Pornography
Is it really so bad?
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Last week as we talked about
defending life, and
celebrating the life God has given to the unborn,
I also want to take a moment and celebrate the life that God extends.
Marian turned 90 yesterday and we just want to encourage you all to wish her well as God uses her life to be a blessing in others.
Intro
We are continuing in our series Too Hot To Handle this week.
This week, we are talking about pornography.
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When I began preparing this series and the topics that would be discussed and began doing research, I found out that in the midst of this series there was actually a day that some Christian ministries had designated as Porn Sunday.
Porn Sunday?
It is a day where churches and pastors would discuss the problem of pornography.
Some may say, “Why do we need to talk about that in church?”
That type of conversation is not appropriate for polite conversation let alone, a Sunday morning at church, especially when we have teenagers here.
Well, in this series we have been talking about a lot of things that we might not think need to be talked about, but the fact is that our society is taking us down a road that we as the church
better start talking about these things and
talking what God would have us do and how we can combat these things in our life and our culture
or we are going to lose the future generations of the church because they will have been deceived by the views of society and become in deep bondage to the sins that so easily entangle us.
And the fact is that pornography doesn’t just affect
men in trench coats
who have to drive to the seedy part of town and
enter into dark back rooms or
sleazy bars to view pornography.
With the ease of access of pornography
through your cable or satellite provider or
on the internet in the privacy of your own home, or
even in novels with graphic language that appeal to women that can be read in the middle of the day to escape the mundane, where pornography is romanticized through words and emotions,
it has invaded every segment of society.
Men, women, kids, and it is no longer just in society at large.
And it has become a major problem in the church as well.
Statistics
In fact I saw some statistics on a site that said that 47% of Christians said that porn was a major problem in the home
And it isn’t just men for whom this is a problem.
The breakdown of visitors to porn websites is 65% male and 35% female
And the Pornography industry has become big business.
I have seen estimates of the revenue from Pornography anywhere from $3 billion per year to $12 billion per year. With revenue like that it surpasses the revenue for all football, baseball and basketball franchises combined!
Statistics accessed on 9/3/2007 from http://www.pornsunday.com/media.html
Pornography has become a cancer in our society that has, I am sure, touched nearly everyone here today through a spouse, a child, a family member or friend.
If Christians do not take a stand to halt the spread of this cancer within themselves, our society will continue down a path where one day America will make Sodom and Gomorrah look as wholesome as Branson, Missouri in comparison.
Even as we hear those statistics though, I am sure there are some here who are saying, What is the big deal?
You are making more out of viewing pornography than you should, after all,
it is not like having an affair and it is not really hurting anyone.
Both of those thoughts are lies of Satan because, first,
Viewing Pornography is like having an affair
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Jesus said in
Matthew 5:27-28
27 "You have heard that it was said, ’Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
When we
view pornographic images or
even imagine pornographic images with others outside of our spouse,
it causes us to lust and we have committed adultery in our hearts.
Now while lust is probably a sin that 100% of those over the age of 13 have committed at some point in their life, viewing pornography, or reading words that form images in our heads, takes the sin of lust to a new level, searing into our heads thoughts and images that hinder us from battling this sin.
Viewing pornography is always feeding the sin of lust and is in fact a manifestation of that sin. It is always wrong and sinful to view pornography.
Viewing it is not only like having an affair though.
Also,
Viewing Pornography Hurts…
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Hurts who? Come on these are consenting adults. People have a choice. It is not like the actors are being forced or like anyone is forcing them to watch or look at these images.
While that is true, it does not mean that nobody gets hurt by this.
The fact is that
Viewing Pornography Hurts Society
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How does it hurt society?
Increase in rapes
In statistical studies in all 50 states, there is a high degree of correlation between the circulation rates of pornographic magazines and reported rapes in that state.
Larry Baron and Maury Strauss (1984) accessed on 10/5/07 at http://www.angelfire.com/art/antipornography/statistics.html
Increase in Child molestation
There is also an indirect affect on our kids because of pornography:
• It has been estimated that almost one in three girls and one in seven boys will be sexually molested before age 18. The relationship of pornography to child sexual
abuse is rather compelling. In a study of convicted child molesters, 77 percent of those who molested boys said they were regular users of pornography. And 87 of those who molested girls say they were regular users.
When we view pornography and support the industry that is publishing or distributing this material, we are helping drive our society and culture into a pit that will continue to seek to do whatever it wants regardless of the harm it causes someone else.
Viewing pornography hurts our society.
It not only hurts society at large, but
Viewing Pornography Hurts Those Involved
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Engaging in sexual acts outside of marriage is sin.
When we purchase or view pornographic material, we support an industry that is enticing people into sin. There are people who do this who are enticed by the money and feel they have no choice.
In a 60 minutes report several years ago, Luke Ford, a columnist who follows the Pron industry, said
“Most girls who enter this industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again,”
60 minutes report Accessed 10/4/2007 at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/21/60minutes/main585049.shtml
As the church, as Christians, we have an obligation to do nothing to support others sin.
We have an obligation to not be a stumbling block to those who can be enticed by money into this sinful industry.
When we do that we hurt the cause of Christ.
We need to be like Paul who says in
2 Corinthians 6:3
We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited.
When we view pornography,
we are hurting our ability to effectively help others and
we are hurting those involved in this industry as well.
Even beyond hurting society and those involved though,
Viewing Pornography Hurts Your Spouse
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Hebrews 13:4 tells us that
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Viewing pornography brings others into the marriage bed that God has designed to be shared by one man and one woman.
It brings them in through your mind’s eye.
That is sin in itself.
But it also degrades your view of your wife as she becomes
less of a person you share your life with and
more of an object to fulfill your sexual desires and fantasies.
Your sex life is no longer born out of desiring to give yourself to one another but is born out of selfishly wanting to take from your spouse whatever you think will bring satisfaction and enjoyment to yourself.
Now while you may think viewing pornography will spice up your sex life, in actuality, it hinders you from enjoying it to the utmost because you can only experience it to the full when intimacy and love are involved and are deeply growing in your relationship.
Once you remove intimacy and love as a requisite part of physical intimacy, and think of it only as an act for physical gratification, we start planting the seeds of marital strife where your spouse is no longer thinking about how to give of themselves in your marriage, but only in how to protect themselves from being dehumanized.
I have counseled enough marriages and have been the perpetrator of harming my own wife because of my selfish desires, so I know this is something that goes on in even “good marriages” where pornography is not an issue currently.
But guys, understand that viewing pornography is not at all going to help your physical relationship with your wife. In fact it will only make it worse than you currently may think it is.
If we want to experience the fullness of the marriage relationship as God has designed it, then we need to be connecting with our wives in conversation and with our lives.
That is how we will get back to a growing intimacy and love that will manifest itself in the whole relationship, including our physical intimacy.
Low Road
Guys, so often we take the low road and think our wives have got a great catch.
I don’t drink, I don’t hit her, I don’t watch pornography, I have a job that provides. Why is she not happy?
It is because we fail to connect our lives with them and our marriages have become business propositions. I do this and you do this.
While both a husband and wife have obligations in our roles in a marriage, when that is our focus instead of the relationship, then our marriages will be harmed.
Now throw viewing pornography on top of all of that, and we do great harm to our spouse as well as more harm to our marriage.
Viewing Pornography Hurts You
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1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; (Porneias, #4202) 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
Viewing pornography hurts in so many ways.
It hurts society, those involved, your spouse, but primarily it is hurting your ability to be in fellowship with God.
You are sinning against Him and when you have unconfessed habitual sin in your life, you are out of fellowship with the Lord,
unable to see clearly,
unable to experience joy,
unable to experience fullness of life through the way God has designed it.
Ephesians 4:17-19
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.
Don’t become like them, separated from God.
Because when we are out of fellowship with God, there is no telling where sin will lead us.
As I researched this topic, in everything I read, viewing pornography starts out small and only gets worse. It may start out as only pictures, then it is videos. Then it is more hard core videos. Then it is violence or things that are more deviant.
In everything I read, this is the cycle that this sin takes you when left unchecked.
We think, “we have the Holy Spirit. This is something I can control.”
Sin is uncontrollable if we continue in it.
James gives us a cycle of what happens when we let sin go.
James 1:14-15
14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Maybe you are “just viewing pornography” and think it can’t go anywhere. The fact is not only can it lead to worse, it will if something is not done about it.
It will lead to an affair, the destruction of your family, or even acts or crimes that you thought you would never commit.
I read one article where a pastor started out just viewing things and then later found himself at strip clubs and visiting peep shows dropping quarters in a slot to feed his habit.
He finally came to a point of recognizing something had to be done and confided in a pastor friend of his.
As he confided these things, he found that this friend was in so much deeper than he even was.
He had gone beyond these things to actually committing adultery with his body, even participating in homosexual acts even though he was not what we would probably think of as a homosexual.
It all began with viewing pornography and led to more sins that neither of these men could have ever imagined they would ever participate in.
Viewing pornography will harm you and lead you down a path that will bring more harm into your life.
What can I do to overcome this sin?
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I want to give some practical steps that you can take to overcome pornography in your life if you have been viewing it.
The first step you need to take is
Admit your Sin
Ask for Forgiveness
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1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (from New International Version)
It is so good to know that we have a God who loves us and stands ready to forgive and cleanse us from sins we have committed.
Sometimes we feel like God will never forgive us, though. Listen to what John writes just after these verses.
1 John 2:1-2
2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense-Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins
Forgiveness is available, but you have to
Admit your Sin,
Agree with God that it is sin, and
Ask for His forgiveness.
Addictive Habit
Now while when we truly turn to God Admitting our sin and asking for forgiveness, He does cleanse us, it is not always that simple to overcome viewing pornography because it can be a very addictive habit.
Some of you may be saying, it is not like taking drugs. People who are doing this need to just stop.
Like a Drug
Actually, the things that go on in the brain, the endorphins and adrenaline that are released make it very much like a drug and just as hard to overcome.
I am not sure where you are today.
Maybe you’re a teen here today and you have seen pornographic images and have felt the pull of Satan’s lies about sexuality
Maybe you are a woman who is facing the drudgery of daily life and have found escape in sexually explicit novels that get you fantasizing about “how life could be so much better” if only I had a romantic husband like this person or that person or perhaps you are caught up in viewing pornography
Maybe you are a man who has been viewing pornography for years and has felt the shame of it and experienced the damage to the relationship with your spouse, your relationship with God, but no matter how many times you have admitted it and asked for forgiveness, you find yourself back in the grip of this perverse addiction.
You need to take some other steps beyond just admitting and asking for forgiveness.
These may be a bit harder. You also need to
Account to Somebody Else
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That means become accountable to anther person.
James 5:16
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Sin wants to remain hidden.
We allow sin to have power over us by allowing it to stay hidden.
You need to break the power of sin and experience freedom by finding a mature Christian friend to confide in.
Someone to ask you the hard questions
Someone that will pray with you
I want to tell you that everyone needs accountability.
Here are some questions that you can ask one another in an accountability relationship.
When you know you will have to answer these questions, it will help you stay
Have you looked at any material in magazines or on the internet that has been sexually explicit?
Have your thoughts about those of the opposite sex been pure?
After establishing an accountability relationship, we need to
Avoid Temptation
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Listen to what the psalmist writes
Psalm 101:3 says, “I will set before my eyes no vile thing.”
And Psalm 119:37 reads “Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.”
It is easy to say, avoid temptation, but it is much harder to actually do it.
This last line that I just read though gives us some help in doing it.
It says, “preserve my life according to your word.” We need to know the word if we are to have our lives preserved according to it.
Therefore one way we can
Avoid temptation…
…by studying the Bible
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This is reiterated for us again in
Psalm 119:9-11
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
We need to be studying the word of God.
We offer you help in taking this step through our small group Bible Studies.
Maybe you think you don’t have time.
If this is a problem for you, you need to make time. It is imperative that you have Scripture being built into you so you can stand against temptation and not sin.
Commit 1 Corinthians 10:13 to memory
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
You can also
Avoid temptation…
…by closing the Open Doors of Access
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Listen to Solomon’s words of advice when talking about the adulteress in
Proverbs 5: 8
Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house…
If you do not close those doors of Access, you will find yourself entering them again and again.
You will regret that you did not take steps to close those doors later.
Later in that same proverb, it says
Proverbs 5:11-14, 22-23
11 At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent. 12 You will say, "How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! 13 I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors. 14 I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly." ……22 The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast. 23 He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
Take action now, when you can think clearly, to avoid opportunities to view pornography.
Put filters on your computers.
Move computers into high traffic areas.
Drive a different route away from gentlemen’s clubs
Put on accountability software. (Resources on insert)
We have this software on all the church computers.
If a questionable sight is visited, I get an email telling me when and what site was visited on what computer.
For you businessmen,
bring a picture of your family on business trips and put it on top of the TV in your hotel.
Set up in advance to call your accountability partner to pray with you while you are away.
Take these actions if you want to gain victory or even just to avoid giving this sin an opportunity.
We are going to pray. I want you to take a first step now if this sin is plaguing you.
I want everyone here to bow their heads and close their eyes.
I want you to just make eye contact with me if you want to take a first step in overcoming this sin.
Pray.
