This is the title of Mark Driscoll’s e-book. It’s brilliant. It’s brutal. But best of all it’s biblical. You can find it here. It’s free, so you don’t have to pay for it. And since you can download it and print it off, you don’t even have to carry it around in a brown paper bag!

It ought to be compulsory reading for every men’s weekend away. It’s going to be at ours. It ought to be used in prayer triplets and accountability groups. It’s best for younger men. I’m not sure how it would go down with a white collar older man who reads the Telegraph. But Driscoll’s not gunning for them.

It’s only a ninety minute read. But in that time he deals with the issues of sexual immorality, extra marital sex, prostitution, oral sex, pornography and masturbation. It’s what you’d expect from Driscoll; wholehearted unrestrained challenge, unflinchingly straight and set within the context of faithful Bible teaching. It’s brief and to the point. You don’t read Driscoll for nuance; you read him for clarity and frankness. And he gives both in spades. And that’s the strength of this book. This is written for men about sexual godliness. But it’s also written for men that struggle. It gets to the heart, it deals with their issues and it doesn’t duck the hard questions. Most of these are answered in two brief Q&A sections on pp 22-25 and pp 31-33.

The moving interview transcript between James Dobson and Ted Bundy, a converted sex offender, conducted hours before he was killed in the electric chair sounds a warning note to all of us who think that pornography is nothing to worry about. Raised in a Christian home, never subjected to sexual abuse of any sort and edcutaed at University he went on to kill at least thirty young women and girls. And porn was the fuel that fired his downward slide.

If there’s a slight criticism there’s not alot about forgiveness from sexual sin. Don’t misunderstand me, Driscoll’s not self righteous at all. But there’s not as much acknowledgement as I’d like that we’re all sexual sinners to one degree or another. It’s a minor quibble. In one sense it’s unfair to criticise a man for what he doesn’t include. I just think that given that most men are nailed by the sins he describes we could have done with some gospel as well as the well deserved, undiluted challenge. He does say this however, 

‘I have written this booklet to discuss these matters in a manner that is both theological and practical, in hopes of contributing to each of you experiencing the power of the gospel to forgive, renew, and empower you by grace’ p3.

And so there may be more grace than I’ve given him credit for. I’ve only read it through once and on second reading I may have to walk back from this criticism.

The best way to sell Driscoll’s material is to allow you to savour it for yourselves. So let me give you a flavour of what you’ll encounter. 

On what he’s trying to accomplish he writes, 

‘My desire as a Christian pastor is to see churches raised up as communities of grace ruled by Jesus and led by his gloriously masculine men who work their jobs, eat their meat, drink their beer, romance their wives, study their Bible, and raise their kids in glory and joy’ p28.

On sexual activity outside of marriage he writes, 

‘Simply, any man who claims to be a Christian but lives in habitual, unrepentant sexual immorality is not fit for Christian friendship and community unless he repents, because he is defiling his friends and their church with his perversion. The cold hard truth is that most guys’ struggles are only known by their fellow Christian buddies and unless Christian dudes man up and stop arguing about stupid secondary theological issues and spend their energies holding one another accountable to get dominion over their underwear, then Christian friendship is nothing more than Christian fakery’ p8.

Someone once said to me that in order to displace the enticing image of a naked woman from our mind’s eye or from our computer screen we need to replace it with an even more arresting image. Try this one for size, 

‘However you go out, do you really wanna be the guy with a computer mouse in one hand scratching his itchy junk with his other hand standing before Jesus and scrambling to explain himself?’ p8.

On the seriousness of this issue he quotes from Proverbs 27:20 and says,

‘Sheol [Death] and Abaddon [Destruction] are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man. If we apply this principle to pornographic lust, it becomes apparent that seeing such smut is not going to satisfy your lust but rather inflame it for more images. Lusting eyes may begin with a magazine, web site, or video and continue to view more magazines, web sites, or videos until they become bored and then descend into strip clubs, prostitutes, and/or easy women, which eventually become boring and lead to orgies, voyeurism, exhibitionism, pedophilia, and wherever else a crooked human heart can venture. Don’t kid yourself. Sin is an onramp to death. If you get on it and don’t repent, turn around, and exit, you will find the landscape getting darker, grosser, filthier, and deadlier. You may even be one of the millions of men who murder their own children in the womb of their mother, as yet another sinful fool proving yet again that sin leads to death’ p16.

If you’re a woman don’t go near it; it’s not for you. He says as much. On page three. What he says needs to be set within the context of how total depravity is manifested in men and filtered so that it’s more appropriately packaged for those who are less familiar with his earthy turn of phrase. If you’re a bloke do yourself a favour, download it, read it and pass it on.