|
Let’s begin
with definitions. According to the 1986 Attorney General Commission on
Pornography, pornography is any material that is "predominantly sexually
explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal." The
Commission went on to define hard-core pornography as material that is
"sexually explicit in the extreme, and devoid of any other apparent
content or purpose."1
In our modern
day and age, material that fits those descriptions can be found
virtually everywhere: television – even during prime time, the internet,
in magazines, on billboards, and in books. Joe Dallas explains,
Erotic images pose a
challenge. I dare you to try to escape them. There was a time you
could do so pretty easily just by avoiding pornographic magazines, but
those days are long gone. Take a drive and you’ll see some model
flashing her wares on a billboard. Thumb through a magazine – a
regular magazine, mind you – and you’ll get hit with clothing ads that
show more flesh than clothes. Watch television and you won’t get away
from sexual themes no matter what channel you turn to. Try as you may,
you can’t get away from, erotic images without going into hibernation.2
Now that we
know what pornography is, and how pervasive it is, we need to know the
damage it can do psychologically and socially. In his article "The
Pornography Plague," Kerby Anderson gives just a sampling of the
negative effects of pornography upon our society:
• Women
Against Pornography estimate that about 1.2 million children are
annually exploited in commercial sex (child pornography and
prostitution).
•
Psychologist Edward Donnerstein (University of Wisconsin) found that
brief exposure to violent forms of pornography can lead to anti-social
attitudes and behavior.
•
Pornography (especially violent pornography) can produce an array of
undesirable effects such as rape and sexual coercion. Specifically
studies have found that such exposure can lead to increased use of
coercion or rape, increased fantasies about rape, and desensitization
to sexual violence and trivialization of rape.
•
Researchers Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant showed that continued
exposure to pornography had serious adverse effects on beliefs about
sexuality in general and on attitudes toward women in particular.
• One study
demonstrated that pornography can diminish a person’s sexual
happiness.
• Extensive
interviews with sex offenders (rapists, incest offenders, and child
molesters) have uncovered a sizable percentage of offenders who use
pornography to arouse themselves prior to and during their assaults.
• Police
officers have seen the impact pornography has had on serial murders.
In fact, pornography consumption is one of the most common profile
characteristics of serial murders and rapists.3
Scary? It
should be. But the news gets even worse (if that’s possible). So far
we’ve been talking about society at large. How about in the church?
In 2002, a New Man
Magazine online poll reported that 75 percent of Christian men
have viewed pornography in the last three months, and 43 percent have
done so repeatedly. 37 percent of pastors, in a Christianity
Today survey, admitted that they struggle with Internet
pornography.4]
54 percent of pastors
said they viewed porn within the past year in a Pastors.com survey...
in a 2003 Focus on the Family poll 47 percent of respondents said porn
is a problem in their home.5
34 %....[of the]
readers of Today’s Christian Woman’s online newsletter admitted to
intentionally accessing Internet porn in a recent poll. While many
women wrote in to explain they’d accessed these sites to better
understand what was luring their husbands time and again, it was the
other e-mails—from Christian women who shared about their own
Internet porn addiction—that caught our attention. Apparently
online sex addiction isn’t just a male problem anymore.6
In other
words, pornography is an issue no Christian can afford to ignore. And
it’s one that is seriously impacting the Church today. Many Christians
have accepted the world’s standard for sexuality, ignoring or
reinterpreting what the Bible says about God’s standards. Mike Genung
explains,
In a 2003 Barna survey, 28
percent of Christians said looking at pictures with nudity or sexually
explicit behavior was morally acceptable. God’s standard, found in
Matthew 5:28, is that lust in the heart is the same as committing
adultery. The married man who uses porn is sinning against God – and
is unfaithful to his wife. Christians aren’t immune from our culture’s
"if it feels good do it" mentality, and those who’ve allowed this lie
to influence their thinking need to hear God’s truth.7
It is
important for Christians to remember that God has called us – and
empowered us – to be holy as He is holy (1 Pet. 1:16; Phil. 4:13). So we
need to establish God’s standard for sex within the context of holiness.
In both the Old and the New Testament, God illustrates the spiritual
dangers of premarital and extramarital sexual activity. In that context,
He also forbids those practices. For example,
1 Corinthians 6:13-18 – The
body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the
Lord for the body…. Do you not know that your bodies are members of
Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them
with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself
with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two
will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one
with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man
commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against
his own body.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 – For
this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you
abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess
his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion,
like the Gentiles who do not know God.
Job 31:1-3, 9-12 – I made a
covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. For what is
man’s lot from God above, his heritage from the Almighty on high? Is
it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong?… If my
heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my
neighbor’s door, then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may
other men sleep with her. For that would have been shameful, a sin to
be judged. It is a fire that burns to Destruction; it would have
uprooted my harvest.
Jesus also
shut the door on that "look but not touch" loophole so many Christians
try to invoke. In Matthew 5:27-28 Jesus explained, "You have heard that
it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who
looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in
his heart (Matt. 5:27-28).
The Bible
certainly has a lot to say to Christians, both single and those who are
married, about their sexual behavior. He tells us what to avoid and how
to steer clear of the dangerous consequences of inappropriate sexual
activity.8 But God also promises to help those who come to
Him. Perhaps Christians should commit these verses to memory so they
will be immediately available in times of temptation:
"But among you there must
not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity,
or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor
should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are
out of place" (Eph. 5:3-4).
"For God did not call us to
be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this
instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit
(1 Thess. 4:7- 8)
"In the same way, count
yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do
not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil
desires (Rom. 6:11-12)
"Be self-controlled and
alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring looking for
someone to devour" (1 Pet. 5:8).
"Flee from sexual
immorality" (1 Cor. 6:18) [Pastor Jeff Miller pointed out that the
Bible tells us to "resist" the devil but to FLEE sexual immorality.
Don’t stand around looking at it – if you do, it will snare you.9
"His divine power has given
us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of
him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has
given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them
you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in
the world caused by evil desires" (2 Pet. 1:3-4)
"Finally, brothers,
whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is
pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things" (Phil. 4:8).
The Holman
Bible Dictionary explains,
One’s sexuality is a vital
part of Christian holiness and not a necessary evil to be rejected.
Within the limits of marriage, sex is for procreation of children, the
enhancement of the one-flesh relationship, and the pleasure of the
married couple whose love can be nourished thereby. Outside of the
limits established by God, sex becomes an evil and destructive force
in human life, calling for God’s redemptive power to deliver humans
trapped therein.10
If you are
starting to feel guilty now, that’s a good thing. You can’t – or won’t –
start dealing with your pornography problem until you admit you have
one. And as Dr. D. James Kennedy pointed out, "indulging in pornography
leads to a terrible bondage of the soul."11 Once you are
ready to take steps toward conquering this problem in your life, there
are a number of ministries available to help you, including online
resources such as New Life Ministries, founded by our guest Steve
Arterburn (www.newlife.com).12
Remember too
that a pornography problem is not the "unpardonable sin." Richard
Strauss offers this encouragement to anyone struggling with any type of
sin in his or her lives:
The hymn writer put it like
this: "Who is a pardoning God like Thee? Or who has grace so rich and
free?" That great God of grace stands ready to pardon you. Listen to
the Prophet Isaiah: "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon
Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He
will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon" (Isa. 55:6, 7). Listen to the Apostle John: "If we confess our
sins. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). It matters not how
grievous your sin may have been. God stands ready to blot it out.
Acknowledge it to him, then accept his gracious forgiveness.13
Don’t wait!
Don’t let that bondage to sin continue. Accept Jesus gift of forgiveness
and freedom by taking the first steps toward dealing with your
pornography issue today!
Notes
1 Kerby Anderson,
"Pornography," Probe Ministries, www.probe.org. quoting
Final Report of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography,
ed. Michael McManus (Nashville, Term.:
Rutledge Hill Press, 1986), p. 8.
2 Joe Dallas, "Visual
Stimulation and Sexual Integrity,"
http://www.newlife.com/Articles/Article.asp?libid=518.
3 Kerby Anderson, "The
Pornography Plague," www.probe.org.
See this article for documentation for these statements.
4 Dr. Paul Dean, "A Call to
Sexual Purity,"
http://www.christianity.
coin/
faith/1416327.aspx, emphasis added.
5 Mike Genung, "How Many
Porn Addicts are in Your Church?,"
http://www.crosswalk.com/1336107/, emphasis added.
6 Ramona Richards, "Dirty
Little Secret,"
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2003/sepoct/5.58.html,
emphasis added.
7 Mike Genung, "How Your
Church Can Take on the Porn Epidemic,"
http://www.crosswalk.com/1344894/.
8 See for example the
Holman Bible Dictionary entry for "Immorality," http://studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T2988.
9 See his series "Sex: A 12
Step Program for Men" at bible.org.
10 Butler, Trent C. Editor.
"Entry for ‘SEX, BIBLICAL TEACHING ON’".
Holman Bible Dictionary. <http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T5613>.
1991.
11 D. James Kennedy, "The
Christian and Pornography,"
http://www.purelifeministries.org/Unchained/2007/June_07/
Articles/060407_
James_Kennedy_Christian_And_Porn.htm
12 Other resources include
www.blazinggrace.org, the ministry of Mike Genung, and Steve
Gallager’s Pure Life Ministries (www.purelifeministries.org). In
addition, Probe Ministries (www.probe.org) has many some good
information.
13 Richard Strauss, "Caught
in the Tempter’s Trap - The Story of David and Bathsheba," at
www.bible.org.
|
