Danger! Quicksand Ahead! Series

Danger! Quicksand Ahead!

1st Corinthians 6:13b-20

One of the things that has always amazed me about about the Bible is the ability of God’s word to speak to any need that we have. I understand of course that the Bible doesn’t tell us if we’re looking for car insurance whether you should go to Geico or State Farm, but the Bible does advise us about how to use our money wisely.

I realize that when one of your children comes home too late one night that it doesn’t tell you exactly what to say but the Bible does tell us to be good listeners, to listen more than we speak; it tells us not to provoke our children and it also reminds us of the importance of discipline.

Some of these decisions that we are called on to make as believers are what I would refer to as matters of the heart and mind. You see God gave us the wonderful gift called the mind and he gives wisdom to those who ask and He expects us to use our hearts, conduct our lives wisely and protect our hearts.

We come to the question this morning, does the Bible speak to the topic of pornography? I read this week comments from one person defending the use of pornography in his life. He had several arguments; in fact he had a fair knowledge of scripture, even breaking down some of the Greek NT and then he closed his argument by saying that these pictures we call pornography are simply a gift from God for us to enjoy.

Most of us realize just how weak these arguments are, we know the power of a healthy conscience to guide in this area but there are several things I am not sure we really comprehend.

(1) I am not sure we understand how deeply the scripture speaks to this topic.

(2) How dramatically it affects all of us. And I will explain what I mean by that today. Because this message is for all of us.

(3) How damaging the results can be.

First of all does the Bible speak to this subject? We get our word pornography from several words right out of the NT. And here they are…

• Porneia- refers to sexual immorality. Used 25 times in the NT.

• Porneuo- refers to the act of committing sexual immorality. Used 8 times in the NT.

• Porne- prostitute. Used 12 times in the NT.

• Pornos-refers to one who is sexually immoral. Used 10 times in the NT.

So this is where we get the word porn. The 2nd part of the word grapho means to write; can also mean to draw. Found 191 times in the NT. So when we put these 2 words together, that is the origin. Right out of the Greek NT.

(2) how does pornography affect us? We tend to think about pornography as something that only affects men. Not true. Two things I want to say about that. Family safe media reports that 72% of Internet porn viewers are men. 28% are women. So basically 3 out of 10 are women. Women seem to be more drawn to writing that is of a pornographic nature. The book, 50 Shades of Grey which has developed into a trilogy now is the story of a woman’s sexual affairs; never read it but I understand they are vividly described. In women’s literature Amazon has ranked it as the #2 seller in the nation. In the category of romance it is the #1 seller. The 1st book released 12 months ago has sold over 10 million copies already. Who is buying it? Women.

Now how does pornography affect our nation, our economy for instance? Pornography is a 57 billion dollar industry. 12 billion dollars in the US alone. As a whole separate category child pornography generates 3 billion dollars annually. Now this will probably surprise you. It did me. The US is not the leader in this area. As much as it is available in the US we do not rank in the top ten countries who provide this stuff on the web. But here’s the catch. We may not provide it but we sure consume it. Remember it’s the WWW. World wide web. It matters who is providing it but it also matters who is consuming it and thanks to the web it is available all over the world with one click of a mouse.

Let me give you a few figures. Revenue from pornography exceeds the combined revenue of all football, basketball and baseball franchises combined. On the web there are over 4.2 million websites. Now you may be saying but we’re not talking about Christian homes…we’re believers-we don’t participate. Family Media reports that 47% of Christian families have said that pornography is a problem in their home…a major problem.