Official Blog For Author Fred Stoeker

Once you have victory over sexual sin, you will likely desire to help pull others men out of the prison and into the light. Many ask me, “Fred, how do I start a ministry to help others win over sexual sin?”
All I know is what I’ve experienced with God, and that is that God is the one who promotes, and He usually promotes me only after I’ve stepped out in obedience. First, I obeyed His word about sexual purity, especially Ephesians 5:3 and 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. We won the victory together. After that, I stepped out and began teaching these truths openly and regularly to men and to married couples and high school students in classes at my local church, just as he calls us to in Psalm 51.
Once I had stepped out like this and continued being obedient and being faithful in the small things, then the Lord placed a deep prayer burden into my heart, and I prayed for a voice in his kingdom with great desperation for about a year. After stepping out in obedience in prayer and intercession, He then answered that prayer by impressing me write my story into a manuscript, and He made sure it was published so that I might have a voice in His kingdom. Once the book was published and I proved myself faithful and satisfied to teach in any small church or venue that would invite me, and once I’d remained obedient in prayer as I went out, then He promoted me to larger venues of 1,000 to 15,000 at a time.
For me, it was obedience to His biblical call that led to my victory over sexual sin, and then continued obedience that led to my ministry, and then continued obedience that led to more and more open doors. As I look back, I couldn’t have done what I’m doing today on this wider scale without first learning and experiencing all I did on the smaller scale. I think this “obedience/promotion” plan of God’s is a good training model, much like Major League Baseball’s farm system, of going from Rookie League to A-Ball to Double A ball to Triple A ball and then to the Major Leagues. Don’t despise the day of small beginnings. Be faithful in those small things. The Lord has much to teach you, and He wants you to become stronger and stronger before He tosses you into the rougher, churning spiritual waters defended by the bigger, stronger spiritual enemies. 
So, while you pray for that bigger voice in His Kingdom, be anxious to excel in the smaller ministries of leading small groups and teaching others in classes at church. Learn and grow. As you step out, remember that He has His eyes on you and is developing you as a great leader. Be both urgent and patient to be that strong pillar in your local church as God prepares the paths and opens the doors before you.

When I bought your book Every Man’s Battle, I thought it was just another book; one of those books that will tell me how to avoid having intercourse. But on going through it, I got more that I paid for. Even though I had made a vow with God not to have sexual intercourse again until marriage (and I have not since 2005), I was still heavy in pornography and masturbation. Your book opened my eyes that these sins were just as weighty as intercourse itself.

I want to particularly comment on your “Bouncing Eye” principle. It works. It is just a week and some days that I finished reading the book. After I consciously avoided looking at tempting pictures for a few days, now my eyes actually avoid tempting images on their own. Sometimes they do not just bounce but close completely. Thank God! I have also logged on to the net several times without entering a porn site. Considering who I was, this is a major achievement and I am extremely grateful to you for using your experiences to teach me.

Thank you for putting that book in the market. You have saved my life from destruction.

I read Every Man’s Marriage just before diving into Hero, and I also found it very encouraging. Like Hero, Every Man’s Marriage focused heavily on positively driving a marriage in the forward direction and up toward God. My husband and I actually read this one together as sort of a daily devotional, and reaped many rewards. My husband ‘assigned’ this book to us as one step forward to a new life together. You have a lot of significant insight into a woman; for instance: “She had gifts for discerning relationships that I simply didn’t have” (page 21 in Every Man’s Marriage) and trampling her feelings is “sinning against your wife” (page 23 in Every Man’s Marriage). Your section on not doing something that your spouse feels is sinful was new to me, and I quickly related to this issue as my husband and I once struggled over one thing in particular that I considered extremely upsetting. Now he is more empathetic toward me, understanding your claim that if something feels sinful to the wife, it should also feel that way for the husband. If more people stood up and made the life-changing statements that you made in this book, our churches would have some serious revolution. Like you say, our definition of sin is too narrow. A huge conflict in our marriage has centered around my husband’s struggle to seek my feelings first (when it concerns something that he doesn’t willfully wish to do or not do). Submission is not a word that is heard in context with a man, but it all makes sense, especially with the description of Christ and the church, and it is unequivocally dire, if we are to have true freedom in Christ, to expose these sins and get right in our hearts. God certainly never excused or sugar-coated sin, and He doesn’t expect us to do so, either.

What is particularly hard for me is that I had zero doubts when we got married, and I was never so happy as in that first year of marriage. Then something changed in his heart, and he never told me about it until it was too late. Years of pornography, an affair, and some lusting after others just two months ago have now brought us to a new beginning and relationship. His heart was trapped in darkness and he didn’t know this until recently. For years he was self-tormented with guilt and remorse, too ashamed to bring it to God. Now, not only is he remorseful, he has also found the key to victory: repentance. Like Job, he has made a new covenant with God and with me to not evne lust after other women. Because he now fully depends on God, he is becoming a leader in our relationship, resulting in security and safety for me as his wife. I really look forward to seeing him grow in his knowledge of the Word and to see him guiding his family in God’s ways, free, this time, from a secret life. He has also improved so much in “considering my feelings every step of the way” (page 88 in Every Man’s Marriage) and making it easier for me to please God (page 119 in Every Man’s Marriage), whereas before he used to be the guy that said, “But darling, I listened to you. I just felt my way was better” (page 172 in Every Man’s Marriage). When a husband trusts in God and lives only to serve Him, it is then that his wife can trust him again. As I submit to God through our Bible studies, counseling sessions and forging a relationship based on truth, I look longingly toward finding that trust in him again.

I just finished reading Hero, and I very much enjoyed it. Reading about your son’s story is invaluable, and it’s a story that can certainly improve the lives of many couples, as well as individual men. The encouragement and freedom men have in Jesus were ubiquitous throughout the book, and I especially liked the scriptural references to 1 Thess. 4 and 2 Tim. 2:22. On page 107, Rebecca exposes a crucial point that many people miss. It’s not just a physical affair that destroys the bond between a man and a woman, but pornography and just looking at another girl sends her the message that “she isn’t enough for you, that she isn’t the most precious gift you could ever have”. You hit the nail on the head when you state that a woman “longs to be fought for, to be passionately pursued by her gallant knight in shining armor, a hero who lives and breathes only for her”. The key words here are ‘only for her’. As you mention and as Rose mentions throughout her sections of the book, even women have sold themselves short, settling for something far less than being pure or honorable before God. What’s worse, it’s really not all that surprising, seeing how rampant sexual sin is all around them and finding practically no guys who are insisting on living sexually pure until marriage. I also appreciated how you expounded on the importance for a man to not cross the sexual boundaries of his girlfriend, even when the woman herself puts pressure on him to do so. My husband and I will have both our sons and daughters read this book. Both genders will greatly benefit from reading this book.

I’m twenty-six years old, from Pretoria, South-Africa (now known as Tshwane)
 
I’ve been struggling with sexual temptation since I’ve been a teenager.  Even though I was sure that I’d given my life to Christ and lived a “pious” life, I can’t deny that struggling with these issues left me down in the dumps for the greater part of my teens and twenties.  I talked to ministers and friends often in an effort to get help, and I sincerely hoped that I’d finally stop these mindless pursuits. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, even after I made commitment after commitment not to fall for these temptations again. 

Nothing ever worked, and I thought that there likely was no hope for me.  I further realized that my sexual sin had actually started becoming even more of a problem AFTER I got married (I really thought marriage would free me from these things!)  After about twelve years of living in this sin, and after one particularly weak Thursday morning, I decided that enough is enough. No more talk! I needed hope, I needed action, and I refused to believe that I had to be a victim of this for the rest of my life.  I remembered the title of a book in one of our Christian bookshops called “Every Man’s Battle,” and I promptly went out and bought the book. By the next night, Friday, I’d read through the book and started applying the principles. 
 
Your book has completely changed my life. I finally had the defenses and tools I needed. “Every Man’s Battle” gave me a way out and I’m 100% sure that the Holy Spirit inspired you to write that book, so that EVERY man might have a way out.  I thank God every single day that He gave me the chance to read your book, and learn how to stand for Him.

Fred, I wrote you two years ago to share my triumph in this area of sexual sin, and I’m continuing to hold the line on purity, with my heart and eyes.  Great to hear of your son’s testimony!  I personally know it is possible to live purely before God, and I have found that for me it takes daily quiet time with God, regularly receiving His life and Power. The emphasis is on Him, not my ability to do anything. It is wonderful to know that it is possible to live holy and to reap the benefits from God, and when I saw your new book, Hero, I was jazzed.  I am raising a seven-year-old boy, so the topic is very dear to me.

My much bigger testimony is my freedom from bondage due to my family background. My parents are from a foreign culture that has many unbiblical and demonic elements to it, elements which lead people into serious emotional bondage that ruins marriages.  In fact, many people close to me have ruined their marriages when the husband doesn’t leave his parents completely and cleave to his wife, as God teaches in Genesis.  God is faithful and has strengthened my marriage, but I have paid a heavy price for that. There is a great distance between my parents and me. They are syncretistic, which means they believe that they can mix biblical Christianity with pagan traditions.  God is very jealous and will not have any of that. The bottom line was that when I started to obey the Word of God, putting my wife first and putting a distance between myself and my parents, God opened the windows of heaven in many ways. My intimacy with Jesus Himself has been multiplied many times over, but I also saw the benefits in my family life and in my work. Everything in my life just got better, which is exactly what God promises when we obey him fully (See Deut 28: 1-12). 

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present us faultless before God!  Keep rocking, Fred!  We will triumph by the grace of God and in His love! I am praying for those brothers that still struggle, that one-by-one they will do the hard work of developing good habits with their eyes, but then learn that God can and does help us all remain pure as we live for Him (Gal 2:20). God bless you Fred and your team, and I will continue to pray for you as God leads.