More Than a Battle
How to Experience Victory, Freedom, and Healing from Lust
by
It has never been more difficult to flee sexual immorality and pursue holiness.
We live in an age of unprecedented access to sexual temptation. Previous generations faced adultery, prostitution, and brothels. But not every person had a brothel in their pocket. Our society’s obsession with sex, coupled with the technologies that make pornography so accessible, make it more challenging than it’s ever been.
The result is that our families, our churches, and our society are being devastated by a pornography epidemic.
In More than a Battle, pastor and author Joe Rigney offers hope for Christian men who are seeking to live with integrity and faithfulness in the face of the sexual temptation around them. Drawing on the Scriptures, his personal experience, and his pastoral counseling, Rigney frames the struggle with lust beneath the banner of Galatians 5:16: “Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh”
The struggle with lust is a fierce battle, an enslaving addiction, and a deep brokenness. Rigney shows us that through the gospel it is the Holy Spirit that gives us victory, sets us free, and heals our wounds.
Endorsements
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Indulging in pornography is an international pandemic that will send you to hell. Is it worth it to pursue a fleeting pleasure that is God-defying, life-wasting, family-betraying, poison-injecting, mind-ruining, conscience-searing, and slavery-fueling? The wise advice in this book is a gift for two groups of people: those who are struggling and those who want to help.
Andy Naselli, Professor, Bethlehem College & Seminary
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The problem is deeper than the problem. That’s the message of More than a Battle. Joe Rigney explains how our struggle with lust and pornography is in fact an expression of our original good desire for love, success, fulfillment, and happiness, a desire now twisted and distorted by the Fall. To address the whole problem, Rigney argues that we must starve the sinful cravings by denying the temptations of the flesh, and feed the original good desire, by pursuing our earthly vocation and our spiritual duty. And all must be done in the desire and expectation that God will satisfy our greatest desires. More than a Battle combines this theory with practices, as it offers concrete suggestions for developing practices and habits that form lasting virtue. This is a book for all Christians currently fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Steven Wedgeworth, Pastor, South Bend, Indiana
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To be confronted by one’s sin is a severe mercy. There can be no repentance and no glory to come if we are not confronted by our sin, and yet the confrontation can be immensely painful. I hope that every Christian trapped in the mires of sexual sin has a mentor to guide them with hopefulness, shrewdness, and graciousness Rigney displays in this book. More than a Battle is not just a helpful guide for Christians mired in sexual sin, though it certainly is that. It’s also a perceptive study of the human heart that equips readers to understand their sin more carefully and to combat it more intelligently. It helps readers see that chastity is beautiful. And it’s remarkable application of the gospel to the lives of sinful people. This will be a go-to guide for pastors, campus ministers, and lay people alike.
Jake Meador
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Virtually all men I know experience both shame and hopelessness in their struggle with the rampant pornography pandemic in our world. Thankfully, Joe Rigney gives us all a clear, gospel anchored way to fight the fight and lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us.
Bob Lepine
