One of the biggest problems our country faces is sexual brokenness. We live in a day when anything goes in regard to sexuality, or at least so it seems. And as time passes, it’s as if people invent new ways of breaking God’s commands for purity. The saddest part is that it’s not just the world; many Christians struggle with sexual brokenness of one kind or another. That’s why Dr. David Kyle Foster has worked hard to minister to people with sexual strongholds.
I recently had the honor of interviewing David on the Strang Report podcast about this topic, which he covers in detail in his latest book, Sexual Healing: The Reference Edition. At 500 pages long, David’s book is a mixture of his personal testimony and training for leaders who are ministering to the sexually broken.
David has a 38-year unbroken record of walking in sexual healing. I met him at the National Religious Broadcasters conference several years ago and became fascinated with his story. David says when he was about 7 or 8, someone likely sexually abused him. He became sexually obsessive and suicidal, both of which are signs of sexual abuse.
“It just got worse and worse and worse over the years,” David says. “I tried to take my life several times. I felt very unloved and unaffirmed by my father. Then when I went out to Hollywood, I was already out of control.”
While working in Hollywood, David fell deeper into sin. Leaders and heads of studios pursued him sexually, leading David further into an immoral lifestyle than he had ever been.
“Finally, in 1980, I was fed up with Hollywood,” he says. “People love you there as long as your career is doing well, and then they forget you the second afterward. And it was just empty. I was really just looking for love, and it wasn’t there.”
David knew he had to make a change, so he decided to seek Jesus.
“So I got on a plane and flew to Israel, and Jesus just met me there,” he says. “He saved me and transformed my life. Then I flew back to Hollywood, and from there went off to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, got my M.Div. there, and then some years later, I got my doctorate of ministry at Trinity School for Ministry.”
Back when David was going through his struggle, and then in the early years after his salvation, no one really talked about gay marriage or same-sex attraction in public. There were no books on the subject, and the gay agenda hadn’t quite emerged yet. So when David was first saved, the only person he could really go to for help was God. Pastors and counselors didn’t quite know what to do to help him.
“I was really forced into an intimate relationship with God the Father,” says David, who admits he disliked that person of the Trinity for quite some time. “And that is the key to permanent transformation. There are a lot of programs out there that are really good and that deal mostly with man-centered psychology. And a lot of them are very good, and they do a lot of help. But if you don’t develop this intimacy with the Father through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, all you’re going to end up with is a maintenance program. But God is offering a transformation program.”
David remembers key moments when the Spirit guided him through his struggles with temptation.
“I remember the first week after getting saved, kneeling by the bed and saying, ‘Lord, I can’t drive down Hollywood Boulevard without stopping in that porn store,'” he says. “And He spoke right back to me and said, ‘Don’t drive down Hollywood Boulevard.'”
Another lesson God taught David early on was using spiritual warfare to cast out demons that were tempting him. David had never even heard of deliverance, and yet the Spirit taught him how to do it over himself!
One night, David says, he was complaining to the Lord about how badly he wanted to sin. In response, God told him to name the demons that were tempting him and cast them out. David began doing so and within a week, he had listed each demon he felt was tempting him and cast them out. Though temptation still pulled at him, it was much less powerful without the demonic realm involved.
“For the first time I was able to say no to [the temptations],” he says. “There was the power of the Holy Spirit in me that enabled me to say no. And when you say no with full faith, knowing that Jesus is there backing you up, He pours out His power, and He makes it happen.”
But one of the main things David had to learn in order to overcome his sexual brokenness was realizing he was completely powerless to break his addictions on his own. He recalls speaking with a pastor one day and telling him all about his sexual addictions.
David told the pastor, “I’ve been sleeping with two or three people a night for 10 years. You’re going to tell me to stop, but I’m here to tell you I can’t stop.”
To David’s surprise, the pastor said, “I’m not going to ask you to stop.” Instead, he told David that it was good he realized he couldn’t overcome his sin on his own. “So why don’t you let Jesus do it for you?” the pastor asked.
That was the key of faith that changed David’s life and led him down the road of sexual healing. The more he relied on Jesus’s power and developed an intimate relationship with the Father—whom he calls Daddy God—the more he overcame sinful patterns.
“That’s the rub—childlike faith in the midst of an intimate relationship with the Father,” David says. “And He does the rest.”
I hope David’s story inspires you as it does me. It’s wonderful to see God through His Holy Spirit teaching His children how to walk in the lasting freedom He promised in the Bible. To learn more about David’s teaching on sexual healing, visit masteringlife.org and check out his YouTube channel. Click on this podcast to hear more of David’s unique insight into sexual deliverance, and share this article if you believe David’s teaching can help someone you know! {eoa}
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