2001-10-02 - Pornography

Ecclesiastes 11:9,10 Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. But know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. So, remove vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

I recently did a devotional on secret sins. Quite a few of you responded variously and I thank you for your notes. One response I received was, I felt, important and I have asked, and received permission, to use it today. Here is the response: "Hey I got a problem I have been looking at some porn and stuff and I want to stop but I don't think I have the will power please help me this secret sin is killing me. Please respond I need serious help I love the lord please help me."

Pornography is something that has reared its ugly head with the proliferation of the internet. I recently spoke with a youth pastor who said that when they gave the youth of the church a chance to answer the question as to whether they were looking at pornography on the internet and not have there names found out, 80% of the boys admitted that they regularly looked at pornography on the internet. So this is a problem not only in society but it has also dug its wretched hands into the church.

I have had people write me in the past about their struggle with this problem and I first suggest that they get an internet service provider that has parental controls, as AOL does, and that they turn them on. But I also have to say that if you have to cancel your internet service to end this cycle of sin in your life, then do it! Your soul is infinitely more precious than your access to email. If you need email, get a phone that has email capabilities and you will not have the temptation the computer provides.

When we struggle with any besetting sin we are to strive to cut off all occasions, at whatever cost, that might stir or awaken it to us. We need to take away the fuel that stokes the fire of that sin. And we must daily resolve to pray against it and seek the Lord's assistance in fighting against any sin which has begun to master us. Have this thought regarding any sin which you struggle with, "If I commit this sin, it will cause me more heart break and spiritual harm in my conscience than the sensual pleasure is worth. The world of spiritual misery that submitting to this sin will bring me will only serve to wound me and injure my very soul."

There is something wonderful about sex and the union between a husband and wife. Scripture is very positive about sex within the confines of God's will. Pornography is the perversion of something good that God gave us. Pornography is like getting a perfectly cooked 16oz steak and then having it topped, not with a great mushroom sauce, but with a sauce of dead flies, maggots, and creeping bugs. Pornography takes something that is good and perverts it so that it becomes ugly and detestable.

When Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality," he was sending us a clear message. God's will is that we be pure and holy, that's what it means to be sanctified. Paul however must have known the human heart because he adds a specific instance in which we are to guard ourselves, namely, sexual immorality. It is as if this is a special warning to us. He could have mentioned any number of sins, but he didn't, he mentioned this sin. And we ought to take it as a special and personal warning to us that we should take to heart. This sin is singled out as one we ought to take special note of to avoid. And by God's grace may He help us to learn to put this sin and other sins to death through the grace and mercy that we find abundantly in Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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