FIVE STARTING QUESTIONS:
1. HOW SUBSTANTIAL A PROBLEM IS PORN IN AMERICA TODAY? Three numbers:
a. Porn is about a $100 billion industry in America, which is 100 times higher than revenues 20 years ago.
- Note that these numbers are just “the porn industry.” That is, the legal, W-2 filing companies.
- How common is the use? One academic said that research on the subject is challenged by the fact that they can’t find enough guys for a control group for their research. In other words, every young man is watching porn.
b. Porn makes more money in America each year than the Hollywood box office. Porn makes more money than the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined.
c. In 2017, 36% of Americans said porn was “morally acceptable.” In 2018, 43% said it was. (Gallup, 2018)
- This clearly shows a strong trend in the wrong direction.
- In a Barna survey (2018), more people said that overeating was “usually or always wrong” (58%) than said that viewing pornographic images was wrong (54%). Similarly, among teens and young adults, 56% said that “not recycling” was wrong, but only 32% said “viewing porn” was.
- We tend to dismiss porn as not a substantial issue. “It’s just someone’s choice and it doesn’t harm anything, right?”
- Share the story of the kids playing unsuspectingly with the radioactive waste (“People Attracted to Beautiful but Radioactive Container,” on Preaching Today). There is obviously the attraction to it, but it’s poison.
- This danger is true societally and individually.
- It’s not surprising that something would become such a substantial issue when . . .
a. It’s readily available.
b. Many say it doesn’t seem to hurt anyone.
c. It’s used by most people.
d. Few speak up to say that it’s wrong.
- A first step is taking the problem seriously. A second step is wanting to combat the problem in your own life.
2. IS IT WRONG? Jesus said that “looking lustfully” is adultery.
- Matthew 5:27-30.
- As I just stated, porn is a substantial problem in America today (as well as around the world). But yet many dismiss it as not a big deal. After all, few are talking about it as being a problem. As the stats showed, many don’t consider it wrong.
- That brings the question before us: is looking at porn wrong?
- Looking to the public at large is not a good source for moral knowledge. Instead of that dubious authority, let’s instead ask the greatest moral teacher we know: Jesus. What does Jesus have to say about it?
- Well, Jesus never used the words “porn” or “pornography,” but He did leave us with a teaching in the Sermon on the Mount that clearly speaks to this issue.
- In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus spoke vividly about adultery and lust. He taught that “looking lustfully” on a woman constitutes committing adultery in the heart.
- Let’s stop for a moment and consider what alternate standards that throws out the window:
a. “As long as no one gets hurt, it’s not wrong.”
b. “As long as I don’t physically have an affair, it’s not wrong.”
c. “As long as it doesn’t lead me to abuse or rape woman, it’s not wrong.”
d. “As long as everyone is consenting, it’s not wrong.”
e. “As long as I’m only looking, it’s not wrong.”
- Each of those is far more frequently claimed than Jesus’ standard. And yet that doesn’t change the fact that Jesus’ standard is the correct one. We believe that Jesus had the supreme insight into what’s right and wrong. If that’s true, then His standard is the correct one.
- It’s a tough standard, no doubt. It’s a standard that calls us to a much higher standard than we typically pursue. And yet it’s true.
- It doesn’t matter than few are paying any attention to that standard. Jesus is the Judge.
- It’s striking just how directly this passage speaks to the issue of pornography. Even though there was no Internet back then, the relevance is direct. As a Christian, we may choose to ignore Jesus’ teaching and pursue the sin anyway, but there’s no doubt that we clearly understand what Jesus expects of us.
- Now, at this point, we start throwing out our excuses. “C’mon, Jesus, that’s an overreaction.” “It’s not really that bad.” “Everybody’s doing it so it can’t be that terrible.”
- I want you to notice too things in this passage before you buy into that.
- First, notice that Jesus doesn’t just say, “Looking lustfully is wrong.” That would certainly be enough, but He goes beyond that. He says that looking lustfully is adultery. Adultery!
- Even though we excuse a lot of sins in our culture (including porn), adultery is still a sin that has a little resonance as something that’s deeply wrong. And that’s what Jesus calls this activity. Adultery. Let that sink in for a moment.
- Second, we are quick to presume that even if it is kind-of, sort-of wrong, it’s not really that big a deal. Look at vv. 29-30 though. Jesus urges His hearers to forfeit an eye or a hand rather than face the consequences of their unforgiven sin.
- Now, what are we to make of that? He’s been talking about looking on a woman lustfully and we all know that once you’ve seen that image you can bring it back to your memory any time you want. Because of that, if what Jesus is saying here is an instruction to literally gouge out your eye, it’s going to be ineffective because our mind can still play those images in our brains.
- What is He going for then? In one word, I think what He’s pointing toward is urgency. I would paraphrase it something like this: “I know you’re thinking this isn’t that big a deal or that it’s a minor sin. It’s not. This matters. In fact, do whatever it takes to stay pure on this issue. If you could rip out your eye and that would solve the problem, it’d be better than going down the path you’re on. If you could cut off your hand and that would solve the problem, it’d be better than going down the path you’re on. This is urgent! Do whatever it takes to handle it.”
3. IS JESUS JUST BEING A PRUDE? God designed us and knows how you run.
- I will say more about this next week, but let me just briefly note that God is not anti-sex. In fact, it was His idea! Look in Genesis.
- The Bible even has an entire book that is simply an erotic poem – a celebration of the physical love between husband and wife. It’s the Song of Songs in the Old Testament.
- So what we’re talking about today is not a Puritan diatribe against all things sexual. Sex is intended as a good gift from God. But misusing the gift creates problems.
- God is not just being grumpy. God is not just being a prude.
- God built us and knows how we work.
- Our sexuality is a gift from God, but if we use the gift in the wrong way we end up with a disaster.
- Imagine taking your car to the gas station and putting diesel in it. How is that going to go? Terribly! Your gas engine wasn’t designed to run on diesel. Sure, the two look a lot alike, but there’s a big difference in the way they work. Gas depends on a spark, which ignites the air-fuel mixture; diesel is ignited by compression, which creates an explosion. Sure, they both look similar coming out of the pump, but one works in a gas engine and one doesn’t.
- God created our “engine.” He created us. He made us sexual beings but you can’t just put any “fuel” into the engine. We shouldn’t be surprised that there are substantial problems that arise when people use porn to pursue their sexual satisfaction. It’s like putting diesel into a gas engine. It wasn’t designed to run well on that fuel.
- I don’t mean that porn won’t get you sexually excited. It will, but along that road things are going to start going haywire. Just to give one example, sex pursued God’s way leaves you feeling closer to a person and more valuable as a person; sex pursued porn’s way leaves you feeling lonelier and more pathetic.
- I want to get more into the specifics of the ways that it doesn’t work, but I’m going to save that for next week’s sermon.
- We are conducting a massive, dangerous social experiment with barely any discussion or consideration of the consequences.
- The experiment: what will happen if you make softcore and hardcore pornography available constantly to young people going through their formative years?
- Questions that remain unanswered:
a. What will this do to future marriages? How will it affect the trust between partners?
b. What will this do to sexual satisfaction?
c. What will this do to sexual performance, even among the young? (There is evidence of increasing rates of E.D. issues among porn users, even those who are still young adults.)
d. How will this affect how women are treated?
- Certainly there have been many cultures in the past with sexual permissiveness and deviance that exceeded ours, but never before have these images been available with the ease and variety that they now are.
- [Put on screen] This quote is by Belinda Luscombe, writing in a cover story for Time magazine: “A growing number of young men are convinced that their sexual responses have been sabotaged because their brains were virtually marinated in porn when they were adolescents. Their generation has consumed explicit content in quantities and varieties never before possible, on devices designed to deliver content swiftly and privately, all at an age when their brains were more plastic – more prone to permanent damage – than in later life. These young men feel like unwitting guinea pigs in a largely unmonitored decade-long experiment in sexual conditioning. . . . So they’re beginning to push back, creating online community groups, smartphone apps, and educational videos to help men quit porn. . . . Porn has always faced criticism among the faithful and the feminist. But now, for the first time, some of the most stringent alarms are coming from the same demographic as its most enthusiastic customers.”
4. WHERE DOES PORN LEAD? Sin leads to spiritual death.
- Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Romans 6:20-23; Romans 8:6; James 1:14-15.
- Quote James 1:14-15. It speaks to us of the direction that sin takes us. It leads toward death.
- I want to unpack that for a moment. When we talk about death, we often think of spiritual death that comes at the end of a life. And that is certainly included in what James is talking about here. But there’s more than that.
- Deuteronomy 30, Romans 6, and Romans 8 all speak about the way of life and the way of death. They speak to the need to choose carefully which direction our life is walking. So it’s not just the end result but also our daily existence that thrives in God’s life or struggles with sin’s death.
- We all know people who are filled with joy and peace. They have struggles and difficulties, but they still live in love.
- We know other people who are bitter or resentful or self-centered. They’re miserable and look to shallow things to try to ease their pain. They’re walking the path of death.
- What does that have to do with what we’re talking about? Let me review the last two points I’ve made. I told you that Jesus says that watching porn is wrong. I told you that God doesn’t give us this instruction because He’s a prude but in part because He designed us and knows that porn will not ultimately bring us joy or happiness. Porn will not improve our lives.
- And so one of the things we need to consider is that even if you don’t want to pursue what Jesus is saying this morning simply because He’s wise and you should do what He says, there’s another more selfish reason to do so. It’s leading you down a path of death. It’s leading you toward darker places. That’s not an accident. That’s what it’s designed to do.
5. IS THERE HOPE? As a Christian, there is always an escape route.
- 1 Corinthians 10:13.
- I’ve spent a lot of time this morning setting the stage on how serious the issue is. We have more to unpack in the next few weeks on how to deal with it in our lives, including offering some practical help on gaining victory. This morning, though, I simply want to end with a hopeful verse.
- In 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul tells us that as a Christian there is always a way of escape from sin. This is great news! We aren’t condemned to be trapped in sin’s grasp.
- Now, this promise is not true for everyone. If you’re here and you’re not a Christian, it’s not necessarily true for you. Romans speaks of sin as a chain and there are times where we on our own are incapable of overcoming a particular sin. We might be trapped.
- On the other hand, as Christians we have been promised that we always have a way out. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy or painless, but it does mean there is always a way out. That’s enormously encouraging.
- This is because as Christians we have been given a new nature as well as the Holy Spirit to guide and empower. God doesn’t want us to continue to live as victims of sin; He’s given us what we need to triumph.
- As I close this first sermon on porn, I want to leave you with this hopeful thought: God has something better for you and can get you there.
