CHAPTER 17: Immorality—Pornography

c HAP t E r 17

IMMORALITY— PORNOGRAPHY

“Pay close attention, son, and let my life be your example. Prostitutes and immoral women are a deadly trap. They wait for you like robbers and cause many men to be unfaithful.”

Proverbs 23:26-28 GNT

In the New American Standard version this verse says “Give me your heart, son, and let your eyes delight in my ways. For a harlot is a deep pit and an adulterous woman a narrow well. Surely she lurks as a robber and increases the faithless among men.”

As we begin this saying, I think it is important to remember that the Bible is not a list of don’ts and bunch of rules to follow. It is God’s guide to knowing Him and living the most fulfilling life possible. When He says something is a deadly trap it is because it is. Most Christians who ignore the biblical standards of morality especially in the area of sex don’t do it because they are ignorant of what God says. They make ungodly choices because they believe they know better than God what will bring them happiness. They are hoping to taste sin often, even with a plan to repent and go back

to righteous living before the consequences catch up with them. So right now I want to settle in your mind that everything God tells us He says because He wants you to have the best life possible.

God calls it a trap and a pit because it works just like a trap; it looks far safer from the outside than it really is. The Bible says about sin that, “It will not deliver or release those who give themselves to it.” Proverbs 5:22 says, “His own iniquity entraps the wicked man and he’s caught in the cords of sin.” In other words sin has tentacles and it grabs you. You may think “I am just going to be here for a moment. Then I will go back to the straight and narrow.” But when you try to leave there is that tentacle, that cord it is around your leg and it just keeps yanking you back. The Bible describes it as a deep pit. I like to describe sin like this; sin keeps you longer than you wanted to stay, costs you more than you wanted to pay, and pulls you further than expected away.

Hosea 4:11 says “Harlotry, wine, and new wine enslave the heart.” In today’s language instead of harlotry we would say prostitution, fornication, adultery, and pornography. In fact, in our internet inundated world I believe the number one danger is pornography. Don’t let anyone soften the seriousness and danger of these sins. The Bible calls them a pit or a trap. I want everyone reading this book to be a better prepared individual. Be aware that it will enslave your heart away from God, away from your spouse, and away from your family. To help bring home the seriousness of this problem in our culture allow me to quote some statistics I was given a few years ago…

There are over 4.2 million pornography sites on the Internet. That is 12% of all websites. Daily search engine requests are 68 million and 25% of them request pornography. Daily pornographic emails are about 2.5 billion, which is 8% of all emails. The average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old. When a large group of 8-16 year old children were asked if they had viewed porn on line while doing homework, 90% answered yes. If you are thinking that these numbers only reflect non-Christians, at a Promise Keepers event a few years ago, which consists of Christian

men, the good guys who want to do what is right, 53% said they had viewed pornography in the last week.

Just like the verse said it is a trap. If your spouse or child is caught in it, the temptation will be to get mad. And if it is your spouse I can see why, because it is very hurtful. But what they need is love, and a lot of help. Much of the power of these secret sins comes from the fear of negative reactions. Those who are struggling need friends who will love them yet hate the sin. Your spouse or child needs to know that the sin is 100% unacceptable but that you still love and accept them, just as God never accepted sin but always accepted us. It is a powerful thing when two Christians take godliness seriously and are no longer afraid to be open about their own temptations and hold each other accountable to a zero tolerance for compromise.

This is no minor issue, and it isn’t just a problem that spiritual “losers” have. Look at your Bible. David was God’s best man and he fell into sexual sin. Sampson was God’s strongest man and he fell into sexual sin. Solomon was God’s wisest man and even he messed up sexually. If God’s wisest, strongest, and best all had to face it, most of us may also be tempted. 2 Timothy 2:22 says “Flee also youthful lust but pursue righteousness.” It is not just deciding what you won’t do. You have to pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Plans that simply involve the will power to quit doing wrong have a poor chance of success. God says you need to not just flee what is wrong but also pursue what is right.

Somehow the church, in an attempt to not be crass, has stopped talking about sex all together. It doesn’t talk about sexual sin except to quickly say it is bad. It definitely does not talk about what a Godly sexual relationship is or requires. As a result, when our young, or old people for that matter, are faced with an opportunity to engage in sexual compromise (which is sin), they can’t think of a good reason to say no. They easily fall into the trap of thinking “I am just going to do this for a little while.” But the truth is that sin is a pit, it is a trap, and you get a cord of sin around you. Sin keeps you longer than

you wanted to stay, costs you more than you wanted to pay, and pulls you further than expected away.

Pornography does not satisfy. It increases and increases a lust inside of a person. It is like taking a drink that you expect will quench your thirst but instead Sin keeps you longer it makes you thirstier and thirstier with every than you wanted to stay, gulp. It is a perversion and bondage. It crecosts you more than ates an appetite that you wanted to pay, and normal sex will not satisfy. Sadly, many people pulls you further than come to a point where they prefer pornograexpected away. phy to normal sex. One sex addict said “I have had to face the sad fact that for me sex has become fun to watch, exciting to think about, but completely unfulfilling to engage in.”

Over 30 years ago when I first began pastoring, I spoke with a man who was at that time already 60 years old, if not older. This is the story he told me. “At the end of World War II, I was stationed in France, right outside of Paris. A group of young guys and I went into town. I was a virgin until that night when I spent the evening with a prostitute. I didn’t think much of it at that time. I returned from the war, I fell in love, and I got married. But it was the strangest thing, Pastor, every time I was with my wife I thought of that woman. Every time I was together sexually with my wife I couldn’t shake the thoughts of that prostitute, every time! It caused so much turmoil eventually we got divorced. I was single for several years and I eventually remarried.” I could see in his face and hear in his voice the despair and frustration this had caused him. As this grown man emotionally broke down he said “Now the exact thing is happening again!” Do you realize he was telling me about something that had happened over 40 years ago? Ezekiel 23:21 says, “thus she called to

remembrance the lewdness of her youth.” How this man wished someone had warned him about the dangers of sin.

Thousands of single young men and women have thought that the appetite for pornography or promiscuity they developed while single would be satisfied by their spouse within marriage. Sadly, they are surprised to find that what they convinced themselves was an appetite for normal sex when they were single is actually a lust for sin that was created by their compromise, and it is unquenched by their marriage. This is not because their marriage is insufficient in any way! It is because sin does not create a desire for something healthy. It births lust which will not be satisfied even by the behavior it craves, much less by something healthy. To kill lust you must follow scripture, “flee youthful lusts,” repent and renounce it, cut off every inappropriate source of lustful stimuli. Pray and ask for God’s help. You have to quit cold turkey while pursuing righteousness.

We need to wake up and realize that our culture and Hollywood are selling us a lie. The truth is that if one man marries one woman and they are faithful to each other for life, they will have the best sex. Those two people will experience the most fulfillment, because they are following the designer’s instructions. Hollywood is right about only one thing; sex is wonderful! God designed it to be extremely enjoyable and unifying and special. The problem Hollywood has is they are totally wrong about how to best experience the joys God intended sex to bring. They will sell you everything but the right answer. Acts 2:40 is the sermon that gave birth to the church. Peter said “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Do you realize he didn’t say “be saved from hell,” or “be saved from sin.” That is as true today as it was then. We live in a perverse generation and we must be saved from it. We must be different than the world we live in. 1 Corinthians chapter 7 the first few verses in the Message translation are extremely clear. It says “It’s good for a man to have a wife and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality; the husband seeking to satisfy his wife and the wife seeking

to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to stand up for your rights. Marriage is a decision to serve the other whether in bed or out. Abstaining from sex is permissible for a period of time if you both agree to it. And if it’s for the purposes of prayer and fasting—but only for such times. Then come back together again. Satan has an ingenious way of tempting us when we least expect it. I’m not, understand, commanding these periods of abstinence—only providing my best counsel if you should choose them.”

That wasn’t my opinion that was scripture. Let’s revisit what it said. Marriage is great and so is sex, and it is designed to be the unselfish, shared giving of each other to each other for mutual enjoyment. Then it says if a married couple wants to abstain from sex that it can be acceptable only if it is for a short period of time and only to pray and fast. If you wonder how long it is biblical for a married couple to abstain from physical intimacy, the answer is: how long can you fast? And it also says this should be a decision you agree upon. That means abstinence is not to be used as a punishment or manipulation.

Before you are married Satan will do everything he can to get you to have sex, and as soon as you get married he will try to keep you apart. I recently spoke with a pastor who worked as a marriage counselor. He told me how couples would come to him who hadn’t had sex for a year, two years, five years, even ten! Let me straighten something out here. If you think you are too spiritual for sex you are flaky. Enoch walked with God and he had sons and daughters during that time. Sex inside of marriage will draw you closer to each other and is pleasing to God Who created it. Yes, God created sex. Not Hugh Hefner, not Hollywood; we need to stop allowing the world to steal sex. God created it for pleasure. He made it in the beginning and He said it was good and wonderful and holy. Satan, through pornography and casual sex outside of marriage, tries to undermine that. He tries to make sex look like something casual and nonexclusive. He wants to convince us that what we do with our bodies is unimportant. But you are the temple of the Holy Ghost. God redeemed you spirit, soul and body.