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How pornography affect the church

PORNOGRAPHY (The Secret Sin)

Pornography is one of the most pernicious and vile evils to enter the hearts and minds of mankind.

It is not new; in fact it is one of Satan’s most effective tools in bringing both men and women down since the beginning of history.

Though most men and women will not acknowledge this, pornography is very addicting and once the ‘habit’ of viewing it regularly has begun; it is VERY difficult to stop without the power of a repentant heart and the Holy Spirit.

It is a two sided evil that affects both men and women, both perpetrator and victim.

It is by far a more serious problem with men, but women are by no means exempt from this demon’s talons.

God meant from the beginning that one man and one woman should come together in marriage, and the act of sexual intimacy should be exercised only within that context.

But, as Satan so often does, the ‘counterfeit’ to God’s gift to man – sexual intimacy – was brought to bear in the form of pornography.

In earliest recorded history, we see pornography in the form of sexual gods and goddesses.

Often these were merely ‘images’ of pornographic scenes etched in stone, marble, gold or other such materials.

Men and women ‘worshiped’ the gods and goddesses of sex both visually and physically.

Priests and priestesses of these false gods were most often merely prostitutes in disguise.

Some of the more well know sexual gods were Inuus, Diana, Eros, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Venus, Baal, Moleck and list goes on.

Every culture has their sex gods and goddesses.

King Solomon clearly stated in Ecclesiastes 3 that, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

The purpose of this message is not to recount the history of this evil, but to try to deal with the ‘here and now’ of how this sin affects men and women - both in and outside the Church of Jesus Christ.

As I mentioned earlier, the problem with pornography is primarily a problem for men.

I will try to deal with the woman’s issue later in this message.

Forty years ago, men had to sneak around movie reels with pornography on them – they were called ‘smokers’ or ‘stag films’ back then.

Then there were the XXX shops, with small ‘booths’ that took quarters for a 3 minute ‘clip’ of a porn movie.

Men would leave their workplace at the lunch hour and visit their local Sex shop for a few dollars’ worth of ‘pleasure’ – then innocently go back to work.

No one the wiser, right?

Next there came the video market, with easy to purchase and use video cameras and projectors.

Video stores began to carry pornographic videos, so it became easier for men to walk in and rent a few porn movies, take them home and wait until late at night (usually after everyone – especially the wife) went to bed and then watch them.

Then pornography hit the jackpot – the Internet.

Once the Internet became a ‘commodity’ among households, the purveyors of pornography no longer had to go looking for an audience – the audience came looking for them!!

As the Internet grew, so did the pornography industry, until today, it is the single, largest money generating computer based industry in the world.

The pornography industry is one of the largest money-making businesses the world has ever known.

I don’t have the figures, but more money is spent on pornography than on food, clothing and shelter for all persons in the United States combined.

That is simply mind-boggling!

According to “Internet Pornography Statistics” - The statistics are truly staggering.

According to compiled numbers from respected news and research organizations, every second $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography.

Every second 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography.

In that same second 372 internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines.

Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the U.S. It’s big business.

The pornography industry has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined.

2006 Worldwide Pornography Revenues ballooned to $97 billion.

What would it be in 2011?? How much good could be done for the Kingdom of God with even a fraction of that wasted money?

This means several things.

First of all, many Christian men are spending God given money and precious family time on a toxic evil.

Rather than help feed a hungry child or purchase a Bible for a Bible-starved country, or being responsible and paying bills and putting food on their own tables men will spend money to satisfy their most evil kinds of lust – the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. 1 John 1:16

Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye.

If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

(Matt 6:22-23).

Meaning – once you have polluted your eyes – you are in deep, deep trouble.

Jesus also said, “And if your eye causes you to sin, gouges it out.

It’s better to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ‘where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out.’

(NLT Mark 9:47-48).

Most men don’t realize just how evil pornography is.

They think it is just a problem between them and God (Mano y mano).

They think, “I know it isn’t right, but I’m really not ‘hurting’ anyone, so as long as no one finds out, it’s really not that bad.”

How utterly deceived men are who feel this way.

And I will venture a guess that every Christian man who views pornography feels dirty and sinful after they have done so – and will ask God for forgiveness.

They will not ‘repent’ (turn from the evil, not to return), but they will ask for forgiveness.

Some Christian surveys, among them Christianity Today, estimate that nearly fifty percent of Christian men have a problem with pornography.

What is even more mind-boggling is the estimate climbs to fifty-five percent among Evangelical pastors.

I had a serious problem with pornography myself.

It began when I was eight years old and I found some 8mm ‘smoker’ films under my father’s bed.

I didn’t know what they were – I thought they were family films.

So, I hooked up the projector and watched them.

Even at that young age, I was mortified.

I didn’t know what to think – about my dad, about my mom – about sex! Nobody had even explained the ‘birds and the bees’ to me yet!

This horrible find began an addiction in me that would last through much of my adult life.

Try as I might, I simply could not keep away from watching pornography for any real length of time.

I would make promises to the Lord, and do my best to ‘stay away’ from that fire, but I never really won the battle.

I’m not sure why – probably because within my heart, I actually liked seeing those images.

Much has happened to me since those earlier years of my life.

Today, I am virtually blind, and I can say with all honesty that I would rather stay blind for the rest of my life then to have that plague come back into my life.

In a real sense, my eyes have been ‘gouged out’ and I would rather get to heaven blind than to have my eyesight back and fall into this hideous sin-life again.

Now, I do pray that I will get my eyesight back, and I believe that I have been totally delivered from the scourge of pornography.

I hate it – and everything that it does to me, my poor wife and all the people in the world who are affected by it.

There is a peculiar problem in the area of pornography with teenage boys and girls and single young and older adults.

The apostle Paul wrote (in his singleness) “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.”

(NKJV - 1 Cor.

7:1-2) Single people have a few alternatives to giving themselves over to pornography.

First, and best, is to stay very close to the Lord, keeping an abiding relationship with Him and relying on the Power of the Holy Spirit to remain pure.

Otherwise, they can burn with passion and try to fight this in their own strength.

Few are successful here.

Second, a single person can seek to marry so as not to deal with the problem of lust alone – as the apostle Paul recommended.

Finally, what remains is much less desirable, but often the path taken by Christians today - a teen or single adult can give in to the lure and lust of the flesh and view pornography.

Once this starts, it is very difficult to turn away from without sincere repentance and the help of God.

Many men who view pornography are married.

Married to a woman to whom they made a vow – a covenant promise - to “Love and cherish”, among other things, until death do they part.

The Bible says the “marriage bed is undefiled.”

This means God looks on the act of making love within the context of marriage as a good thing.

God invented sex, yes for procreation, but also as our deepest expression of the ‘Oneness’ between a husband and a wife.

Every time a man views pornography, he imbeds an image of fairy-tail sex into his brain.

Then, he brings these images into his marriage bed with his wife – and the marriage bed becomes defiled.

Men will often ‘think’ about what they saw on the pornographic films while ‘making love’ to his wife.

Worse still, men will expect their wives to behave like these paid whores.

Men will become so self-deceived that they think that ‘real women’ like sex this way.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Subconsciously, men will often ‘expect’ their wives to behave in bed like the ‘porn stars’ and to do things that may be abhorrent to the wife.

This is a gross evil on the part of the man.

Real women love intimacy and tenderness and love making that is passionate and pure of heart.