Shownotes Transcript
It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. This week on Live in the Bream, we have got a topic that I don't know that we've tackled before and from the viewpoint of men who are trying to live a life of
courage and purity, and we've got a guest we haven't had before. So I'm excited to introduce him. He's the author of a new book called Fight Like a Man, a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. Emile Swain, he goes by EZ. He's also the president of Living Waters, host of the National Bible Bee Competition, which I find fascinating, co-host of the Living Waters podcast.
He speaks all over the world, serves as an executive producer of The Way of the Master TV program and multiple Living Waters films. His life could be a film. EZ, welcome to the show. Shannon, what a joy it is to be on with you. Thank you so much for having me. And let me just say, I'm so blessed that you're willing to tackle this topic. It's a huge one, but not a very popular one, but one that definitely needs to be addressed. So I'm excited to talk with you about it today. Okay.
Yeah, and the thing is, I'll start here. Talking about sexual purity, especially from a male viewpoint, I have a lot of female authors and Bible teachers that speak to women. So this is a little bit different for us. But the first things first, the fact is a lot of people don't even think this is worth discussing. They may say, oh, men won't be men.
And, you know, there's no problem with some of the things that you delve into the book. That's just what being a man is. Others will say this is an uncomfortable topic. I don't want to talk about it. But you decided to go there. And so tell us why you thought this book was important. This conversation. Yeah.
Yeah, well, you know, as I talk about in the preface of the book, there are two things I think that are essential to make any book effective. And that is first necessity and then secondly, passion. And to begin with necessity, I mean, Shannon, you know, this issue is wreaking havoc everywhere.
across the landscape of this planet. I mean, it is devastating men, it's devastating families, it's devastating society. And it's one of those things that sadly, because it's become so prevalent, has become something that people are desensitized to. But it is absolutely not just a
you know, a pandemic, but it is a synonymy of social destruction, spiritual destruction, familial destruction, societal destruction that is beyond description. And, you know, the statistics tell us 75%
of professing Christian men dabble with pornography. 40% of women, which I found shocking, and 13% of pastors. I think that statistic's a lot higher because many won't be honest about it. But Shannon, the thing that blew my mind was the fact that 95% of 11-year-olds will have looked at pornography. Wow.
So it's a massive problem and there are so many ramifications to it. You're so right. And the thing is, it used to be that you had to go looking for the stuff. Right. And now I look around and I think about young people. I think about men, anyone, women who struggles with these issues of porn or lust or those kinds of things.
That I don't know how you put up barriers. It's on billboards. It's commercials. It's stuff that pops up on your phone or on your laptop. I mean, it is everywhere. And you're being combated with a message that, you know, it's fine to have this as part of your life. It doesn't damage your family. It doesn't hurt anyone. And it's just kind of your secret thing. Maybe it's a stress reliever. Maybe it's just...
a part of life and a lot of people think hey, there's nothing wrong with it Why would we even talk about trying to carve this out of your life? Yeah, no exactly. That's exactly what's happening And the thing that people don't realize is that this goes beyond just affecting the person themselves, right? I mean the the ripple effects are massive and When people step back and examine what happens to the brain, you know Shannon your brain like
physiologically changes when they scan the brains of men who look at porn. It's astounding what they find and the effects from the neuroplasticity that's impacted to the prefrontal cortex, to the behavioral aspects of decision making, to depression, to anxiety, on and on and on. But most importantly, spiritually, you
You see the damage that results from this, that God has created us as people in his image. And we mar that when we go outside of his bounds in terms of what God has created for sex. And look, sex is beautiful. It's designed by God. It was his idea. You know, man, and just wake up one day and say, hey, you know, this would be something nice to try. Right. He's not surprised. Like what's going on down there?
Right, exactly. He's not surprised. Not at all. You know, we do. I mean, you think about it. He uses that process to create billions of image bearers, right, that run the planet. And so when my wife and I had the talk, right, the talk with our kids where parents usually get nervous and anxious, I said to my wife, listen, I want to present this to them in accordance with
what it really is in terms of something beautiful that God made and designed. And, you know, often we as parents give the vibes to our kids that kind of lock into their minds what something is like. And so we didn't act nervous and shift our eyes. We said, hey, kids, tonight we want to talk to you about something beautiful that God designed.
You know, it's been said that a child's mind is like a warehouse full of empty shelves. Whoever gets there first and stocks those shelves will make it harder for someone else to come unstock and restock them. And so we wanted to present it that way to our children because it is beautiful. God made it. But Satan has twisted it. Our flesh has tainted it. And this world has perverted it. And so it's time we get back to letting people understand it's beautiful, but it has to be within the context of what God designed.
And the thing is, I worry that for a lot of people, it just becomes a shortcut. We aren't making the same human connections. A lot of us live, especially younger people in a virtual or digital world. So this is just kind of the norm. But it does eat away at real relationships and real intimacy in real relationships.
It's not just something that, as you said, affects the person. There's so many ripple effects, whether it's the people who are in the porn business, especially if you're talking about non-consenting young people, those kinds of things. But it's also the person that will be your real spouse maybe one day in life. I mean, you have to unpack these things with that relationship, too, if you...
who are just corrupted from what the pure beautiful parts of sex are into something that's just unrealistic and demeaning in many ways.
Yeah, absolutely. And what it does is it objectifies women and it takes away the realism of connection, like you're saying, because what happens is there's this sort of fantasy world that's created that doesn't comport with reality. And so what ends up happening is disappointment. And then also men not
being drawn to their wives because they have these unrealistic images and byproducts of performance that are in their hearts and minds. And so it destroys relationships. It diminishes intimacy, contrary to what people think it will do for it.
And it also destroys trust. I mean, you think of women who desire to be the one that their husbands desire above all else, and yet their husbands are, in essence, committing adultery mentally with other women. And so it's massively destructive. And, you know, Shannon, one of the things I talk about in the book is the fact that men are not prepared for this battle. That's why the book is called Fight Like a Man, a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. And
And men are living with this sort of peacetime mentality when it comes to this issue, when they are really in wartime. Like you just said, we're bombarded everywhere. When I was a kid, if you wanted to look at pornographic images, you had to have a friend who had a dad who had a stash maybe, or you had to steal a video from a store. Now we have these supercomputers in our pockets at the click of a button.
You have access to millions, maybe billions of images. And so men need to realize that, no, we are at war. I mean, Shannon, can you imagine a soldier during World War II being deluded into thinking that he's on a luxury cruise ship heading for the shores of Bora Bora to an exotic resort when in reality he's on a Higgins boat heading for the shores of Normandy? I mean, this guy would be sauntering off the Higgins boat clad in a bathrobe, some fluffy slippers and a remote in his hand, and he's going to get smoked.
And that's what's happening with men today. They're not willing to fight in this arena. And I want to stir them today to stand up and say, no, this is damaging me spiritually. It's damaging my family. It's damaging my impact in society as God designed me to have as a man. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.
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Yeah, we're talking with EZ's Wayne about the book, Fight Like a Man, a bold biblical battle plan for personal purity. And you get practical because that's what we end it at the end of the day. That's what we need. Practical advice for how you can really tackle this in your life. Prepare yourself, have a battle plan.
What are you got a couple different things here? Let's talk through the six C's that could be helpful to prep and to fight. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I wanted the book to be biblically based, also theologically sound, but at the same time, very memorable and highly practical. I mean, if you don't remember something that you were exposed to and it doesn't have practicality to it.
It's not going to have impact. And so, yeah, so I designed this battle plan because the problem is, is a lot of men don't give their hearts and minds something to do both before the battle and in the heat of the battle. And so in the book, I talk about something that I call preventative preparedness, right? In the U.S., we have the doctrine of peace through strength. We bolster ourselves so much that our enemies wouldn't even dare attack us. And so that's what I encourage men to do. And so I have these six C's. I call them the six C's to succeed.
And they are creation, cross, crisis, crown, crowd, and Christ. And each of them is packed with practical, biblical, and wisdom-oriented truth to help men in the battle. And then each principle has within it an alliterated sentence that men can memorize. And so I'll just touch on a couple of them, beginning with creation.
I try to help men recognize that there's more than what they realize is going on when they're engaging in sexual sin, whether it's pornography, fornication, adultery, whatever it is. And we don't realize that. We're tampering with amazing features and faculties that have the fingerprints of design all over them. We begin with vision.
You know, when men are lusting, they're using their vision, right? Your eyes have 137 million light sensitive cells. The focusing muscle moves about 100,000 times a day.
Shannon, our eyes have built-in super sensitive light meters, immediate automatic focusing, wide angle lenses, and full color instantaneous reproduction. It sounds like I'm talking about a camera, but this is the human eye. And so to step back and think, whoa, I'm using this tool to do something that is sinful and harmful toward the Lord, myself, and others. This should be leading me to worship. Then you have meditation.
cognition. Your eyes are taking those images and they're filtering them to your brain that's processing them. Your brain has 10 billion neurons or microscopic nerve cells, many times more nerve lines than all the telephone lines in the whole world put together. You've got imagination, creativity, memory, recall. Whoa! I mean, greater than any supercomputer.
And then finally, coition, which comes from the word coitus, which is the very mechanism of intimacy. And you think of all that's involved there with desire and compatibility and procreation, like I talked about.
These have God's fingerprints of design all over them. And so for that one, it's wield wonders, which is what these features are. Wield wonders as wellsprings for worship, not weapons for wounding. We should be in awe of the God who gave us these features, but we take them and we turn them and we use them against God, ourselves and others. Shannon, it's almost like taking the Mona Lisa and using it as a placemat.
to eat over. Or it's like taking a live grenade and using it to play catch with. We're tampering with amazing and powerful things, and we need to be careful. So that's one of the Cs. And then I get into cross where, you know, as we commit our sin, we're doing it in the shadow of the cross, and we need to stop spitting and stomping on such a sacred symbol. I get into crisis. And this is where I talk about the crisis of
Conscience, the crisis of moral authority, of leadership capacity, the crisis of witness, the crisis of joy, all of that results when we indulge in sexual immorality. And so this is considered the catastrophic consequences of compromise. And the final one is Christ. And there I get into how Christ is a source of our strength.
He's our help. He sympathizes with our weaknesses, and we need to seek the sweet Savior for strength, satisfaction, and sympathetic support. So that's just kind of a quick overview glimpse. But Shannon, the book is not a beat down book. It's a book infused with hope. There is hope, and that's the good news. Men can be delivered from this. Women can be delivered from this.
And one of the encouraging things I've heard from women is that the book has also been helpful for them. Even though it's designed for men, there's so much practicality in it that it applies to them as well.
Yeah, and I'm so glad you mentioned that because I do think some people may feel like if they do recognize, okay, I've got a struggle on my hands, they may be so overwhelmed with guilt and from their past. And we know that our faith is all about forgiveness and Christ is there to redeem and to unconditionally love us.
through the reality of we all struggle with different things. What's the message there to people who feel like, oh, I've made such a mess in this particular area. I can't get back to a place of purity or really be forgiven.
Right. Well, that's the good news of what Christ came to do, right? He came to redeem us. He came to deliver us from sin and from destruction. I think of the Apostle Paul, who had been transformed by Christ. I mean, he was an enemy of Christ, an enemy. He was putting Christians to death, persecuting them, imprisoning them.
And he said of himself that he was a chief of sinners. In the light of God's grace, he recognizes sinfulness, but he obtained mercy. He obtained forgiveness, as he talked about. And so no matter how far someone has fallen, that was the mission of Christ. He came, hung upon a cross, demonstrated the love of God toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But Shannon, men need to recognize that the lie that they've been believing is
Just that, a lie. And that lie is, I can't help it. I can't have victory over this. I can't be free from it. That's the biggest lie in the world. Often to challenge me, I say, look, if Elon Musk put up $100 billion for it,
for you if you went six months without looking at pornography and their cameras fall on you and document hundred billion dollars you know beyond the shadow of a doubt you would be able to have victory over it it's not that we can't it's that we won't and and
it's high time that we stand up and fight. I mean, that's the title of the book, Fight Like a Man. And I asked Matt, I say, look, if someone came up and pulled their arm back and was about to punch your wife in the face, or they held the gun aimed at your children, we're about to pull a trigger. Would you not jump in front of them, absorb that blow, absorb that bullet, and then fight that aggressor off if you can? And every man, oh, absolutely. And yet Shannon,
Men aren't willing to fight to protect their families from this sin. And they're the ones that are about to throw the punch. They're the ones that are about to pull that trigger.
And so we need to stand up, realize that, and then run to Christ, recognizing through His death and resurrection, through the grace of God, we can be forgiven and helped. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. But He's our strength. He's our help. He sympathizes with us. And if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So Christ truly is the answer.
And you talk about in the book, there are things that can sneak into our lives. A lot of times things feel very innocent or maybe just sort of a one off. But there are things that we don't usually end up at the end of the road with whatever sin we're dealing with, just jumping there with one big, huge decision overnight. It seems like there are a lot of decisions, things we allow into our thought life as well. But you talk about how things like discontentment, even those can allow us to
us to start to entertain things we might not have otherwise entertained. Right. Absolutely. It's Satan's three-pronged
tactic and attack, and it goes back to Eden. He did it with Eve, right? And by extension, Adam began with discontent. Has God said you can't eat of every tree of the garden? Whereas God had said they could eat of everyone except for one, but he twisted it in such a way to make them feel like, oh no, we're missing out on so much. When God was keeping them from one thing, which was not good for them,
And that created that discontentment. He then comes in with disbelief. Oh, no, you will not surely die. God said you eat of it, you'll die. No, no, no. The consequences for the sin aren't really what God said they're going to be. And then finally, deification. No, in fact, you will become like God, knowing good from evil. In other words, you will be the final arbiter.
what is right and wrong. You'll become autonomous, independent from God, making the call on what's right or wrong. And it's the same thing with us. He does it with us, and then he leads us in the pathway of destruction. And a lot of men, again, they don't realize what's happening in reality. I've often said, Shannon, that if our lungs were sitting on the outside of our chest, rather than on the inside walled by these walls of flesh,
there would be a lot less smokers in this world. I'm sure you've seen those pictures, right? The healthy lung, the smoker's lung, and one is pink and healthy, the other one is charred and black.
The problem is, is men don't see what's happening to their spiritual man. They don't see the ravages that are going to spring up from the seeds of immorality that they're planting in the lives of their children and their wives and their lack of impact and so forth. So we need to believe what God has said, and we need to take action. We need to fight and no longer just kind of cruise and be in peaceful mentality because we're going to get eaten up by this.
Yeah, it may be an uncomfortable topic, but if the church isn't talking about it, I don't know who else should be talking about it. Something that's so important to all of our spiritual strength and health, as you said, our families, our relationships.
And just the ripple effects, as we've said, of so many people who are impacted by this industry. The book, again, is called Fight Like a Man, a Bold Biblical Battle Plan for Personal Purity by EZ's Wayne. How can we find out more about you, the book, what you're doing and your ministry?
Yeah, so I serve with a ministry called Living Waters, and people could check us out there, livingwaters.com. And the book is available on Amazon. You know, Shannon, I've been blown away by the response I've gotten to the book. As you know, Kirk Cameron endorsed it. The foreword is written by Ken Ham. John MacArthur wrote the foreword to the book, and I was blown away by the response. It debuted as the number one new release and number one bestseller on Amazon in its category and even out of any category.
And I've been blown away. And that really speaks to the fact that this is a big issue and men are looking for help. So it's a book that's infused, like I said, with practicality, but also with hope for men. So, yeah, check it out at Amazon.com. All right. Easy. So glad to have you on Live in the Bream. And hopefully this will spark a lot of interesting and helpful, fruitful conversations. God bless you and all the best with the book.
Thank you so much, Shannon. It was great to be with you. God bless you. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.
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