadn’t been born a boy, I wouldn’t have had anything to play with.”

Fred Stoeker, promoting himself as a world expert on sexual deviancy, is a classic religious sexual nutcase; a deviant in his own right.

If you desire holiness, you must stop masturbating (Pg. 113).

Okay, Fred. Thanks. But can I start Monday? I would like to enjoy the weekend.

Remember those lists of sexual sins in Leviticus? I chal enge you to find self-pleasuring anywhere on the premises.

In Due Benevolence, author Clyde Pilkington has this to say about masturbation—

Here is a very natural means of sexual enjoyment, one which the Bible (even the law of Moses) does not condemn, or even regulate. What is the purpose of masturbation, or sexual self-pleasure? It is not procreation. It is not bonding. Here again we find an example of sexual activity for the very pleasure it brings. Many well-meaning Christians would attempt to make this a sinful act. Where is the clear teaching of Scripture that such a universally common act is sinful? God is so abundantly clear and straightforward in His prohibition of sin. If such a common activity were sinful, would He not have clearly addressed it? Those free from the tyranny of religious thought have no scruples about such an honorable, godly release (Pg. 49).

In Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition, Philo Thelos writes:

If masturbation is sinful, where is the Biblical law saying so?

How can a sexual practice involving no one but the practitioner,

198

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

be evil? And when does that evil begin? Has the small child sinned when (s)he discovers that touching the genitals feels good? ... Is the “sinfulness” of masturbation determined by one’s age? Or by how often one touches one’s genitals? Or by how much pleasure one derives from the practice? If it is sinful, how do we actually know that, and what exactly is it that makes it a sin? (Pg. 130).

“Onanism”

There is only one Scripture passage able to be twisted and turned askew to condemn masturbation, and it is Genesis 38:8-10 where we read about “the sin of Onan.” Even a cursory reading of the context, however, informs the honest seeker that the sin was not that of spilling seed outside a woman’s vagina, but rather of failing to produce offspring for a deceased brother’s wife. Here is the entire passage, from the Concordant Version of the Old Testament: And saying is Judah to Onan, “Come to your brother’s wife and wed her, your brother’s widow, and raise seed for your brother.” And know does Onan that the seed will not become his. And it comes, when he is coming to his brother’s wife, then he ruins it on the earth, to avoid giving seed to his brother. And evil in the eyes of Yahweh is what he does, and, moreover, He is putting him to death also.

The key words of this passage are, “he ruins it on the earth, to avoid giving seed to his brother. ”

The spilling of seed has a context here, and the context is the refusal to act in accord with the law requiring the disbursement of seed to a deceased brother’s wife. This is why God killed Onan. It wasn’t for spilling his seed outside of a vagina.

ZENDER & COLPO

199

In Leviticus 15:16-18, God had already told Israel how to deal with this simple matter of spilled seed—

A man, when an emission of semen comes forth from him, will bathe all his flesh in water and be unclean until the evening. Every garment and all leather on which his emission of semen has come, he will rinse in water, and it will be unclean until the evening. Also a woman with whom a man is lying with an emission of semen, they will both bathe in water and be unclean until the evening.

Where is the capital punishment? Where is the angry God? A man’s wife either manually or orally pleasures him (or he’s masturbating alone), and semen lands on the wife’s leather miniskirt; no problem. He washes the semen off the skirt, takes a bath, and calls it a day—a really good day.

Arterburn and Stoeker might say, “The man has had a nocturnal emission! This is what God was referring to. The man did not consciously waste his seed.”

Martin Zender might reply, “You are adding to the passage by assuming what is not there.” This hypothetical man who is lying with a woman (the passage does not even specify that the woman is his wife)—is he having a wet dream on her?

No. Either she is masturbating him, or giving him oral sex.

An Amishman reading this might say, “May you and your ‘oral sex’ go straight to hell! How dare you use the phrase, ‘oral sex.’ You have to at least admit—you and your sinful ‘oral sex’—that the release of semen must be evil, or else the man would not be unclean.”

Martin Zender might reply, “Take it easy, Melvin. In the next verse, verse 19, a menstruating woman is also unclean, as is anything she sits on. Menstruation is as natural as can be. Are we talking about sin here? You are assuming uncleanness to be sin. I am assuming it to be uncleanness.

200

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Uncleanness is something needing cleaned up— period.

(Pardon the pun there.) You know, like an oil spill.”

“I don’t like your tone, Mr. Zender.”

“I don’t like your lack of a mustache, Mr. Yoder.”

At a conference at which I spoke on the topic of human sexuality, a man raised his hand during the question and answer session and asked, “My son thinks about sex non-stop. He is in that time of life when his hormones are raging.

He doesn’t know what to do with the pressure. What should I tell him?”

What an odd question, I thought. The man may as well have said, “My son thinks about food all the time. He is at that time of life when he really has an appetite. He doesn’t know what to do with his appetite. What should I tell him?”

Honestly. Do I also have to tell these people to sleep when they’re tired? To scratch when they itch?

“Martin, my son is thirsty all the time! What should I tell him?”

“Tell him to bounce his eyes from all liquids, especially water. Thirst is natural, therefore it is evil.”

What I did tell this man was: “My goodness, sir. Tell him to masturbate until satisfied.”

Masturbation is God’s outlet for sexual frustration. It is one of God’s most marvelous gifts. To treat it as a sin is borderline insanity. To me, it is as crazy as telling a hungry person not to eat and a thirsty person not to drink.

“Martin. My son has this huge build-up of waste product every afternoon that congregates in the lower portions of his bowels. What should I tell him?”

Have we real y become this stupid? Why is food and drink and sleep and the evacuation of the bowels so god-awful natural, holy, right, good, and accepted, while sexual pleasure has become a horned (or horny) demon, the indulgence

ZENDER & COLPO

201

of which will inevitably “rocket us by stages” into frothy bouts of illegal intercourse?

In Sex is God’s Idea, Earl Paulk writes—

The other extreme in social, sexual values is an oppressive

“Victorian” regard for sexuality in which people try to hide a normal experience of human life which is undeniably obvious.

An oppressive view of sexuality undermines any healthy view of the subject by implying that sexual intimacy is necessary to produce children, but any other reason is sinful, risqué and taboo. Too many Christians live their entire lives in emotional bondage which produces guilt. Unfortunately, the Church has traditionally commended suppression because it maintains behavior codes which appear to be “spiritual.”

As a young pastor who was called into the ministry at the age of seventeen, I can remember a pastor saying to me, “If you ever touch a woman, your ministry is over!” I lived years of my life in complete adherence to a rigid morality which was devoid of any expressions of compassion or tenderness. Fear ruled my emotions. My pharisaic morals caused me to be a strict disciplinarian and a harsh judge of others who would “fal into sin.” Inside an emotional prison, I was so threatened by the possibility of “wrong” feelings that even proper, approved relationships were strained at times under tremendous convic-tions that I must “deny the flesh.”

My impeccable moral standards were controlled by the expectations of the Church and society. Only years later through a series of devastating circumstances did I begin to comprehend that God’s desires in Christian relationships are demonstrated in the example of Jesus Christ. Jesus loved people with a freedom and purity that accepted them wherever they were in their lives and lifted them to a higher, purer realm.

He loved women as well as other men. He was touchable and physically expressive. He had no fear of being close to people and allowed them to express their affections to Him openly in spite of criticism from “religious” leaders.

Jesus deliberately broke moral codes of His day to love

202

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

and minister to certain people. He probably even confused His disciples with His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well who was “living with” her latest (at least number six) boyfriend (John 4). His virtue healed a woman with an issue of blood when the Mosaic law forbade a man to touch her (Mark 5:25-30). His disciples were certainly not the type of men the Church would normally ordain as pastors: unscrupulous businessmen (Matthew 21:31) and burly fish-ermen with crude language and unrefined manners …

The Pharisees behaved as if normal human needs never existed. The Pharisees never admitted to having … normal feelings … Physical desires are an important part of man as God created him. Until we understand and acknowledge this area of man’s nature, we will never be able to move to the higher spiritual dimensions that God has given us the capacity to enjoy.

Paul said, “That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (I Corinthians 15:46). Paul asks, “Doth not even nature itself teach you …?” (I Corinthians 11:14).

Sex is God’s idea. Christian sexuality is as much a demonstration of God’s goodness and love as giving to the poor or sharing the plan of salvation with someone. Christian sexual intimacy is a witness to the world of love relationships which are given and blessed by God … God is searching for people who are boldly challenging every worldly distortion of His goodness and love.1

FRED STOEKER:

As I continued to fight sexual temptation as a married man, many a day I wistfully mourned, A hormone drop would real y help. I was tired of the battle and wanted it badly to go away.

You will have to take up your hormone issue with God, Fred; while you’re at it, ask Him about your sacs. As for the 1 Earl Paulk, Sex Is God’s Idea, K Dimension Publishers, 1985, pp. 5-7, 26, 34.

ZENDER & COLPO

203

battle that I assume you must be exhausted of by now (unless, by this time, you have become a total religious automaton), I have an excel ent resource for you. It is cal ed The Lie of Every Man’s Battle. Order it online now. Operators are standing by.

The spiritual art of clean

Titus 1:15—

All, indeed, is clean to the clean, yet to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean, but their mind as well as conscience is defiled. They are avowing an acquaintance with God, yet by their acts are denying it, being abominable and stubborn, and disqualified for every good act.

Either this verse is true, or it isn’t. If a woman’s beautiful, naked body on the page of a website is clean to me, then it is clean. If I can look at that body—even stare at it—and thank God for it, and feel good about it, and celebrate it, and not feel one shred of guilt about enjoying it—then that naked body is, to me, clean. If I can look at a women’s swimsuit catalog and marvel at the wonder of the female form in barely-there beachwear; if I can look at—even stare at—the smiles of the women in such a state of dress (or undress) and thank God for these beauties who avail themselves to the righteous cause of bikini designers, then that catalog photo, and the model, and the bikini, and the body within it, are all clean to me.

“All, indeed, is clean to the clean.”

Is this verse true, or isn’t it?—MZ

2

204

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Heidi

I already said this in chapter one, but I want to say it again here, for this is perhaps the most important point that I will make. I’ll try to find a different way to say it.

Appreciation of female beauty begins at birth. When women find out that a baby girl is on the way, they become giddy. All they can think of is how fun it’s going to be to dress and “prettify” the coming Princess. I told you that, after having two boys, my sister found out that she was having a girl. What an announcement it was! Do you think that female family members treated this in the same way they treated the birth of the boys? Forget it. Clothes started coming in by the carriage-load. Every girly-girl accoutre-ment imaginable began stockpiling. There was absolutely no shame, at this early stage, of the coming female life. There was no hesitation in celebrating female cuteness.

Can you imagine anyone insisting that the reason baby girls are put into pink frills and frilly rubber underpants is so that everyone will appreciate how effectively the new little diva will one day be able to attract a husband? Of course not. It’s simply a matter of being cute. Ah, but when this same cuteness becomes sexualized later in life—as it does when the inevitable hormones kick in and those things that we call “breasts” start popping out —the same people who bent over backwards to prettify the young thing suddenly hesitate or, worse, condemn. Why is it that the sexualization of what was an innocent thing makes the innocent thing not so innocent? It cannot be for any reason other than this: for the religious person, sexuality is evil.

Women—especially religious women—are happy to celebrate a little girls’ beauty up until this beauty becomes sexualized. But why? Why do some among us make girls feel

206

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

ashamed when they grow breasts, long legs, hips, and curves?

These marvels signify a girl’s transition into womanhood.

She’s going from bud to flower. The bud is pretty, yes, but the mature flower is evil?

My message to combat this hypocrisy is: Let the flower bloom!

In a healthy family, fathers appreciate the beauty of their daughters no matter the daughter’s age. The surest way to turn a healthy girl into an insecure, needy woman is for her father to never compliment her, or to never tell her that she is beautiful. Somewhere in the developmental stages, someone swoops in and convinces she who was once a cute little Princess that she is to now be ashamed of herself for having become a woman and, necessarily, the object of mature male desire.

Girls of every age crave attention from their fathers. I tell you, the girls who get this are far less likely to make wrong relationship choices later in life than those who don’t. What girl does not long to hear her Daddy say, “You look so beautiful today!” And yet I have female friends who bear horrendous scars because of fathers who never complimented them in this way. The fathers may have said that they loved their daughters, but not that they were pretty or beautiful. The fathers were, in every case, religious. They felt that beauty was somehow a sin. They were afraid that, if they complimented their daughters, their daughters would become proud. And everyone knows that pride comes before a fall, and that God hates pride. But my goodness. This is not the kind of pride that God hates. God hates religious pride. God hates the pride that would boast itself above God. Admiring God’s creative handiwork is by no means dirty pride. It is a natural, God-given human desire to feel loved and desired. To deny a girl this praise sets her up for

ZENDER & COLPO

207

personal disaster and, truly, is a slap in the face to the God Who made her.

Teenage girls especially need the affirmation. If they don’t get it from their fathers, then they will strain to get it from their peers. I cannot overemphasize the importance of positive reinforcement in the teen years. The good news is that it is never too late for fathers to begin telling their daughters that they are beautiful. It is during the teen years, however, when sexual misunderstanding and sexual guilt do their worst damage, and so now is when positive reinforcement of beauty and sexual worth must come from parents , especially fathers. Only this will preempt the self-loathing and/or guilt in females that today is epidemic. The earlier the positive reinforcement begins, the better. But again, it’s never too late.

Sexual awareness begins when a toddler first discovers that he/she has interesting things between the legs. Surely even a two year old senses rejection when a parent shames him or her for touching between the legs. And yet such exploration is as natural to the child as looking for its mother’s breast at birth. Let your children explore. Do not slap their hands. Do not tell them that it is wrong and that they are dirty. Do not raise your voice. My advice: stay the heck out of the way. I’m not saying that you should actively encourage it, but for God’s sake don’t dis courage it.

When they’re younger, girls celebrate one another’s femininity. They comb each other’s hair, look at pictures of women in magazines, experiment with makeup and lacy get-ups. They love to impress their friends with how pretty they look. Many girls even enjoy going to the bathroom and showering together. It is natural for these girls who are left free to explore themselves to grow up and be proud of their bodies. I have heard many women say that they take special

208

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

care to dress up when they know that they are going out with their girlfriends. This hearkens back to childhood. My question is: if women like to look at each other, why in the world would we be so quick to condemn men for wanting to look at us?

Ladies, I encourage you to reconnect with the little girl in you who always wanted to put on your mother’s heels, dresses, and lipstick. That little girl who would peek out of the bathroom, then emerge to show off her new clothes to Daddy, is somewhere still inside of you. Grown women need this same affirmation. And I am betting that there is a man nearby who is willing, able, and wanting badly to give it to you.

Before the age when girls are told that their breasts and hips—created by God to not only be functional but fasci-nating—are somehow evil, they did what they could to be noticed. Before the age when boys are told that their God-given reaction to females is unholy and wrong, they enjoyed the presence of the opposite sex and their response to it.

What in the world happened? Why, the evil erection showed up, that’s what! All is well until too much blood creeps into the dreaded penis, and now everything that was good is suddenly unfit to exist beneath the blue skies of God’s happy universe. But wasn’t it God Who made the erection possible in the first place? Isn’t He the One Who made it probable?

Isn’t He the One Who mixed the respective sexual cocktails so that this is precisely what would happen? Girls grow up to develop breasts, hips, and shapely legs. Boys grow up and—lo and behold—their penises get hard. Horrors! And yet God made things this way, didn’t He? Who else could have come up with this?

I believe that the little girl inside of every woman, and the little boy inside of every man, is where the true

ZENDER & COLPO

209

righteousness of God dwells. For us to grasp God’s magnificent plans (sexual and otherwise), a childlike faith is necessary. This is child- likeness, not childishness. I am not compromising maturity here. I have discovered that those who become as children end up understanding God more than anyone.—HC

2

MZ

It is only to the defiled conscience and to the unbelieving (that is, to the person who believes God’s creation to be evil), that nothing is clean. Aren’t Arterburn and Stoeker the ones with defiled consciences? It is they, not me, who have learned, through the agency of religion, law, and guilt, to deny the way God made them. Such a denial must be learned. A natural man, left alone, will revel in feminine beauty. A defiled conscience, due to some past trauma, condemnation, or religious prohibition, will stiff-arm it.

It appears these men avow an acquaintance with God that they do not possess. They seem unable to trust nature or the grace of Christ. Thus, they miss the mark on both ends. Bouncing the eyes from feminine beauty is a bad check written to cover the bad check of cal ing good “evil.”

Men who distrust both nature and grace are spiritual y undeveloped and disqualified for every good act, including the writing of books on the topic of sex that purport to be helpful.—MZ

7 FemInIne BeAuty

211

FemInIne BeAuty

In Genesis, chapter 24, Abraham dispatches a servant to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant ends up in the city of Nahor, in the land of Syria. The servant has his camels kneeling outside the city at a well one evening, the precise time (in the cool of the day) that the women came out to bail water (verses 10-11).

This was a great strategy. If you want to find a woman, go to where they congregate. And do it in the early evening, when the sun is low and the lighting fine, allowing you a better look at the, um—at the physical attributes of the women.

The servant laid out his plan to God: O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show loving-kindness to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water; now may it be that the girl to whom I say, “Please let down your jar so that I may drink,” and who answers, “Drink, and

212

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

I will water your camels also”; may she be the one whom Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac; and by this I shall know that Thou hast shown loving-kindness to my master (Genesis 24:12-14).

God got right on it:

And it came about before he had finished speaking, that behold, Rebecca who was born to Bethuel the son of Miclah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, came out with her jar on her shoulder. And the girl was very beautiful, a virgin, and no man had had relations with her; and she went down to the spring and filled her jar, and came up.

The King James here says that the woman “was very beautiful,” but the Concordant Version of the Old Testament has, “And the maiden is of exceedingly good appearance .. ”

I wish God had not mentioned that Rebecca was “of exceedingly good appearance.” Why? Because what happens next is a crying shame. I hate to write about this, but I have to, because I am a writer. The servant does a bad, bad thing.

This was the servant of Abraham, and a believer in the God of Abraham, making him holy and separated unto God. What I am about to write will expose a terrible weakness of this man of God, the same weakness that you, my male readers, no doubt suffer under. But I must tell you anyway because this is a book about sex and beauty, and the servant’s crime has very much to do with these two treach-erous things.

First of all, why does God feel it necessary to mention that Rebecca was “of exceedingly good appearance”? I don’t know what difference it makes. Women should be judged on character, not looks. Doesn’t God know this? In fact, good-looking women are the downfall of men, marriages, and society-at-large. I wish all women looked like Phyllis

ZENDER & COLPO

213

Diller, I really do. But, no, God made a lot of women beautiful, and then He made the mistake of giving men eyes.

Not only that, but He finds it necessary to point out that the women are beautiful; He does this repeatedly in—of all places—the Holy Bible.

But before I get to the actions of the servant, I ask you this: What exactly does God mean, when referring to Rebecca, that she is “of exceedingly good appearance”?

Does she have high cheek bones? Shapely hips? Large breasts? Long legs? High arches? All of the above? I’m curious because I love God’s Word. As I look into it, I find myself becoming more and more sexually intrigued. Oh no.

Must I now bounce my eyes from the pages of Scripture?

I’m seriously asking.

Dig those burkas

One more distraction here before I talk about the servant of Abraham and his terrible male crimes. I like what is happening out East these days, that is, in our modern Middle East. If all women were as conscientious as these Eastern femmes, they would all wear burkas.

A burka is a garment that looks like a four-person tent inside of which mountain climbers seek shelter at high alti-tude. The burka shrouds the entire woman so that male lust is headed off at the pass. Apparently, the men of the East do not have copies of Arterburn and Stoeker’s book, and so do not know about bouncing the eyes. Since Every Man’s Battle has, unfortunately, not yet infiltrated such distant regions, the men there must cover their females from head to toe on the assumption that one would not need to bounce one’s eyes from a walking, four-person tent with an oversized rain fly and a vestibule for cooking.

214

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Back to Rebecca

So anyway, there is Abraham’s servant, looking at this very beautiful virgin. The first thing he does is the first thing he should not have done—verse 17: Then the servant ran to meet her, and said, “Please let me drink a little water from your jar.”

Lord have mercy—he ran to meet her. Note that, as the servant is running, he has not even asked her the question yet about the water. I presume that, since many women came to the well at this hour, there were many other women besides Rebecca at the well. That the servant ran to Rebecca, and that the only thing thus far he had to go on—as far as her fitness as a wife for his master’s son went—was that she was

“of exceedingly good appearance,” wel , this tel s me that not only was this servant shal ow, he was also disobedient. Instead of running away from beauty (which all men—even single men—ought to do in order to be sexual y pure and remain right before God), he runs toward it.

I wish my sad tale ended here, but it does not. When the servant laid out his line about the possibility of a drink, the woman—Rebecca—said all the right things about watering the camels as well as the servant. Now the servant really made a mistake, as I shall demonstrate by quoting verse 21: Meanwhile, the man was gazing at her in silence, to know whether the Lord had made his journey successful or not.

May the Lord protect us from such unnatural lusts! First the servant runs to this woman’s beauty, then he gazes at it.

In case none of you other sinners out there have noticed: Gazing is the opposite of bouncing the eyes.

216

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Obviously, the book Every Man’s Battle would have been a great help to this servant. As soon as the servant noticed the

“exceedingly good appearance” of Rebecca (not just “good appearance,” mind you, but “exceedingly good appearance”), he could have practiced what Stephen Arterburn advises on page 126 of Every Man’s Battle:

You can win this battle by training your eyes to “bounce”

away from sights of pretty women and sensual images. If you

“bounce your eyes” for six weeks, you can win this war. You need to build a reflex action by training your eyes to immediately bounce away from the sexual, like the jerk of your hand away from a hot stove. Let’s repeat that, for emphasis: When your eyes bounce toward a woman, they must bounce away immediately.

It is true that the servant did not have six weeks available to him, but he would have gotten a good start had he at least gone through the motions of resisting feminine beauty. If he’d had an ounce of the spirit of God inside him, he could have immediately bounced his eyes from the exceedingly good-looking Rebecca, as quickly as he would have jerked his hand from a fire. Then at least his eyes could have settled upon a woman “of exceedingly awful appearance,” and all would have been well. We all know that there is no sin associated with gazing upon ugly women.

Think of all the lust—present and future—that this one act of prudence (that is, the servant bouncing his eyes) would have saved. Not only would the servant have been spared his personal stumbling over this jar-bearing specimen of camel-watering eye candy, but think of all the male lust headed off at the pass on that long trip home. With Rebecca in tow, all the men on that road would have gazed at her, unblinking, until their eyes dried up. Since Every

ZENDER & COLPO

217

Man’s Battle had not yet been published, none of these men would have known about eye bouncing, and therefore none of them would have obeyed God’s standards for sexual purity. The result? These men would have been unable to even begin their six weeks of training, and their prayer lives would have been ruined. After all, without a full six weeks of training, how in the world can a man hope to win the great battle against the “exceedingly good” appearance of women? —MZ

2

Heidi

I am not quite sure why a woman would even want the burden of controlling a man’s eyes. Is it really our responsibility to make sure that the spiritual head of our home, and one of the most influential people to us and our children, knows exactly how we expect him to flex his optic muscles? Not only does God not expect us to monitor our husbands’ eye muscles—as if it were even possible—but the very attempt to do so is a serious enough dose of mistrust (not to mention stupidity) to kill a relationship.

I admit that I was one the guiltiest of all when it came to vexing my husband over this. My jealousy and indigna-tion knew no bounds. Whenever I caught Danny looking at another woman, I freaked. For many years I tricked myself into thinking that Danny’s girl-watching meant that I wasn’t beautiful. This just may be the biggest lie of all.

There is only so much a man can do these days when facing the constant barrage of feminine exposure. There is only so much he should do. God expects him only to avoid stealing another man’s wife. As for me (I was more moral than God, don’t you know), I would lay in wait for

218

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

an optical misstep and would pounce. Ah, but I would not pounce directly, no, for I became a master of passive aggres-sion. I would sulk and pout and bounce my own eyes from my husband for the rest of the evening. (Oh, this was so good for our marriage.) My behavior sabotaged our relationship and caused so many ripples of negativity that it’s a wonder we survived it. It’s a wonder Danny still managed to love me.

Looking back on it now, I see how completely unfair I was to both Danny and to myself. Like the Pharisee Saul on the road to Damascus, I was rebelling against God. Oh, what an avoidable problem I created. Because of my microman-agement of my husband, I almost macro managed us right into divorce court.

With twenty years of marriage behind me, and hopeful y many more ahead, I have noted several important points about relationships that are built upon the sand of suspicion and guilt. Here is the most important point: such relationships never last. Well, some of them last, but they are like the car sitting behind the garage with four flat tires and a missing engine; why is it even there? How can a couple possibly be happy when one or both of them shoulder gigantic moral mandates that God never intended for them to bear?

It is modern societal mores and religion—not God —that have proven to be these couples’ worst enemies.

God created men to notice and enjoy female bodies. God also created men to need intimacy. Ladies, isn’t this what you want? Intimacy with your husband? Good. But it carries the price tag of trust, admiration, and love. When a woman monitors her husband’s eyes, there is no trust. When she belittles him over his reflexive acknowledgment of beauty, there is no admiration. When she threatens to leave him over it, there is no love.

When a woman gives her husband the three gifts of trust,

220

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

admiration, and love, his heart is drawn toward her, and he will worship her until death does them part.

You might say, “Well, that sounds nice, but my husband not only looks at other women, he flirts and, at times, seems more interested in them than in me.” I’ve seen and heard it all, but I still maintain that what he wants more than anything is intimacy, and that’s the thing that you can give him. He doesn’t even know these other losers. You and he are the ones with the history. Remember? History is what saved Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Story of Us.

Flirtatious banter, extended glances, even winks—how can these compete with history? Don’t you think he knows that?

Of course he does, and it’s more valuable to him than all the Candyland, surface hijinks offered by these floozies. He knows what he has.

Speaking of banter, glances, and winks —aren’t these some of the things that brought you two together in the first place? It’s good stuff; do it to him. Knowing that there is one woman on the planet (you) who knows him and still accepts him for who he is— this is the ultimate desire and turn-on for any man. It’s what the check-out girl and the server at his favorite restaurant can’t give him. A man needs to know that when he is away from her, his wife trusts him.

He needs to know that, when he comes home, she will be at peace with him. He needs to know that her love is truly unconditional. Give a man that, and sexual intimacy will follow. Without it, however, sex goes out the window and the relationship soon follows.

I read an article recently about a man’s need to look at the female form. It was in a popular women’s magazine.

The article was written by a man and addressed to happily married couples. The author of the article explained that average men are embarrassed to admit that they are still

ZENDER & COLPO

221

stuck in the habit of looking at porn even after years of happy marriage. He said that from the age of 14 onward, a male’s focus was on getting as much visual stimulation as he could. It used to be more difficult finding this stimulation pre-Internet, but now the visual stimulation is as easy as “Alt-Tab.” The author compared the temptation to ice cream cravings. Saying “no” to ice cream is easier at the grocery store than when it sits in one’s own freezer. He had a point there.

Will the day of easy Internet porn wreck more relationships than the Playboy era did? I don’t see it happening. With God’s spirit in our lives, I am optimistic. It is my opinion that since a man’s deepest, God-given desire is intimacy (no matter the age he lives in), the Internet era cannot change it.

In fact, the onslaught of images may shock men awake to the irreplaceable necessity of physical communion. In otherwise healthy, loving relationships, it will not be the Internet that will destroy the bonds between a man and his wife. No. In any era, it is the lack of trust, love, and admiration that will do that. —HC

2

MZ

I have a problem with Esther—not with the book of Esther, mind you, but with the woman herself.

I cannot read about Esther without becoming, um, hormonal y distracted. Or, as a friend put it more bluntly to me recently: “I get hard reading Esther.”

Esther’s name, in Hebrew, means “Star,” and that pretty much fits the following account of her. Here is our first glimpse of Esther (I am quoting Esther 2:5-7 from the Concordant Version of the Old Testament)—

ZENDER & COLPO

223

There was in the castle of Susa a Jewish man. His name was Mordecai son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjamite man, whose family had been carried away from Jerusalem with the deportation that had been carried away with Jeco-niah king of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had deported. And Mordecai had become foster father to Hadassah, that is Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had no father or mother. The maiden had a lovely shape and was good-looking in appearance. At the death of her father and her mother Mordecai took her to himself as a daughter.

The first thing God wants us to know about Esther is not that she is a godly woman, or that she tithes regularly, or that she has tended the nursery during temple services three years running. No. Rather, God desires, first and foremost, that we know this:

“The maiden had a lovely shape and was good-looking in appearance.”

Help me, God. I was just barely getting over Rebecca back there in Genesis, chapter twenty-four, and now here comes Esther. Just when I was beginning to get all holy again (after al , I’m reading the Bible), God mentions a physical characteristic of Esther that not even the exceedingly beautiful Rebecca warranted. Just when I begin to feel a tad sorry for the merely “good looking” Esther, I notice that God adds a detail about her that He omitted in describing Rebecca, namely:

“The maiden had a lovely shape.”

Here are the exact quotes concerning these women: Rebecca: “Exceedingly good-looking.”

Esther: “The maiden had a lovely shape and was good-looking in appearance.”

I am quoting from the Concordant Version of the Old Testament, which is the most accurate translation in existence.

224

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

As quoted, these are the exact things God said, and the exact way that He described these two women. My point is that there is a difference between “exceedingly good-looking”

and “the maiden had a lovely shape.” This is no accident.

Words mean something, and God used different words here on purpose. In Scripture, differences are important and not to be disregarded.

Without a doubt, God continually notes female beauty. I think He’s proud of it. He is showing it off. Apparently, God is not a Christian. It looks to me like God Himself (Whom one would have to consider the most sexually moral Being in the universe) is having a hard time bouncing His eyes.

You would have to admit that, if anyone could bounce His eyes from a beautiful woman faster than anyone else, it would be God. In fact, I would venture a guess that God could bounce His eyes so fast from feminine beauty (a human hand flying off a hot stove would appear to be moving in slow-motion by comparison) that His corneas would become but a blur. And yet, here He is noting the subtle differences in the beauty of these two attractive Bible women.

Is God running a beauty contest? One has to wonder. I can almost picture Him holding up placards: Rebecca: 9.5

Esther: 9.3

Would not moralistic Christians flee His presence?

God loves the waist/hip ratio

Here is what God said when describing the body of Mordecai’s adopted daughter: “The maiden had a lovely shape.”

What makes a woman shapely? It is four things: 1) her breasts, 2) her hips, 3) her waist, and 4) her ass.

Here is the Martin Zender paraphrase of Esther 2:7—

226

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The size of the maiden’s breasts, in conjunction with the proportion of her waist and her hips, and the waist and the hips together in proportion to her ass, lent to this “Star” a most pleasing and feminine curvaceousness which is to say, she had a lovely shape.

Don’t look at me that way. It was God Who said:

“The maiden had a lovely shape.”

If this were the end of the story, my sacs would soon burrow away for the night and I could get past this beauty business. But no. It gets worse. Or, as I would tend to judge things, it gets better. Esther 2:8-9—

Now it came to be, when the king’s decree and his edict was announced and when many maidens were brought together at the castle of Susa under the hand of Hegai, then Esther was also taken to the king’s house under the hand of Hegai who was in charge of the women. The maiden was well pleasing in his eyes, and she obtained kindness before him, so that he speeded up her beauty-treatments and her assigned rations, and he provided her with the seven selected maidens, assigned to her from the king’s house. Then he let her and her maidens occupy the best quarters in the house of the women.

I must be honest with you. The mental vision I have of dozens, if not hundreds, of young, beautiful maidens gathered together in a castle—specifically in a place called “the house of the women”—undergoing exotic beauty treatments, sends so much appreciation for women into my “appreciate women” storage areas that I am very near to taking the name of Dr. James Dobson in vain. For it is Dr. James Dobson—

yes, that Dr. Dobson—who described to me (on page 64 of Every Man’s Battle) the dreadful hormonal influences sensitizing me to “all sexual stimuli.”

The respected doctor apprised me of the inevitability of my body’s response to all sexual stimuli, which surely must

ZENDER & COLPO

227

include the words “maidens,” “castle,” “beauty treatments,”

and “the house of women,” especial y all in the same context.

My agony is that the “sexual stimuli” I am here imbibing of are not those which I receive daily from various goddesses on the street, or from those who grace magazine covers at Wal-Mart. No, but these sexual stimuli are coming from goddesses in God’s Word.

The Bible .

And now this: “The maiden was wel -pleasing in [Heg-gai’s] eyes.” Here is another Bible man stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the fact that God gave him his evil eyes in order for him to overcome them. This unspiritual jerk is, rather, appearing to enjoy them. Well, he didn’t know any better.

Arterburn, Stoeker, and Dobson had not been born yet.

Song of Solomon

Don’t get me started on Song of Solomon. Oh, all right then. There are so many sexual images in Song of Solomon, I don’t see how any man can read it and then stand comfortably. Is the husband who is reading Song of Solomon becoming aroused by his wife? No. He is becoming aroused by the Shunammite woman (we don’t know her name for certain, but many translations call her Abishag).

WIFE: Why are you so frisky tonight, Charlie? You are so spiritual, because I just saw you reading the Bible. You are such a good man. But now you are all over me, like grass stains on white pants. What has motivated you so?

HUSBAND: It is Abishag, the Shunammite. You cannot believe how hot she is, Sue. But please do not take it personal y.

Abishag’s first words, in verse two, are, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Her lips, by the way,

“drip with honeycomb” (4:11). Solomon sniffs her clothes (4:11) and falls into a sex trance merely by looking at her

ZENDER & COLPO

229

necklace (4:9). We not only read about Abishag’s breasts in chapter four, but how they hang and move (4:5). Her belly button is not merely the place where she received nourish-ment through the umbilical cord while gallivanting inside her mother’s belly. If only! That would have been a PG-13

rated anatomy lesson, and all would have been well. But no.

Rather, Abishag’s navel is “a well-rounded goblet which does not lack liquor” (7:2). My God! What does that have to do with Abishag getting food from her mommy?

In addition to his infatuation with Abishag’s clothes and necklace, Solomon has a foot and sandal fetish. This is from chapter 7, verse 1, New American Standard Bible:

“How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince’s daughter!”

As long as Solomon keeps clear of mentioning Abishag’s hips, I should be all right. I have successfully bounced my eyes from the liquor of Abishag’s well-rounded goblet of a belly button. I do love female belly buttons, but I have somehow survived this initial onslaught. But Lord, I do have a major thing for hips. You know this. You made me this way. I have a big fat lust thing going with the curves God put on women. When it comes to hips, I am like Gomez Addams of the Addams Family who used to, on national television, “machine gun” kiss the black-clad arm of his beautiful wife Morticia whenever she spoke French.

I just transfer it to hips.

Whatever you do, God, please do not engage my attention—or point out anything at all—about the hips of any Bible woman, but especially not those of Abishag.

“The curves of your hips are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artist” (7:1).

That does it, Stephen and Fred! I don’t really feel like cursing God today, so I turn my attentions to you morons.

Unless you tell me to bounce my eyes from the Word of

230

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

God in the same way I am to bounce them from the magazine covers at Wal-Mart, then the two of you are pure

*&$#@! hypocrites.

I’m sorry I had to use scissors and eyeglasses there, but I’m that upset.

If I am to bounce my eyes from the feminine beauty on the street, and the feminine beauty on the “worldly” magazine racks, then should I not also bounce them from the Word of God, which has, today, sent more semen into my sacs than the covers of Vogue, Shape, and People combined?

That is my question, Stephen and Fred. Should I bounce my eyes from the Word of God? Tell me, you hypocrites!

Test or treat?

God is the One Who gave me sacs and semen. Simul-taneously, He also wrote about beautiful, shapely women.

But no. That is not stating it strongly enough. He not only wrote about them, He elaborated upon their feminine charms. Arterburn and Stoeker would say, “This is a test.”

Is it really? Where does God call it that? Why would God want to trip me up in the book of Esther? It is you, Stephen and Fred—not God—who say it is a test. You are the ones insisting that any beauty other than that of a wife is to be shunned as though leprous. And yet, I find no hint of this in any “feminine beauty” passage of Scripture. Rather, God Himself seems to be reveling in the details. He is definitely not bouncing His eyes.

May I compare women to cars?

Thank you so much.

A man takes a regular car, soups it up, and turns it into a sports car. Then he has all his friends come over and admire it. This is fine. No one is expected to bounce his eyes from the

ZENDER & COLPO

231

car. I’m not sure why, but no one is. What is the car? To me, it’s a dumb pile of stupid metal. My point is that a man creates a car, and men come from all over to admire the beauty of a bunch of stupid metal parts, attractively arranged.

Now here comes God, Who creates the most beautiful thing the universe has ever seen—better even than a Bugatti—and puts it to flesh: WOMAN. I contend that God outdid Himself with the creation of Woman. Think about it.

God has not created one thing since creating Eve. This could not be said of a Bugatti. Is Woman not more wonderful than a collection of metal? Then why am I required to bounce my eyes from Her, but not from the goddamn Italian sports car?

God wrote Scripture, and He calls upon everyone to admire the beauty of His premier creation. One gets the sense He is proud of it. In the Garden, He called His creation, “Good.” It is as if God is saying: “Come. Come and see what I have done!”

Only a weak-minded, faith-impaired, religion-trapped, hormone-denying, limp-dicked hypocrite could possibly say, “Oh, no, God! Don’t You realize what this does to us?

Do You not realize what Your beautiful creation of Woman does, in deadly combination with the sacs, semen, and eyes that You, Yourself, cursed us with?”

Let us slap God in the face, then. Let us tell Him He was wrong—that He sinned— with the creation of Woman.

Desire is not stealing

It is religion telling us that desiring beautiful women is wrong. Is desiring beautiful women the same as taking them?

Is it the same as putting one’s penis in them? Let me ask this: Does the man who looks at his friend’s car not desire it? And yet, does this desire make him break into his friend’s garage

232

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

when his friend is not home and steal it?

Is it possible that God intends for feminine beauty to be a treat for sore eyes rather than a test for them? Is it possible that the Battle-inspired religious qualms of husbands, and the self-motivated insecurities of wives, are causing both husbands and wives to call evil what God cal s good? Is it possible that turning away from God’s beauty and adopting rigid, law-based programs to battle the way God made us has caused both husbands and wives to miss a source of healing in their marriages, treating beauty, rather, as a source of trial and woe?

The sexes are perishing from misunderstanding, and it is Religion that is killing them. Arterburn and Stoeker are warning us against the very source of our restoration. (More on this important thought later.)

Isaiah 5:20-21—

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight!

In other words, woe to the authors of Every Man’s Battle.

The eyes of God don’t bounce

Here are several more places in Scripture where our careless Deity inconsiderately points out and then elaborates upon feminine beauty:

Genesis 12:11—

“And it came to be just as Abram got near to enter Egypt that he said to his wife Sarai: Behold now, I know that you are a woman, lovely of appearance.”

Genesis 12:14—

“It came to be when Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptian men saw the woman that she was very lovely.”

ZENDER & COLPO

233

Deuteronomy 21:10-12—

“When you go forth for battle against your enemy, and Yahweh Your Elohim delivers him into your hand, and you capture his captives, and you see among the captives a woman of lovely shape and are attached to her and would take her to yourself as a wife, then you will bring her into the midst of your household.”

2 Samuel 11:2-3—

“It was at eventide, and David rose from his bed. When he walked about on the housetop of the royal palace, he saw from the housetop a woman bathing. The woman was exceedingly good in appearance, and David sent someone to inquire about the woman.”

2 Samuel 13:1—

“David’s son Absalom had a lovely sister; her name was Tamar, and David’s son Amnon became infatuated with her.”

1 Kings 1:1-4— “King David was now old and had come into his last days; though they covered him with cloaks, it was not warm enough for him. So his servants said to him, Let them seek a maiden for my lord the king, a virgin; and let her stand before the king. Let her come to care for him, and let her lie down in his bosom, so that my lord the king will feel warm. When they sought for a lovely maiden throughout the entire territory of Israel, they found Abishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king. The maiden was exceedingly lovely; she came to care for the king and ministered to him. As for the king, he did not know her.”

Good enough for me. —MZ

8 sexuAl lust

235

sexuAl lust

The Greek word for “lust,” used in the New Testament, is epithumia. This is the noun form of the word, and it simply means “desire.” Who doesn’t desire things? Do you desire to be with your kids? That’s lust. Do you desire breakfast? That’s lust. Do you desire to be president of the school board? That’s lust. Do you desire money? That’s lust.

Do you desire to remove all lust from your life? That, too, is lust.

Thus, lust itself (desire) is morally neutral. It can be bent toward either good or bad purposes. Jesus Himself lusted, as we shall see. The holy spirit lusts continually, as I will prove to you.

The verb form of epithumia is epithumeo. This word means to do the thing, that is, to lust. The verb form appears 16 times in the New Testament, and the noun 39 times. The Concordant Version translates the verb, variously, as “lust,”

ZENDER & COLPO

237

“yearn,” and “covet.” It’s the same exact Greek word, mind you—the definition (“desire”) never changes—there are only slight variations in usage. Collaterally, the CV translates the noun as either “desire,” “coveting,” “lust,” or “yearning.”

Again, same word, same definition, but only slight variations of usage. Sexual lust—that is, sexual desire—is also morally neutral. It is not sin of itself. Sexual lust is a natural, daily occurrence in humans of both sexes. It is what one does with the sexual lust that determines whether or not that lust is sin.

Sexual lust is as natural and common an occurrence as lusting for (that is, desiring) food and drink. It is far less accepted, though, obviously.

Sexual lust is supposed to be a terrible sin. It is supposed to be the downfall of men, especially married men. Every Man’s Battle assures married men that lusting after the opposite sex not only compromises their relationship with their wives, but also with God. Many religious wives (I know some) believe that their husbands should not even lust after them. The reason for this absurd belief is that the word “lust”

is so strongly tied to sexual sin that religious people feel they must avoid it entirely. This unwarranted linking of lust and sin is so strong, and so automatically assumed, that it will be difficult for some to even read this particular chapter; the mere appearance of the word “lust” triggers alarms, and these readers will fear becoming tainted or defiled.

The moral neutrality of the word “lust”

Galatians 5:17—“For the flesh is lusting ( epithumeo) against the spirit, yet the spirit against the flesh.”

Who knew the spirit of God lusted? And yet here is proof. In this passage, both the spirit and the flesh are lusting. When the spirit lusts against the flesh, it is a good

238

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

lusting, but when the flesh lusts against the spirit, it is bad.

Lust itself, therefore, is morally neutral. It is neither angelic nor demonic. It can be put to either good (natural) or evil use. In Luke 22:15, Jesus said to His disciples, “With yearning I yearn to be eating this Passover with you before My suffering.” The Greek word translated “yearning” and “yearn”

is the same word ( epithumia) translated “desire” and “lust”

elsewhere in Scripture. Thus, Jesus, “with lusting, lusted to be eating the Passover” with His disciples.

Obviously, then—since Jesus did it—lusting itself cannot be a sin. The fact that the Word of God knows of foolish and harmful lusts verifies this. Here is 1 Timothy 6:9—

Now those intending to be rich are falling into a trial and a trap and the many foolish and harmful desires (lusts, epithumia) which are swamping humans in extermination and destruction.

If some lusts can be qualified as foolish and harmful, it stands to reason that other lusts are natural and/or good.

What do you crave?

There is one more Greek word carrying the idea of lust, though it is perhaps an even stronger term for an even stronger desire. I am speaking of the word orexis and its alternate form, oregō. These two words appear only four times in the Bible. Comparing two of the passages occurring in the same book of the Bible will again demonstrate how the same word can serve opposite ends.

1 Timothy 6:10— For a root of all of the evils is the fondness for money, which some, craving ( oregō), were led astray from the faith and try themselves on all sides with much pain.

ZENDER & COLPO

239

1 Timothy 3:1— Faithful is the saying: “If anyone is craving ( oregō) the supervision, he is desiring an ideal work.”

As you can see, one can crave money, or crave to be a supervisor in an ecclesia. It is not the craving that is the problem, but what one does with it. Thus also with lust—

even sexual lust.

Principles from hell

Let’s look into what our friends Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker have to say about lust, as this will contrast with what God has just said about it.

FROM STEPHEN ARTERBURN:

We’ve put forth principles to help keep young single men from lusting (pg. 4).

Oh, capital, Stephen. I am sure all the young, single men out there will be happy to hear that you have developed principles whereby they will never lust after (desire) women again. So much for marriage, then. Or have you failed to think it through that far?

A desire (lust) for the opposite sex is the impetus for marriage. I’m not saying love takes a back seat but that, first and foremost, a man and a woman marry because of a mutual sexual desire (lust). Two people who merely love one another become roommates. The difference between roommates and spouses, therefore, is the presence of sexual lust. Without this necessary biological impetus, the bridal industry collapses. The apostle Paul suggests as much in 1

Corinthians 7:2—

ZENDER & COLPO

241

Yet, because of prostitutions, let each man have a wife for himself and each woman have her own husband.

In other words, because of the drive of both sexes to join penises with vaginas, let each man have sex with his own wife, and vice-versa.

Sexual lust is no different than physical hunger. Both are lusts, and both are morally neutral. A hungry person can either steal food or procure it by legal, moral means. Thus also with sexual lust. What does a man do with it? He can either engage in illegal sexual intercourse ( porneia) or have sex with his wife. For a man with a normal sex drive, these are the two options Paul presents to the Corinthians. Paul knows the lurid attraction of illegal sexual intercourse (particularly the cult prostitution rife in Corinth), so he seeks to keep the lust focused within marriages, which would be the ideal place for it.

Nowhere does Paul propose a third option, namely:

“Stop lusting after the opposite sex.” No, that would be Stephen Arterburn’s ridiculous suggestion. Such a thing never enters Paul’s mind, and neither does it enter the mind of any normal person. This is because the cessation of sexual lust would be ab normal. Arterburn’s recommendation to eliminate sexual lust would be akin to someone recommending: “Stop wanting to eat; cease your desire for food.”

We discover Paul’s means of handling sexual lust in 1

Corinthians 7:8-9—

Now I am saying to the unmarried and the widows, that it is ideal for them if ever they should be remaining even as I. Yet if they are not controlling themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire.

The “fire” of this context could certainly be lust for il egal sexual intercourse. It is certainly not a general sexual desire

242

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

that could be “cured” by, say, masturbation. Paul suggests in the previous three verses that not everyone possesses the gift of not lusting sexual y after anyone. Concerning sexual relations, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:5-7—

Do not deprive one another, except sometime it should be by agreement for a period, that you should have leisure for prayer, and you may be the same again, lest Satan may be trying you because of you incontinence. Now this I am saying as a concession, not as an injunction. For I want all humans to be as I myself also, but each has his own gracious gift from God, one indeed, thus, yet one thus.

Again, from Stephen Arterburn:

We’ve put forth principles to help keep young single men from lusting (pg. 4).

Paul would roll his eyes at the very suggestion of “keeping young single men from lusting.” Sexual lust is a natural human possession given by God for the continuance of the race. Only a special gift of God— not a list of principles and techniques—can abrogate it. Thus, Paul does not say, “Here are some principles that will enable you to eliminate sexual lust.” To Paul, therefore, sexual lust is not to be— shouldn’t be; can’t be— eliminated, but rather channeled.

For the sake of our argument, let us say that the “fire” of the context is the desire to commit unlawful sexual intercourse, which would include cult prostitution. Paul presents two channels for sexual lust (this does not mean that there are only two): 1) unlawful sexual intercourse (“prostitutions”), and 2) marriage. That prostitutions are forwarded as the second option (instead of “just stop lusting”) reiterates our finding that sexual lust is a moral y neutral human life-force needing to be channeled, not eliminated.

ZENDER & COLPO

243

Stephen Arterburn recommends the elimination of sexual lust, at least in all single men. Since this is so, here is the obvious question: If Stephen Arterburn should succeed—via his miraculous principles, in conjunction with Fred Stoeker’s maniacal eye-bouncing techniques—to completely eliminate sexual lust from the lives of single men, then by what means will these single men ever desire a wife?

I assume that the reason Stephen Arterburn wants to eliminate sexual lust is because he assumes it to be a sin. If sexual lust is a sin, then it’s always a sin. If it’s always a sin, then looking at a woman with sexual lust is always wrong, even if that woman is a potential wife—or an actual one, for that matter. Surely Stephen Arterburn cannot recommend to young men: “Only desire a woman sexually (that is, lust for her) if you know for certain she is to become your future wife.” For one thing, how could a man know whether or not a woman will become his future wife? Even if he could know, the woman would not then be his wife; she would only be a potential wife. In such a case, we are still considering a single man lusting after a woman who is not his wife, a thing which both Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker believe to be wrong:

We’ve put forth principles to help keep young single men from lusting (pg. 4).

The only way out of this conundrum is the natural way out: allow the sexual lust. This is Paul’s default belief.

Again, nowhere does Paul advocate the elimination of sexual lust. This is also the Scriptural solution to Arterburn and Stoeker’s self-made conundrum. This solution allows sexual lust to be what it is: a part of human nature that only a counteracting gift of God—rather than a list of principles

244

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

and techniques—can eliminate. This solution lets a man sexual y desire women (acknowledging God’s creation rather than battling it with religious prohibitions), then count on the grace of God and the holy spirit within to channel that desire (lust) toward legitimate outlets.

Human beings are implanted by God with sexual needs.

Sexual lust is the outward expression—the manifestation—

of this need. Sexual lust does not, by default, lead to rape and adultery. In fact, it rarely does. This is because sexual lust, itself, is not sin. What it generally leads to, in most of the population, is marriage. Sexual lust is the reason people marry.

Without physical hunger, there is no eating. Without sexual lust, there is no sex. Without sex, there is no marriage.

Is every male who lusts sexually a sex addict?

FRED STOEKER:

A thunderbolt hit me when [a Christian author] outlined the three levels of [sexual] addiction. (Keep in mind that this wasn’t a Christian book):

Level 1: Contains behaviors that are regarded as normal, acceptable, or tolerable. Examples include masturbation, homosexuality, and prostitution.

Did you notice that the examples of Level 1 sexual addiction place masturbation—which most human beings practice—

right along with the relatively rarer practices of homosexuality and prostitution? I would be wil ing to wager that the vast majority of men reading this book do not engage in homosexual acts or use prostitutes. But if masturbation is a level one sexual addiction, then most of us are en route to rehab.

ZENDER & COLPO

245

I breathe air all the time. Does that make me an oxygen addict? I eat at least six times a day, every day, and have done so for over half a century. Does this make me a food addict? I sleep a third of my life away, as does nearly everyone else on the planet. Are we all addicted to sleep? I constantly seek beauty in the world, including from, but not restricted to, members of the fair sex. Am I a sex addict? Or do I only become a sex addict when people try to cure me of my “affliction” by guilting me to death and threatening me with God’s wrath?

FROM STEPHEN ARTERBURN:

▶ If we categorize being totally pure and holy as the zero level [of addiction], most Christian men we know would fall somewhere between Level 0 and Level 1.

▶ Men receive a chemical high from sexually charged images—a hormone called epinephrine is secreted into the bloodstream, which locks into the memory whatever stimulus is present at the time of the emotional excitement. I’ve counseled men who become emotionally and sexually stimulated just from entertaining thoughts of sexual activity.

Imagine that. Stephen Arterburn has actually counseled men who actually become emotionally and sexually stimulated from entertaining thoughts of sexual activity. Who could have guessed?

ARTERBURN: What is the problem, sir?

PATIENT: Whenever I think about sexual activity, I become sexually stimulated.

ARTERBURN: I have seen this before—in fact, I have seen it in every single man I’ve ever met. Welcome to Level 1 addiction. You are safe here, and can tell me everything.

Search your soul; I am sensing you are riddled with many more addictions.

ZENDER & COLPO

247

PATIENT: (voice quavering) Yes. When ... when I think about food ... I become hungry.

ARTERBURN: There, there, now. This is a place of confession and cleansing. You have a Level 1 food addiction.

God has brought you here; I charge only $150 per hour.

And yet I suspect that, even now, you are holding out on me.

PATIENT: (quietly weeping) You are a man of great spiritual insight. Once, while attending a Jerry Seinfeld performance, I ... I started ... laughing.

ARTERBURN: (shaking head) You have deep psychological problems that will take years to work through.

PATIENT: Save me, Stephen!

STEPHEN ARTERBURN:

▶ From my counseling experience, I believe it’s often true that those men living at Level 1 or worse have deep psychological problems that will take years to work through.

▶ Another way of looking at the scope of the problem is to picture a bell curve. According to our experiences, we figure around 10 percent of men have no sexual-temptation problem with their eyes and their minds. At the other end of the curve, we figure there’s another 10 percent of men who are sexual addicts and have a serious problem with lust. They’ve been so beaten and scarred by emotional events that they simply can’t overcome that sin in their lives. They need more counseling and a transforming washing by the Word. The rest of us comprise the middle 80 percent, living in various shades of gray when it comes to sexual sin.

My first impulse, when Seven Arterburn writes, “we figure around 10 percent of men have no sexual-temptation problem with their eyes and their minds,” is to ask which morgue he visited. But then I thought, strictly speaking,

248

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

he might be right to say that only 10 percent of men have a problem with sexual-temptation involving their eyes and minds. After all, it is the most natural thing in the world for the eyes and minds of men to gravitate toward sexual things.

The only men who could possibly have a problem with it are 1) men mired in religions, and 2) men who read Every Man’s Battle (sorry for the redundancy). I was encouraged, therefore, that perhaps this odd bunch of nature-denying males really does comprise only 10 percent of the male population.—MZ

2

Heidi

A friend gifted our family this summer with season passes to a local water park. If ever there were a place where women displayed their bodies, this was it. The bikini girls sometimes discomfited me, not because I thought two-piece swimsuits were evil, but because I knew that the suits and their owners would catch my husband’s eye. Just because men admiring women is normal and healthy doesn’t mean that my reaction to it is always that way. I want my husband to admire me, and he does, but he also admires that which saunters in front of him at close range.

What startled me, however, was my 11 year-old son’s reaction to the females. I watched his eyes gently but insistently landing upon young teenage bodies. I am sure that what startled him was my response to his optical adventures.

I said, “Son, if you would like to look at the girls, it is perfectly all right. God made women beautiful on purpose, and He also made you so that you would notice them. Just don’t be rude and gawk.” The poor kid looked shocked, like, How did you know what I was thinking? Ah, mommy is wise.

ZENDER & COLPO

249

I just smiled and put my arm around his shoulder. After that, Anthony never made a huge deal about the girls, but would simply admire them and move on to the slides and diving boards. What do you think would have happened had I made a fuss over it and prohibited him from looking?

I’d have been laying the foundation for him to become a porn addict—or worse. He would rebel as all humans rebel against unnatural prohibitions of a God-given bent. It’s a paradox isn’t it? My making Anthony feel comfortable and accepted—and still loved—in the face of his natural inclination toward the feminine form has actually immunized him against future rebellion and addiction. Do you want to make sex addicts out of your children? Then shame them about sex.

The same goes for your husband.—HC

2

MZ

Men receive a chemical high from sexual y charged images—a hormone called epinephrine is secreted into the bloodstream, which locks into the memory whatever stimulus is present at the time of the emotional excitement. I’ve counseled men who become emotionally and sexually stimulated just from entertaining thoughts of sexual activity. —Stephen Arterburn One wonders why men responding natural y—and therefore legitimately—to the presence of a God-given hormone need professional counseling. I guess that if a man has it hammered into him long enough and hard enough by a guilt-ridden, fear-based society that his natural desire for women (that is, his sexual lust for the opposite gender resulting from the secretion of a God-given hormone) is wrong,

ZENDER & COLPO

251

then to counseling he will go. I propose to you that it is this very sort of badgering and the requisite condemnation that creates addicts in the first place.

At the invitation of a friend, I once attended a 10-step meeting. Being free of any addictions myself (thankfully, no one had ever badgered or condemned me for being human), I sat in as an observer as part of a literal circle of men confessing their addictions to one another.

Some men did have hardcore addictions, either to alcohol, drugs, pornography, or approval. But there was one kid there who, like me, was just hanging out. I had seen him before; he was part of a Christian rock band serving the church of which this group’s leader was pastor.

Standard procedure at groups like this is to go around the circle taking turns sharing. Introductions proceed by formula, with each man saying, “Hello, my name is so-and-so. I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and I struggle with whatever”—and then the man launches into that week’s trials and victories.

Not many eighteen year-olds suffer addictions, and this kid was no exception. But when one sits in such a circle, one feels compelled to name some addiction—any addiction—

in order to feel a part of the group. So when the kid’s turn came, he said, “Hello, my name is Justin. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I struggle with lusting after women, in real life and on computer screens.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire. I could tell that Justin did not struggle with this at all. I could tell by the slight smile curling up his mouth that he only said he struggled with it.

Why the pose? Because, in this group, he was expected to struggle. What was he supposed to say?

“Hel o, my name is Justin. I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and I lust after beautiful women all the time; but, to tell you

252

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

the truth, I don’t struggle with it at all. In fact, I enjoy every second of it. Life is so wonderful when I notice all the beautiful women in the world; there is nothing like a beautiful woman to make a gray day happy. Do you see me out there raping women and abusing little girls? Not me. I’m just your average, red-blooded male, enjoying God’s creation.”

I wish he had said that. It would have made my day.

Instead, I had to make my own day. When it came my turn, I should have said, “pass.” Judging by the looks I got when I did speak, I’d have been much better off.

“Hello,” I said. “My name is Martin Zender. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I struggle with the fact that I have no struggles.”

Fortunately, looks do not kill. Only one person laughed.

It was the kid.—MZ

9 sexuAl grAtIFIcAtIon

254

sexuAl grAtIFIcAtIon

ToFred Stoeker, sexual lust is impurity of the eyes, and is necessarily sexual foreplay, which leads to

“defiling the marriage bed.”

For males, impurity of the eyes is sexual foreplay (pg. 66).

Impurity of the eyes provides definite sexual gratification. Isn’t that foreplay? (pg. 59).

Fred fails to recognize degrees of sexual gratification, insisting that any sexual gratification leads to the sin of

“defiling the marriage bed”:

It’s critical to recognize visual sexual impurity as foreplay.

If viewing sensual things merely provides a flutter of appreciation for a woman’s beauty, it would be no different than viewing the awesome power of a thunderstorm racing over the

ZENDER & COLPO

256

Iowa cornfields. No sin. No problem. But if it is foreplay, and if you’re getting sexual gratification, it defiles the marriage bed. Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral—Hebrews 13:4 (pg. 68).

For the first and only time in the book, Fred Stoeker seems to admit there could be such a thing as “a flutter of appreciation for a woman’s beauty.” But don’t worry; it’s hypothetical. To Fred, no flutter could be innocent.

In the Fred World, flutter leads invariably to fuck. Fred Stoeker fights his own moral battles, and because he knows himself, he cannot trust himself. Because Fred Stoeker relies on human self-control (he is religious) rather than the flesh-checking ability of God’s spirit, he cannot take chances. He also assumes everyone is like him. Since Fred assumes everyone’s self control apparatus is as shaky as his, he cannot believe that anyone could possibly stop the lust train at a mere flutter of appreciation of feminine beauty.

Since, in Fred’s mind, the flutter of appreciation inevitably leads to sin, he counts it as actual sexual foreplay Blame religion

I hypothesize that both Fred and co-author Stephen Arterburn suffered early under religious condemnation, making them react abnormally to sexual stimulation of the most innocent and enjoyable variety. Concluding that any and all such stimulation would inevitably lead to either rape or adultery—or to a host of other things they define as “sexual immorality”—they panicked. It is this irrational panic, based on an irrational and misguided fear of divine condemnation, that forced them to the abnormal solution

257

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

based on their abnormal conclusion: It is best to avoid sexual stimulation altogether.

The Amish share this same illogical, fear-based mindset. Why do the Amish eschew modern conveniences?

They are convinced that all such things lead to deeper sin.

For instance, if they watch a Gilligan’s Island rerun today, tomorrow they will produce porn videos. If they touch their sex organs today, tomorrow they will be screwing pole dancers. If they paint their buggies anything but black today, tomorrow they’ll be pimping their Porsches.

Doesn’t anyone trust the spirit of God any more? —MZ

2

Heidi

I used to suffer from mental tugs of war. These wars got waged between what I wanted to do and the voice of religion telling me that I shouldn’t do it. The conflict resembled the classic cartoon of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. More times than not I would side with the devil simply because I couldn’t resist my inclinations. But the guilt of giving in to what I considered to be the devil threatened to kill me. The guilt was self-imposed, however.

The freedom of Christ is not a license to sin or an escape from consequence. It’s just a great way to live. The laws and ridiculous regulations (man-made, not Scriptural) imposed upon me as a young woman turned me into a rebel. When I came to know Christ for who He was and what He had accomplished on the cross for me, the freedom I got was true freedom. It wasn’t a hypothetical freedom where I bound myself into dozens of self-imposed moral straitjackets and cal ed it freedom. The new freedom calmed me. Knowing that I could sin like crazy and never fall into God’s disfavor

ZENDER & COLPO

258

actually settled my flesh. Another paradox: the freedom to sin made me want to not sin. It was law that made me want to sin; law lights that fire every time. The unconditional love of God made me want to find new ways of honoring God. I don’t always make the right choices in life and, like anyone else, the consequences of my sins hurt. But they don’t damage my relationship with God or, more importantly, His relationship with me. The guilt I used to shoulder is gone; yes, even when I screw up. Life really is more joyful when a million prohibitions disappear from over one’s head.

I am now free to express myself because I’m comfortable and confident in God’s love. God made me the way that I am, and He doesn’t make mistakes.—HC

2

MZ

Where in Scripture is sexual gratification a sin?

If viewing sensual things merely provides a flutter of appreciation for a woman’s beauty, it would be no different than viewing the awesome power of a thunderstorm racing over the Iowa cornfields. No sin. No problem. But if it is foreplay, and if you’re getting sexual gratification, it defiles the marriage bed (pg. 68).

I agree with Fred that “a flutter of appreciation for a woman’s beauty” cannot happen apart from sexual gratification. But my question is: What the hell is wrong with sexual gratification? Our authors’ first mistake is assuming

“sexual” to equal “evil.” Their second mistake is assuming that any gratification acquired outside marriage is “defiling the marriage bed.” Their third mistake is assuming that the mere appreciation of female beauty inevitably leads to either

259

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

actual or masturbation/fantasy-based intercourse with the source of that beauty.

It happens to me all the time: I see a beautiful woman, and there is a flutter of appreciation. Is this lust? Yes. Lust is desire, and I am desiring the woman’s beauty. Note: I am not desiring her, but her beauty. I can easily desire her beauty without desiring her; I do it all the time. In fact, I’m sure I have done it tens of thousands of times. But let’s say I do desire her. Does that mean I take her to bed? No. My spirit-directed conscience kicks in, and I walk away.

(Fred doesn’t get this, and can’t. Fred distrusts the spirit of God within to check his behavior. I see no evidence—

after reading Every Man’s Battle—that Fred Stoeker even has the spirit of God within him. Fred has the spirit of religion, to be sure—he has that in droves—but the spirit of God is undetectable. Fred makes it clear that he saves himself by the hour from moral ruin. He accomplishes this by amazing feats of self-discipline. Since this is so, why wouldn’t he also believe that he saves himself from spiritual ruin? The difference between Fred and unbelievers—to Fred—is that Fred chose Christ while the unbelievers did not. Thus, Fred saved himself by believing in Jesus. It is not the faith of Christ that saved Fred, but Fred’s faith in Christ. All Fred’s writing smacks of this. Since Fred’s so-called spiritual life began, not with Christ, but with his decision to accept Christ, Fred naturally continues this course and sustains his walk via acts of nearly surreal asceticism. His battle against lust is but one example of this.)

My lust for a passing woman’s beauty may be low-grade lust, but it is lust just the same. It is also sexual gratification; I will not deny it. Why should I? I am being gratified (receiving pleasure) from a member of the opposite sex. It may be

ZENDER & COLPO

260

low-grade gratification, but the grade doesn’t matter, only the essence—and the essence is gratification.

I’m human . Where, in Scripture, does God call such low-grade sexual satisfaction sin? Why is looking at a pastry in a bakery window fine, but looking at a beautiful woman in a party dress a sin? Did God make the pastry? No; it’s a man-made abortion of sugar and over-processed wheat flour.

But He surely made the woman.

Let’s say my hormones kicked in at age 13. I am constantly aware that I occupy a planet filled with amazing creatures known as women. I am also constantly aware that a good percentage of these women are beautiful. Because much of life is ugly and hard, I lust for (that is, I desire) beauty—any beauty. So when I see a beautiful woman, my eyes naturally gravitate toward her; I do not bounce my eyes from her any more than I would bounce them from a rainbow or a glazed donut.

I’ve been exercising my flutter rights for over forty years now. I figure I experience the flutter of appreciation at least ten times a day. There are 365 days in a year. Allowing for at least ten flutters per day, every day, for, say 40 years, I have enjoyed the flutter of appreciation for beautiful women 146,000 times. According to Fred’s theory, then—that

“foreplay outside of marriage is wrong” (pg. 66), and visual gratification is “a form of sex for men” (pg. 68), and that lust is defined as “any look that creates that little chemical high, that little pop” (pg. 125), and that lusting after a woman is the same as committing adultery (a misquote of Matthew 5:28, which we will address shortly)—I have committed adultery (we might as well just say, “had sex with”) 146,000

different women.

That’s strange. It feels like a lot less. —MZ

ZENDER & COLPO

262

2

Heidi

We sometimes get spoon-fed lies via the most unexpected circumstances and unlikely people. For me, it was a highly-acclaimed Ob/Gyn. Someone recommended him when I was first married and had moved to Birmingham. This man was not only known as a great doctor, but an upstanding citizen and a Christian. His care was renowned. One great thing about him was that he would take time to talk to his patients. He sat down with me one day and took the time to ask me how my life was going. I was deeply troubled by Danny’s porn addiction then, but I had nobody that I could open up to about it, so I thought, Here is my chance to talk to someone who is not only a Christian but also not ashamed to talk about sex, so I opened up to him. I’ll never forget the advice he gave me that day. I don’t remember the exact words he used, but the good doctor said that I had Biblical grounds to divorce Danny. He used Matthew 5:28 as the foundation of his argument: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” He said that since Danny had been unfaithful to me in this way, then I could pursue the Matthew 5:31-32

course—

And it was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

The damning part of this verse, according to the doctor, was the part about “unchastity.” Since Danny, according to

263

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

the doctor, had breached our marital agreement of faithfulness, then I had an “out”—according to the doctor.

I have asked myself many times since that day, “What if I had divorced Danny over this?” For one thing, four incredibly precious children would never have come into this world. I know that I would have missed out on the customized trials and joys that have made me who I am. Besides that, I would have left my husband on a completely twisted premise. Those verses, as Martin explains, are twisted by religion to mean something that they were never intended to mean.

Danny, like so many other men, struggled with something far beyond the “problem” of looking at female beauty.

Why was he looking? Few people ever ask that question. I have come to believe that female beauty soothed a deep hurt way down inside of him. It was the way he went about it—being secretive—that damaged our relationship. Out of his love for me, Danny didn’t want to subject me to the pain and hurt he felt, so he horded the hurt and drove it into an addiction. It was his religious upbringing that had boxed him in and shamed him into thinking that his attraction to women was somehow wrong. It was his religious upbringing, I believe, that fanned the flames of addiction. Were it not for that, Danny’s porn use would have been just another thing that he did. It would have been considered “recreational”—

like watching television or going to the movies. It would not have had such a hold on him. I thank God that Danny and I are still together. Thank God that I didn’t listen to that idiot doctor. Thank God that I began a sober and loving investigation into why Danny was looking at porn, and I could then begin a constructive rather than a judgmental dialog about it. —HC

2

ZENDER & COLPO

264

MZ

If I am receiving sexual gratification from the eyes, then according to Fred, I have “defiled the marriage bed” 146,000

times. Is there a compartment of hell hot enough for me?

Here is the infamous “defile the marriage bed” verse, as quoted by Fred on page 68. This is from the NIV: Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral (Hebrews 13:4).

Once again, here is a case where the NIV turns a specific sinner known as a paramour (a male who commits the sin of cult prostitution) into “all the sexually immoral,” allowing people like Fred Stoeker to tell us who “all the sexually immoral” are. In this case, it’s any man who lusts for (that is, who looks with a flutter of appreciation at) a member of the opposite sex.

Here is what God real y said. This is from the Concordant Literal New Testament:

May matrimony be honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, for paramours and adulterers will God be judging.

This verse is simply warning married couples to keep other married people—as well as, or including, those committing prostitutions—out of their beds. Is that so difficult?

Men who appreciate the beauty of the opposite sex are not, by any Scriptural standard, defiling the marriage bed.

Adultery? In your dreams

This sort of self-inspired, sexual insanity has so grasped and ensnared Christian men that some of them now believe

265

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

they are committing adultery in their sleep. I kid you not.

A man named Joe—he has a thing for female beach volley-ball players; who doesn’t?—relates on pages 23-24 of Every Man’s Battle:

At night, I’ve had shockingly vivid dreams with these women.

Some have been so exhilarating and so real that I wake up the next morning certain that I’ve been to bed with them. Heavy with guilt, I wonder where my wife is, sure she has left me over this affair and wondering how I could have done such a thing. Finally, as the cobwebs clear, it slowly dawns on me that it was just a dream. But even then I feel uneasy. You want to know why? Because while I know it was just a dream, I’m not at all certain it wasn’t some form of adultery.

Leave it to guilt-oriented Christians to learn to damn themselves for even their dreams. Wow. Not even the law of Moses tapped into that sin market.

Call the cops; Now we’re thieves and embezzlers It is not enough for Fred Stoeker to insist that, simply by looking at women, normal men can rightly be considered adulterers. Now, any man who catches even a glance of a woman’s cleavage is— literally—a thief and an embezzler.

From page 72 of Every Man’s Battle: The impure thought life is the life of a thief. You’re stealing images that aren’t yours. When you had premarital sex, you touched someone who didn’t belong to you. When you looked down the blouse of a woman who isn’t your wife, you were stealing something that isn’t yours to take. It’s just like walking down Main Street behind someone who drops a one-hundred dollar bill out of his pocket, and you pick it up.

267

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

That money isn’t yours— even if he didn’t know he lost it. If you choose to keep the money instead of saying, “Hey, Mister,”

then you’ve taken something you’re not entitled to.

Similarly, if a woman’s blouse falls open, you can’t say,

“Hey, that’s in my sight line, I get to have that.” No, you have to look away. Otherwise you’re a thief. You need to leave that valuable creation in the hands of God and her husband or her future husband. When we’re thieves with our eyes, we’re embezzling sexual gratification from areas that don’t belong to us, from women who aren’t connected to us.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. If Fred is right here, and men are supposed to think this way, then no man with either sacs, semen, or eyes—or even all three—can go to an art museum and emerge pure and holy. That’s because, at an art museum, there are many paintings and even sculptures (such as the “Venus de Milo” at the Louvre in Paris) of women who are not only naked, but bereft of any marital ties to the male museum-goer.

Let’s insert the museum analogy into this particular homemade condemnation of Fred Stoeker’s and see—yet again—how ridiculous a Fred Stoeker homemade condemnation can truly be:

The impure thought life is the life of a thief. You’re stealing images that aren’t yours. When you looked at the breasts of a naked woman in a painting at a museum, and that woman was not your wife, you were stealing something that isn’t yours to take ... If you see the sculpture of a woman with lovely breasts, such as the Venus de Milo, you can’t say, “Hey, that’s in my sight line, I get to have that.” No, you have to look away. Otherwise you’re a thief. You need to leave that valuable creation in the hands of God and her husband or her future husband, or her past husband.

269

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

If it were up to Fred, we would see the fol owing warning sign at the Louvre:

WELCOME TO THE LOUVRE. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE

MODEL FOR THE VENUS DE MILO WAS MARRIED. THERE-

FORE, OUT OF RESPECT FOR HER PAST HUSBAND, KINDLY

BOUNCE YOUR EYES FROM HER LOVELY TITS.

As I’ve stated before, if this were any sort of principle to live by, how could a single man be legitimately attracted to any woman? He’s not allowed to lust after anyone but his wife—but he currently has no wife. He has no choice, then—if ever he is to be married—but to lust after (look at with a sexual flutter) a woman who is not his wife. If her blouse happens to fall open (darn those cheap buttons), he has to turn his eyes away out of deference to the woman’s husband “or future husband.” What if he becomes her future husband? Then he must turn away out of deference to himself. Otherwise, he is stealing—from himself. According to Fred Stoeker, there is no way this man can ever be married without first sinning. Even if he eventually marries the woman for whom he is experiencing the flutter of sexual appreciation, he is presently sinning both against her and against God. He is stealing what is not his.

Every road to marriage, therefore, is necessarily—

according to Fred Stoeker—paved with sin.

The road to Fred Stoeker’s book, however, is paved with grievous sin.—MZ

10 the mAtthew 5:28 lIe

271

the mAtthew 5:28 lIe

Perhaps no verse has been as misunderstood, misconstrued, and misused to condemn the natural instincts of men, as Matthew 5:28. This verse has been wielded by countless wives to punish faithful husbands by putting them into the same category as those men who actually climb into the windows of the homes of married women and put their penises into their vaginas.

Some women have even divorced their husbands because of it.

Jesus said the following:

But I say to you, that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:28).

272

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

There is a crime to this context. What is it? Adultery. No one reads verse 27. Here it is: “You hear that it was declared,

‘You shall not be committing adultery.’” Let us start here.

That the crime in this context is adultery tells us that if a single man were to look upon a single women with lust in his heart, he could not be committing the sin of this misap-propriated verse. Correct? How could he be, since adultery involves only married people? Already, then, we have discovered a flaw in the common interpretation of this passage: a single man, lusting with his eyes, cannot commit the sin of this passage against a single woman.

What about a married man? I contend to you that a man who is drawn (lust) to a woman’s beauty, and who then walks away— without the intent to steal her from another man—

experiences a normal function of his eyes, sacs, semen, and hormones, and does not sin. A man who lusts after a woman to commit adultery with her, however, has sinned . In order to commit the brand of sin Jesus referred to, there must be the intent to steal the woman from her husband.

Let us review Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 7:2—

Because of prostitutions, let each man have a wife for himself, and each woman have her own husband.

A man’s temptation to engage in some kind of illegal sexual intercourse (“prostitutions”) is, in Paul’s mind, practical y a given. In Paul’s mind, the problem is not the desire, but rather what a man does with that desire. Paul does not say: “Shame on you for desiring something not good for you.”

He certainly doesn’t consider the mere desire to be a risk. He says, in effect, “Since men can’t help being drawn toward il icit sexual intercourse, and since il icit sexual intercourse would be wrong, then every man ought to ‘have’ his own wife.”

ZENDER & COLPO

273

Otherwise, he would have said, “Because of prostitutions, let each man confess his sin and repent.”

It is not the desire that concerns Paul, but rather the illegal avenues available to it. Paul wants the desire channeled toward sex within the marriage.

If adultery consists of merely looking at a woman, even with desire in the heart to be with her, then every man would be guilty. Why? Because God made men to appreciate feminine beauty. If men did not appreciate and lust after feminine beauty—and, in fact, for the women themselves—

they would never marry.

Many women will not like what I am about to say, but it is nonetheless true: Men do not primarily marry so that they can father babies and spend thousands of dollars every year being responsible for other people. They marry because God poured five-quarts of testosterone into them, and they want desperately to have regular sex with the same woman.

Men lust by default. It’s what they do with that lust that makes it sin or not.

In 2 Samuel 11:2, David saw a beautiful woman bathing.

It was Bathsheba. David appreciated Bathsheba’s beautiful body. This, itself, was lust. Remember, lust merely means

“desire.” There are good lusts and bad. The lust to see beauty is a good lust, in that it is natural. We humans lust to eat; we lust to drink; we lust to sleep; we lust to find beauty in the world; we lust to spend time with our families; we lust for meaningful work; Jesus lusted to eat the Passover with His disciples (Luke 22:15); the holy spirit lusts against the flesh (Galatians 5:17). These are all good and legitimate desires, that is, lusts.

If David had only lusted for the beauty of Bathsheba, all would have been well. I will go even further and say that

274

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

had he only desired the woman herself and—because of the spirit of God within him—refrained from stealing her from her husband, all would have been well.

A person who loves food may lust for (desire) the sight and smell of pizza. This corresponds to David appreciating the beauty of Bathsheba’s naked body. Is it wrong to desire something so delicious as the sight and smell of a hot pizza?

No; it is completely natural. David’s desire for the beauty of the hot Bathsheba was also completely natural. Now let’s say that a hypothetical pizza person not only lusts for the smell and the sight of the hot pizza, but for the pizza itself.

In this case, there are six huge, hot pizzas sitting inside a glass window. This is the equivalent of hot Bathsheba being extremely enticing, and David saying in his mind, “It would sure be an amazing experience—I am betting—to make love with that hot, married woman. In fact, everything in me wants to do it.”

The potential sin for David is adultery; the potential sin for the pizza person is gluttony.

At this point, have either the King of Israel or the pizza person committed acts of either adultery or gluttony? No.

But here is the big question: Have either of them committed these sins in their minds?

No.

How has the pizza person committed gluttony in the simple act of desiring the pizzas? At this point, the spirit of God can yet activate and cause the pizza person to exercise self-control.

After al , if there were never any temptations in life, how could anyone nobly resist them? Without real temptations, the spirit of God would never have a foil for display.

For David and the pizza person to be guilty of the kind of mental sin Jesus refers to in Matthew 5:28, one key ingredient must be present: intent.

276

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Let us say that the only thing holding back the pizza person from buying the pizzas and consuming them on-site is the presence of three people from his church sitting in a nearby booth. If not for these people, the pizza person would surely buy and consume all six hot pizzas in one sitting. In this case, then, not only is the desire to eat the six pizzas present, but the intent is as well. The only thing lacking is opportunity. Thus, the pizza person has as good as done the deed and—in Jesus’ estimation—committed gluttony in his heart.

Now, back to David. If David merely admires the beauty of the hot Bathsheba and leaves it at that, he has not committed adultery with her, not even in his heart.

If he desires to have her for a wife, but decides against it when the spirit within convicts him, he has not committed adultery with her, not even in his heart. It is only when David lusts in his heart to commit adultery with Bathsheba, and schemes to carry it out, that he is as good as guilty, as good as if he had actually done the deed. That he actually does do the deed (he eventually has Bathsheba’s husband killed in war so he can have her for his own) proves that the intent, not just the desire, was there all along.

The desire/lust to commit a sin is not, specifical y, sin. It is, rather, a common inclination of the flesh. Without inclinations of the flesh, there can be no opportunity for the spirit of God to rise up and counter with an act of self-control.

Jesus Himself was tempted by Satan; note this: He was actually tempted. That is, our Lord thought about carrying out the power trips Satan dangled before Him . The thoughts, therefore, were not sins, but merely temptations (desires, lusts) to possibly sin. Without temptations to sin, the overcoming power of the holy spirit has no field upon which

ZENDER & COLPO

277

to exercise. Unless our Lord was truly tried, His resistance can hardly impress us. But because He was tried to the point of actually considering Satan’s astounding offers, the spirit within saves the day and His sinlessness stuns us.

“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympa-thize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). It is the act of adultery that is a sin. The thought of adultery is a sin only if the man intends to enact the thought, spirit of God be damned. Otherwise, the thought is merely that—a thought. Even better, it is an opportunity for the exercise of God’s spirit.

Looking, therefore, is not the sin of Matthew 5:28. The sin of Matthew 5:28 is not even the natural desire to make love to a woman—any woman—for that would only provide an opportunity for the spirit of self-control to kick in. It is not even the brief consideration of possibly stealing the woman from her husband. No, the sin of Matthew 5:28 is lusting after a woman to commit adultery with her. That is, if the man could have five minutes alone with the married woman, he would steal her. This is the sin of the context: the intent to steal another man’s wife. If a man lusts in his heart to commit adultery with a married woman—that is, if having her as his own is the intent of his heart, and he would surely do it at the first opportunity—then these specific thoughts count with God as actually committing the crime.

Philo Thelos writes in Divine Sex: Liberating Sex from Religious Tradition:

Human nature is such that every normal male is sexually attracted to a pretty woman. He doesn’t have to “work up”

an attraction, it is simply there. It is automatic for a man to delight in the sight of a beautiful woman and to have a

ZENDER & COLPO

279

strong sense of her sexuality. It is all part of one package ... If a man looks at a beautiful woman, is sexually aroused, and is moved to ask the woman for a date, has he sinned? Is a man’s delight in a woman’s sexuality legitimate, as part of his desire to marry her?

A man is aroused by the physical/sexual beauty of a married woman. Is this arousal sin? That is, if a man is sexually excited by the beauty of a married woman, yet has no desire and forms no intention to take her away from her husband, has he sinned? Where is the sin—in the look? In the sexual excitement? What biblical word or phrase describes this act as sin? Is being sexual y aroused the same as desiring to possess a person?

It may not be apparent to wives that when their husband

“checks out” a beautiful woman, he is not somehow being

“mentally unfaithful” to her, or wishing he had married someone else, or he no longer thinks that she is beautiful, or he no longer loves her ... If a husband looks appreciatively at another woman, the wife need not feel hurt, as though she has somehow become less in his eyes.1

Falsely accused

A man wrote to me—

Martin, I have been a loyal husband to my wife of 30 years.

I have never cheated on her, and never even thought of it. I love her, and our two children. I have provided for my family, and have been a present, loving husband.

My wife was brought up very religious, and she has a very low tolerance for anything that has even a hint of sin. I am more of a maverick kind of guy, and I live all-out. I appreciate great food and I am especially fond of sports cars. I don’t own one because I can’t afford it, but I like to look at them.

I also admit that I like to look at beautiful women. I think that any man who says he doesn’t like to look at beautiful 1 page vi

280

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

women is lying. It’s as simple as that. It is so stupid to deny that women are beautiful. Who are we trying to kid? I don’t see any reason for denying it.

My wife is very shy. In addition to this, she is insecure.

At various times in our marriage, she has seen me looking at other women, and it has hurt her. I never did this overtly—or tried to. But my head would turn, and she would catch me. Or she would see me at the magazine rack looking at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover. I never tried to contact any of the swimsuit models, or cheat on my wife with them. I just looked at them and felt happy inside because their bodies were so beautiful. It did not mean I didn’t love my wife.

I knew that my wife was sensitive about this, so I tried to be sensitive about it as well. I was very careful not to let her see me admiring other beautiful women. (My wife is beautiful, by the way.) I suppose you could say I should have just stopped looking at beautiful women. I know this is what the book, Every Man’s Battle, is about. The truth is, I was just about willing to try what the book said, for the sake of my wife. But there was only one problem.

I would have had to convince myself that my heart was wicked—and I knew it wasn’t. Even if it was, how would an outward law help it? The outward law does not touch the root of the heart, it only puts on a good face; the heart is still the same.

Jesus changes the heart. In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus is expanding the law to include intent. I prayed earnestly to Jesus to change my heart, but He never did. By this I came to understand that my heart was fine; there was nothing wrong with it. I never had an adulterous heart. But my wife thought I did, and she said so.

I am about to tell you what religious condemnation can do to a person. I realize now that if my wife had not condemned me for my natural instincts, it would have calmed me and lessened my impulses, just as it calmed me to learn from God that I was saved by grace. Outward laws only build resentments. What good is bouncing the eyes if my wife’s acceptance of me is conditioned upon it, and I can’t do it all the time? What if I make a mistake and look at a beautiful

ZENDER & COLPO

281

woman? The resentment and condemnation of my wife would be a mistake away. How could I be comfortable with her, knowing this? How could I be comfortable with my wife, knowing her acceptance of me was not based upon grace, but upon my ability to control what I considered a natural function? Here is what my wife said to me; I came home one day, and she said, “Why have you committed adultery so many times? You are an adulterer. You have cheated on me hundreds of times.”

Martin, I was floored. Stunned. For several moments, I literally could not move. I just stood there, dumbfounded.

This statement came out of the blue. I finally got my wits about me and asked her what she was talking about.

“Every time you look at a beautiful woman, you commit adultery with her,” she said. “That’s what Jesus said. Jesus said that lusting after a woman is the same as committing adultery with her. If that is true—and it is obviously true because Jesus said it—then you have committed adultery many, many times.”

I don’t know where this came from. She must have been talking with some of her girlfriends. She went to a woman’s Bible study once a week, and I had to guess that that is where this attack came from. Because that’s exactly what it was: an attack. I was enraged in the face of this accusation, but I controlled myself. I knew that if I started defending myself then I would say something I would regret, so I just excused myself and left the room.

What good was my faithfulness? I am a good-looking man, and have had many opportunities to cheat on my wife over the years. Yet I never have. Even when a beautiful woman would strike up a conversation with me, I would talk for only so long, then walk away. I would never allow myself to dine alone with another woman. That was one of the rules I made for myself. I was very conscientious. I am a good, Christian man. I love my wife, and I love my children. I also have a healthy sex drive, and my wife does not always consider that.

In fact, my wife has actually told me, “I could live the rest of my life without sex.”

282

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

I have had opportunities to cheat, and the temptations have been there to cheat; don’t think it has never crossed my mind. I know how good it would feel. I know what a thrill it would be.

But I have always resisted, because I am a good man, a loving man, and a Christian man.

One time, at a business conference at a fancy hotel, I met a beautiful woman (she was married) who was actual y a model for our company. The woman came on to me. My wife has no idea how hard it is sometimes to resist things like that. I excused myself and hurried to my room and locked my door, and I literal y sweated in my resistance to that woman. I did not want to commit adultery. I hate adultery; it is a grievous sin. I would never take another man’s wife, and neither would I cheat on mine. I am only describing to you the temptation, which was very real. It was a real struggle, not imagined. I succeeded because I love my wife, because I love my children, and because I am a good Christian man and the spirit of God lives in me.

So what? With my wife’s comments, I realized that none of my efforts mattered. All my efforts were crap. I was an adulterer anyway. For all my prayer and struggle, and for all my desire to do the right thing, and for all the grace given me by God to resist temptation—and for all my hundreds of successes in actually doing the right thing—I was neverthe-less lumped in with men who actually screwed other men’s wives. I was lumped in with men who habitually gave into the temptation, who had no morals, and who did not care if they wrecked their families, or anyone else’s. In my wife’s mind, I was the same as these other men. I was an adulterer.

This revelation from my wife devastated me. I got no credit whatsoever for 25 years of faithfulness—in spite of severe temptations. The spirit of God inside me that made me love my wife and be faithful to her did not matter at all to her. Not at all.

Please, please, please, Martin! Please publish the truth about this, and help save marriages!

284

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The eyes are guiltless

See how this man’s wife classically misquoted Matthew 5:28. She said, “Every time you look at a beautiful woman, you commit adultery with her.” This is the common misapprehension. But Matthew 5:28 does not say that looking equals adultery. It does not even say that lusting equals adultery. It is lusting with the intent of committing adultery that equals adultery. Intent means that the only thing lacking is opportunity, and that the luster would do the deed at first opportunity— that equals adultery.

Jesus’ message was not: “Stop appreciating beautiful women!” It is a murdering of the context to construe it as such, and God only knows how many marriages this misin-terpretation has ruined. Moral integrity must be real rather than cosmetic— that was Jesus’ message.

Adultery does not proceed from the eyes. If it did, then blind men could not commit adultery. The eyes have nothing to do with adultery. Thus, no man needs to bounce his from feminine beauty. Adultery proceeds from the heart, not the eyes—

“For out of the heart proceeds ... adulteries” (Matthew 15:19; c.f. Mark 7:21).

The eyes, therefore, are guiltless.—MZ

2

Heidi

To help you understand what had happened in our marriage, I must share with you how each of us was raised.

I always come back to this because it’s the key to everything. After his father died, Danny and his older brother were raised by their mother. Danny was one year-old, so he didn’t remember ever having a father. I respect his mother

ZENDER & COLPO

285

for her ability to raise two boys without a man in the house.

She did the best that she could, but religion—and her own repressive upbringing—kept her from the ability to nurture in her sons a healthy view of sex. Just recently, Danny was finally able to disclose some of the deep wounds stemming from his boyhood. When he was about ten years-old, Danny was in his room teaching himself to masturbate. His mom burst in unannounced (as moms are wont to do), and when she saw what was happening, said, “Shame on you!” Yes.

That is what the woman said. Shame. On. You. Because of what she had been told as a girl (someone had shamed her over sex, no doubt), she passed on the legacy of shame (and blame) to her young son. As seemingly insignificant as this might be to an adult, it is larger than life to a child.

This sexually negative atmosphere at Danny’s home was only confirmed by the over-the-top conservative school he attended from 2nd to 8th grade. It was a religious school that was so strict that the boys and girls couldn’t even acci-dentally touch one another—much less get caught hugging behind the water fountain—without getting detention.

Kissing, I suppose, would have spelled execution.

Some children are more susceptible to religious shaming than others, and my poor husband was one of these. The children who do rebel against such systems—even in small ways—are belittled and treated like little criminals. “Did you see that Johnny’s hair was all the way past his ears?

How wretched he is!” “I heard that Susie got a tattoo. . she sure won’t be in heaven when she dies!” “Lucy wears skirts that expose her knees. She’ll probably be a streetwalker in a few years. .” In such an environment, Danny learned to keep his sexual thoughts to himself. Above all, Danny wanted to maintain his “good boy” status. But honestly, that school made Danny think that maybe he really was a bad person for having sexual thoughts.

286

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

As for me, my sister and I were raised by both our parents. Looking back, I had a good childhood. We did a lot of things together as a family and I am thankful to my parents for their provisions even in hard times. As with so many adults of their generation, sex was not openly discussed. I discovered early that God had made me a very sexual being, but I had very little guidance about what my body was doing and what sex meant. As a little girl around the age of four, I remember giving myself pleasure. I now know that I was having an orgasm. But because of my mom’s negative reaction to it (she walked in on me one day), from that time forward I took pains to hide it. I became sneaky.

Deceptive. Sometimes I got away with it, sometimes I didn’t.

I was so ashamed of myself because I couldn’t quit. The more my parents told me to stop, the more I wanted to keep doing it. Does this ring a bell with any of my readers? Because my parents never talked about sex, I figured they thought that there was something dirty about it. Everything that I eventually learned about sex, I learned from my own experiences. My upbringing did not serve me well in preparing me for marriage.

Because he thought that his body was essentially evil and that he better control it or else, Danny could not fully enjoy sex, not even with a willing wife. He feared that I would think less of him for having sexual fantasies that went beyond the two or three sexual positions I offered him, or the conservative nightgowns I wore. I admit that the insecurities I entertained about myself, combined with Danny’s insecurities and the way I at first reacted to the porn issue, all added up to a disastrous beginning to our

“happily-ever-after.”—HC 2

288

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

MZ

“All, indeed, is clean to the clean, yet to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean, but their mind as well as conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15). The wife of the husband whose letter I published—the one who thought that her husband was an adulterer simply by looking with desire at another woman— thought at first that he was the dirty one, and that she was clean. She condemned him, not for adultery, but for noticing beauty; never mind that her sin was jealousy. I cannot help but notice a double-standard. And yet, while the Bible nowhere prohibits an acknowledgment of feminine beauty (how can it, when God Himself notices it), it is rife with warnings against jealousy.

Based on Titus 1:15, I contend that the husband who wrote the previous letter is clean, and that the wife is defiled.

The husband is a believer in Jesus Christ, and thus possesses the spirit of God. The spirit within him testifies to his spirit that his appreciation of feminine beauty is clean. His religious wife, however, is offended by many things. Her condemnation of him is based, not on Scriptural prohibition, but on her own insecurities, jealousies, and personal qualms.

Scripture warns against drunkenness, not wine. Since Jesus Himself drank wine, He obviously considered it clean.

Many religionists falter here; Baptists are prime examples—

they think wine is dirty. How could it be, seeing as how Jesus Himself drank it? Such facts fail, however, to discourage those of a defiled conscience. Their disbelief in the cleanliness of creation makes Paul consider them (per Titus 1:15) “unbelieving.” Conversely, the clean believe all to be clean. This is not me talking; it’s Titus 1:15. My conclusion is startling, yet Scriptural y sound: the wine-drinker is clean; the abstainer is defiled.

Most moralists are defiled; their morality is a pose.

ZENDER & COLPO

289

Loving the weak of faith

The following is Romans 14:1-4, from the New American Standard Bible—

Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats veg-etables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

A husband should never hold in contempt a wife whose weak faith disallows her an understanding of his freedom.

Likewise, the faith-weak wife should not judge her husband’s appreciation of feminine beauty, for God has accepted him.

The following is verses 13-23, from the same chapter of Romans—

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food.

290

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

The husband who does not condemn himself in what he approves, is happy. He should not let his happiness, however, cause his wife to stumble. The freedom he has to appreciate the beauty of women besides his wife should be held as his own conviction, before God. The loving husband will not purposely flaunt his freedom in front of his wife, but neither will he condemn himself. Every Man’s Battle requires him to condemn himself; this is never healthy.

My goal is to deliver men from the condemnation of Every Man’s Battle. Ideally, I also hope to expand the faith of wives, so that the wives will at least no longer judge or condemn their husbands. They may still personally dislike the fact that their husbands look at other women, but jealousy, judgment, and condemnation will get them nowhere.

In fact, these things will eventually destroy the marriage.

The trauma of the letter-writer was not that his wife could not understand his appreciation of the fair sex, but that she judged and condemned him for something that the spirit of God within him insisted was clean. She told him, in essence, that he was a sinner; in fact, that he was an adulterer. None of this was true. This is what killed him: his wife’s jealousy, condemnation, and judgment killed him. It is also what eventually killed the marriage.

HUSBANDS: Do not flaunt your freedom. The freedom you have to admire the beauty of women, have it to yourself.

ZENDER & COLPO

291

Yes, give your wife this book. Yes, try to help her expand her faith and to understand that her acceptance of your God-given bent (that is, your manhood) will cause you to love her more, not less. Far from driving you away from her, it will drive you toward her. She does not realize that her jealousy, judgment, and condemnation of you are the things driving you away and causing you to distrust her. Even so, resist holding her in contempt.

WIVES: If you are able, please try to understand that your husband’s desire to notice feminine beauty is hard-wired in him by God. Because he loves you, he will not flaunt this freedom. But neither will he deny it. To enact the unnatural practices of Every Man’s Battle would be a denial of who he is. Any men attempting such nature-denying practices are doomed to failure, and will eventual y resent those pushing it upon them. As the apostle Paul notes in Colossians 2:20-23, ascetic practices such as those prescribed in Every Man’s Battle are of no moral value, and end up only pampering religious flesh.

HUSBANDS: Your wives are not contemptible.

WIVES: Your husbands are not evil.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES: Continue reading this book, while exercising grace.

Why the battle?

God created sex to be enjoyed, not battled. Why do we make life so difficult for ourselves? We are our own worst enemies. It is always this way with grace and law—and with sex. God says, “Grace,” we say, “Law.” God say, “Sex,” we say, “No, thanks.” It is as if we are terrified of pleasure. It is as if we think that we deserve the worst. It is as if we say to ourselves, Why should we be happy? We see the rest of the

ZENDER & COLPO

293

world struggling and we feel guilty when we live relatively struggle-free lives. Guilt, guilt, guilt. We feel guilt when we eat, guilt when we relax, guilt when we blow off church and relax on Sunday with our family, guilt when we enjoy common earthly pleasures. Enjoying earthly pleasures is not commensurate with loving the world. The Bible warns us that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Using the world is not loving it. It is merely using it. We use it because we are here. Who among us doesn’t want out of here? We use it, yes, but are equal y wil ing at a moment’s notice to leave it. In the meantime, we will crack the nut of life, to see what delights might abide within.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31: Now this I am averring, brethren, the era is limited; that, furthermore, those also having wives may be as not having them, and those lamenting as not lamenting, and those rejoicing as not rejoicing, and those buying as not retaining, and those using this world as not using it up. For the fashion of this world is passing by ( Concordant Literal New Testament).

Paul is saying: hold on loosely. He is not telling people not to be married. In fact, he assumes men to “have wives.”

We’re just not supposed to strangle them, metaphorically speaking, and make life hard on them. Same with wives toward husbands. Married people are supposed to live like they are not married. What does this mean? It means that they are to cut one another slack. It means, Look, this world is passing by, everything is about to change; Christ is returning.

Stay married, for crying out loud, but stop being so possessive.

Give each other room; cut slack. Lighten up.

Same with buying. Paul calls it, “buying and not retaining.” Is he saying we should go out, buy stuff, then take it immediately to the landfil ? No. He is saying, “Go ahead and

294

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

buy; don’t stop buying. Just don’t put too much weight on your possessions.” The key word is “as,” as in, “buying as not retaining.” Buy stuff, then pretend you don’t have it. Don’t clutch it to your breast like a teddy bear. Same with “using this world.” Use it, but don’t use it up. Same with wine: drink it, just don’t drink the whole bottle and get drunk.

God created sex and beauty. Use it. Enjoy. Imbibe. Taste each other; taste the world. Husbands and wives: Admire the beauty all around you. Admire both sexes. Admire everything. Just don’t freak out. Husbands, do not commit adultery. Wives, do not disallow your husband beauty.

For the love of God, do not struggle against what God made to be enjoyed. God is rol ing His eyes at this nonsense.

I give them the world to enjoy, and they’re getting all religious on Me. Drink wine, buy clothes, look at women. Just don’t get drunk, make clothes your god, or stick your manhood into everything that moves.

Is this so difficult? Why do we make life so difficult?

One would think, from reading Every Man’s Battle, that the worst thing God did to the human race was to give men and women sex drives.

Actually, it’s one of the best things. Let it work for you, not against you.

Life is too long, not too short. God has cut you slack.

Why can’t you do that for each other? —MZ

11 relIgIous lust

296

relIgIous lust

Tothe authors of Every Man’s Battle, sexual desire (“lust”) is the worst kind of desire existent. Never mind that, without it, no one ever marries; without sexual desire, the race dies. Never mind that those who abuse sexual desire are a minority. Compared to all the earth’s inhabitants who get hungry every day, only a minority become clinical gluttons.

Because Arterburn and Stoeker consider sexual desire a spiritual enemy rather than a natural function, they strive to condemn it. Historically, religion baits its victims into battling legitimate instincts (thus, Every Man’s Battle) .

Religious people hoping to please God mistakenly assume that God hates life’s basic pleasures. Religious people are so busy trying to please God, they are unaware that God could already not be more pleased with them, through Christ.

Religion addicts typically fear their flesh, and can only have a good day when they imagine that they are conquering

297

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

it. Whenever their flesh betters them, away goes their peace.

Thus, their peace is based, not upon Christ, but upon controlling their flesh.

Arterburn and Stoeker, I am guessing, were raised in a

“Thou shalt not” religious environment which condemned natural instincts. Either that or they were raised in a healthy family and were eventual y waylaid by a law-keeping church.

I contend it is religion that makes addicts out of normal people. It is the strapping of unnatural restrictions upon people’s backs that makes these people desire—to an unhealthy degree—that which is prohibited. We will elaborate upon this truth further in a future chapter.

The temptation to achieve

The power-hold of religion turns nice people into insuf-ferable finger-pointers. The most difficult people in this world are those who think they’ve arrived at some plateau of moral perfection, then wonder why the rest of us can’t imitate them. These kinds of people cannot help looking down their noses at the poor sinners “farther down the mountain.” When this religious spirit runs amok, a mere looking down the nose is not enough. Since God does not seem very good today at condemning “lazy Christians,”

those who think they are Super Christians will take that duty upon themselves. The sinner will be punished, either by snubbing, backstabbing, or—where the religious spirit infects a nation or a mob—murder.

Today, religion is a profitable business, conferring power upon wil ing workers. These days, those addicted to attaining God’s favor manually can official y set themselves as judges over the rest of us. With a little work, the religious achiever can back up his or her moral assumptions by earning a robe,

299

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

attaining a white collar, or starting a church. Others can obtain more degrees than Nebuchadnezzar’s oven (“Master of Divinity” has a particularly devastating ring to it), and then write books. There is nothing like an “M.Div.” notation after one’s name to shush the rabble into awe-struck silence.

Thus, sexual lust is not the most powerful lust in the world, nor the most dangerous. Neither is the lust for drink.

There is a far stronger lust ensnaring far more people and wreaking far more havoc upon the world than that which merely craves gin or G-strings. The lust of which I speak is so insidious, and yet so subtle, that those under its influence claim God as their greatest ally. At its most common level, this lust condemns. Later, it kil s. Throughout, it walks upon water (or thinks it does), unaware of people drowning at its feet. On Monday through Thursday, it prays in pious tones.

On Friday, it kills God’s Son.

The most powerful lust in the world is religious lust.

Religious lust is the desire to “do something for God.”

It is the public manifestation of an inner self-righteousness.

It is the desire to stand above one’s fellows and say to God,

“Look at me; see what I have attained; notice how I’ve outperformed them. ”

It is religious lust that made the Pharisees of Jesus’ day throw out their chests and diminish others. Jesus described them well in Luke 18:9-14—

And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I

ZENDER & COLPO

300

get.” But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.

It is religious lust that made these same Pharisees stand beneath the cross and mock the Sacrificed One. Matthew 27:38-44—

At that time two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left. And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The robbers who had been crucified with Him were also insulting Him with the same words.

This same kind of religious spirit infects the authors of Every Man’s Battle. Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker challenge other men to save themselves from what they believe to be a terrible sin: “You are a Christian; why don’t you just behave yourself! ” Fred in particular considers himself a paragon of sexual self-control, and so he not-so-subtly mocks other men for either an inability or unwillingness to meet his self-imposed standard.

2

301

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Heidi

Husbands and wives need honest communication. This is the only thing that will breach their sexual impasses.

They cannot be saying one thing in front of each other and yet be thinking another thing in private. I’m speaking of all manner of hypocrisy, but let’s focus on the religious variety right now because it’s so blatantly evident; it is to me, anyway. Religious hypocrisy—acting one way in the church and another way when no one is watching—is an easy way to highlight hypocrisy in general because it’s so “out there.”

Church used to make me uncomfortable because I would meet so many people there who were smiling so unnaturally from ear to ear that I would think, Am I the only one who recently fought with her husband? .. who yel ed at the kids over spil ed milk—the literal variety? Am I the only one obsessed with what I decided to wear to this place? Am I the only one just plain tired of wrestling with the nature of this weekly ritual?

And then there was the pastor standing in the pulpit, a fine-tuned speaker in his gray or black suit, informing us of all the ways that we could be better Christians as well as all the ways which we can fail God every day. I would think to myself, Am I the only sinner here? What was this wel -dressed pastor doing last night in the privacy of his office? I knew better than to believe that I was the only sinner in the room, but the stifling hypocrisy (it was thick as fog some days) had me grieving silently on my feet.

All I have ever craved is honesty.

Husbands and wives, let’s stop being hypocritical with each other. We are, each of us, hiding things. We are presenting one face to our spouse while hiding another face

“in the closet.” Why pretend that we’re what we’re not? I motion that we break down the Hollywood walls keeping

ZENDER & COLPO

302

our faults from one another and help each other through this life. Own up! Misery loves company. Only when we are all finally honest with ourselves and with each other can we at last slay the dragon of misunderstanding. —HC

2

MZ

A photo on the last page of Every Man’s Battle shows 12 tightly-knit men pointing accusingly at the male reader, daring him to join them. The caption says: “Join the thousands of men who have taken the next step, call today.”

Without “the next step,” which turns out to be an all-out war against God-given instincts, a man cannot be right with God. Remember, Fred Stoeker considers sexual purity (defined by his own standards) a necessary key for admittance into God’s presence. From pages 17-18 of Every Man’s Battle—

By worldly standards, I was doing great. Just one little problem. By God’s standard of sexual purity, I wasn’t even close to living His vision for marriage. Clearly I’d taken steps toward purity, but I was learning that God’s standards were higher than I’d ever imagined and that my Father had higher hopes for me than I have dreamed. It soon become clear that I’d stopped far short of holiness ... I could never look God in the eye, I could never fully worship Him.

Once Fred had at last worked his way back into God’s favor and attained what he considered to be 100% sexual purity, he felt compelled to write a book from this moral mountaintop, cajoling and even shaming other men onto his course. This is the way of religious lust. First, it pushes

303

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

a person toward self-made holiness. Next, it makes that

person want to convert others. When the others want nothing to do with it, religious lust “humphs! ” and dismisses such non-followers as “willingly disobedient.”

Here is Fred, under the section titled “Counting the Cost,” on pages 56-57 of Every Man’s Battle—

And what about you? Now that you’ve heard about God’s standard of sexual purity, are you willing, in the spirit of Josiah, to make a covenant and hold to that standard with all your heart and soul? Will you tear down every sexual thing that stands in opposition to God? Can you see that you’ve been living the mixed standards of mere excellence? Stopping short but still looking Christian enough? Or have you aimed for obedience and perfection, where you’re called to go?

“Called to go” by whom? Certainly it is not the God Who, through Paul, informs us in Romans 8:8 that “those who are in flesh are not able to please God”—surely it is not this God Who, subsequent to the cross and the death of His Son for sin, announces Himself to be conciliated to the entire human race (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Our deliverance from sin cost Christ greatly. The normal, spirit-filled reaction to this is peace and thanksgiving. Religious lust, on the other hand, condemns its victims to a false sense of responsibility, resulting in a great struggle, or moral battle. The victims of religious lust imagine that Christ’s sacrifice must be added to, or improved upon, if not equaled. Since this is impossible, victims of religious lust suffer continual frustration. This leads to greater and greater feats of religious asceticism and suffering—witness the Fil-ipino Catholic zealots who have themselves literally nailed to crosses every Good Friday. Such an extreme exercise has apparently not yet occurred to Fred Stoeker, but does not

305

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

the following passage from page 71 of Every Man’s Battle walk a similar line?

Given that Jesus is sinless, I suddenly realized that Jesus not only never touched a woman with dishonor, He never even looked at a woman in dishonor. Could I say that?

The essence of religious lust

The essence of religion is: “Look what I am doing for God; why can’t you do it?” The essence of the cross, however, is: “Look what God has done for me; no one could have done that.” People are supposed to look at the cross and say,

“That is the end of my flesh; there is nothing I can possibly do to please God.” Religion makes people overlook the cross and say, “I must still atone for my sins. God cannot look at me until I do what Jesus did. Further, I will outstrip my contemporaries in this vital regard; I will measure myself against their failure.”

Once a person believes that he or she has attained this plateau of sinlessness (this can only be a relative attainment; they surely cannot be comparing themselves to Christ), it belittles, then chal enges others to “join the cause.” The irony of this is that these “others” are in fact more spiritual than those belittling them; these poor “sinners” have successfully dodged the premier fruit of religiosity: pride.

Satan wears the cloak of religion

Stephen and Fred provide a fine window into the spirit of religious lust and, by extension, the method by which satanic deception operates today. Satan is today disguised as a messenger of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), and his modern false

ZENDER & COLPO

306

apostles are being transfigured, not into obvious ministers of darkness, but rather into apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13). Satan wants people working, not resting; he wants people adding to the work of Calvary, not reveling in it; he wants people monitoring their flesh, not giving up on it; he wants people continually doubting God’s satisfaction with them, rather than trusting His favor.

Satan’s most effective means of attaining all this is religion.

Every Man’s Battle is the spirit of human accomplishment disguised in a choir robe. It is, at its root, satanic. Religion is the greatest cloak “salvation-by-self” ever had, and Every Man’s Battle is a nicely-formatted cloak for religion.

Calling good “evil”

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. —Isaiah 5:20

What an indictment there in Isaiah against Every Man’s Battle. One has to wonder if, somewhere deep inside, Fred Stoeker himself doubts the sanity of his own counsel. On page 148, he warns readers of the lies Satan whispers into men’s ears, hoping to lure them from the prescriptions of Every Man’s Battle. Rather than being Satanic lies, however, these whispers are in fact the voice of reason. That these things have occurred to Fred indicate, to me, that the counsels of reason live somewhere within the man. Unfortunately for Fred (and for the rest of us), religious lust has shouted these down.

Shouted-down reason, however, is not reason banished.

Since sanity refuses to disappear, Fred must mental y transform it from a friend to an enemy; he therefore attributes it

307

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

to Satan. Fred must do this, otherwise the premise of Every Man’s Battle self-destructs, and the whole nasty business must be repented of. Here, according to Fred Stoeker, are the chief lies by which Satan dissuades men from Every Man’s Battle: (pgs. 144-145)—

1. “God made [women] beautiful on purpose. Of course you should look. He intended that for you!”

2. “It won’t hurt anything ... you’re only looking. You aren’t really lusting yet.”

3. “Life is unbearable to live by such tight standards. God could not possibly have intended that for you. Go ahead and look. He loves you and wants you to live life more abundantly.”

4. “I know your wife is bothered when you look at other women, but she’s immature. She has the problem, not you!

She needs to grow in knowledge and freedom. Jealousy is a sin, and she obviously has a sin problem.”

All these statements—attributed by Fred to Satan—are, in fact, the voice of reason and sanity. God did make women beautiful on purpose, so of course we should look at them.

No, it won’t hurt anything to admire beauty; it only hurts to call good evil. Yes, life is unbearable when lived according to the tight standards of man-made religion. Of course God loves you and wants you to live life more abundantly— duh.

And yes, jealousy is a Scriptural y-stated sin, whereas looking at beautiful women is nowhere condemned in God’s Word.

(More on the sin of jealousy in an upcoming chapter.) Satan’s world is an inverted image of truth. Remember, Satan disguises himself today as a messenger of light, not

ZENDER & COLPO

308

darkness (2 Corinthians 11:14). In a satanic construct, therefore, evil appears as good, and good as evil. This diabolical principle underlies every page of Every Man’s Battle. In the example at hand, Fred Stoeker paints the light of reason black and glorifies the human desire (religious lust) for moral perfection.

Satan in the mirror

Under the section titled “Purity Always Brings Spiritual Opposition,” on page 111, Fred writes—

While there may not be spiritual oppression involved in your battle, there’ll always be spiritual opposition. The enemy is constantly near your ear. He doesn’t want you to win this fight, and he knows the lies that so often break men’s confidence and their will to win. Expect to hear lies and plenty of them.

What we’ve told you is truth. There is peace and tranquility for you on the other side of this war. There is immeasurable spiritual gain. The deceiver will tell you that Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoeker are crazy, and that you’ll soon be as crazy as both of them combined if you follow their ideas.

We must not measure this paragraph by the sincerity of these men, nor by their supposed moral attainments. Neither must we measure it by Fred’s assertion that, “What we’ve told you is truth.” Anyone can assert that. We must measure this paragraph by God’s Word alone. Measured by this standard, Fred writes lies.

The section-title itself (“Purity Always Brings Spiritual Opposition”) is a lie—not as it reads, but as Fred intends it to read. Fred thinks a man’s battle for fleshly purity makes Satan run in to oppress him out of it. It’s just the opposite. Satan hits the scene before the battle, not after it. Thus, Satan inspires

309

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

the battle. He oppresses a man into battling his flesh, not out of it. Even this oppression pales compared to the oppression resulting from the battle.

Fred insists that a man can only obtain peace and tranquility and “immeasurable spiritual gain” by entering into and winning a war against his flesh. Nothing could be further from the truth. There has already been a great war waged against flesh, and it had nothing to do with mortal human males battling bras and bikinis. Rather, it was the war God’s Son waged against sin and death on the cross. It is His victory over sin and death, not our “victories” over catsuits and corsets, that has already procured for us the peace, tranquility, and immeasurable spiritual gain we crave.

The following is Ephesians 2:13-16, from the New American Standard Bible—

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

Jesus Christ established peace; He did it: “For He Himself is our peace.” Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross,

“thus establishing peace.” Peace and tranquility and spiritual gain, therefore, has been gained; it does not now need to be gained by self-made moral wars and ascetic feats. On the cross, our Savior “broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” by abolishing our enemy, which was “the Law of commandments contained in ordinances.”

ZENDER & COLPO

310

In Every Man’s Battle, these damning ordinances get dragged back into play. In spite of the cross, spiritual gain yet eludes the man who either cannot or will not conquer his flesh. Are you still looking at beautiful women? Then you nullify Calvary. What power you have! See how important you are! Subsequent to the cross, the boons of peace, tranquility, and immeasurable spiritual gain await the perfect sacrifice: yours.

Could the cross of Christ be more obviously ignored?

More obviously discarded? More obviously made void? Is it not the chief lie of Satan that the cross alone, unaided by human flesh, leaves damnation on the table? Is it not the chief lie of Satan that human obedience is required, not only to validate the cross, but to activate it? It is as Paul said to the Galatians, “Having begun in spirit, are you now being perfected by flesh?” This was the contention of the legalists.

As large a lie as this was, not even the Judaizers vexing the Galatian ecclesia made human behavior the beginning of spiritual gain. If the apostle Paul called down an anathema upon them— what would he say to Fred Stoeker?

True spiritual opposition

In Every Man’s Battle, Satan undermines Calvary’s victory through the pens of an ordained minister and a Christian author. Through this unlikely source (unlikely only to those unaware of Satan’s strategies), our Adversary has successfully seduced millions of men and women from making Jesus their peace. We needn’t be shocked; Satan seeks opportunity through any righteous-looking source. When the apostle Peter, for instance, attempted to dissuade his Master from the cross (like Fred Stoeker, Peter thought he was doing the right thing), Jesus

ZENDER & COLPO

312

said to him, “Get behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23).

Since that last passage from Every Man’s Battle I quoted is a negative image of truth, we can arrive at the truth by turning its elements 180 degrees. Like this:

▶ “While there may not be spiritual oppression involved in your battle, there’ll always be spiritual opposition. ”

Turn this 180 degrees, and it’s true: Spiritual oppression and opposition is generated, not by beautiful women or one’s inability to optically avoid them, but by beginning a battle against something that neither God nor Jesus Christ has a problem with. The real battle is not against feminine beauty, therefore, but against religious lust.

▶ “The enemy is constantly near your ear.”

This is true—when applied to Every Man’s Battle. Deception is never so slick as when whispered through Christian books authored by those who unwittingly (or not) reconstruct ordinances abolished at Calvary.

▶ “He doesn’t want you to win this fight, and he knows the lies that so often break men’s confidence and their will to win.”

Satan wants men fighting the battle prescribed by Arterburn and Stoeker; religious lust is the perfect distraction from the cross. I believe most men understand, deep down, the killing machine this battle will become. As men read Every Man’s Battle, the voice of reason tells them, “This has to be nuts.” The desire to “do something for God,” however (religious lust), opposes this voice. The real fight, therefore, is the fight against accepting the premise of Every Man’s Battle; it is that fight Satan wants a man to lose. To assure a man loses it, Satan employs smooth-sounding lies and peer pressure, hoping to break a man’s confidence in his own God-given conscience, i.e., his “gut.” Satan takes a man’s natural repugnance toward law and turns it into a “will to

313

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

win” against flesh. Thus, Satan engages men in the wrong battle .

▶ “The deceiver will tell you that Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoeker are crazy, and that you’ll soon be as crazy as both of them combined if you follow their ideas.”

Substitute the phrase “voice of God and reason” for

“deceiver,” and this spectacularly tel ing sentence reads true.

A slower death

Religion killed the son of God, all the while assuming it was pleasing God.

They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. —John 16:2-3

Arterburn and Stoeker imagine that their book promotes God while servicing men and marriages. How ironic that their program disparages God, eventual y killing men and marriages. The death may at first be figurative, but the damage is much like death when a wife becomes convinced her husband is evil, or a man believes the lie of Fred Stoeker, that God’s favor must be won, first by self-loathing, then by sweat.

I am convinced that such religious condemnation potentially leads to literal death, sometimes even by suicide.

Self-hatred carries a heavy price tag. How many men despair beneath the success/failure cycle imposed by Arterburn and Stoeker’s religious challenges? From the book, page 150—

On a practical note, if you live in a four-season region, late spring and early summer calls for a fresh dose of diligence as warmer temperatures allow women to wear less clothing. Plan to heighten your defenses at those times.”

315

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

How many people has guilt killed? How many unnecessary tears have been shed beneath God’s supposed scowl?

How many marriages has religious lust shattered—has anyone ever calculated that? How could we possibly know?

I suspect the number is too great to calculate.

“Youthful lusts”

2 Timothy 2:22—

Flee also youthful lusts; but fol ow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

It is assumed these “youthful lusts” about which Paul warns Timothy are necessarily sexual. It is assumed Paul warns Timothy against the raging hormones of a teenager.

Is this so?

At the time of this writing, Paul had already known Timothy for 15 years. It is true that Timothy was a young man when Paul met him, but, with the passing of fifteen years, he was certainly not a teenager. What is the context of this admonition?

Paul uses the word “lust” two more times in this letter.

By examining these warnings more closely, we will see that the context is not sexual, but something far more ominous and sinister.

A form of devoutness; the snare of religious gratification

2 Timothy 3:1-7—

Now this know, that in the last days perilous periods will be present, for men will be selfish, fond of money, ostentatious, proud, calumniators, stubborn to parents, ungrateful, malign,

ZENDER & COLPO

316

without natural affection, implacable, adversaries, uncontrol-lable, fierce, averse to the good, traitors, rash, conceited, fond of their own gratification rather than fond of God; having a form of devoutness, yet denying its power. These, also, shun.

For of these are those who are slipping into homes and are leading into captivity little women, heaped with sins, being led by various lusts and gratifications, always learning and yet not at any time able to come into a realization of the truth.

When we first see the phrase, “fond of their own gratification rather than fond of God,” we think of physical gratification. But no. There is something worse than that afoot, defined by Paul in the next clause: “Having a form of devoutness, yet denying its power.”

Nothing gratifies a human more than the belief that he or she is outperforming contemporaries in the God-pleasing department. This, however, is only a form of devoutness; human morality campaigns fail to impress the Deity. If religious people truly were fond of God, they would look upon the cross and abandon flesh. They would look at the cross and say, “I am just like everyone else.” The sinner commended by Jesus was humble and aware of his lack, whereas the Pharisee flaunted his assumption of moral superiority; he loved his flesh. The Pharisees were so sickeningly fond of their own moral attainments, they overlooked a fondness for God; they didn’t really need Him. They proved their innate hatred of Him when they crucified His Son.

The lust for religious learning

What is the specific crime of those of 2 Timothy, chapter 3, who are “being led away by various lusts and gratifications”? How are they lusting and being gratified? By watching daytime television? By overeating? By masturbating to images

317

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

of the opposite sex? Far from it. Consider the context: “ ... being led by various lusts and gratifications, always learning and yet not at any time able to come into a realization of the truth.”

There is a deep, human gratification inspired by out-performing others in the learning department. In this case, however, it is worthless learning. It is learning that continually gathers facts but never realizes truth. What other kind of learning can the apostle be talking about here but religious learning—the same brand in which the Pharisees boasted? The Pharisees lusted for God’s Word to the point of attaching portions of Scripture to their arms and fore-head. The result? They killed God’s Son. They were forever reading the words of truth, yet never coming to a realization of that truth.

Thus also, Arterburn and Stoeker. They have written a 312-page book condemning men for appreciating feminine beauty. They have written a 312-page book telling men to hate their natures and contort their eyes. Their desire is to teach men a special brand of learning that they, themselves, have deemed necessary for the full acceptance of God.

And yet, for all these 312 pages, Arterburn and Stoeker have never realized the truth that sexual desire is a gift of God, and that, even if it were a sin, God no longer reckons sin to our account.

The lust for religious teaching

Here is another “lust” passage from 2 Timothy. Again, it is a religious, not a sexual context. 2 Timothy 4:3-4—

For the era will be when they will not tolerate sound teaching, but, their hearing being tickled, they will heap up for themselves teachers in accord with their own desires, and, indeed,

ZENDER & COLPO

318

they will be turning their hearing away from the truth, yet will be turned aside to myths.

The word “desires” here is the Greek word epithumia, the same word translated “lust” in 2 Timothy 3:6. Those who are lusting in this passage are heaping up for themselves teachers in accord with their own lusts—the context is teaching, not sex. Those who lust are doing so for the sake of teaching that tickles their hearing. People love to “do things for God,” and any body of knowledge emphasizing this will find a following. Such knowledge, however, is the opposite of “sound teaching.” The sound teaching you are hearing from me is that sexual desire is normal and that it is the religious prohibition of sexual desire (as we shall see in the next chapter) that eventually causes and fuels addiction.

The hearing of Stephen and Fred has been turned aside from the truth of human nature into the myth that God expects men to shun that nature. Thus, Arterburn and Stoeker lust for a self-imposed sexual holiness (wherein behavior produces righteousness), and will heap up for themselves teachers supporting this warped view. Lacking these, they will write the book themselves.

“Great men of God”

On pages 86-87 of The Church in Ruins: Brief Thoughts On 2 Timothy, Paul’s Last Letter to the Church, Clyde Pilkington writes —

In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul tells Timothy to “Flee also youthful lusts.” But what exactly was Paul calling Timothy to do, according to the context? Is sexuality the only youthful lust? How many young men, especially family men, have set their hearts to “attempt great things for God”? Then, while

ZENDER & COLPO

320

ensnared in the busyness of “serving God” according to their own passionate imaginations (i.e. lusts), they have neglected their primary responsibilities of being husbands and fathers.

Multitudes of young men have been carried away with the biographies and examples of “great men of God”—by Bible colleges, institutes, universities, and seminaries—and have been pulled into the religious system by the powerful gravity of acceptability, honor, prestige, and respectability.

Undoubtedly, many of them have done so with a sincerity and love for the Lord; but the subtlety of the Adversary has used these very passions to accomplish his own purposes. Paul verifies that these lusts are religious lusts; he uses the word two more times in this epistle—and they, just like this one, are firmly planted in the context of religion.

Despising the free

Do you think Fred and Stephen want to hear that believers who openly admire female beauty are just as accepted by God as they are? Do you think they want to hear that all the self-imposed mental and optical gymnastics they have sweated through to gain God’s smile are so much wasted effort? Do you think these men want to hear that, not only are other men just as accepted by God as they are, but that these other men, being less religious , actual y outdo Fred and Stephen in the revelation department, trusting the cross of Christ more than they?

Self-made moralists hate seeing other people happy. This is why they (sometimes secretly, sometimes overtly) despise those who enjoy—guilt-free—the simple pleasures of life.

Since they can’t kill them, they will condemn them.

A normal person can smell religious lust a mile away. Those emanating the odor, however, are immune to the stench.

Arterburn and Stoeker have no idea how it strikes normal,

321

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

nature-affirming people to read sneering, self-righteous sentences such as:

▶ “Or maybe you’ve considered God’s standard too ridiculous to take seriously” (pg. 43).

▶ “God knows we’re Christians and that we can choose to be pure. So why don’t we?” (pg. 42).

▶ “Since we found God’s standard too difficult, we created a mixture—something new, something comfortable, something mediocre” (pg. 42).

▶ “Since many Christians don’t read their Bibles very often, many men have no clue about God’s standard for sexual purity” (pg 45).

▶ “Can you see that you’ve been living the mixed standards of mere excellence? Stopping short but still looking Christian enough? Or have you aimed for obedience and perfection, where you’re truly called to go? How will you know? By the cost you’re willing to pay” (pg. 96-97).

▶ “It costs something to send your child to Christian school” (pg. 57).

▶ “It costs something to join a few thousand men at a conference to sing praises to God and learn how we should live” (pg. 57).

▶ “It costs something to have regular family devotions, complete with Dad leading worship songs and heartfelt prayer” (pg. 57).

▶ “God is your Father and he expects obedience. Having given you the Holy Spirit as your power source, He believes His command should be enough for you” (pg. 57).

▶ “Obedience is hard, requiring humility and meekness, very rare elements indeed” (pg. 58).

▶ “You likely have mixture in your sexual standards, and you likely have at least a hint of sexual impurity in your life.

You won’t pay the price of true obedience” (pg. 57).

ZENDER & COLPO

322

Job as poster-boy; um, bad example

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” —Job 31:1

Because of the above verse, Fred Stoeker credits Job (yes, that Job—the Job of the Bible) as the inspiration for his patented “eye-bouncing” technique and his all-out war against— himself. Fred writes on page 72-73—

If, because of his Deity, Jesus’ personal standard seems unat-tainable to you, let’s look at another manhood role model from Scripture in the area of sexual purity ... his name was Job, and in our minds this man is the essential role model of sexual purity in Scripture. In the book of the Bible that tells his story, we see God bragging about Job to Satan:

“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job. 1:8).

Was God proud of Job? You bet! He applauded His servant’s faithfulness in words of highest praise. And if you walked in purity, blameless and upright, He would speak just as proudly of you. Joy would abound in His heart.

In this juvenile, cartoon-like passage from Every Man’s Battle, Fred Stoeker not only misapprehends the purpose of the book of Job, he glibly hop-scotches through a mental candyland, imbibing the intoxicant of a pre-Calvary righteousness: If only we could be good boys and girls—pure, blameless, and upright—then God’s heart would explode with joy! God would love to speak proudly of us to His Son Jesus (“Look, my Son, at how all these amazing people are being so pure and doing everything right!”), but we keep disappointing Him by sinning and then leaning on Jesus’ cross.

323

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Fred imagines that if only we would be like Job, we would land ourselves in a bliss of blamelessness, where even God would be forced to declare to the universe: “You know, I would like to tell you that Fred Stoeker has fallen short of my glory, but—you know—I really can’t. I mean, the guy is doing everything right. Wait until I tell my Son about this!

I am so proud of Fred!”

Caught in this religious stupor, Fred pictures God being able to “speak proudly” of us; Fred wants a gold star on his little report card.

Scripture, however—specifical y the New Testament—is a record of God speaking proudly of His Son’s accomplishment; Jesus gets the gold star, not us. Jesus came to earth on behalf of sin because there was “no one righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). Thus, “salvation from a human is futile” (Psalm 60:11). Was Job the only exception to this?

Or could it be that Job’s sweat-produced righteousness was a character flaw that only the severest trial could remedy?

The crux of the book of Job is that even a religious man who is relatively blameless (that is, in relation to his peers) falls short of God’s righteousness. Job failed to realize this truth—thus, the trial. It is the pre and mid-trial Job, certainly not the Job of chapter 42, who feels like rehearsing his moral accomplishments. Once God speaks from the whirl-wind in chapter 38, Job realizes his mistake and “repents on dust and ashes” (42:6).

God rebuked Job’s three friends for blaming the trial on some secret sin; they had assumed Job did something wrong.

This is always the accusation that religious people level against the rest of us: “You people are doing iniquity.” The worse iniquity, however, is religious pride—the justifying of one’s self in God’s sight. Thus, God rebukes the moralists, but gives a man like Elihu, who correctly fingers the problem, a pass—

ZENDER & COLPO

326

And burn doth the anger of Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram; against Job hath his anger burned, because of his justifying himself more than God; and against his three friends hath his anger burned, because that they have not found an answer, and condemn Job. —Job 32:2-3

Fred, innately fond of religion, is infatuated with the pre-trial Job. The man who defends himself to God—Fred can relate to that man. Fred loves the part where Job says,

“Pure am I, without transgression, Innocent am I, and I have no iniquity” (33:9). If Fred knows about the humbled Job—the post-trial, educated man who says, concerning his former braggadocio: “Lo, I have been vile!” (40:4)—he looks the other way at it.

Afraid as he is of his sexual flesh, Fred Stoeker is, as previously stated, particularly taken with Job’s mid-trial pronouncement in 31:1—

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.”

This statement, according to Fred, is what makes Job the

“poster boy” for Every Man’s Battle. Job’s statement, however, is the equivalent of the nation Israel declaring at the foot of Mt.

Sinai, “All that God has spoken, we will do” (Exodus 19:8).

This foolish pronouncement of Israel, dripping with self-confidence, was a divinely-inspired set-up for failure.

We now know, through Paul, that “the law came in so that the transgressions would increase” (Romans 5:20).

Confidence in flesh (religious pride) is one of the greatest transgressions a human can commit. This truth (“the law came in so that the transgressions would increase”) was hid from Israel so that she could become, by design, a living example of how “the disposition of the flesh is enmity to God, for it is not subject to the law of God, for neither is it able” (Romans 8:7).

327

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Thus, Israel became the “before picture” of grace; she thought she could please God, but the inevitable and pre-planned result was failure. (“The law has become our escort to Christ, that we might be justified by faith,” Galatians 3:24.) Thank God, then, for the example of Israel. If God’s favor depended on our behavior, we’d still be sweating to please Him.

Some people, however, are still sweating to please Him.

Many of them, unfortunately, decide to write books.

What happened to that memo?

In an earlier chapter, I showed you how the apostle Paul—in Philippians 3:6—once considered himself blameless. (Interesting that God uses the same word to describe the pre-trial Job: “blameless.”) Once he realized the grace of God, however, Paul cal ed his supposed perfection “garbage”

(Philippians 3:8). I then showed you how Fred Stoeker made blamelessness his goal. Thus, Fred hoped to arrive at a place that the enlightened Paul had gladly abandoned. Paul at last realized the fact that in his flesh lived no good thing (Romans 7:18). Once Paul realized his flesh had been crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6), he forfeited all confidence in it (Philippians 3:3). In other words, Paul had grasped the cross.

Paul got the message about flesh, and so did Job. Israel will eventually get it, but it will take the Tribulation. Fred Stoeker, however, is nowhere near getting it. He has yet to grasp Calvary. To him, the cross is a chal enge. To him, flesh is yet capable of reformation. Fred’s confidence, therefore, is still in himself rather than in the cross of Christ.

God’s message, again, is: Human beings are incapable of doing what they want for Him. This is good news, not bad. The revelation of this truth puts humans in a reclining mode, able

ZENDER & COLPO

328

to apprehend Christ’s ability, rather than in a fighting mode, able only to admire their own accomplishments. Israel at Mt.

Sinai; Job in the first 37 chapters; the Paul of Philippians 3:6—these are all divinely-inspired before pictures of people hoping to impress the Deity. These pictures are inevitably followed by a breaking, which is inevitably followed by a realization of truth, the truth of flesh’s futility. How stupid, therefore, to point to Israel’s Exodus 19:8 proclamation, or Job’s self acclamations, or Paul’s boasting in his Pharisee status, and not only cheer it, but attempt to emulate it. This is as stupid as tacking up the verse which says, “Pride precedes a disaster, and an arrogant attitude precedes a fall”

(Proverbs 16:18), and then encouraging people to become proud and arrogant.

Fred continually camps on the leeward side of Calvary; he never gets to the breaking. He never emerges on the other side of the revelation, where broken people happily extol Christ over self. As a spiritually immature person (if he possesses the spirit at all), Fred’s breaking is yet future. No one ought to begrudge him this path and his place currently on the self-righteous side of it, but the man unfortunately wrote a book from the pride side of the fence, convincing millions of men to emulate him.

Taking the bait; the birth of religious lust, and how to fight it

It was the pre-trial, self-confident Job, rather than the humbled man of chapter 42, who first stoked in Fred Stoeker the fires of religious lust. I quote the following only so that my male readers can recognize the rising heat of religious lust, and then battle like hell (this is the true battle every man should fight) against it. From pages 74-75 of Every Man’s Battle:

329

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

When I first gave serious consideration to Job’s example, I meditated upon his words for days on end. Job and I were different in only one way—our actions. God called him

“blameless.” I wasn’t yet blameless, but I was a man, just as Job was, so there was hope.

After a few days, my mind turned to the word “covenant”—an agreement between God and man. What exactly am I to do when I make a covenant? I could say the words to make a promise, but I was uncertain whether I could keep my word.

And my eyes? Could I really expect my eyes to keep their end of the bargain? Eyes can’t think or talk! How do they keep a promise?

Day after day, my mind returned to this covenant concept, trying to picture it, all the while remaining in my sin. Yet something was stirring deep in my soul.

I remember the moment—the exact spot on Merle Hay Road in Des Moines—when it all broke loose. I’d failed God with my eyes for the thirty-millionth time. My heart churned in guilt, pain, and sorrow. Driving down Merle Hay Road, I suddenly gripped the wheel and through clenched teeth, I yelled out: “That’s it! I’m through with this! I’m making a covenant with my eyes. I don’t care what it takes, and I don’t care if I die trying. It stops here. It stops here!”

I made the covenant and built it brick by brick. Later, Steve and I will show you the blueprint for building that brick wall, but for now, study my breakthrough:

▶ I made a clear decision.

▶ I decided once and for all to make a change.

I can’t describe how much I meant it. Floods of frustration from years of failure poured from my heart. I’d just had it! I wasn’t fully convinced I could trust myself even then, but I’d finally and truly engaged the battle. Through my covenant with my eyes, all my mental and spiritual resources were now leveled upon a single target: my impurity.

With that covenant I had also chosen manhood, to rise above my natural male tendencies. That was a huge step for me, as you’ll see later on.

ZENDER & COLPO

330

In light of the above passage, here is some advice from Martin Zender: Whenever you feel a stirring deep in your soul to make a bargain with God that will finally enable Him to call you “blameless”—and especially if you are driving down Merle Hay Road in Des Moines—battle like hell against it; you are entertaining the voice of Satan.

Any Battle reader taking Fred seriously, and setting out to imitate Job’s pre-trial morality, primes himself for a trial of his own. And it won’t be against glistening, female joggers.

Job eventually says concerning his eye covenant—and, in fact, concerning all of his religious braggadocio:

“Lo, I have been vile!” (40:4)

Battle won.

Jock straps and Army helmets?

In order to seduce men into the same religious club that they belong to, Arterburn and Stoeker resort to war talk, jock banter, and classic playground bullying techniques. These authors rightly surmise that most males lust after “he-man”

power, any he-man power. The problem with many Christian males, however, is that their wives and their churches and their pastors have, to a degree, successfully feminized them. These men, becoming “saintly” and “civilized,” and

“such good husbands,” have toned down their war-whooping over sports and battlefield achievements. And yet every man needs something to pound his pecs over . What, then, can the modern, feminized, church man wax manly over? Religious accomplishment, that’s what. Better yet if that accomplishment can include sexual control; what higher peak of male conquering could there possibly be? What could make a wife happier and earn a husband more saint points with the sinless Jesus, Who never looked at a Playboy cover?

331

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

When a man turns to the back page of Every Man’s Battle and sees those twelve he-dudes chal enging him to join them, he rises to the prospect of a new gang he can hang with, where the victories are measured, not in touchdowns or enemy castles taken, but in feminine beauty resisted. Indeed, this sort of victory is probably harder than winning a Super Bowl or taking Iwo Jima; all the better for the scoring of points with God, Jesus, squeaky pastors, and disappointed wives.

The only difference between the he-men of the world and the fake little he-men that Arterburn and Stoeker produce, is that the Every Man’s Battle soldiers have traded in their sports and war awards for religious baubles. Instead of “taking one for the team,” these former jocks and soldiers “take one for Jesus.” Instead of “roughing-up” one another in footbal huddles and bunkers, they’re doing so at conferences and ral ies. The testosterone levels are the same (it still smel s like a locker room), but now these men are “sweating for Jesus.”

Appealing to the macho lust for he-manhood Besides asserting through the title of their book that this should be ‘‘ Every Man’s Battle,” here is how Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker shame, prod, and incite male lust away from traditional, masculine attainments and toward religious, feminized ones—

Page 4: “God offers you freedom from the slavery of sin through the cross of Christ, and He created your eyes and mind with an ability to be trained and controlled. We simply have to stand up and walk by His power in the right path.

Men need a battle plan.”

Page 6: “We need real men around here—men of honor and decency, men with their hands where they belong and their eyes and minds focused on Christ. If roving eyes or sexual y impure

333

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

thoughts or even sexual addictions are issues in your life, Steve and I are hoping you’ll do something about it. Isn’t it time?”

Page 50: (From Fred): “I was asking myself, How far can I go and still be cal ed a Christian? The question I should have been asking was, How holy can I be?”

Page 59: “A search for mere excellence is an inadequate approach to God, leaving us vulnerable to snare after snare.

Our only hope is obedience. If we don’t kill every hint of immorality, we’ll be captured by our tendency as males .. ”

Page 62: “Our maleness brings a natural, uniquely male form of rebelliousness. This natural tendency gives us the arrogance needed to stop short of God’s standards. As men, we’ll often choose sin simply because we like our own way.”

Page 70: “Regarding sexual integrity, God wants you to rise up and get it done.”

Pages 83-84: “When you talk to ... World War II veterans who embody the title of Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation, they say they don’t feel like heroes. They simply had a job to do. When the landing-craft ramps fell open, they swallowed hard and said, “It’s time.” Time to fight. In your struggle with sexual impurity isn’t it time?”

Page 84: “Sure, fighting back will be hard. It was for us.

When we began our fight, we fully expected to take a beating at first, and we did. Our sin had humbled us. But we wanted victory over that sin and the respect of our God.”

Page 84: “Your life and home are under a withering barrage of machine-gun sexuality that rakes the landscape mercilessly.

Right now you’re in a landing craft, inching closer to shore and a showdown. God has given you the weapons and trained you for battle. You can’t stay in the landing craft forever.

Sooner or later the ramp will drop, and then it will be your time to run bravely into the teeth of battle. God will run with you, but He won’t run for you. It’s time to plunge ahead and go like a man.”

Page 103: “You’re in the landing craft ready to attack your sexual sin. You’ve made your decision. You’ve decided to fol ow your leaders as you storm the beach. The landing-craft ramp

ZENDER & COLPO

334

falls open. With a shout, you step courageously into the fray.”

Pages 84-85 (From Fred): “I didn’t want to wait anymore . . I was angry. I wanted to win right away and to win decisively—

not somewhere down the road where age might bring victory through the back door. I wanted to win when the battle was hottest. You should too. If you don’t win now, you’ll never know whether you’re truly a man of God.”

Page 92: “God is waiting for you ... to rise up and engage in the battle ... You’ll be holy when you choose not to sin.”

Page 93: “Your battle ... will require sacrifice, intensity, and honor . . By winning this war, your life will be blessed . . Your victory will recover what was lost through sin. Victory will help you regain and revitalize your relationship with God.”

Page 98: “It can be done. The world has not yet seen what God can do with an army of young men free of sexual fevers.”

Page 93: “If you’re a father, have you worked hard enough to keep your son pure so that he might qualify for such an army?”

Page 101: “God is waiting to bless you. Your wife needs you to step up. Your kids need you to break generational sin. Your church needs you to serve. Do you agree it’s time? The landing-craft ramps are fal ing open, and it’s time to hit the beach.”

You don’t want to be a sissy, do you?

Page 77: “What if you just can’t make the grade? What if you balk at the top of the landing-craft ramp, doubting your ability to conquer self? What if you chicken out and doubt your ability to ever perfectly please the Almighty God? What if you can’t stop your ‘sexual fevers’”?

“By now you understand God’s command that you should eliminate every hint of sexual immorality from your life. If you do that as Job did through his covenant with his eyes, then you’re God’s man. If you don’t eliminate every hint, are you a sissy? Maybe so.”

12 Porn AddIctIon

336

Porn AddIctIon

It is not the purpose of this book to offer a cure for porn addiction, but I’m going to do it anyway. It is really not that complicated. By porn addiction, I’m talking about men who spend many hours a day looking at naked or scantily clad women, then feeling shame over it. Many wives live with this, and are rightly distraught.

These wives may be trying to accommodate their husbands’

sexual natures by allowing casual porn use, but in many cases there is underlying condemnation. No surprise there.

In a so-called Christian society, the man has felt condemned all his life for his need and desire to behold feminine beauty.

I insist that condemnation and unnatural prohibitions lead to addiction. I am talking about all addictions, not just so-called pornography. If something is unnaturally prohibited, it will only increase one’s desire for it. The reason I can be so confident about this is that it is a Scriptural principle.

337

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

I will be speaking on this principle in a moment. It’s from the book of Romans, which I did not write.

Most men will not even recognize a battle until reading Every Man’s Battle. A man will be cruising along happily looking at bra ads in the newspaper, thinking, What could be more natural? It does not have a hold on his life. It’s a simple pleasure making life more bearable. He breathes; he looks.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a newspaper or a computer. To look is to live, and to live is to look; the sun, the moon, a woman in a lacy, black bra—all part of God’s wonderful creation.

He loves his wife, but maybe she’s shy about sex and feels sil y wearing underwear whose function is anything but function. He tries to encourage her, but she hates her body.

Or she despises his specific, sexual tastes.

She may even despise the fact that he has sexual tastes.

—MZ

2

Heidi

As a woman, I have to admit to times when I thought it would be easier if my husband would just take care of himself sexually so that I could concentrate on other, less stressful things. My own interests got in the way of my dormant desire to spend intimate time with my husband. It is normal for sexual desire to fluctuate, but if apathy creeps in and you find yourself avoiding intimacy, you’re precar-iously close to wrecking your relationship. Is it that your husband’s sexual requests seem too daunting? Too daring?

Maybe you worry that you’ll find him too creepy once he shares his deepest fantasies?

Differences in sexual taste can be difficult to overcome.

In my relationship, I am the one with the wilder tastes in

ZENDER & COLPO

338

outfits, props, and things, and this has stirred up trouble.

Out of a pure self-centeredness, I am tempted to just give up and not worry again about adjusting to Danny’s tastes. I am tempted to overrun him. I have come to realize, however, that this would be a huge mistake that would rob both me and my husband of a deeper experience. It is important to probe outside of your comfort zone. Only then does growth come. Talk about your ideas with each other. Listen uncritically to your partner and try to believe what heretofore has perhaps been unbelievable: this guy wants you to be the object of his fantasies.—HC

2

MZ

The man living with a condemning wife finds enough small comfort in the newspaper ads to forge through another day. His love for his wife is not in the least diminished.

In fact, now he can live more peaceably with her (and she with him) because he no longer looks to her (that is, he no longer pressures her) to be a fancy, sexy, lacy black bra type of woman.

She’s glad to have him off her case.

At least he knows, “there is now, therefore, no condemnation” (Romans 8:1).

Oops. Along comes Every Man’s Battle. So much for Romans 8:1—here we are, back beneath the clouds of Sinai, awaiting the return of Moses. Authors Arterburn and Stoeker inform our bra-admiring friend that, if he wants to be a godly husband and stop upsetting Jesus, Moses, and his wife, he must completely eliminate any and all images of lacy, black bras—electronic, print, cerebral, nocturnal, and otherwise—from his sorry life.

339

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

If there had been room for one more commandment on that stone tablet, Arterburn and Stoeker would have chiseled it on themselves. It would have said: THOU SHALT NOT LOOK AT BEAUTIFUL WOMEN

IN LACY, BLACK BRAS.

What would this latest commandment have produced?

The same thing the other commandments produced: a manic desire for the thing prohibited. Lacy, black bras would soon be all this poor man would think about. Subsequent to the commandment prohibiting it, the women in the bras would now occupy this poor man’s every waking hour, assuming even more daunting proportions in his sleep. The man would think to himself, I’m in a huge battle! Once this realization dawned, the trouble would begin in earnest.

What was at first but a natural hobby would now become a killing obsession. It doesn’t matter if Every Man’s Battle is saying it, or society is saying it, or the church is saying it, or the man’s wife is saying it. As long as there is an unnatural prohibition in the vicinity of a natural inclination—with an added dollop of condemnation—a man, any man, mounts the fast-track to addiction.

There is nothing like an artificial moral battle to make one a- moral. This is a Scriptural principle that plays out again and again in human experience, even in religious human experience. No, wait— especial y in religious human experience.

Here is Clyde Pilkington in Due Benevolence; A survey of Biblical Sexuality:

It is said that the French reformer John Calvin was particularly preoccupied with adultery, and made references to it in almost every matter he discussed. G. Rattray Taylor, commenting on the characteristic in Sex in History, generalizes

341

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

that, “Since repression always stimulates what it sets out to repress, one is not surprised to learn that his (Calvin’s) sister-in-law was taken in adultery in 1557 and that his daughter suffered a like fate five years later.”1

The grace principle

Grace would have been a fine thing to have introduced into Every Man’s Battle. Somewhere. Anywhere. Unfortunately, grace is conspicuously absent. To the authors of Every Man’s Battle, Moses is alive and well. In fact, Arterburn and Stoeker have thought of things (“bouncing the eyes,”

for instance) that never even occurred to that rock-hurling patriarch.

Outward laws with dire consequences attached seem, to the human, likely to work. Law says, “Don’t do this particular thing, or else.” What chance does grace have against that?

Grace has the reckless audacity to say, “No matter what you do, all is well; you cannot fall into God’s disfavor.”

Which is more likely to curb the flesh rather than freak it out?

The answer is: grace.

If only law were designed to work, we could excuse those insisting that we keep attempting it. But it wasn’t designed to work, a fact that we learned—or didn’t learn—some 2,000

years ago. It was designed to fail. Romans 5:20 (NASB) says:

“The law came in so that the transgression would increase.”

Not decrease; increase. When I first saw that verse, I thought it was a misprint. Did you even know this verse 1. G. Rattray Taylor, Sex in History: The Story of Society’s Changing Attitudes to Sex Throughout the Ages, New York: The Vanguard Press, Inc. 1970, p. 164

ZENDER & COLPO

342

was in the Bible? Why hasn’t anyone ever pointed it out to you? I have not seen a version of the Bible yet that was able to screw up the wording here. God purposely instituted law to teach people this lesson: law never works. “Thou shalt not”

fails on application. Not only that, but law upsets people so badly that they end up sinning more. That’s what Romans 5:20 says happens, and it’s what does happen.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say that there is a man who never considers coveting. Then the law says, “Thou shalt not covet.” When the man hears the law say, “Thou shalt not covet,” it irritates him to the point of a coveting binge. It’s as though his flesh subconsciously says to God: How dare you impose a standard on me!

Sound unlikely? This is the precise testimony of the Apostle Paul in Romans, chapter 7, verses 7-8. Again, from the NASB—

I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind.

Is this actually in the Bible? Yes. You can verify it in any version you like. Again, not even bad translators have managed to ruin it.

Here’s how it worked in the life of an early Israelite—

Early Israelite: We have such a great donkey, Rhonda. I know he’s skinny. But the kids love him. I’ve never felt more content and satisfied in my whole entire life. Please pass me a pomegranate.

Rhonda: “Wow! Look at this headline, honey. God has just said that, under no circumstance are we ever to covet our neighbor’s donkey.

343

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Early Israelite: Covet? Hmm. Covet. Cov-et. Doesn’t that mean to wrongfully desire another’s property?

Rhonda: Yes, that’s what my dictionary reads. What are you thinking, sweetheart?

Early Israelite: I’m thinking I want Leroy’s donkey. Bad.

Note, first, that the law itself is not sin. Lest there be any mistake, Paul writes in verse seven, “What, then, shall we declare? That the law is sin? May it not be coming to that! But sin I knew not except through law.” So there’s nothing wrong with law. According to Romans 8:3, it’s just “infirm through the flesh.” This simply means that flesh cannot do law.

Does Paul take the blame for carrying out the coveting that vexes him? No. He attributes this to Sin, and the translators of the Concordant Version have personified it as a power with a capital “S.” It deserves a capital “S.” It’s Sin that carries out coveting. What’s sin’s vehicle? Law. Law gives sin opportunity. In Scriptural language: “Sin takes opportunity through the commandment.”

Think of law as a playground and sin as a book-weary school boy. The boy’s energy is latent. That is, it’s present but not apparent. But when the boy sees the playground, he runs for the swings. The playground gives his latent energy opportunity. The playground is a field of irresistible temptation for the boy. Energy “takes the field” and carries the boy forward. It’s the same with sin and law. Law inspires sin, and sin takes it from there. Is this a design flaw? No. God meant for it to be this way. Was law a failure? Oh, no. Law did exactly what it was designed to do: make people sin more than they would have without it. Since law did exactly what it was meant to do, God did not sin by bringing it.

This is an eye-opening verse. Rather than letting our personal doctrines color this verse, how much better to let

ZENDER & COLPO

344

this verse color our personal doctrines.

Where there had been no such coveting before the law, sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in Paul every kind of coveting. It produced coveting like a coveting factory.

The purpose of law, then, is to drive people to Christ and to grace. Not many people have learned this lesson, especially not people who say, “Thou shalt not look at a beautiful woman in a lacy, black bra.”

Introduction to my friend Josh’s wife In the next chapter, I will tell you about my friend Josh’s wife, who encouraged Josh—on a walk in the park one day—to notice and admire a woman with very nice breasts.

I know I’m preempting the story here, but it will give you something to look forward to. Following his wife’s encouragement, Josh looked in a passing fashion at the woman and her very nice breasts. In fact, he went so far as to admire the woman and her very nice breasts. Then, he kissed his wife because she was such an understanding woman and she loved him so much. Josh thought nothing more about the passing woman and her passing breasts.

What if Josh’s wife had told him, “Listen to me, Josh.

There is a gorgeous woman coming down the trail with totally amazing breasts. Now, no matter what, you had better not look at either the woman or her totally amazing breasts. If you do, you are in deep hot water with me, Mister.”

I guarantee you that Josh, being a good man and a loving husband, would have mightily diverted his eye for the sake of his wife. But I can also tell you that, for the rest of the walk, Josh would have thought about nothing but those

“totally amazing breasts” that he had missed. Josh would have complied with his wife’s demand, but he would have

ZENDER & COLPO

346

resented it. If he was anything like the apostle Paul, the prohibition would have caused him to want to look even more. Later, he would have thought and thought about why he didn’t look.

Let’s plug the “really nice breasts” scenario into Romans 7:7-8 and see how it reads—

I would not have come to stare so hard at women’s breasts, except that my wife always makes a huge deal about me not looking at breasts. Because, honestly, my attraction to breasts was healthy and normal until my wife Stephanie started saying every day, “THOU SHALT NOT LOOK AT WOMEN’S

BREASTS.” My normal desires became irritated at this constant prohibition and turned me into a breast fiend who thinks about nothing but women’s breasts.

This is how it works. Prohibitions birth rabid excitations.

Rabid excitations birth addictions. But when men and women allow themselves to accept and even celebrate their God-given bents, and to realize that God smiles upon them no matter what, it calms them down and actually keeps them from freakhood.—MZ

2

Heidi

It has occurred to me that men do not deny their God-given natures for very long. Bouncing one’s eyes from beauty is like bouncing one’s eyes from God. Desperate men, trying to do the right thing in public, “lose it” in private. This is the God-given nature coming out. (And it will come out one way or another.) The men then reach for porn, and subsequently feel guilty about it. On the female side, women beat down their desires to be beautiful, sexy, and admired by men.

347

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

What is the common denominator here? Each one is denying his and her nature. Everyone is therefore doing unnatural things. Everyone is fighting the way God made them. The men are fighting that they love beauty, and the woman are fighting that they like being beautiful. The holier-than-thou attitude of some wives (they purposely avoid becoming overly beautiful because they don’t want to be the downfall of men—in some cases even of their own husbands) is also a case of a woman denying her God-given nature; God made her to be beautiful. What Arterburn and Stoeker are doing, therefore, is creating holier-than-thou men who think they’ve conquered the world when they conquer their natural desires, and holier-than-thou women who proudly dress like Mennonites. But God isn’t asking either party to do any of this. It is Satan who is asking them to do it, using Arterburn and Stoeker to commence an unnecessary battle.

Look at what is happening. Both parties are straining to deny their God-given natures, with the result being that each party screws itself out of what it needs. Is this not remarkably stupid? A woman who gives her husband Every Man’s Battle with a smug, self-righteous attitude might want to consider this first: what is heavily implied by the authors of that book is that men are evil for looking at a woman’s beauty and that the women themselves are evil because, if looking upon beauty is wrong, then certainly being beautiful must also be wrong. Let’s say that—compliments of Arterburn and Stoeker—a man conquers his battle and a woman conquers hers. Congratulations! We now have two self-righteous, nature-denying nincompoops poised for avoidable struggle and failure.

A woman who is beautiful (according to the wacko book) is sinning by the very act of being beautiful, thereby

ZENDER & COLPO

348

causing the man to sin simply because he will notice her beauty. Since all this denial of nature is meant to curb sin, one cannot but conclude that nature must be sinful. The next logical (and horrifying) conclusion is that God Himself must be a sinner because He is the one who invented nature.

He created men and women and penises and vaginas and erections and called it all “good.”

Do you think it’s a good idea to argue with Him?—HC

2

MZ

This is the key; the key is allowing yourself to do a thing.

On the other hand, by prohibiting this, that, and the other thing, those straining to follow Arterburn and Stoeker’s prescription will become freaks. When men and women and husbands and wives recognize and even celebrate what God made them to like and to want—instead of ignorantly and unnecessarily fighting these God-given tendencies—they honor God and, most surprisingly, lead a more normal, more godly life.

Here is A.E. Knoch from the Concordant Commentary to the Concordant Literal New Testament—

The law said, “Accursed is everyone who is not remaining in all things written in the Scroll of the Law, to do them.” Grace says, Blessed are you, whatever you may do, for Christ has justified you and not one dare bring anything against you.

The fallacious logic of the old humanity immediately imagines that this gives license and encouragement to sin. But its actual effect is quite the opposite. Grace, not law, has power to deter us from sinning. No one who has an actual experience of grace, reasons that, because there is immunity, therefore he will sin.

The offender against law flies in the face of law. Its austere

ZENDER & COLPO

350

threats do not hinder him. But the offender against grace feels the heinousness of his offense, and flies from it.

This is why Josh hugged Stephanie after their walk in the park that day rather than walking ten feet in front of her, sulking, and going home to view Internet porn.

If it is a more godly life that Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker want for men, they unwittingly work against this goal rather than toward it with their freaky, law-hurling book.

The Amish Guy

I will never forget reading a so-called spiritual book by an Amish guy trying to cure his readers of sin. When I picked up this book, I was unaware of the sexual wonderland I was about to enter. I wish I still had that darned book, because I’d quote directly from it. I don’t know the author’s full name, although I’m pretty sure his last name was (and probably still is) “Yoder.”

This is a true story. I was nearly a quarter of the way through the book when the following statement stirred my sleeping sacs. The following is a paraphrase, but it’s darned close—

It is shameful the way women gallivant around in public now-adays, in their long legs, their short skirts, and their spiky, high heels. They should walk and talk and dress befitting women of God, but instead they swing their hips and mince along the highways and byways. They also walk around with unbuttoned blouses, showing the tops of their breasts to anyone caring to gaze at them.

Now folks, before reading the preceding paragraph, I was minding my own business. A small, sleepy collection of semen pooled lazily in my calmly reclining sacs. I’d picked

351

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

up the book to gain insight into Christian living. I was thinking not a whit about long, female legs, short skirts, high heels ( spiky high heels), and the marvels of voluptuous female breasts. After reading this paragraph, however, I could think of nothing but long legs, high heels ( spiky high heels), short skirts, and the marvels of voluptuous female breasts.

Naturally, I had to do something about it.

Thanks, Mr. Yoder. No, real y. Thanks.

I’m glad you didn’t condemn Pop Tarts, Mr. Yoder (“Some people actually eat these warm, soft, toaster-heated pastries stuffed with incredibly delicious jellies and jams”), because I’m trying to lose weight.

Duchess of York

Speaking of losing weight, if you are allowed everything on your diet except York Peppermint Patties, you will think of nothing but York Peppermint Patties. Before your diet, you didn’t think much about them at all. You had one, maybe two a month. But now that they are forbidden, you resent the prohibition and fixate upon what you can’t have.

Now, York Peppermint Patties are all you can think about.

It’s Romans, chapter 7, in action.

You stick to your diet on Monday and Tuesday. Congratulations. Unfortunately, life is longer than Monday and Tuesday, beginning with Wednesday. On Wednesday (at 1:25 p.m.), you crack.

You go to the grocery store on Wednesday afternoon and let twelve York peppermint patties tumble onto the counter through your trembling fingers. The clerk looks at you funny, but who cares? You are about to enter a soul-comforting chocolate coma.

ZENDER & COLPO

352

You eat all twelve patties in the car before arriving home.

You look in the rear-view mirror at your dumb face and smile at yourself. There is chocolate all over your teeth, your lips, and your chin. Again, who cares? The coma is coming on nicely. You wish now that you had bought thirteen patties.

Why didn’t you buy twenty? There is enough foil wrapping on your passenger seat to build a small satellite dish. This is what you get for making a law. If God had ordered you to abstain from the patties, you would have bought three dozen. Or three hundred. “The disposition of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, for neither is it able.” That’s Romans 8:7. God made you this way to humble you, to make you aware of your helplessness, and to drive you to the feet of His Savior for salvation.

It works.

Even science supports this divine principle that Arterburn and Stoeker have apparently never even heard of, let alone believed.

The Cookie Principle

Here is big news: Science discovered the Romans 7 principle in 1995.

A little late, but we’ll take what we can get.

I have a March, 1995 Reader’s Digest article before me cal ed “Control Your Food Cravings,” written by Per Ola and Emily d’Aulaire. According to the writers, binge “feeding frenzies” have nothing to do with hunger.

I’ll say. They have mostly to do with potato chips.

Listen to this quote from the article, under the heading,

“Give in—sometimes”:

Experts agree that the single most important piece of advice is to guard against absolute denial, which sets people up for what scientists call “abstinence violation.”

353

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

You knew it was only a matter of time until scientists devised a term for sin. They’ve sanitized it, of course. But remember, these are the same people who gave us “fetal tissue.” Thanks to our white-frocked laboratory friends, sinners are now “abstinence violators.”

► Behold. A friend of tax-gatherers and abstinence violators.

► Rabbi, who abstinence violated, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?

► Forgive us our abstinence violations, as we forgive those who abstinence violate us.

► All have violated their abstinence, and have fallen short of the glory of God.

Are you surprised to hear that “absolute denial” sets people up for what the scientists call “abstinence violation”?

You shouldn’t be. It’s Romans 5:20: “The law (absolute denial) was added so that the trespass (abstinence violation) might increase.”

Note that the first three words of eight of the Ten Commandments are “Thou shalt not.” This answers to the scientists’ “absolute denial.” What occurs in the wake of

“absolute denial?” “Trespass will increase” (Romans 5:20).

Give the scientists time, and they’ll call it, “accretive inten-sification of abstinence violation.”

The words “sets people up” suggest design. It is design.

Whose design is it? God’s. God purposely made people so that “absolute denial” would “set them up” for “abstinence violation.” The human, by divine decree, is always three words away from sin; three words away from a chocolate-covered face and two bended knees. The three words are “Thou. Shalt. Not.”

355

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The article goes on. David Schlundt, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, explains: If you’ve forbidden yourself a certain food, all it takes is one bite of it for you to say, “Well, I’ve blown it now. I might as well eat the whole thing.” This all-or-nothing approach is dangerous.

Thank you, Mr. Schlundt. I respect your degree, but Paul presented this truth twenty centuries before you attended Vanderbilt. In Romans 7:7-8, Paul writes: “I had not been aware of coveting except the law said, ‘You shall not be coveting.’ Now Sin, getting an incentive through the precept, produces in me all manner of coveting.”

Again from the article, Alisa Minear, director of nutri-tion and health education at the Scripps Clinic and Research foundation in La Jolla, California—

“. .worked with a woman in her 40’s who attempted to control her weight by giving up cookies. Weeks would go by when she didn’t so much as nibble a cookie, even though she frequently baked them for her children. Her craving would build to the bursting point—and finally she would give in, eating mountains of cookies.”

I laughed when I first read that. I’m sorry, Cookie Woman, but I couldn’t help it. It’s Scripture come to Scripps. Poor Cookie Woman. She went the Sinai route to curb her craving, unaware of the “ROAD CLOSED” sign.

If only she had read Romans 5:20, and the seventh chapter of that momentous book. But no. Instead, she attempted to control her weight by “giving up cookies,” or, worse yet, being denied cookies.

ZENDER & COLPO

356

“Give up cookies” = “Thou shalt not.”

Watch what happened next:

“Weeks would go by when she didn’t so much as nibble a cookie.”

This is the equivalent of Israel saying, “All that Yahweh speaks we shall do” (Deuteronomy 5:27). And it works. It always works—for five minutes. Remember how long it took Israel to “lose it” after Moses climbed the mountain and disappeared into the clouds?

Then this beautiful thing happened, not that you’ll be surprised:

“Her craving would build to the bursting point—and finally she would give in, eating mountains of cookies.”

Thank you, Cookie Woman, for unwittingly verifying Scripture. This is the equivalent of Paul’s, “For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (Romans 7:18). It’s the equivalent of his, “It is not the good that I will that I am doing, but the evil that I am not willing, this I am putting into practice” (Romans 7:15). It’s the equivalent of Romans 5:20, “The law was added so that the trespass might increase.” It’s the equivalent of Paul again in Romans 7:8,

“But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind.”

It’s the equivalent of verse 9, which I don’t think I’ve spotlighted yet: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.”

This wonderful article continues:

It took Minear months to convince the woman that she should incorporate cookies into her everyday diet, eating a couple for dessert.

This, too, was long-ago verified. It’s the equivalent of Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:12—“All is allowed me.”

357

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Stunning? Yes. Yet Paul had finally come to that. It may seem unbelievable that an ex-Pharisee had finally been “reduced” to admitting such major grace-truth: “All is allowed me.” It was the last thing you’d have expected a Pharisee to admit. Imagine a Pharisee at a party, swishing an adult beverage in his glass, saying, “All is allowed me, gentlemen.” The old Paul never would have said that. But this Paul had learned salvation to be of God, not of him. This Paul had learned that what he did had no effect on who he was in Christ. This Paul, struck down, then up, en route to Damascus, had learned he was saved as a sinner, not as a saint. This Paul had learned the true purpose of law.

How humbling was that revelation. It humbled him into the Damascus dirt. The result was a rush of liberation the man had never known. The paradox was that Paul responded—for the better—more to the liberation than to the prohibition.

Thus will it always be. Human nature has not changed.

By practical experience, Cookie Woman and Alisa Minear discovered this truth 2,000 years later. Not until realizing “all is allowed us” will we note moral improvement in our lives. I know it’s a paradox, but just let it be one. Thril to what happened with Cookie Woman when cookies were finally allowed her:

It took Minear months to convince the woman that she should incorporate cookies into her everyday diet, eating a couple for dessert. Two weeks after finally doing this, she lost all interest in increasing her cookie consumption. Within months, she’d dropped 20 pounds. “The key,” says Minear, “was no denial.

She’s in control now—and she’s amazed. For 20 years, she tried unsuccessfully to deny herself. It never ever works.”

Good job, Ms. Minear. Better late than never. It’s better than the 2,000 years it has taken the Christian church to not

ZENDER & COLPO

358

learn the lesson of law. They’re still experimenting with it; still trying hard to apply and perform it. I like how Cookie Woman was “amazed” that allowing herself to eat cookies took away her maniacal desire for them. It reminds me of a song.

“Amazing Grace.”

A great way to eat shrimp

I have three sons. When they got old enough to appreciate such things (age twelve or so), I would take them out on what came to be known as our Annual Sports Il ustrated Swimsuit Issue Expedition And Shrimpfest. Each February, I would drive my boys to the mall (at first I only took one, then two of them, then all three), buy the magazine, hand it over to them, then drive to Red Lobster while they took turns perusing the pages and not saying much.

The Annual Sports Il ustrated Swimsuit Issue Expedition And Shrimpfest, embarked upon by my sons and me, raises the eyebrows of embarrassed/horrified people who studiously avoid any discussions about sex. I’m sorry, but I’m just a little upset with people who treat sex as though it’s a three-letter word. So many seemingly smart people are ashamed of the natural functions of their bodies. They don’t like to talk about it. In fact, they start squirming at the mere mention of it, instantly beginning to scratch the backs of their necks, shift their stance, and dart their eyes. Honestly, I believe that many of them despise sex itself, and wish it didn’t exist. It’s just so embarrassing. It’s so out there. Why did God have to make something so out there?

A lot of the people who are condemning sex, I notice, aren’t getting much of it.

ZENDER & COLPO

360

My theory was (and is) that it is stupid for my fellow testosteronians and me to pretend that we could take or leave the bikini and its inhabitant. Who is kidding whom?

To refuse to acknowledge feminine beauty—to look the other way at it, to banish it to the shadows, to blush in its presence—is to spit in the face of a loving God. It is to slap away a reasonably-priced escape ladder (the Sports Il ustrated Swimsuit Issue) from the pressures and miseries of life, dangled from the Deity’s celestial helicopter. I would have no awkward moments with my sons. I refused to allow into my home the time-tested “ignore sex/screw up your kids”

syndrome. I refused to slip on the divine banana peel (the bikini and its inhabitant) and then pretend I didn’t. My boys were looking anyway, so why not accompany them, foot the bill, and get shrimp out of it? The more normal I made it (and it is so that way), the less maniacal would be its pull.

The bikini and its inhabitant will always pul , but one can diffuse the freak side of this power. Religious people habitual y make normal things freakish by silently (or vocal y) condemning God-imposed inclinations. This is a recipe for jail time.

The criminal starts—and will probably finish—his sordid career in the closet of condemnation. Someone, somewhere, made sex wrong and/or dirty in the mind of the criminal. It happened when he was a boy. Sex was evil; forbidden; a sin.

Today, my three sons are well-adjusted men. They’re normal. They respect women. They are happily married.

They’re not in jail.

None of this is an accident.—MZ

2

Heidi

My three boys are stil young. The oldest has made it very clear that he is not yet ready to talk about girlfriends, but

361

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

he promised to let me know when he is. I am not going to wait until his hormones start snap, crackle, and popping to begin educating him on sex. The boys have two major female influences in their lives right now: their older sister and me.

She and I are very expressive of our femininity, and I don’t feel the need to dial it back. When the time comes for my boys to start the girlfriend talk, they wil consider their God-given natures a gift rather than a burden. I will make sure of this. Their sex drives won’t be a battle to them, but a benefit.

Yes, I am doing more than “hoping” that this will happen; I am actively teaching my boys truth using the Scriptures, my own experiences, and the testimony of my life. The number one thing that I hope to impress upon my boys is that God made women to be loved and desired by them, and that they are to respect that. May God grant all of us parents wisdom as our boys grow up to become men.—HC

2

MZ

Paul himself declares that unnatural, self-imposed laws only worsen fleshly trials—eventually. A man may be able to nail up a fair-looking Hollywood wall of “pure sexual holiness” (as religion defines it) for five minutes, five days, or five years, but the first contrary wind will turn his homemade structure into a pile of toothpicks.

Consider Colossians 2:20-23, from the J.B. Phillips paraphrase—

So if, through your faith in Christ, you are dead to the principles of this world’s life, why, as if you were still part and parcel of this world-wide system, do you take the slightest notice of these purely human prohibitions—“Don’t touch this,” “Don’t

ZENDER & COLPO

362

taste that” and “Don’t handle the other?” “This,” “that,” and

“the other” will all pass away after use! I know that these regulations look wise with their self-inspired efforts at piety, their policy of self-humbling, and their studied neglect of the body. But in actual practice they are of no moral value, but simply pamper the flesh.

Why suffer beneath human prohibitions (which not only increase sin, but actually pamper the flesh by making it look and feel pious), when you can enjoy the simple, legal pleasures of life, while collaterally avoiding the snare of religious self-righteousness and hypocrisy?

If you’re spiritual enough to try it, you will find that grace has much more power than law. Plus, it’s a lot more fun. Not only this, but grace, once understood, will improve your relationship with God (it will feel like this from your end; God could already not be more pleased with you, due to the sacrifice of His Son). Grace will improve your relationship with your family, and with your spouse.

There is no battle; why strive to invent one?

The key to enjoying life

The law-keeper cannot imagine how the free person can enjoy life’s simple pleasures, guilt-free, without “losing it.” Thus, the average, fun-type believer possesses more of God’s spirit than the religious believer constantly burdened by self-analysis and unnatural discipline. (And look who ends up “losing it.”) Due to the presence of the spirit of self-control, the average, fun-type believer trusts God more deeply than the performance-oriented believer, and is therefore much freer to enjoy life and, ironical y, to walk in a manner pleasing to God. The spirit of self-control (self-control is one of the fruits of the

363

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

spirit—Galatians 5:23) is much different than religious self-control. Whereas the spirit of self control comes from God, the religious version arises from a provably undepend-able well of human will-power. Because it is of God and therefore reliable, the spirit of self-control allows a person to enjoy natural pleasures. On the flip side, because he or she is constantly working to resist natural pleasures, the religious person not only cannot enjoy natural pleasures, he or she will inevitably hate seeing other people enjoying these very things. Rather than enjoyment, these kinds of people (religious people) live with the constant fear that their vaunted self-control will crumble, as it inevitably does.

Ever hear the saying, “Walk by faith, not perception”?

That’s 2 Corinthians 5:7. The religious person can’t do it.

Without the monitoring of their own efforts, religious people are lost. They need to see their own works, admire charts of their own accomplishments, and then impose their “perfection” upon other, happier souls. Misery loves company, I guess.

The spirit of self-control is invisible, requiring faith. The human version can be plotted on a graph with a No. 2 lead pencil.

Human self-control, therefore, is faithless.

What am I tel ing you? That you’re supposed to al ow a little erotica into your lives without condemning one another for it?

Yep.—MZ

13 the wIves

365

the wIves

Up ahead, coming toward us on the trail, was a bountifully blessed woman in a low, scoop-necked shirt. The first thing we noticed, even from forty yards, were her breasts. We couldn’t help it. Not even Billy Graham would have been able to have helped it. Even Mother Theresa would have said, “Cowabunga!”

Gandhi might have been able to bounce his eyes, but not without saying, “Holy cow!” first.

Curiously, God had put this woman’s breasts right out in front of her body where everyone could notice them. The owner of the breasts appeared to be happy with the arrangement. For sure, she was not ashamed of it.

I was hiking with my 53 year-old friend Josh, his wife Stephanie, and their two grown sons. We were all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every one of us had been known to weep at reverent renditions of “Amazing Grace.” On top of that, God thought very highly of all five of us, and went

366

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

out of His way to say so in the book of Romans. One thing that was obvious to the five of us on this particular day, however, was: There is a woman coming down the trail who might actual y be Dol y Parton, if Dol y Parton should ever dye her hair brown and wear cut-off shorts.

I wish I could explain to you what it is about a woman’s breasts that attract both men and women alike. One may just as well attempt to explain the petals of a flower, the eyes of a cat, or the rings of Saturn. All I know is: everyone wants to look. Everyone. Even babies. Well, especially babies. It is wired into humanity to look at an attractive female bosom.

Whether one obeys one’s instinct or decides to short-circuit it does not alter the instinct.

The five of us on the trail that day faced two possibilities, then. We could either ignore the fact that an Act of God was coming down the trail, or we could acknowledge and celebrate it. What we did depended on Stephanie.

Oddly, females are the ones with the biggest hang-ups about feminine beauty. May we be honest with one another?

I am speaking only from my experience, and I address women now: Of the two sexes, yours is the one most threatened by feminine beauty and the most prone to consider it evil. Left to ourselves, we men instinctively acknowledge and celebrate how God made women. We only act unnaturally in deference to a threatened member of your tribe.

“God’s creation, coming down the pike!” said Stephanie.

“It appears so,” we all said in happy unison.

The woman drew abreast of us—sorry, alongside of us.

“Great weather for a hike,” said my friend Josh.

“It sure is,” said the woman.

Sorry for the lack of drama, but that was it. There were no catcal s, no face slaps, and not a single felonious act committed. We had all simply admired one of God’s creations, just

368

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

as we had admired a field of purple wildflowers ten minutes earlier. Since the reader will scarcely be able to believe what happened next (I’m speaking to both sexes now), I will spell it out: Josh put his arm around Stephanie’s waist and kissed her on the cheek.

Since the reader will not in a million years guess what Stephanie did, I will spell that out as well: Stephanie smiled.

After 27 years, Josh and Stephanie are still happily married. One of the reasons for this—perhaps the main reason—is that Josh can speak honestly with his wife about his sexuality, and Stephanie not only accepts it, but embraces and celebrates it with him.

The two principles

Al ow me to set forth two principles that seem immutable and horrifyingly simple:

1) Men like to look at attractive women.

2) Women generally consider men who like to look at attractive women to be:

a) disloyal mates,

b) animals, and,

c) perverts.

Any arguments so far? Splendid.

The above-mentioned truths will never explode in anyone’s face unless two things happen:

1) The man becomes a husband, and,

2) The woman becomes his wife.

Now we’ve got trouble. Let’s reconsider our two immutable points, inserting the new reality. Prepare to duck: 1) Husbands like to look at attractive women.

2) Wives generally consider husbands who want to look at attractive women to be

a) disloyal mates,

ZENDER & COLPO

369

b) animals, and,

c) perverts.

As far as I can tell, husbands never stop being men, and wives never stop being women. But now, because of the legally binding arrangement, we have the ingredients for the breaking of it. A sexually connected couple in honest communication can weather all storms, including financial ones (financial troubles are supposed to be the number one reason for divorce), but if sexual resentments exist, love is on the rocks. I contend that the above two points—as simple as they are, and as directly related to sex as they may be—are responsible for the vast majority of divorces in this country. Sexual issues, not financial strains, end marriages.

The problem is resentment.

His resentment: I am forced to constantly stuff my sexuality because it will freak out my wife.

Her resentment: He notices other women, therefore he does not love me as completely as he should.

The double-standard

Many female readers will now counter, “Our resentments do not have to exist. All my husband—or any husband—

needs to do is stop looking at attractive women. Just tell the husbands to stop looking, Zender.”

Oh. Okay. I will. In the meantime, here are a couple things you can do for me:

1) stop looking at beautiful flowers, 2) stop shopping for attractive clothes, 3) stop with the candles and the lilac scents already, 4) stop putting so many pillows on the bed —we only need two,

5) and stop decorating the house all the time; it’s fine, for God’s sake.

370

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Have I upset you? Good. Can you tell me why looking at flowers is fine for you, but why looking at beautiful women is a terrible sin for your husband? Is it because flowers are pure, but beautiful women are sinful? How can that be when the same Hand created both?

Is it because a husband looking at a beautiful woman is lusting, whereas you are doing something pure and holy with the roses—or when you buy an accent pillow?

To lust or not to lust

Do you not desire the flower? The pillow? Then you are lusting after these things. (Remember: The Greek word for lust— epithumia— can also be translated “desire.”) And I contend that your lust is worse than your husband’s. Let us assume that your husband is a good man. He doesn’t want to take another woman home with him, he just wants (even needs) to admire feminine beauty.

For example, here comes a girl on the beach in a yel ow bikini. Your husband doesn’t desire her, he only wants to look; his desire is to look and appreciate, not take. He wants to be able to think freely to himself, or perhaps say out loud, “Now there is a beautiful woman,” and not be condemned for it. As crazy as this seems, he does not want to have to hide himself from you. He wants you to know him. He longs, deep down, to have his most inward parts exposed to you, and to be loved not only in spite of them, but because of them.

Meanwhile, you find an amazing pillow at Kohl’s. You look at the pillow and say, “That pillow is beautiful. I have to have it. Therefore, I am going to pay good money for it and take it home.”

If we’re going to consider lusting a sin, then your lust is worse than your husband’s. How can I say that? If your

372

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

husband was as free to consummate his lust as you are to consummate yours, then he would say, concerning the woman in the bikini, “She is beautiful. I have to have her. Therefore, I am going to pay good money for her and take her home.”

I’m sure you would understand. Right? I mean, after all, he tries to understand the pillows.

Have I gone too far? I am aware you may be upset with me at this point, but you have taken a deep breath to compose yourself. Now you counter with the following:

“Why don’t you try comparing apples to apples, Zender.

My husband is admiring another person. I am admiring an object.”

Oh. That’s a good point. You’re right. You lust after inanimate objects; how great. Perfect. Say it out loud: “I lust after inanimate objects.” You’re just fine; nothing to worry about there. Your husband is looking at a living human being made by God, true, but he is not going to bring that person home and pay more attention to her than to you. You, on the other hand, are actually bringing home things—in this case a pair of mauve pillows with gold tassels—and in many cases you will pay more attention to these things, and to their kindred decorations, than to your husband.

A man said to me recently, “I wish my wife would spend half the time fussing over me as she fusses making the house presentable. If I were a pillow, I would at least get fluffed twice a day.”

God is okay with passing the buck

I realize that people are responsible for their own actions.

Having said that, there appears to be a divine precedent for passing the buck. All actions have reactions and consequences. When Adam ate the forbidden fruit and God

ZENDER & COLPO

373

asked him why he did it, Adam pointed to Eve and said,

“The woman that You gave me; she told me to eat.” If God had been a twenty-first century psychologist, He would have said, “You are responsible for your own actions, Adam. Stop trying to blame others.” Instead, He turned to the woman and said, “Well?”

That’s beautiful. I have never heard this emphasized or appreciated. It’s as if it made sense to God for Adam to implicate the woman. After all, the first man did not exist in a vacuum. In all of life, there are actions, reactions, and consequences. There are also influences. So it’s as if God were saying, “Okay. Yes. Good point. I can see that.” So He turns to Eve and pretty much says, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Then Eve passes the buck. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

People are afraid to point it out, I think, because it is social y/

psychologically incorrect in Christian healing/counseling circles to assign blame. A person is forever encouraged to be responsible for his or her own actions. In a sense, he or she is.

But there is another sense. There are these nagging, powerful things causing people to do what they do, also known as

“influences.” Even the apostle Paul says in Romans 7:15-17

concerning his sin—

For what I am effecting I know not, for not what I will, this I am putting into practice, but what I am hating, this I am doing. Now if what I am not willing, this I am doing, I am conceding that the law is ideal . Yet now it is no longer I who am effecting it, but Sin making its home in me.

“Hey,” says Paul. “It’s not me doing these things. It’s Sin making its home in me.”

This is a major buck-pass. Major.

A fire rages, and people run out of the building.

374

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

“Why did you run out of the building?” a reporter asks one of the escapees.

“It was on fire.”

“Stop blaming the fire,” says the reporter. “You are responsible for your own actions.”

So Eve pointed to the serpent and said, basically, “The devil made me do it.”

If it’s true, why not say it? It was the fire. It was the devil.

It was Sin. The fire made me run out of the building. The devil made me eat the fruit. Sin made me sin. Why not be honest? Who cares if it is not socially/psychologically correct in Christian healing/counseling circles to pass blame? Can’t we be personal y responsible and pass blame? Why not? “Yes, I ran out of the building. I admit I did that. I made the decision, yes. But you see, there was this 1,500 degree fire burning my pants off , you see, and .. ”

Eve was overpowered by the seductive powers of Satan.

If not for the serpent, she never would have eaten the forbidden fruit. This implicates the serpent. We know God understands this. We know He grasps the concept of action, reaction, and consequence. God is smart. We know He is smart because, on the heels of Eve’s buck-pass, He then turns to the serpent and curses it.

He also curses Adam and Eve.

My point is that passing the buck is legit. God recognizes it.

All of this to say that, when it comes to pornography, there is an undeniable chain of events (long denied) that leads a man into seeking naked and scantily-clad women on the Internet. My bold (and apparently rare) contention here is that women—wives in particular—ought to be implicated in this chain of events. This is never done. And because it is never done, this book may die a slow death. On the other hand, it may finally provide a cure that works from the

ZENDER & COLPO

375

inside out (grace and acceptance) rather than the outside in (bouncing the eyes), and become a bestseller.

Outside-in is always a short-term solution that eventually fails. Inside-out is a life change that works forever because grace and acceptance are loved and embraced. No one ever loved or embraced the stone tablets from Sinai.

Many embrace Christ.

No Christian book I’ve ever read implicates wives for the married-man porn epidemic. This is why most of the Christian “porn is evil” books (including Every Man’s Battle) are given to husbands by their wives. For one thing, these are the only Christian books that exist on porn. No Christian book on sex and porn ever says, “Well, of course your husband is looking at porn. You hate your body, you resent that your husband needs sex all the time, and you either overtly or covertly condemn him for looking at other women.” And so the wives always end up smelling like roses. The wives are smelling like roses while the husband’s existence turns into a war/paddle-ball game ( bounce the eyes, bounce the eyes, bounce the eyes, bounce the eyes) he can never truly win.

I actually think Arterburn and Stoeker have a secret deal with the National Ophthalmologist Society.

Every Man’s Battle goes completely the wrong way. Men are already sexually constipated and walking on eggshells.

What is needed, then, is a book that finally says, “Wives, please try to understand the sexual wiring of your husbands.”

NOTE TO WIVES: If you are asking yourselves, What is in it for us? Why should we try to understand? Our husbands are the ones who are the sinners, I would say to you that your exercise of grace and understanding will be the only thing inspiring permanent changes in your husband. If you want permanent changes; if you want a husband who adores you; if you want a husband who is no longer addicted to

ZENDER & COLPO

377

pornography—then keep reading. If you want awkward, law-based, temporary changes; if you want a husband who secretly resents you; if you want a battle-weary husband who still thinks constantly about porn but tries to do the right thing every day and is therefore ready to explode—read Every Man’s Battle.

But no. Instead of books that at least implicate wives in the porn struggle, authors like Arterburn and Stoeker must be getting wind that wives want husbands who are “sexually pure.” Apparently, there must be a market for wives who insist on even stricter sexual constipation for their mates, and even more delicate eggshells for them to tiptoe upon.

Either that, or the men are coming up with this on their own. Religion is a powerful force. Men tend to travel in packs, and if there are a bunch of Christian he-men becoming Sexually Pure Jesus People Who No Longer Look at Bra Ads, then that’s a powerful, primal draw. For men to start doing something as unnatural and stupid as bouncing their eyes, there must be some kind of pressure—that’s all I know.

May God use my writings on this topic to liberate both men and women so that they may love each other and trust each other and give themselves to one another again, apart from the kil ing legalism and unnatural prohibitions of Satan.

Christian wives dislike themselves Most good Christian men want to love their wives, and to celebrate their sexuality with the women God gave them.

It is in men to want to see the sexy bodies of their wives in the light of day. They want to see their wives in sexy outfits.

This is all as normal as it can be. But many of the wives are self-conscious about their looks. To put it more bluntly: they hate their bodies.

378

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

I realize that one of the reasons wives hate their bodies is because of all the svelte models in the magazines and on television leading us to believe that only a perfect body can be sexy. I admit this doesn’t help. But it’s not the point. If it was the point, I would ask: “Why are the wives believing Vogue magazine more than they are believing God and their husbands?” But since it is not the point, I will move on.

A wife who in essence hates herself derails every natural instinct in a marriage. I speak here of the instincts of both husbands and wives. Even if one’s body is not perfect, it is wrong to hate oneself.

The double standard is back to haunt us. The man is condemned for looking at pictures of beautiful women on the Internet, but no one takes the woman to task for hating her body, and therefore herself.

Her husband loves her body and wishes she would accept it, but she hates herself so much that she rebuffs the husband’s advances. The husband tries to tell her how beautiful she is, but she keeps denying it. God tries to tell her how beautiful she is, but she believes People magazine instead. She doesn’t even want the light on during sex. Even candles are too bright. She thinks her husband is abnormal for wanting to see her in attractive nightwear. He comes to her with his passions, but she rolls her eyes at him for the umpteenth time. (Hmm. If the wife stops rolling her eyes, maybe the husband will be able to stop bouncing his.) Why is the wife pure and holy for hating God’s creation (including herself and other women), but the husband is a sinning pervert for turning to women on the Internet who at least appear to love themselves?—MZ

2

380

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Heidi

If you think about it, the most convincing lies are those laced with truth. This is the case with religion, politics, healthcare, education, and so many other things. It is also true when it comes to how women view their bodies.

We are told by the media—via magazines, movies, television, the Internet—that only skinny women are beautiful.

We are told that only large-breasted women matter. No woman can satisfy a man without a flat stomach or long legs. Many wives look down on their husbands for buying into media-fueled fantasies that the wives say “just aren’t real.” These women assume that their husbands want them to resemble the popular ideal.

As tempting as it may be to join the condemning cacoph-ony, I feel the need to expose hypocrisy here. Many, many women enjoy reading smutty novels with unrealistically gorgeous men (the descriptions go on and on) and acts of sexual service so drenched in overwrought adjectives that the female readers hold the book in one hand while simul-taneously exercising, in their pants, the middle finger of the other. But now let’s turn from the Harlequin paperbacks to a discussion of the average women’s Christian novel.

Most of the romance in these books prey upon the Christian woman’s fantasy of her ideal man, but in this case the ideal is not a blouse-ripping beau. The men in the Christian novels are not the long-haired, well-hung criminal types of Harlequin fame. Oh, no. These men would rather go on picnics, plant flowers, cook dinner, and tell stories to their children than “go down” on their splayed, naked women.

The men of this love literature would never even think of kissing on the first date, or gazing longingly at a heroine’s heaving bosom, or ripping from her body her calf-bearing

ZENDER & COLPO

381

dress. When it comes time for my friends to tel me al about the fictional adventures in their favorite novels, I have yet to have a woman not tell me that she wished her husband was “as pure, romantic, holy, and considerate” as the men in the book.

But guess what? This is fantasy too, honey.—HC

2

MZ

I have a friend named John who lives in Michigan, where the winters are just like the winters at the North Pole, except that the North Pole gets more sunshine.

This guy was once so depressed that he was seriously considering kil ing himself. He cal ed me and fished covertly for an immediate remedy to his mental difficulty.

I said to him: “Go on the Internet and look at pictures of beautiful women in bikinis.” There was such silence on the other side of the line that I felt compelled to fill it in.

“The bikini,” I continued, “was named after the atoll in the South Pacific where the first atomic bomb was detonated.

You see, John, when atom bombs are falling, people forget how depressed they are. It happens all the time. Imminent nuclear war will do that for you; it will take your mind off of all your nagging little troubles. And guess what? Women wearing tiny, two-piece swimsuits will do the same thing.”

John was taken aback at first. “That is an interesting idea,” he said.

Oh, but this wasn’t an idea—it was a cure. I told him my simple solution would relieve him instantly. It would make him want to live again, at least for the rest of the afternoon.

It was the free, legal, God-inspired solution to his problem.

In some parts of the world, I told him, the sun actually

382

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

reported for celestial duty. In some parts of the world, I said, beautiful women wore extremely small bathing suits.

John, at last somewhat recovered from his shock, said, “You know, I do feel better when I look at a beautiful woman.” It was all I could do not to roll my eyes, and say, “Duh.”

But such is the power of religion.

Here it comes

The previous section seems displaced, but I put it there for a reason. Many women will be angry at me for sharing what I just did. Those women who at least accept the premise that beauty is not evil, and that women in bikinis are acts of God, will still want to ask, “Is John married? Surely you would not give this advice to a married man.”

Let me ask you something. Many couples go to the beach for vacation. On the beach are many lovely women in swimsuits. Unless a man has fal en under the Every Man’s Battle delusion and become an unnatural, beauty-denying automaton, he is going to look at these other women and feel happy.

Yes, even a married man. As the saying goes, “He is married, not dead.” If I told John to, “Go to the beach with your wife,”

would anyone convict me of wrongdoing? Why not?

Why does one go to the beach? Is it not because there is sun and water and waves and seagulls and other happy people? Women might go there purely for the sun. I would say to these women: do we men condemn you for basking in the beauty of the sun? Then why would you condemn us for basking in the beauty of other heavenly bodies? Two reasons: 1) you are insecure about who God made you, and 2) you think we are perverts for finding other women attractive.

By the way, the commandments can be summed up in the saying, “Love your associate as yourself” (Matthew

ZENDER & COLPO

383

22:39). Many of you women, however, do not love yourselves. If you did, you would be secure in who you are. But you are not secure in who you are, so you lash out at your husband, who actual y is secure in himself and knows that he can look at other women and still love you and revel in your unique beauty. This is hard for him to do, however, when 1) you become angry at him for looking at other women, 2) you condemn him, 3) you’re jealous of the woman he is casually looking at, 4) you hate the women he is casually looking at, and, 5) you hate your own body. So you who are wanting your husband to follow all the commandments, why are you disregarding—and in fact flagrantly disobeying—one of the most important commandments of all? —MZ

2

Heidi

Martin, thank you for pointing out to us how much men love to appreciate women. But surely this doesn’t include me, does it? What about all those flaws of mine that I keep fretting over?

After years of wasted worry, it is starting to sink in that it is God Who made women to be beautiful and men to admire them. Who else could have done this? When Eve was brought to Adam, I am pretty sure that Adam didn’t think, That’s nice, God, but she’s a little chunky in the hips.

I asked Danny recently, “Why do men love women so much?” I was expecting him to comment on a physical attribute such as breasts, legs, hair, or the like. What he said was,

“Because they are such a mystery.” Women are attractive to men because they’re women! They’re not like them. Wow, was this ever a revelation. I now believe that most men think this way. This opens the door for women of all shapes and

ZENDER & COLPO

385

sizes to accept themselves and to see themselves as objects of desire simply because they are—in critical and very exiting ways—different than men.

Ladies, do not underestimate the power of your acceptance of yourself. Do not underestimate the positive earthquake that this will be to your man. Will he notice?

Oh, will he! Watch out, because your sex life may begin registering on the Richter scale.—HC

2

MZ

All of this hating of self and hating of other women, by women, is sin. But who ever discusses these sins? No one.

Ever. It is always the male who is the sinner. And what is he doing? He is merely looking at a woman in a bikini; he is admiring God’s creation. What about the wife? She becomes angry. Watch what is happening here: He looks; she becomes angry.

Which is the sin?

Sin Contest

I propose a contest. It will be a contest between a husband who has picked up a copy of Maxim magazine at the bookstore to admire the bikini-clad cover model, and the wife who discovers, criticizes, and condemns him for it. This is a sin contest. I am going to print three classic Scripture passages containing lists of sins, and we are going to see who is sinning more, the husband or the wife. In this example, it is assumed that the husband has no intention of obtaining the model’s phone number, calling her, meeting her at a hotel, and screwing her. The husband loves his wife, and shows her that every day; he simply likes to look at pictures of women in bikinis. Fair enough? Let’s go.

386

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Passage 1— 2 Corinthians 12:20

For I fear, lest somehow, on coming, I may not be finding you such as I want, and I may be found by you such as you do not want; lest somehow there be strife, jealousy, fury, factions, vilifications1, whisperings, puffing up, turbulences.

TALLY FOR PASSAGE 1/ROUND 1:

1. From the Greek word katalalia, literal English elements: DOWN-TALK; Keyword Concordance to the Concordant Literal New Testament, page 319.

ZENDER & COLPO

387

Passage 2— Ephesians 4:31

Let all bitterness and fury and anger and clamor2 and calumny3 be taken away from you with all malice.

TALLY FOR PASSAGE 2/ROUND 2:

2. “A vehement expression of dissatisfaction” — dictionary.com 3. “False and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone” — dictionary.com

388

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Passage 3— Galatians 5:19-21

Now apparent are the works of the flesh, which are adultery, prostitution, uncleanness, wantonness4, idolatry, enchant-ment, enmities, strife, jealousies, furies, factions, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkennesses, revelries, and the like of these, which, I am predicting to you, according as I predicted also, that those committing such things shall not be enjoying the allotment of the kingdom of God.

TALLY FOR PASSAGE 3/ROUND 3: (see opposite page) Sin Contest; a summation

Crossing out repeated offenses, here are the 26 sins listed in our three Scriptural passages: 1) strife, 2) jealousy, 3) fury, 4) factions, 5) vilifications, 6) whisperings, 7) puffing up, 8) turbulences, 9) bitterness, 10) anger, 11) clamor, 12) calumny, 13) malice, 14) adultery, 15) prostitution, 16) uncleanness, 17) wantonness, 18) idolatry, 19) enchant-ment, 20) enmities, 21) dissensions, 22) sects, 23) envies, 24) murders, 25) drunkennesses, and 26) revelries.

Of the 26 sins listed, the husband—who is openly admiring the bikini-clad Maxim cover model at the bookstore—is committing none of them, while the wife—criticizing and condemning him—is guilty of committing 17 of the 26.

Is the husband committing prostitution with the model?

No. Adultery? No. Is he even lusting to commit adultery?

No. Is his looking, by itself, unclean? Not by any Scriptural definition. Is he wanton? No; he’s doing this in broad day-light. Is he idolatrous? Not by a long shot; otherwise, he’d be putting the cover model before God, and serving her as God.

4. From the Greek aselgeia, literal English elements: UN-MOON-LEADING; definition, according to Keyword Concordance to the Concordant Literal New Testament, page 321: “Leading or going away by stealth when the moon is not shining, carousing in the darkness.”

ZENDER & COLPO

389

390

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The wife, however, is jealous of the cover model. (All words in bold are the specific sins enumerated by Paul.) She is not only jealous of her, she envies the model’s perfect body. She is furious at her husband for looking at the cover model. Because of these feelings, she is now at enmity with him, creating dissension. There is malice in her heart; she feels the need to punish him. Her jealousy over the model and disappointment over her husband rouses her anger.

This trip to the bookstore had been pleasant, but now it has become turbulent and strife-filled.

On the way out of the bookstore, the wife vents her feelings. There is bitterness in her voice. She is certain that she is right, and he is wrong; this puffed up view of her own moral superiority blinds her to her own sins. In the parking lot, she creates a clamor by vehemently expressing dissatisfaction with the man God gave her. She does this so audibly that several passers-by turn to see what’s happening.

When she gets home, she goes into another room to call her sister. She whispers into the phone so that her husband will not hear. Now she can really vilify him, that is, down-talk him to her sister. “He doesn’t love me anymore,” she cries. “He doesn’t want me; he only wants beautiful models.

He’s a pervert.” In saying these things, she commits calumny against her husband, that is, she reports false and malicious things concerning him to injure his reputation to her sister.

She and her sister have now become their own sect, successfully creating a two-party faction that will oppose any defense offered by the “criminal,” that is, the husband.–MZ

2

Heidi

My husband and I decided about ten years ago that we did not fit well into the church we attended. Some of the

392

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

couples we had gotten close to talked each other down. I was a faithful women’s Bible-study attendee and I participated in the “girls’ night out” thing sponsored by our Sunday school.

But my goodness. I couldn’t believe the amount of backstabbing going on among the women. It was no longer a Bible study but a backstabbing brigade. I never knew that so many husbands were such losers. When a group of “holy women”

get together, it apparently green-lights an airing-out of all the flaws of their mates. Did the women vent any of these complaints to their husbands? I’m not sure; I’m thinking that they expended all their energy along this line in the women’s groups. Where else could they get such positive feedback? This returns me to the number one cure for relationships: communication between partners. I realize that honest communication smarts in the short-term, but it’s the only long-term solution. If these wives instead vented to their husbands (but without the side order of condemnation), they would simply lose the need to do so at these Bible events, and maybe we could study the Bible —HC

2

MZ

Referring back to the sin contest, it seems to me that the first person we need to confront here is the one committing these 17 sins. And yet, it is the last person we confront. The person committing 17 of the 26 most terrible New Testament sins is “pure and holy and justified,” whereas the person looking at God’s beautiful creation and committing none of these sins is an adulterating, idolatrous, wife-despising pervert.

The assumption of the wife is that the husband is now going to look at her and not feel happy. This assumption is embraced and camped upon by nearly every wife on

ZENDER & COLPO

393

God’s green-blue planet. I contend this assumption to be the biggest contributor to marital discord. It is just as unreasonable as the assumption that the father complimenting and praising other parents’ children will then despise his own. It is absurd. It is ridiculous. It is illogical.

“He looks at other women, therefore he despises me.”

It comes back to the erroneous assumption of Every Man’s Battle that our natural male tendencies are deadly, and that merely looking at a woman constitutes “impurity of the eyes”

(pg. 66), and admiring her beauty constitutes a “visual foreplay” (pg. 66) that inevitably ( inevitably, mind you) “rockets us by stages until we go all the way” (pg. 66).

This is pure, unadulterated, marriage-wrecking evil, and it needs to stop.—MZ

2

Heidi

Girls, why do we make things complicated? Normal men need sex. Women need love. Let us give one another what we need. A man will love you for understanding that he needs sex. The sex he needs is no doubt intensified by our modern, sex-charged environment. Our sexualized culture, however, does not and should not compete with the love and commit-ment that your man has pledged to you. He has not pledged the same to the blue jean babe on the billboard. You have so many advantages over her. You’re his wife, and she’s not. He doesn’t want her, he wants you. That’s why he’s with you and not her. He doesn’t want her. Jealousy is hurtful. Jealousy over a billboard is insane. Jealous women are worried about the wrong women. Your man forsook all other women—yes, even the bil board babe—to be with you. Women of his past and of his present pose no threat. Again, he forsook them

394

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

for you. The women you ought to be worried about are the women of his future. To save your relationships, you must grasp, and grasp now, the real threat of the future women to whom this man will run after you drive him into their arms with your incessant insecurities.—HC

2

MZ

The societal pendulum swings far out, then far back.

Women look at the way things were in the Old Testament days, and they can’t wrap their heads around it. At worst, they despise it. It was, and is, called “patriarchy.” It was the days when men were the heads of their homes—loving, caring for, and protecting women and children. The glory was not restricted to Old Testament times; Paul reiterates the truth of male headship in Ephesians, chapter 5.

It is the ideal way of things.

The prejudice against patriarchy is the assumption that the men of old were cruel, hard despots. Yes, sadly, there were outliers, but the majority of the husbands loved their wives. Most women today don’t even know what a loving husband is. For these wives, whenever their distrusted mates gaze at other women, the wives form strong associations between bad husbands and roving eyes. To these wives, roving eyes = bad husband. Because of their limited experience, the wives assume that the two go hand-in-hand.

They don’t.

Many good husbands in the Bible looked at other women. In fact, many good husbands in the Bible not only looked at other women, but made love to different women quite frequently. Why? Because all the women they made love to were either their wives or their concubines. David was one of these husbands.

ZENDER & COLPO

395

David, King of Israel, had many wives. So did Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, and Rehoboam. Were these men sexual freaks? Perverts? Self-obsessed woman haters? Just the opposite; they were godly men. How can I say that? Because God Himself instituted polygamy. The law itself (the law that God wrote) actual y required a man—in a special case—to become a polygamist. In the case of the death of his married (yet childless) brother, a man was required—irrespective of whether he was married or not—to take his brother’s widow as his wife. It was cal ed the Levirate law (Deuteronomy 25:5-10). Why did God do this? He was concerned that 1) women be protected, 2) children have fathers, and 3) a man’s name was not wiped out from Israel.

Polygamy is not, primarily, about sex. It is about providing for women and children. Additional y, yes, it does answer to the stronger male sex drive. (God, by the way, is not an emotional, political y-correct American with Puritanical sexual mores.) Again, God instituted polygamy for the sake of women and children. As women have historically outnumbered men—thanks largely to all the wars men tend to start and to fight in (it does sometimes seem like Every Man loves a Battle)—polygamy opened the field of available husbands. A woman without a head or a father for her children had more choices; she could choose a good man with a track record of loving and providing for his family.

Consider King David. This man had several wives. What modern wife, reading the wonderful psalms of David, ever pauses to consider that this man woke up with a different wife on Tuesday than he woke up with on Monday? She never even thinks about it. The modern, American wife may just as well attempt to grasp little green men from Mars. So what does she do? She pretends it never happened. She’ll say things like, “God tolerated polygamy,” when in fact God never tolerated it at all—He instituted it.

ZENDER & COLPO

397

Let’s say David wakes up with Eglah on Monday morning. He tel s her he loves and cherishes her. It is a truth.

It’s so true that he makes beautiful love to his beautiful Eglah. Eglah feels loved. Ask her. Eglah: “I have never known a better husband.” She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that David loves her; he demonstrates it time and again.

On Tuesday morning, David wakes up with Abigail. He tel s her he loves and cherishes her. It is a truth. It’s so true that he makes beautiful love to his beautiful wife Abigail.

Abigail feels loved. Ask her. Abigail: “I have never known a better husband.” She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that David loves her; he demonstrates it time and again.

We men have something to tell you women that you are not going to like, but that you need to hear. Are you ready? Here it goes: We men can easily make love to several women besides you, and not love you any less. I’m sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, but I doubt your husband will tell you. So there it is. We have been wired this way by God. By God.

In Ephesians, chapter 5, Paul writes that husbands are to love wives, “as Christ loves the ecclesia.” The ecclesia is a many-membered organism. Thus, it is natural for a man to have more than one wife. The man typifies Christ, Who has many members; He is the head of the body. This is why God gives the gander different guidelines than the goose.

He made women to love and care for one man because the ecclesia has one head—Christ. You may scream, “Unfair!”

but I am only telling you the facts according to Scripture.

You will have to take up “unfair” with God.

Since David told Abagail he loved her and cherished her, was he lying to Eglah? Our modern wife would assume so.

Our modern wife cannot even entertain the concept of her husband admiring someone else, let alone loving someone else. She assumes he must be lying to one woman in order

398

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

to be able to tell another woman that he loves her. (Does the husband, who is also a father, lie to one child by tel ing another that he loves him/her? Of course not. But it’s the same principle.)

Polygamy is still a common practice in many modern cultures. It was a system instituted by God Himself, and no New Testament passage abrogates it. That supervisors and servants in the local ecclesias of Paul’s day (1 Timothy, chapter 3) were instructed to be the “husband of one wife”

proves that it was common for men of those days—men without these particular offices, and men in general—to have multiple wives. Our culture is prejudiced against it because of highly publicized cases of its abuse.

Each of my arguments assume a good, loving husband.

I am not promoting polygamy. I am not a practitioner.

I am only making a point. The point is that the societal pendulum swings. Because women have been abused over the years, we of “enlightened” times naturally overcompen-sate. Now we must avoid even the appearance of offending women. We treat them now with such kid gloves that Christian leaders exhort men to become as females. “Be more like your wife,” is the new cry of Christian “maledom.” We are supposed to think like women, talk like women, act like women. “Don’t even look at other women!” these legalists tell us. (Since they love the law of Moses so much, why aren’t they, themselves, promoting polygamy—which the law of Moses, in some cases, actual y requires? Because they’re hypocrites, that’s why.) “Bounce your eyes!” they command us from their sex-crazed parapets.

Speaking of crazy, the pendulum has swung so madly and badly in the other direction (away from God’s design) that men who are men have become the enemy. That we’re men at all is now a problem to be overcome with books from

ZENDER & COLPO

399

WaterBrook Press. It used to be—in the good old days—

that we could take several wives and love each one of them.

God not only allowed it, He instituted and in some cases demanded it. These days, we’re not even allowed to look at other women. These days, we’re supposed to control even our dream life. We can’t even masturbate. We’re now so restricted and constricted in our sexuality, we must pray that our semen dries up from our sacs. We can’t even voice God-given desires, let alone practice them, without being called perverts, animals, and heathen.

Unless we start bouncing our eyes, we are overtly and covertly threatened with divorce.

Is it any wonder men turn to pornography in droves? Wil anyone dare tell me that the present position of the societal pendulum is helping matters rather than hurting them? I’m afraid I would have to shove the modern divorce rates into your face.

No. The pendulum is so far out of whack that we’ve forgotten where it’s supposed to be. We’ve forgotten what it is to be male. Where there should be some lenience and understanding toward husbands (seeing as they are wired by God to love many women and take many wives), we have gone completely the other way—the wrong way—and shackled men with even more fetters than those already imposed by a sexual y hung-up, political y-correct, over-feminized culture.

Every Man’s Battle is the perfect example of everything wrong with us. The especial sin of Every Man’s Battle is putting God’s name to the mess. He has nothing to do with it. He knows how stupid bouncing the eyes is. And yet Every Man’s Battle is part of the culture rot that must occur in the end times. (How ironic is that? The culture rot is not sex. The culture rot is a whacked-out, religious attitude concerning sex.) God knows how religious, and thus how imbalanced, we are. But never mind that. We don’t really

400

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

care what God thinks; we spend very little time looking into it. We prefer our culture, religious institutions, habits, and practices, to a careful study and a mature understanding of God and His Word.

After all, what does He know? He’s not a modern-day American. He only invented sex.

We, on the other hand, have taken the ball and run with it.

The saga of Matt and Julie

I once knew a woman who believed these very things.

She presumed to love God, but preferred modern Western culture and social acceptance above all else. (Due to her upbringing, it was impossible for her to think otherwise, I fully realize that.) Her name was (and probably still is) Julie. She had heard about how I advised my friend to fight depression with feminine beauty and to look at photos of women in bikinis. She was appalled.

Did I mention that Julie is extremely religious? (I see that I’ve alluded to it.)

One day, I was sitting with Julie and her husband Matt in a restaurant booth. Julie regurgitated the standard Christian lines that for a married man to even look at another woman was sin, and that it led inevitably to “going all the way,” if only in the mind. (I had to admit that this was a step up from Arterburn and Stoeker, who contend that, since girl-watching is visual foreplay, such a thing inevitably leads to actually going all the way.) Since this woman already didn’t like me much and had condemned me to my own compartment of hell (the

“Martin Zender” compartment), I decided to conduct a social experiment. What did I have to lose? Not a damn thing. Besides, it would eventually give me something to

ZENDER & COLPO

401

write about, which I am taking advantage of today.

I said, “Julie, you don’t realize how easy it is for men to admire feminine beauty, and then move on and still love their wives and think their wives are the sexiest women ever.

Watch. I will prove it.

“Look, here comes a woman with a really shapely backside. Most people would call this ‘her ass,’ but since you have high-strung and unreasonable religious sensibilities—even scruples—I shall call it ‘her backside.’ It’s really her ass, but that’s okay. We’ll make it her backside for your sake. See?

See how careful I am not to offend you?”

My so-called friend, Julie, naturally rolled her eyes, then hid them behind her hands. I continued my demonstration.

“I am now staring at this woman’s backside,” I said. “I am not bouncing my eyes, Julie. In fact, I am letting the wonderful fact that I’m a male with lots of testosterone flowing through my veins and arteries dictate my actions. My eyes are actually settling upon this woman’s backside. I am tel ing you, this woman has a wonderful, feminine form. It is amazing to me, real y, how it moves when she walks. God did an amazing job on this woman. Just think how much of this glory I would miss if I’d bounced my eyes.”

Julie had plugged her ears by this time. (Her husband was smiling, but she would not have known this—thank God—because Julie’s eyes were still just as closed as her ears, her mind, her heart, and her spirit.) At last, Julie unhanded her ears and opened her eyes. (Her mind and spirit remained shut.) By this time, I was looking at her again.

“Okay, Julie. As you can tel , I have now taken my eyes from the woman’s backside. Am I chasing after the woman?

No. Did I disrespect her as a person? You tell me. Have you ever noticed that a man has “wonderful eyes”? I’m sure you have. In such a case, you stare at his organs; the eyes are organs,

402

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

are they not? You stare, therefore, at corneas and pupils, yes?

And now I ask: are you disrespecting the man by admiring his organs of sight?”

Julie stared at me blankly.

“All right, then,” I said.

“Please, Martin,” she said. “Please stop.”

“Look at me, Julie. Do you see me? Why do you see me? You see me because I am still at this table. You see me because I am not running after that women to steal her from her husband, assuming that she has one. Now let’s see if I still love my wife and think she is the most beautiful woman in the world.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, tilting my head toward the ceiling, deep in thought. Matt and Julie, by some miracle, indulged this demonstration. Ten seconds passed; I emerged from my self-imposed reverie to once again look them in the eyes.

“Wow,” I said. “This is just amazing. Are you ready for this? You will never guess what happened. Ready? Here it goes: I still love my wife. I still think that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. Imagine that. Is this a miracle? No. It is common, average, everyday stuff. I have just proven—before your very eyes—that a man can admire feminine beauty that is not the beauty of his wife, and can still—at the same time —love his wife, and not rape the other woman. And guess what. Most men are exactly like me. ”

Telling quotes from women

Here are some telling quotes from women, as quoted in Every Man’s Battle. This section of the book, titled “The Heart of a Woman,” begins like this—

Male sexual impurity can be unsettling, even shocking, to women, which is why we’re including sections from interviews we conducted with women regarding Every Man’s Battle.

404

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

(In my copy of Every Man’s Battle, I crossed out the word

“impurity” from the above sentence, writing “reality” above it. Women are shocked by male sexual impurity, yes, but most are unfortunately equally aghast at the insistent reality of the male sex drive, imagining reality to be impurity.) Deena, when asked for her reaction to this book’s premise, replied,

‘This stuff is crazy. Women don’t have that problem!” (pg. 33).

Dear Deena: Because you lack sacs and semen, it’s impossible for you to understand those who do. The sexes are different for a reason. Are you still in high-school? I am just wondering.

The way that you said, “This stuff is crazy,” came across to me as somewhat of a squeal, so I am going to assume that you are still in high school. There is nothing wrong with that. I was in high school once myself; a lot of us were. But honestly, Deena.

Men and women are different. I’m glad you have noticed this, at least. But why refer to the male sex drive as “this stuff”? That hurts my feelings. And “crazy” pretty much equals “insane.”

Again, I’m offended. Does the lack of a sex drive as strong as a man’s somehow make you saner than the boys at your school?

Deena, see if you can sign up for a class at your school that will take you through a Scriptural investigation into what God has to say about sex. Or at least sign up for Health 101. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to read my writings on this topic? I encourage you to lend an uncondemning ear to the boys at your school. Should you find yourself married some day, listen patiently to your husband. Allow him to unburden his sexual soul to you without getting your bobby socks in a twist. That’s all I ask.

Stop thinking that he’s crazy.

Fawn decided men and women are so different in their sexual wiring that it defies understanding. “I was surprised to learn,”

ZENDER & COLPO

405

she said, “that Christian men have this problem even after they’re married. I found the intensity of the problem to be shocking” (pg. 33).

Dear Fawn: The male sex drive is not a problem. The problem is that your religious training has made it into a problem. Your religious training (I am contrasting this with Scriptural revelation) has made you consider disparate sexual desires something to solve and overcome. This is so unnecessary. God made men and women the way they are. How does this defy understanding? It’s easy to understand. I just said it: God made men differently than He made women. It’s not that you don’t understand it; it’s painful y simple. The fact is: you don’t like it. You want your husband (I’m assuming you have one) to be more like you. In fact, why isn’t everyone like you? I think you are mad at God for making your husband so different. Sexual maturity will come, Fawn, when you simply accept what is. Stop fighting. Work with the program; it’s God’s program. Again, the male sex drive and feminine beauty-power is a problem only to those making it one.

Cathy said, “I did not know the depth that men would go and the risk they would take to satisfy their desires. I was unaware of how intense these temptations are and how much defense a man must muster to avoid stepping over God’s boundaries”

(pg. 33).

Dear Cathy: The only reason men go deep and take risks is that their wives general y not only fail to understand them, they usually have no desire to understand them. After all, why try to understand a pervert? Not only do these wives fail to understand, they condemn their husbands—at least subconsciously—for being men. Thus, we men are driven underground, where matters become predictably worse.

ZENDER & COLPO

407

Since Fred and Stephen interviewed you for this book, I assume that you’re under the influence of the Fred Stoeker and Stephen Arterburn Definitions of What Constitutes God’s Sexual Boundaries. The problem, Cathy, is that Fred and Stephen’s definitions are not God’s definitions. Their boundaries are not God’s boundaries. Far, far from it. Please read Chapter 3 of this book you’re reading now ( The Lie of Every Man’s Battle) to find out what God has to say about which human activities constitute sexual sin, and which do not .

I appreciate how you are final y becoming aware of testosterone. Better late than never. Please tell your friends about it.

Andrea said that, from talking with her father and the different guys she dated, she knows men are easily attracted visual y. But she never realized the major extent of this problem until she met her future husband. “At the time, he was my closest friend in the youth group, but we were not romantical y inclined,” Andrea said. “He did feel safe enough with me to share his problem with pornography. It was quite a battle for him, as he had first been exposed to it in third grade. I was a little amazed by it all because, although I was attracted to guys by their looks during my dating years, the physical attraction I felt was nothing compared to what a man feels when looking at a woman” (pgs. 33-34).

Dear Andrea: I am seeing a common theme here with those of your sex, and it is this: You consider the fact that men are easily attracted visually to women to be a problem.

This is the theme of Every Man’s Battle in general: The male sex drive is wrong; the male sex drive is a problem that needs to be solved. From this faulty premise can only come faulty conclusions, wacky solutions, and unwarranted resolutions.

Andrea, the fact that pictures of erotic behavior designed to produce sexual excitement actual y did produce sexual excitement in your future husband is normal. It would be abnormal

408

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

if they didn’t. I think it is interesting (terrible, really) how homosexuality is condemned by so many Christians, while at the same time the opposite of homosexuality—a strong attraction to the opposite sex—is also condemned by the very same Christians. It doesn’t seem to matter what sex one is attracted to; for us males, it’s lose-lose condemnation either way. I suspect the reason sexual photos became a problem for your husband is that someone somewhere along the line made it one. I suspect that a religious upbringing, complete with the standard-issue condemnation of all things sexual, fueled his addiction. Am I close? Please ask him.

Thank you for being honest enough to admit your attraction to guys’ looks. You are lucky that Fred and Stephen have not condemned your eyes. Our eyes got condemned by Fred and Stephen; we have to bounce our eyes.

You have no idea how hard this is. Our eyes don’t like it at all; it short-circuits their entire purpose. We don’t like it, either; life is hard enough, and now we have to resist beauty? You’re lucky that Fred and Stephen have not asked you to resist beauty. You can look at things like decorative pillows and flowers all day. You can even stare at the pillows and flowers, if you want. You can even bring them home and play with them. I guess you get a pass because your attraction to the physical attributes of the opposite sex “[is]

nothing compared to what a man feels.”

See? The problem is that we’re men. You should thank God every day, Andrea, that you’re not a man.

Andrea, you are so lucky that you don’t have semen and sacs. I wrote about these two curses (semen and sacs) quite extensively a littler earlier (in chapter 6, “Nature Itself Teaches You”). It’s bad enough, Andrea, to have semen. I know you can’t imagine what that’s like. (Neither could Deena, above, who said, “This stuff is crazy.”) Semen is bad enough, believe me. But then, to make matters worse, God

ZENDER & COLPO

409

gave us sacs for the semen to pool in. Can you believe that?

This dooms us to looking at people like you (God also cursed us with eyes) and saying, “Oh, wow! Isn’t she attractive.”

Why did God saddle us with such a terrible problem?

Why doesn’t God solve it?

I am being facetious, of course. None of this is a problem.

It’s only a problem to those who read Every Man’s Battle. I have a Scripture verse for this phenomenon of stuff being a problem only to people who think it’s a problem. It’s Titus 1:15—

All, indeed, is clean to the clean, yet to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean, but their mind as well as conscience is defiled.

Anyway, thank you that you seem to be waking up to the fact that men have sacs and semen. I, for one, appreciate that.

Please tell your friends about what you have learned here.

Ellen said, “After hearing about this, I was surprised that married men would have so much trouble. I feel very sorry for them. When I asked my own husband about it, he was honest with me that he had some struggles, and at first I was hurt. Then I just felt thankful that he would share with me. He hasn’t had a major problem in this area, for which I’m thankful.”

Dear Ellen: I detect a kind, understanding spirit in you.

Thank you. I am betting your husband has more struggles than he’s letting on. All he did was share some of them with you, and you became hurt. See? You made it about you.

(You recovered quickly from this, so I have to give credit where credit is due, but still, let’s pursue this a little.) This is universal among wives; you become personal y affronted by a man’s general attraction to the opposite sex.

This deadly mistake destroys many marriages.

410

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Married men “have so much trouble” because their wives fear, despise, and personalize (they take as a personal affront) the deepest sexual longings of their husbands. You admit to being hurt, simply because your husband was final y honest with you. What if he had shared his deepest sexual fantasies with you? I’m betting that, based on your reaction to the little information he did offer, you would shut him down.

A husband confesses that he finds other women attractive, and instead of saying, “Wel , that’s normal, let’s go to the mal ,”

his wife says things like, “What?! I’m not enough for you? Gee, I’m sorry I’m so ugly compared to these other women! Why don’t you love me anymore? What do you want me to be, some sort of whore? ”

Wives say this kind of thing a lot, including the italic placement. Self-obsessed, insecure people easily overlook logic, especial y when they’re angry. As soon as your husband realized that you were hurt (not sure how you communicated that), he shut down. I’m just guessing this. He saw he was in trouble, decided to stick with the vague “some troubles,” and stopped talking.

You don’t need to simply be “thankful” that your husband hasn’t had “a major problem in this area.” Be proactive. Ask him more questions. Encourage honesty. Make him feel safe.

Promise him that you won’t be hurt or roll your eyes at him.

Ask about his deepest sexual fantasies. He just wants to be understood, appreciated, and accepted by the woman he loves more than any other woman on the planet: you.

Cathy leans toward mercy as well. “My husband is regularly bombarded with sexy images, and I was pleased with his honesty regarding that,” she said. “I want to know the temptations he faces. It will only help me be more sympathetic to his plight. I didn’t feel betrayed because he’s proven faithful in his battle. Other women are not so lucky” (pgs. 34-35).

ZENDER & COLPO

411

Dear Cathy: Thank God for you! I hear nothing here from you about being angry with your husband, or letting his normal desires make you feel less of a person. I admire your maturity; I’m thankful for it. Yours is a healthy sense of self. Yes, you do want to know the temptations your husband faces. Your sympathy is just what he needs to encourage him to express even deeper feelings and emotions to you, which will open up deeper levels of trust between you both. This will do wonders for your sex life, Cathy. A man just wants to be known by the most important woman in the world to him: his wife. Being completely known by you is the most erotic thing he can imagine. No porn site can provide that for him. That’s why these experiences leave him ultimately disappointed. He wants to unburden his sexual soul to an uncondemning woman who loves him unconditional y. For a man, this is the mother lode of happiness.

I love what you said about not feeling betrayed. Again, yours is a rare maturity. Your husband has proven himself.

For years and years he has shown you he does not want any other woman. He wants you. You instinctively know and feel this. Other women are not so lucky because those other women are not as sympathetic as you. They think that “laying the law down” is going to reform “the pervert.”

They think that giving their husbands Every Man’s Battle will make the husbands kiss them gingerly on the cheek and love them forever—rather than eventually resent them, blow up, and somehow compromise the marriage. Keep up the good work, Cathy. Please give this book to your friends.

Enter Fred’s wife Brenda

I do not personal y know either Fred Stoeker or his wife Brenda. I do not blame Brenda for Fred being as hopelessly

412

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

religious as he is, although, from the fol owing quote, I suspect that she’s a large part of the reason that Fred became a beauty-denying, law-attempting, grace-chal enged Pharisee.

Brenda, Fred’s wife, also participated in the interviews. She summarized the typical female response: “I don’t want to sound mean, but because women don’t generally experience this problem, it seems to us that some men are uncontrolled perverts who don’t think about anything but sex. It even affects my trust in men, knowing that pastors and deacons could have this problem. I don’t like it that men lustfully take advantage of women in their thoughts, although I realize that women can be largely to blame because of what they wear”

(pg. 34).

Okay. Oh, boy. Here it is, then: “Uncontrol ed perverts who don’t think about anything but sex.” There’s the whole problem, right there. Among Christian wives especial y, this is the general y accepted attitude towards Christian husbands who are supposed to be Jesus-loving God-fearers, but who instead are: “Uncontrolled perverts who don’t think about anything but sex.” Christian wives can dress it up; they can use qualifying phrases like, “I don’t want to sound mean,” “it seems to us,” and “some men are uncontrolled perverts,” but the underlying sentiment is, this man is so far off the rails that he’s not even headed for the train station any more.

What else explains such an awful book as Every Man’s Battle? If there were not a market for Christian wives being repulsed by, and ultimately hoping to reform, their perverted husbands, curing them of their satanic sex drives (I almost wrote “God-given” there in front of “sex drives,” but these Christian women don’t see it that way), the book never could have sold as many copies as it has, condemned as many men as it has, and justified as many angry, jealous, sin-soaked wives as it has.

414

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

In my opinion, the Brenda Stoekers of the world are to blame. So yes, I guess I do saddle Brenda with the lion’s share of responsibility for the sexual anomaly and religious zealot that is Fred Stoeker and his God-damned (I mean this in the literal and not the col oquial sense) book after al .

At the end of the paragraph, Brenda modifies her opinion of males based on new information: there are so darn many of us. Poor Brenda; she has to face this disturbing fact. In my opinion, the addendum is a day late; she’s already exposed her gut. But now she reluctantly admits—

It’s at least some comfort to know that many men have this problem. Since most men are affected, we really can’t call you guys perverts.

Fred himself comments on this comment—

Gee, thanks Brenda. Actually, you made an important point, and it brings up additional thoughts from a man’s perspective. We men understand your shock. After all, we’re often overwhelmed in the sexual area, and we loathe it ourselves.

That’s why we want mercy, although we know we don’t deserve mercy. How much mercy can be found in a woman’s heart when she looks upon this problem? Not surprisingly, it depends upon her husband’s situation. There’s a natural tug-of-war in the hearts of women between pity and disgust, between mercy and judgment.

No one still wandering the dead slopes of Sinai—as does Fred—believes he deserves mercy. Brenda should have stoned him; Fred knows this. Under the law of Moses, mercy is the best one can hope for—but it has to be earned. Under law, there is no such thing as justification; no such thing as being declared righteous by God. For certain, Fred has never heard of such a thing as justification, not with his Christ, not with

ZENDER & COLPO

415

his wife. (To be fair, he’s probably heard the word “justification,” but he never learned what it means.) No sinner such as he deserves mercy, from Brenda or from Jesus, at least not without first shaping up and flying right. Justification is an objective declaration of God, functioning irrespective of human behavior. Mercy, on the other hand, is a conditional boon granted to worthy sufferers, law-followers, and those who still struggle optical y against bil boards.

Brenda recently told me that even now, all these years later, she occasionally watches my eyes when we go past billboards, just to check on me. With the good habits in place, I haven’t failed her, but who needs that pressure if you aren’t ready for it? (pg. 117).

Poor Fred. His wife still struggles between pity and disgust, mercy and judgment.

And so does his Christ.

Fred loathes himself. Al that stands between Fred and his self-made hell is another day of shouldering his self-imposed boulder up another self-imposed hil . He dare not falter, dare not fail. He lives—or tries to live—beneath this burden, a mistake away from disgust, judgment, even death. In this world, Fred fears his wife; in the next, he will fear his Christ.

Will Fred Stoeker ever be good enough?

No.

Where is grace and understanding? These blessed boons still await Fred out in some green, sun-filled prairie, far from Sinai’s condemning cliffs. But are not grace and understanding also in the heart of the God of heaven, Who sent His Son to save us?

Yes, they are.

They are also, I pray, in the hearts of the wives now reading my words. —MZ

14 the cure

417

the cure

The cure for a communication breakdown between the sexes is to communicate. The cure for wrong information is correct information.

Husbands and wives, I implore you to stay together. How else can you can talk about right information? Something new has happened: you’re holding this book. That has never happened before. How did you get it? There are many intermediate causes, but the ultimate cause is God. God wanted you to have it. Why? He wants to replace misinformation about sex with right information. The misinformation is all over the place; the right information, as all truth, must be sought diligently. That you are holding this book, then, is a miracle.

Now you can talk about it.

God not only wants you to stay together, but to thrive sexual y. Because unless you’re thriving sexual y, you won’t stay together. And unless you understand one another sexually, there is no way you will sexually thrive.

418

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

The Lie of Every Man’s Battle is a way off the rol er-coaster ride of sexual frustration, a frustration that began with believing wrong things about sex.

The grass is never greener on the other side of the divorce fence. Divorce is a terrible evil. Nothing is ever the same afterward, not you, not your children, not your spouse—

nothing. If you think divorce is a good idea, rethink it.

What a tragedy if you separated forever because of a simple misunderstanding. Yet it happens all the time. Points and meanings are often missed by no more than an inch, but if that inch leads to divorce, what’s the difference between an inch and twenty-five miles?

I am not a therapist. It may be that one or both of you have deep psychological problems stemming from childhood abuses. If this is the case, you may need professional help. If there is physical abuse in your own marriage, you may need law enforcement as well. I say all this without enthusiasm, as I don’t generally trust institutions of any kind. If it’s main-stream orthodox thinking, it’s usually wrong.

I very much believe in grace. Grace, I believe, has power to change lives. Grace has more power than people with counseling degrees. It has more power than Freud. Remarkably, not many people believe God accepts them as they are (otherwise known as “grace”). This is a stock Christian phrase—“God accepts you as you are”—but it is merely that: a stock phrase. Few Christians believe it enough, or at all, to let it change their lives.

How does grace change lives? It makes people think differently about themselves. It makes them think, God loves me, rather than, God is continuously disappointed with my earthly performance. Where does thinking differently come from?

From the spirit of God, yes, but also from right information.

I keep emphasizing that. “Right information” doesn’t sound

ZENDER & COLPO

419

spiritual, but it is. Truth is right information. Is truth spiritual? Of course. Then right information is also spiritual.

Find out what God really thinks of you (He loves you unconditionally based on His Son’s work on the cross, not on your likability quotient), and see what happens.

For that, I recommend reading the book of Romans. Two of my books along the lines of this topic will also benefit you greatly: Flawed by Design, and How to Be Free From Sin While Smoking a Cigarette.

Most people try to make themselves presentable to Christ through difficult, unnecessary, and useless moral exercises.

This is a bad mistake. Do this, and you will waste years trying to please a God Who could not possibly be any more pleased with you already.

The first solution, then, is to pray for a realization and understanding of God’s grace.

God listens to such prayers, and is famous for answering them.

The second solution has multiple parts, and they are these: 1) Husband and wife, each of you read The Lie of Every Man’s Battle. Highlight your favorite and least-favorite passages. Highlight things you think are right, and things you think are wrong. Write in the book; mark it up completely.

2) Get away together for a weekend, and take your copies of The Lie of Every Man’s Battle with you.

You need a special time together to discuss this book. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re always taking care of the kids’ needs, or worrying about the house. Take the weekend off. If you can get more time than a weekend, do it. Don’t worry about expense.

What is your marriage worth? Borrow from the kids’

college fund if you have to. Your kids aren’t even going to care about college if you, their blessed parents, separate. If

ZENDER & COLPO

421

you still don’t have the money, maybe you know a friend who has a house or a cottage you can use. You can see I’m not dropping this. My big concern is that you get away and see a different arrangement of furniture, walls, and appli-ances. Escape the hum-drum.

If you can’t get away, have someone take the kids, and spend the time in your own, quiet house. Maybe change the angle of a La-Z-Boy. Move a table.

3) Once you’re on your own, the first thing I want you to do is get on your knees together and pray. I am not ordi-narily a proponent of formal prayer poses, but desperate situations call for these kinds of measures. Kneel together at the sofa and hold each other’s hands. It’s hard to be upset with one another when you’re talking to God.

If you’re uncomfortable talking to God out loud, then let your spouse do it. If neither of you are comfortable, then just be still and know that He is God. He doesn’t need words.

But you do need this humble position before Him while holding hands.

Please do not use this prayer time to criticize your spouse.

There will be plenty of time for that later. Please do not say things like, “Lord, please help my daft wife see the truth,” or,

“Dear Jesus, I thank you for telling us in First Corinthians chapter one that You choose the unwise, weak, ignoble, and stupid things of this world, namely Tom.”

This is not a good start.

4) Have plenty of delicious food laying around. If things start to get uncomfortable, you need to be able to eat something yummy to diffuse the tension. I am not being facetious. This is dead serious business. Please follow my instructions to the letter.

5) If you like to drink wine, then by all means start drinking some immediately after praying. If one of you likes wine but the other does not, then the wine person should

422

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

most certainly refrain, as the field will be tilted in favor of the drinker.

The point here is that I want you to be relaxed. I want your inhibitions dropped as much as possible without getting soused. If you think drinking wine is a sin, you need another book by one of my favorite authors, Clyde Pilkington. He has written a booklet called Alcohol Use in The Scriptures, which is available now at www.studyshelf.com. It is amazing how many freedoms we have in Christ that we don’t take advantage of. Are we holier than Jesus?

I didn’t mean to get off on a tangent there, sorry.

6) Open your books and start discussing. Do this sitting next to each other rather than across from each other. Sofas work great for this purpose. For one thing, you’ll be avoiding uncomfortable eye contact. (You are going to be really, really honest with each other during this discussion, and eye contact may be too uncomfortable at this point for one or both of you. I’m not saying to avoid it, I’m just saying make it harder to do. Make it inconvenient; a strain on your neck.) For another thing, when you’re on the sofa, you should be in physical contact. I hope you know enough to let your shoulders touch. If you don’t, then please follow my instructions: let your shoulders touch.

7 ) You must already have made a reservation at a nice restaurant, say, for 6 p.m. (Oh. Haven’t I told you that yet?

Then please make the reservation the night before.) You need something to look forward to—not that you wouldn’t look forward to discussing your deepest needs and your biggest sexual differences with your mate. Have a nice night out planned so that when you’re done on the sofa you can acquire some professionally-prepared food. Hopefully, you have not drunk too much wine. If you have, cal out for a pizza.

424

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

8) Far be it from me to suggest that talking about sex, drinking wine, and eating out (in addition to whatever purposeful arguing you have done) will put you in the mood for sex, but I am thinking that it might. I probably don’t have to tell you this, but I will anyway: Give in to any and all sexual urges.

9) All of this happened on Saturday. Repeat steps 1-8

on Sunday.

10) Start your new life together on Monday.

In case you want more

I realize that I’ve already mentioned a few of my other books already, so I hesitate to mention yet another one, but at the risk of sounding like an advertisement, I’m going to mention that I happen to have written a really good book about sexual relations. I believe this book will spark your intimate life together like nothing else has. It’s a God-based, Scripture-based book called Shagah. It’s the logical book to read after this one; the next step. Please allow me to tell you a little bit about it.

In the fifth chapter of Proverbs, Solomon warns his son about wayward women, a topic very familiar to the old patriarch. The former king of Israel’s devotion to God waxed and waned with the moods of his lady friends. It is well known that several of his wives drew him toward the worship of false deities.

Here are Solomon’s warnings in chapter five, verses one, two, three, and eight. I assume Solomon became enlightened and mended his idolatrous ways before writing this: My son, do attend to my wisdom; to my comprehension, stretch out your ear, in order to guard foresight, that your

ZENDER & COLPO

425

lips may preserve knowledge. For the lips of an alien woman drip with honeycomb, and the words of her palate are slicker than oil. Do not go near to the portal of her house.

Solomon cal s the seductress “an alien woman.” Either he meant this literally and referred to a woman of non-Israelite descent, or he meant it generally in the sense of “strange,” or

“not known.” The common denominator is “a woman you don’t know well,” so this is how I’m treating it.

Solomon turns from warnings to exhortations in verse 15 with, “Drink water from your own cistern, and the flow-ings from the midst of your own well.” He is not speaking of literal water here, but of the deriving of sexual joy from one’s own wife, in one’s own house. This becomes apparent in verses 18 through 20. These were the verses that caught my attention, specifically verse twenty. I’m quoting from the Concordant Version of the Old Testament because it’s the most literal and accurate, but this verse shines in any translation: Rejoice in the wife of your youth, a loving hind and a graceful ibex; may her affections satiate you in every season; May you be intoxicated by her love continually. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by an alien woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?

It was not the comparisons of women to graceful animals that shook me here. The shock was finding the same word describing how a man acts with an alien woman with how he should act with his wife: Intoxicated.

The Hebrew word translated “intoxicated” here is shagah.

(It rhymes, appropriately, with “gaga.”) It means “to err, go astray.” Colloquially, it means “don’t worry about it,”

“lose it,” “do things wrong,” “be crazy.” Shagah is mindlessness. It was translated in the New American Standard

ZENDER & COLPO

427

Bible as “commit error,” “go astray,” “lead astray,” “mislead,”

“wander,” and “reel.” In a nutshell, it’s to stray mindlessly off the beaten path. It is to behave similarly to a person under the influence of alcohol. In fact, shagah was translated “reel”

in Isaiah 28:7 to describe the effects of too much wine: The priest and the prophet reel ( shagah) with strong drink, they are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink; they reel ( shagah) while having visions, they totter when rendering judgment.

This is how Solomon recommends that a man behave in the safe haven of his wife’s love. He must lose all self-consciousness and become as one whose morals have disintegrated and to whom failure is of no consequence. He is not to stand still, but to wander. He is not to worry about anything, but rather to commit error continual y. He is to be staggered as one drunk; to be confused, tottering, led astray again and again by the object of his affection.

2

Heidi

It’s his penis that you’re supposed to control, not his eyes. You’re picking the wrong battle. Yes, I said control his penis. He wants you to. But not in the way you’ve attempted to control his sexuality in the past. I’m not talking about shaming your man for looking at beautiful images or live women. I’m talking about harnessing his energy and aiming it toward yourself. Take that desire for all things feminine and yank it homeward.

Here is how it works. Let’s say that you are out shopping and you notice your husband looking at a woman who is

428

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

attractive and provocatively dressed. Instead of pouting and resenting it, use the situation to whisper something naughty into his ear. Now it’s about you. He wants it to be about you.

You are a beauty in your own right. It’s why he is with you.

Nothing will make the other woman disappear more quickly than turning your man’s sexuality homeward.

Instead of condemning him when you find porn on his computer, ask him what about the porn appeals to him.

I guarantee that this question will shock him down to his socks, which you will soon be pulling off. Find out what starts his motor and then you be the ignition switch.

Why is he fantasizing? You won’t know until you ask.

Ask him about his fantasies and see what happens. Weren’t you interested in pleasing him while you were dating? If a man dating a woman tells her, “You look great in those jeans,” do you think the woman condemns the guy for noticing and packs the jeans off to Goodwill? No. She takes note of it and wears those same jeans again. Before marriage, it delighted you to please this guy. You discerned his buttons and pressed them. Again and again. When did you give up on that? Why did you give up on that?

I read Martin’s Shagah in manuscript form. This book changed my life. God put it in my hands at just the right time in my healing process with Danny. God had already begun reconstructing our marriage, and yet something was still missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I read Shagah and—just like that—on came the light. God gave King Solomon—the wisest man who ever lived—the key to sexual fulfillment. The key lies in one word. This key puts the woman in control of a man’s sexuality, and makes her his only sexual outlet; not his only source of sexual stimulation, mind you (for that is impossible and not even desirable), but his only source of fulfillment.

ZENDER & COLPO

429

Ladies, perhaps you have gotten this far through The Lie of Every Man’s Battle and feel doubtful about giving your husband the freedom to look at things that for most of your life you have been told were either dirty or downright evil.

This is going to be a process that may take some time. It will require both patience and love.

A man will gladly give up the keys to his kingdom to a loving woman whose motivation for control is to bless both parties. There has been enough harm done already in your relationship by buying into the lie that female beauty is to be optically avoided and will eventually destroy men. Now is the time to build the relationship with the right tools, the right motivation, and the right information. Do this, and the relationship will strengthen. It will stand the test of time and temptation. Life is a battle as it is, so why invent even more battles? The daily grind with its myriad responsibilities is struggle enough. Why wage unnecessary wars against one’s own body? Against one’s partner? Why struggle against God’s design? (That’s the most ridiculous mistake of al .) Put away your sword and live at peace with yourself, with your husband, and with God.

Read Shagah.— HC

2

MZ

All of this staggered me. I could understand the intoxicative powers and capacity for error of the alien woman.

We call it “illicit sex.” Most of my married readers have felt the pull: a handsome man looks at you a second longer than he should; a beautiful woman walks behind your table and lightly touches your shoulder. What if there were no consequences? How good would it feel to let go? To let the strange,

430

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

rugged man sweep you in his arms? To unbutton the alien woman’s blouse and start kissing down her neck? To meet at a secret location and surrender to lust with someone you met just an hour ago? The very thought of it makes hearts jump and moves the mind toward intoxication.

The allure of illicit sex is the illicitness of it. The allure of illicit sex is the blankness of it all, the starting from scratch.

Married men and women are aware of this and secretly marvel knowing that they could be more uninhibited with a stranger than with their own spouses. Why is it that the very word “spouse” seems lifeless and inhibiting? Compare it with the word “lover.” Compare it with the word “affair.”

Compare it with the word “mistress,” a word carrying in the hissing of its own consonants the promise of eroticism.

I could understand it all in the context of “alien.” But:

“Rejoice in the wife of your youth; May you be intoxicated by her love continually. Why should you be intoxicated by an alien woman?”

The love part, yes. My wife and I could do that. Family dinners and e-mails? These seemed reasonable; they fit the circumstance. Devotion and understanding and caring and consideration were all words relatable to the woman I saw crying occasionally, and next to whom I brushed my teeth.

It was the transference of the word “intoxication” from the illicit sphere to the legal one that stunned me. The transference was pure and unmodified. It was as if the word shagah was a wild, pulsating heart, cut alive from the body of intem-perate passion, then deposited within earshot of my washing machine. Same word, I kept saying. Same word. But the contrasting contexts kept me reeling like the drunken priests.

Could the thrill of the il icit affair real y be transplanted into the monogamous marriage? I looked up at the ceiling, then down at the text again. Nothing on the page had moved.

ZENDER & COLPO

431

Nobody was laughing. The passage sat there still, addressed to a man, not a god.

The revelation slowly dawned with the following words swirling in my head: God, this is pos ible. It is not only pos ible, but commanded. Solomon was saying to his son, in effect:

“The way you would err, go astray and be sexually drunk with the strange woman—do these same ‘horrible’ things with your wife. Go on. Be this way. Wander. Reel. ‘Miss the mark’—with your wife.”

My God. I closed the book, then my eyes. What if wives took Solomon seriously? What if they expanded their concept of love, reawakened their erotic potential, and induced this magical shagah state, continually, in their husbands? What if men took Solomon seriously and gave themselves up, in toto, to the women they once professed fealty to? I thought to myself, this would be the next sexual revolution. I ran to my wife and said, “Dear God! I have met the enemy, and it is sobriety!”

Anyway, I wrote a book about this—about how to actually do it— and I’d be happy for you to read it. I guess I’d call Shagah the next step after reading and understanding the book you’re now holding.

Thank you for reading.

I wish you a happy, exciting marriage, full of correct information.—MZ

15 wrAPPIng It uP

433

wrAPPIng It uP

Heidi

It is only because of what God accomplished for Danny and me after sixteen years of marriage that I can write about sexual healing. As difficult as it was peeling away the multiple layers of sexual repression and religious brainwashing Danny and I both endured as youths, the current vista of God’s purpose for our lives has justified our pain. It’s not the process, but the end result that counts. In the fall of 2011, God caused both of us to face our sexual fears. Just as spring brings forth green grass from the frozen earth, love warmed and healed us. It took a year of separation and the threat of divorce to shock us into an awareness of what was happening. Despite the ache in my heart, I realized without a doubt that I could not live without this man. He realized the same about me. God had rescued us from the edge of the cliff.

434

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

In counseling, I was surprised to discover that Danny was a normal man and that many of the things that drove me crazy about him were in fact default settings given him by God. His fantasies about women were normal. (In counseling, I was actually surprised to discover that most men were like Danny.) It was what he did with those fantasies that hurt both himself and me. When past hurts were filtered through grace, however, the sting lessened and I was free to love Danny for who he was. When communicative wal s between us final y came down, Danny and I discovered things about each other that we hadn’t known before—no, not even after being together for sixteen years. It was kind of like that Piña Colada song: “I never knew that you liked Piña Colada.” No one ever asked. Because of the freedom that Christ has brought us, Danny and I are now able to look to one another to satisfy our respective sexual inclinations given us by God.

Prodded by God

God has burdened me with care for the souls He has prodded to pick up this book. I will be the first to admit that it has taken years of pain and personal failure to get to the point where I can help others through their pain and personal failure. The original book ( Every Man’s Battle) has created artificially-controlled religious robots, while pushing honest seekers away from any hope that the God of the universe might possibly understand them. My hope is that by reading this book—and the Scriptures contained in this book—you will uncover the plan that the true God has for your marriage. But even more so, I hope you will come to know that the true God does understand you because He created you.

ZENDER & COLPO

435

It has been stated in many ways here just how much man-made religious prohibitions (prohibitions not found in Scripture) have twisted our thinking on sexuality. Women are told again and again that the eyes of husbands are to be forcibly trained upon them and only them and that, if any husband strays from this dictatorial mandate, he is a sinner deserving of divorce. Since I know that God made men to notice beauty and made women to be beautiful, I believe that the “cure” Every Man’s Battle prescribes will, in the end, foment bigger problems. Any moral protocol denying the way God made people is doomed to failure. There may be interim and intermittent successes, but any system relying on human will-power while downplaying the spirit of God will fail in the long run. These systems are based on an ignorance of human nature and a reluctance to understand the nature of God.

Throughout this book, Martin has challenged you to think about Scriptural passages that are rarely read, noticed, or understood. He has challenged you to look deeper into the original language of God’s Word in order to find out what God has really said. My prayer is that this leads you to an acceptance of your own sexuality and, in turn, to a deeper understanding of your partner.

I was standing in my kitchen cooking dinner one evening when the following thought struck: There is a real danger here of couples believing that the protocols of Every Man’s Battle are God’s standard for sexual health, and that they will actually work. The side-effects of believing this deception would include 1) resentment of one’s partner, 2) a worsening of the original condition, 3) mischaracterization of men, 4) mischaracterization of God, 5) misplaced condemnation of others, and 6) self-righteous proselytizing that will lead others into the trap of Every Man’s Battle.

436

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

Just what exactly is an affair? An affair is when a husband has sex with another man’s wife and lies to his wife about it (or, of course, when a wife does the same with another’s woman’s husband). But thanks to Every Man’s Battle, so many wives have expanded this definition to include a husband who merely notices the beauty of other women. (One should search the law of Moses—just for fun—to see if anyone was ever stoned for looking at another woman or wondering what it would be like to have sex with her.) These men are said to be having “affairs of the mind,” or “emotional affairs.” (Again, look up “emotional affairs” in your concordance to see how the law of Moses handled these things.) Martin has explained to us the classic misapplication of Matthew 28 (“looking upon a woman with lust in your heart”), and anyone who comes out of that section still believing God equates casual or even intense girl-watching with adultery is willfully ignorant.

There is such a thing as an emotional affair; I’m not denying that. And neither am I recommending that married men and women engage in such a thing. I’m just refusing to equate these with actual affairs. In the days of the early church, godly men and women interacted all the time, just as they do today. Because the saints were so tightly connected spiritually and shared the same persecutions, I am betting that extremely powerful emotional and physical bonds formed between members. Men were still men, and women were still women. (We did not invent sex or the

“emotional affair.”) The apostle Paul would have been well aware of these bonds since he knew every struggle of every church, but he does not say much in the “thou-shalt-not-have-emotional-affairs” department. Paul knew it was not the attraction that was the problem, but the action upon the attraction that constituted illegal intercourse between the sexes.

ZENDER & COLPO

437

The biggest danger of all, as I see it, is women punishing their husbands for being men. That is, women condemning their husbands (either overtly or subliminally) for what they are. Men are not just sexual, they’re emotional. Men display their emotions differently than women, yes, but this doesn’t negate the existence of emotions. If a husband’s sexual fantasies and methods of expressing them are constantly downplayed and/or criticized by his wife, then this man will gravitate toward women who get him. The bond that then forms with this other woman is altogether different from the physical attraction emphasized in Every Man’s Battle, yet is possibly even more powerful than the physical attraction.

Men need understanding. This probably explains the nature of the emotional affair.

The reason I mention all of this in a book about men’s sexual desires is that I see the downfall of marriages caused more by a woman’s neglect of a man’s being rather than the failure to control his eyes. A man who can’t come home to an understanding wife will gravitate—even if only emotionally—to a woman fulfilling his need for consideration and sympathy. I wonder how many fewer men would fall into genuine adultery or even emotional affairs if they had an understanding wife at home.

I have a dear friend who is very expressive about how much he loves his wife. He speaks so highly of her and of how precious she is to him that he often brings me to tears. At the same time, this guy is one of the most openly sexual men I know. It is funny to go out and see his shameless flirting on ful display. No waitress or pretty female within speaking distance is safe from it. At times, it gets a bit too much even for me and I’ll say something like, “You are out of control here, buddy.” But no. He is never out of control. At no point have I ever doubted that this man would continue to love, cherish,

ZENDER & COLPO

439

and “forsake all others” for his wife. I know her as well. She understands her husband’s need to express himself and, for this, he treats her like the queen of his universe. He tells me, with tears in his eyes, “My wife is my world. I would die for that woman. I do not want any other woman.”

I firmly believe that Michelle not only “puts up with”

Steve’s sexuality, but participates on a level that fulfil s them both and keeps him eating out of her gracious, generous hand.

The chain necklace

Have you ever had a chain necklace that seemed to tie itself in knots in your jewelry box? I have, and it was a night-mare untangling it. While visiting a friend this summer, I gave her a beaded necklace made from a very thin, delicate cord. She put it in her pocket for safe-keeping, but when she pulled it out a couple days later, the necklace had become a matted mess. She worked on it for about an hour, without success. I worked on it as well. No amount of fancy finger-work or careful cajoling could untangle that unholy thing. In a huff, I told my friend that I would not bother with it any more. I said to throw it away and I would get her a new one. Later that day, my friend ran an errand and I thought to myself, There is no way that I can let this stupid thing beat me. But neither can I figure this out on my own.

This problem seems superhuman. Superhuman problems require superhuman help. I need God to calm me and grant me the patience and wisdom to do this.

I sat down on her sofa, necklace in hand, and methodi-cally pulled, untangled, and unwove the thread, constantly asking for guidance from God. It was not long before I saw a further complication. The thread, being delicate, was fraying from my constant pulling and tugging. For a moment, I

440

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

was ready to give up again. I said out loud, “That’s it. This jewelry is done for.” But then another idea occurred to me. If I had a tool that could grip the thread and pull it, I could use my hands to keep what I had already worked from re-tangling. I fetched some tweezers from my purse. This was just the right tool because, in a short time, I presented my friend with the miracle of the untangled necklace.

This event was right up there with making the lame walk.

Relationships that have suffered long beneath the strain of misunderstanding and sexual repression may seem as hopelessly tangled as that necklace. What causes the tangle?

The man is tired of perceived attacks upon his sex drive; the woman is tired of the man’s perceived indifference to her. The husband wants his wife to be his best friend but he’s afraid to tell her what will make that happen; the wife wants her husband to admire her exclusively but has convinced herself that she’s not who he wants. His words fail to edify her; her words break him down daily. The knot twists and tightens, and instead of a beautiful necklace there is a wad of tangled cord. What now? Use a tool. Use books like The Lie of Every Man’s Battle and Shagah to sort out the tangled mess that has come to define your relationship. Ask God to calm you and grant you the presence of mind and patience to undo one knot at a time. Be open to His spirit. Look for truth.

The results of doing these things wil , I think, astound you.

Now that you have read The Lie of Every Man’s Battle, perhaps some of you already feel healed. Maybe one particular sentence has clarified everything for you. God sometimes works this quickly, but other times He doesn’t.

Sometimes it’s a longer process. While some of you may find instant relief from the burdens that religion has placed upon your sexuality, others will still feel a little disoriented, not knowing where to start the unraveling process. I would like

ZENDER & COLPO

441

to encourage you to give yourself permission to hurt as the Lord walks you through this change. Just don’t let the pain frighten you and make you shy away from God’s necessary corrections. Like a loving parent who disciplines a child, God uses productive pain to conciliate you to those you love.

Grace, as Martin has showed us from Scripture, is the cure for what ails us. God’s grace covers us when we fail.

When we are lost and confused, it restores us to His presence in our own minds. When we extend this grace to our spouses, we overcome the daily annoyances of a loved one.

Wives, your husbands are going to do things that bother you. They are going to displease you—in some way—on the daily, and you are going to have to decide whether or not to let these annoyances destroy you. If you pour these irritations through the filter of grace, you will be able to react kindly and with love. Husbands, the fact that your wives are now on a journey of understanding you doesn’t mean that some of the baggage they’ve been holding will be easily or quickly let go of. When you show grace toward your woman, she will see your patience and this will help her heal.

It’s love that brought us men and women together to begin with, and it is love that will keep us together. “The greatest of these is love,” said the apostle Paul. That pretty much takes care of it. A man who loves his wife will consider her feelings before making a stupid, overt comment about another woman’s body. He can feel good about the fact that beauty is of God and that appreciating said beauty is not a sin, without rubbing it in the face of the woman he loves.

We teach our children that it is rude to stare or point, yes?

A woman who loves her husband will give her man many opportunities to express his sexual thoughts because she knows that he needs to. When she notices him looking at a woman with casual (some would say “recreational”) interest,

442

THE LIE OF EVERY MAN’S BATTLE

she will recognize that it is normal and will not shame him for it. (While you’re at it, ladies, don’t shame your child for it either.)

I truly have a burden for the readers of this book. I will be the first to admit that it has taken years of pain and personal failure to get to the point where I feel I can help others.

The original book— Every Man’s Battle—has portrayed God as an old, wrinkly-faced maid with a moralist stick up his backside, and he can’t wait to smack you on the hand with a wooden ruler for the slightest perceived moral affront. It’s no wonder that normal people, picking up books like Every Man’s Battle, take one glance at it and then run as far away from it as possible in search of a kinder, more understanding Deity. I pray that your reading of this book, and the many Scripture references herein, uncovers God’s plan for not only your marriage, but for your life. —HC

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Page: @zendermeister

Account: shagahgaga

Account: Martin_Zender

PHOTO CREDITS

The following photos Canstock.com

Cover: © Can Stock Photo Inc. / smikeymikey1

Back Cover: © Can Stock Photo Inc. Mimagephotography pg. 25: keeweeboy; ; pg. 31: qback; pg. pg. 36: altanaka; pg.44: anaka; 49: fabianaponzi; pg. 54: ruskpp; pg. 59: prikhnenko; pg. 65: AlienCat; pg.

73: indomercy; pg. 87: public domain; pg. 94: Vlue; : pg. 99: photography33; pg. 103: coka; pg. 110: Punch Magazine; pg. 128: slickspics; pg. 132: mocker; pg. 143: Nicoletalonescu; 145: Massonforstock; pg. 187: jkayl; 191: designun-limited; 193: dariolopresti; 200: abidal; pg. 207: stokkete; pg. 219: naumoid; 227: Vadim_Shelag; pg. 239: prometeus; pg. 243: ardreaobzerova; ; pg. 246: arekmalang; pg. 252: diego_cervo; pg. 262: mukhina1; pg. 272: LiliGraphie; pg. 295: Elnur; pg. 297: PersoMedussa; pg. 317: Hal gerd; pg. 329: leeser; pg.

363: barsik; pg. 437: schankz; pg. 459: monkeybusiness; pg. 476: alphaspirit The following photos Flickr

pg. 135: Steve Shook; pg. 173: Ted Van Pelt; pg. 249: TenthMusePhotog-raphy; pg. 266: Ly Thien Hoang (Lee); pg. 284: fabio; pg. 290: Krummel ; pg.

305: Arun D; pg. 308: Ron; pg. 313: Matt; pg. 322: kimery davis; pg. 335: istolethetv; Pg. 342: Karen Eliot; pg. 345: Sekgei; pg. 350: public domain; pg. 355: waiting for the word; 356: public domain; pg. 373: Clare Black; Pg.

378: Busty UK Milf; pg. 382: Elizabeth Haslam; pg. 387: cookiespi; pg. 392: Myxchel ie; pg. 401: Dennis Amir; pg. 405: Corey Taratuta; pg. 410: Sekgei; pg. 413: Gisela Giardino; pg. 418: Clare Black; pg. 425: creative commons; pg.

430: public domain; pg. 440: creative commons; pg. 431: creative commons The following photos gograph.com

pg. 28: gographponytail1414.com; pg. 119: Photographygg67134199; 183: gg66151307; pg. 22: jj70311283