A House Divided Amongst Itself Cannot Stand - How Pornography Use Cuts You Off At the Torso

An excerpt from the testimony of Nehemiah Williams

Every Thursday we’ll release a new episode of “From Work To Worship”, where we explore how people’s calling becomes their calling card, how vocation fuels occupation, and how “to work” can be “to worship” when we understand who we were made for. Episode 2 is friend, musician, and business partner, Nehemiah Williams, the other side of PPDK Productions.

Every Saturday we’ll be releasing a read only excerpt from this week’s episode. This will be one of many pieces of content exclusive to Substack. We’re also exploring what bonus content we’ll offer subscribers.

Here is some of our interview with Nehemiah Williams.

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Nehemiah

Some people have the ability to look at pornography and it doesn't really affect them that much. Even though it does, but whatever. It doesn't overtake their life. That's not true with me.

Pornography has the ability to shut everything else worthwhile in my life down and then slowly but surely cause me to become stagnant, complacent, and apathetic towards everything that should be important to me and is, but it just makes me nb to all of that. And, not just unmotivated, but dang near unable to act, you know, on behalf of my better judgment, my best interest.

And, like it just turns me into a drone or a zombie, like it cuts, it literally cuts my energy levels at the torso. And cast me into depression, demoralization, you know, all the negative emotion, D words. I had a pornography issue all throughout my teenage years.

And honestly, let me go back here. So. When I was, when I was eight years old, I got saved at that Bible camp. I came back, it was during the summer and then the school year started. And at the very beginning of the school year, like September, , I was doing my homework in fourth grade and I went into my father's office and on his computer screen was just a pop up of pornography. Because this was the old days of the internet where you can get pop ups at any time. And there's a pop up there. And I knew in that moment, like, something in me was like, you gotta get out of here. And it's always like this. Something in me is like, you gotta get out of here.

But then, there's your carnal side, you know, it's like, Oh, I just felt drawn towards it, the flesh. And so, of course I didn't have what it took to overcome the flesh in that moment. That was my first encounter, and slowly, but surely ever since then, I started to seek out pornography and it was all secret.

But the thing is because it was such a secret and I didn't have access to my own technology, yeah, like it was a very cornered bad habit. But in college when I had my own laptop and I had my own access to everything, it just became basically an addiction, you know, like it was the only thing I pursued.

And like I said, the effect that it has on me, I don't want to sound like I'm not taking responsibility, but it's always been that it literally cuts me off at the torso. You know, like it, it takes me under par. Like if you need a certain amount of energy just to be yourself, it puts you under par, you know, so two things, three things.

Nathanael

Number one, I would not be doing this with you. We built this studio. We're doing this, like this is surreal, but the pornography thing would have, well, if it happens, it will destroy all of this for me. This would not be possible if I was continuing in that and in the name of Jesus, I’m free. Number two you said about how it cuts you off at the torso and brings you down.

There's, I was listening to, Andrew Huberman. If you're listening, Andrew Huberman, one day find us, be saved by Jesus, and do experiments on us and tell us how to be great. But he said that pornography drops your dopamine levels below baseline, but it peaks them past baseline. You're capable so because of that you have to keep hitting higher and higher and higher and higher so you're seeking out more novelty, but after you orgasm, Bam, below baseline and your baseline gets lower and lower and lower and lower. So there was this pattern with me overworking, jamming coffee, pushing myself, which also spikes dopamine, seeking out riskier and riskier behavior. Whether it's relationships, or getting on stag, more more more more, studying, coffee coffee coffee.

Oh, I can't sleep. Then, pornography, Bam, fall asleep, you wake up and you want to die. And you need more and you need more pornography. Well, you need more Dopamine, achievement, achievement, achievement, achievement, achievement, high, high, high, high, high. Oh, I can't come back down. Pornography, lower.

So I need more achievement. I need more risk. I need more. And so it is incredibly destructive and if there are people that can watch this and not get hooked well, it means that they have something better, but if we don't have that and what's so remarkable is that You encounter the Lord in understanding and choice, but not spirit. It's a year later. You encounter him in feeling and spirit in that time in between. Let's do this to him. Let's get him here so that this arc of him trying to finally encounter the spirit. Let's throw this other spirit in there real quick. Yeah. Yeah. Because, because, the house divided amongst itself cannot stand.

So let's throw this other thing, this other idol, this other spirit, this other demon. Bam! Oh, it's okay, he has Jesus, but he also has this. So we can still pit the two against each other. The enemy, you know, I read the screw tape letters, you know? Now we have some leverage. So that he's not fully, we still have a chance if we have this one thing, we still have a chance for him to turn away one day.

Yeah. And it's on your Dad's, it's a pop up. It's not even, it's not even your dad stumbling into sin. It's so evil. Yeah. It's interesting how the timing of all that.

Nehemiah

This world of evil, like, so in the scripture, it describes it as the world, like, like there is a heavenly system and then there's a worldly system and the worldly sister system can only produce evil fruit, right? It's interesting how in my life, as soon as I got encountered with the divine, the worldly system also encountered me.

And they say that, you know, that the system, the systems of evil will always counterfeit. The things that are good, like they can't really come up with anything Innovative that is evil. It can only corrupt the things that are good and then repackage them to make it seem like you know that's what you really want, but it always ends with just not good. That's the only way to describe the outcome.

Nathanael

Satan is a clout chaser. He's hopping on trends, but he's not original. Yeah. The enemy is not original. So you go to Berkeley.

Nehemiah

I go to Berkeley. And so this wonderful, wonderful opportunity turns into a nightmare. Turns into a nightmare. And there are good things about it.

Nehemiah

I made some awesome friends. And my social life, it was the thing I liked about it most. I made three friends that I really, really loved. It taught me a lot about myself, just relating with them. But my ability to be a student was, once again, cut off at the torso. I was a terrible student. And it's funny, because high school, Straight A's.

Like, I was an excellent student in high school and it fully flipped. I was just telling you, I only seem to operate at both extremes.

Like, my whole life is trying to find balance to where I can be, you know, just regular. Because I'm always operating at both extremes. Either awesome or just not good. Yeah, like, the type of, the way it looked was I would start off going to class, you know, getting involved, doing the things, but then I would, because of the trouble of school, I would use the coping mechanism of pornography, which would bring me into this like zombie, like basically this nb mental state where nothing matters, basically nihilism.

And so the best closest thing in order to fill up my time was just different entertainment forms. So I watched a lot of movies. I just use my laptop. The first time I had a laptop to just pass the time with different forms of entertainment. And then as soon as I got sick of doing that, or I got hungry, I would go out and eat junk food, just junk food.

And then I'll go back and probably queue up some more pornography and then just repeat the cycle, but I would not go to class. Sometimes if I could just manage to pull myself, it was like pulling teeth, you know I'm trying to get myself to go to class. I went to class and I was disappointing all my instructors. I would at midterms and finals ask them please, give me a chance. I'll go to their office and they're open, you know, whatever. I would, sometimes, I'd pull it through. I cheated in order to get by.

Nathanael

How do you cheat on music? Like its theory.

Nehemiah

You can like, yeah, there's a lot of music programs where you can just put something to like, kind of do something really simple.

You're like, you're not putting your real creativity in. You're just doing enough to get by, but then using the tech to actually make it sound presentable. And then just turning it in, just doing enough to get your marks on the assignment. That's the thing. All artistic assignments are hard to judge.

It's like it's hard to find a way to grade them. But, uh, You can complete the assignment without putting any heart or soul into it. And so that's what I would do. And I would just do it as fast as possible. And, let's get by. Or, dude, I took somebody else's assignment and turned it in. He had a totally different teacher, totally different instructor, same class.

Nathanael

You're like, and that guy is John Mayer.

Nehemiah

I took other people's assignments, turned them in. Yeah. I was just doing whatever and I would just do enough to pass different tests. Like it was, I was a terrible student and man. So, Yeah, college, but that, it was torturous though, because, like you said, there was two parts of me, the part of me that wanted to be, the part of, the true part of me that wanted to take this opportunity, run with it, just like put my whole self into it, but because of what I was doing, I couldn't, and so there's just that part of me that was just just acting in this way that was fully against all my values and it was just like I was torn between what I really wanted and who I was what I was doing. There was no connection between who I wanted to be and what I was doing. There was a full disconnect.

Nathanael

Like Paul talking about yeah, I want to do this, but my flesh wants to do that. Wow. So did you finish? Did you graduate?

Nehemiah

No, because I left after two years.

Nathanael

You know what that means? You're going to be famous.

Nehemiah

Yeah, it's so true. So many people who went to Berkeley, but never finished actually made a name for themselves.

You're supposed to drop out. That's the whole point of going to Berkeley. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of true for so many reasons, but yeah, John Mayer, Imagine Dragons, a lot of them went but didn't finish. You know, so, anyway. Left after two years. And when I got back home, I was running away from that torturous cycle.

But you, you learn that. Well, somebody put it like this, you can't run from your demons because they always know where you are, wherever you go, so do they, you know, they're with you, you know? I just repeated the same cycle at home, but I had no, nothing to work towards, you know, I had no purpose.

And that was its own form of a horrible lifestyle. I just started working in order to figure it out and I also started seeking help. I also started seeking help from different Church programs that they had at my church at the time. If you have anything akin to an addiction or an actual addiction if you're ready to admit that because you have to acknowledge , then there's a certain way to be so that you can live contrary to that. They tell you the second you start living a lifestyle that is not conducive to getting away from your addiction or keeping you away from your addiction then you'll just go right back.

Nathanael

I've come to despise the temptation and that's sort of new. But yeah, I mean, I can't even hear the music.

Oh, it was Christmas, some random Spotify Christmas playlist. Sabrina Carpenter, I'll shout it out. I don't care. It's evil. Some Christmas song. It's all sexual innuendo about Christmas.

Yeah, I'm not trying to have sex with Santa. I'm trying to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Right. I'm not trying to celebrate Christmas and hear about you trying to bed Mr. Claus. He's got a wife. He's married. I, I jest, but, I'm, I'm out. I leave. Get me away from this in the name of Jesus.

I rebuke this, you know, get me away from this because I know if I even just let it in just a little bit, everything will be wiped out. I cannot take that risk anymore.

Nehemiah

Yeah. That's true. It's true. It's true. And that's when true in my war, all out war against the flesh. Against the fact that, honestly, college was a rock bottom for me.

And when I left, it was a rock bottom moment. Like, look at the desolation of my own actions. And so, I have ever since then been trying, it's been a long journey, to live against that stigma. That way of thinking, that way of being, and you learn that, like, even a little bit. eventually will grow into you just going right back to the same behaviors.

That cycle is too strong. It's like a black hole. It sucks you in and get, you have to achieve some sort of miraculous, you know, what do they call it? Escape velocity in order to get out of that cycle. But once you're out, if you don't actively live contrary to that cycle and you indulge even a small piece of that cycle, it sucks you back in, you know.

Nathanael

I think that when Jesus says, seek ye the kingdom of heaven and all things will be added unto you and his righteousness. I think it goes in reverse. Take your eyes off the kingdom and all things will be taken away from you at lightning speed, the same speed that it gets added to you. It gets taken away.

Nehemiah

I would disagree with that. When you seek the kingdom of heaven, you break free faster than it takes to suck you in.

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You can listen to the full episode of part 2 here:

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Get tickets to our next show and see Nehemiah perform his testimony through song, Nathanael perform through comedy, and them together through verse and poetry. We might even see Nehemiah perform an original song on the piano. Stay tuned.

The date is tentative given the situation that is unfolding in L. A. Our hearts go out to those who have lost their homes or loved ones. PPDK is currently looking to get involved by helping out on the ground and listening to people's stories, offering prayer, documenting their loss, and willingness to overcome.