By Steve Prokopchak

Dr. Doug Weiss writes that there is a direct connection between your sexual behavior and your destiny in Christ. He says, “God designed you and me to do amazing things for his kingdom, and our level of sexual purity will determine how useful we are. Sex and destiny are linked and this is why the devil works so hard to ensnare you in sexual sin.”  We have watched many leaders in the church, in politics and in the workforce become neutralized by immoral behavior. They were rising stars that we no longer hear about, read about or desire to emulate.

Let us establish from the beginning that when we look at pornography we are engaging in sexual immorality and we are dishonoring God’s design for intimacy within the confines of marriage, one man with one woman.

Statistics and the Issue of Pornography

A nationally-conducted survey among churches over the past five years revealed that 68% of men and 50% of pastors (Pastors.com survey results) view pornography regularly. But, the most shocking statistic was that 11 to 17-year-old boys reported being the greatest users at 85%. Nearly 50% of young girls were found to use pornography. Pornography in the United States is a 4-billion to 12-billion-dollar industry (depending on the source of statistics).

*Studies are showing that 40 million adults regularly visit Internet pornography sites.  More money is spent on pornography than pro baseball, pro basketball, pro football and the Super bowl combined per year. Sales of pornographic material on the Internet surpass the cumulative sales of all other products sold online. Eleven thousand adult films are produced per year, which is twenty times the number of regular media films coming out of Hollywood. The issue of pornography use is sweeping through the church, with even the present younger generation being exposed and involved. It is an epidemic.

There are over 400 million pages of pornographic material available on over 4 million websites. Seventy percent of porn is downloaded during work hours – 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Speaking of the present generation, this is the generation that is actively fighting sex trafficking more than any other generation. However, this generation is also consuming porn faster than any other.

More Stunning Statistics

  • 47% of American families report that pornography is a problem in their home.
  • Pornography increases marital infidelity rates by 300%.
  • The average age at which a child is first exposed to pornography is eleven years; 94% of children will see porn by age fourteen.
  • 56% of American divorces involve one party having an “obsessive interest” in pornographic websites.
  • 59% of pastors said that married men seek their help for porn use.
  • 33% of women aged twenty-five and under search for porn at least once per month.
  • 55% of married men and 25% of married women say they watch porn at least once a month.
  • 7% of pastors say their church has a program to help people who are struggling with porn use.  (*Stats from the site, Tru News)

Defining Pornography

Pornography has been defined as “predominately sexually explicit material intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.”

The Bible uses the Greek word, porneia which means “whoredom, fornication, adultery or sexual immorality.” It is where we derive our modern word “pornography.”

A Brief History of Porn*

In 1948, Dr. Alfred Kinsey published a controversial but popular book on sexuality. He was one of the first scientists to openly discuss sexuality, and his books sold like crazy.

In 1953, Hugh Heffner published his first copy of Playboy magazine. Heffner took advantage of changing sexual mores and began to print pornography alongside articles and essays written by respected authors. He made porn begin to look like something harmless, respectable and pleasurable.

In the 1980’s, the VCR came along and now pornography could be watched at home instead of in seedy theaters.  Porn became a lot more accessible.

In the 1990s, porn hit the Internet and was easily within reach via a few keystrokes. The online porn industry exploded. From 1998 to 2007, the industry grew by 1800%. By 2004, porn sites were getting three times more visits than Google, Yahoo! and MSN Search put together!

Pornography also began to take off in Hollywood movies and TV through pay-per-view channels. Between 1998 and 2005, the number of sex scenes on TV doubled. And it wasn’t just true of adult TV; it happened on teen TV as well. Today, almost all products are marketed through sex or sexual images.

A Scriptural Basis for Addressing Pornography

Genesis 1:27 – We are primarily spiritual beings created in the likeness/image of God with the capacity to be sexual.

Romans 1:24-25 – Due to sin in the world, sex is misused and made to be impure by worshipping the created rather than the Creator.

I Corinthians 6:12-18 – The body is not for sexual immorality; flee from sexual immorality.

Proverbs 6:25-26 – Lust and fornication turns us into a ‘loaf of bread.’

Romans 6:11- 14 – We are called to be dead to sin. Do not offer parts of your body to evil desires. Do not let sin be your master.

Galatians 5:19 – The deeds of the flesh are immorality, impurity and sensuality.

Psalm 101:2-3; 6-7 – The psalmist vows that he will set before his eyes no vile thing.

Matthew 5:27-28 – Looking at a woman lustfully is considered a sin.

 

Going a bit deeper biblically*

Licentiousness (debauchery in NIV, meaning excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, lacking virtue) – Sexual acts on display in pornographic material are acts of fornication (sexual contact outside of marriage). To take part is to condone these acts and involve ourselves in the sin of licentiousness. (See II Corinthians 12:21)

Lust – Pornographic materials are meant to generate sexual arousal in our flesh through lust. Lust, according to the scripture, is sin. It is corruption of our spirits, our minds and our flesh. (See Matthew 5:28 and James 1:14, 15)

Sensuality – According to Scripture, observing nakedness is lewdness and a sinful behavior. For example, in Genesis 9: 21-22, Noah’s youngest son, Canaan, was cursed because he observed his father’s nakedness, but his brothers Shem and Japheth covered their father with their faces turned the other way. The Bible portrays Canaan’s act as shameful and dishonoring with Noah saying, “Cursed be Canaan!” while he blessed his other sons. (*Adapted from Verse By Verse Ministry)

Too often, as the church today, we tell men and women caught up in this issue that it is solely a moral issue, but studies are showing that it is also a brain issue. Telling men to study more, pray more and simply to think pure thoughts is like telling a heroin addict to just stop thinking about and pursuing his or her drug. It will not be effective, because the brain could already be conditioned.

How Does This Conditioning Progress?*

Psychologists tell us of a five-step process of conditioning toward pornography.

First step – introduction or exposure: This occurs from sexual abuse as children to magazines, videos, TV, or computer. There is some form of exposure, often from a “friend.”

Second step – habit/compulsion leading to addiction: Those who continually and frequently expose themselves to pornography find they have to continually return for more–for another high. This begins a chemical process we will talk about in depth later.

Third step – intensification: The previous highs are not enough and the user looks for more exotic forms of sexual behavior for stimulation.

Fourth step – desensitization: Abnormal becomes normal. Nothing is too shocking or aberrant and concern about hurting others gets lost in the pursuit of the next sexual experience.

Fifth step – acting upon one’s own fantasy/imaginations: Eventually, we do what we have seen and find pleasurable. Many look for ways to fulfill desires from a spouse, a prostitute, a minor or an actual rape. In one survey of former prostitutes, 80% said that customers had shown them images of porn to illustrate what they wanted to do.

Professor Cass Sunstein, writing in the Duke Law Journal, said, “The liberalization of pornography laws in the US, Britain, Australia and the Scandinavian countries has been accompanied by a rise in reported rape rates.” (*Adapted from Probe Ministries)

Pornography and How the Brain Undergoes Change**

Studies are now indicating that when we are involved in sexual activity, the brain releases a chemical called Oxytocin, along with other chemicals. It is the glue to human bonding. (For example, Oxytocin is also released as a mother holds her new infant against her skin to breast-feed the child, creating an emotional bond.)  When we watch pornography, powerful neurotransmitters such as dopamine (dopamine is a part of the brain known as the ‘reward center’) are also released and our brain then takes those images and creates a bond, actually interfering with human bonding and sexuality.

Dr. Tim Jennings, a neuropsychologist, says that any type of repetitive behavior will create trails in our brain that “fire” on automatic sequence. So men and women who truly love Jesus with all of their heart can be in sexual bondage from the enemy due to viewing pornography repeatedly. We should also note that God desires us to bond with our life mate sexually, while the enemy desires us to be in bondage to sexually explicit material.

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do (I Peter 1:13-15).

How Does This Actually Work? **

Like any drug or potentially addictive substance, when there is a release of dopamine, the reward center part of the brain gets involved. For example, the reward system tells you that you feel good after a satisfying meal or a good workout. It reconnects with that good each time you are involved in those activates. (By the way, your brain comes hardwired to motivate you to do certain things that will keep you healthy.)

However, the brain can also become rewired toward pleasure by experiencing intense pleasure. It does this with the help of a protein called DeltaFosB. This protein builds new brain connections so you can remember the experience and later repeat it. The more frequently we repeat something, the more hardwired the nerve connection becomes, and the more we crave the experience.

Here’s the tricky part of this process. DeltaFosB also remembers forms of connections to details associated with the experience. These associations are called “cues.” For example, a smoker might be cued by the smell of cigarette smoke or the alcoholic may have pathways triggered by the sight of a bottle. For the addict, the whole world starts to seem like a collection of cues and triggers leading them back to their addiction. When a pathway becomes sensitized, it is easily triggered by cues that show up on a daily basis.

This creates an irony, especially for the believer with addiction. The user of porn, drugs or alcohol wants and craves it more and more, all the while liking it less and less. Pornography use is an escalating behavior because those who consume it begin to develop a tolerance. Once that happens, more and more porn is needed or more hardcore porn is pursued. Unfortunately, pornographers are right there waiting with the increasingly edgy stuff.

Often the connection to pornography is free until this increased desire for more and more can lead one to spend money on pornography. This creates personal financial issues that only complicate the situation.

Escalation of Pornography Use**

Escalation happens because we tell ourselves we’re simply being entertained with something harmless. After all, God created men and women and sex. But meanwhile, our brains are busy building connections between feelings of arousal and whatever is happening on the screen. The more porn is used and becomes familiar, the more extreme forms are necessary to become aroused.

In a survey of 1,500 young adult men, 56% said their tastes in porn had become “increasingly extreme or deviant.” Eventually, porn can also change attitudes that support violence toward women and sexual aggression.

In married partners, tastes related to the sexual experience change so much that they can no longer even respond sexually to their actual partners. Consequently, a trip to the doctor for ED treatment (erectile dysfunction). Thirty years ago, ED was almost always used because of a man’s aging or medication use. It was unheard of with men under age 35. Today, chronic ED is affecting men in their teens and 20’s because of Internet porn consumption.

Pornography is really good at forming long-lasting pathways in the brain. Hardly any other activity can compete with it, not even actual sex with a real life partner. Porn can actually overpower the brain’s natural ability to have real sex! Imagine those persons who are sitting in front of a computer at 3:00 AM in a porn-filled trance. Not even sleep can compete with this brain pathway of pleasure, reward center approval, dopamine and desire for more. Like a well-used trail in the woods, the pathway for porn becomes wider and more used until one begins to think, “This feels so good, let’s do it again and again.”

Teenagers and Porn**

You can only imagine how compulsive pornography becomes, especially in younger brains like teenagers (mainly because a teen’s reward center is two to four times more powerful than in an adult brain). Pornography is a dream come true of sight and sounds and erotica. It isn’t long until the young mind can become addicted. And you can only envision where the devil desires to take this.

Visualize teens getting their sex education from pornography sites on the Internet. Researchers find that people who have seen a significant amount of porn are more likely to start having sex sooner, with more partners and then engage in riskier sexual behavior. Pornography sites do not come with a warning of the ill health as a result of use. That would be like hiring a cigarette salesman to teach a health class on smoking. I can only imagine no one would hear about the cancer statistics or how shortened one’s life becomes from smoking.

Porn Warps Our Ideas About Sex**

Just as harmful is what porn doesn’t show. Pornography does not show all the aspects of healthy sex like talking and connecting through communication, emotional connections by cuddling; loving, meaningful touch and serving one another with other-centered pleasure.

You will never find the consequences of unprotected sex in pornography, for example, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, cervical cancer, bruises or parasites. In pornography, no matter how another is treated, it always feels good, is desired and never really consequentially harmful. Even though women were being beaten, whipped, yelled at and harmed in other ways, the result was almost always the same: the victim responds with pleasure or had no response at all.

Dr. Gary Brooks, a psychology professor who studies the effects of porn stated, “Boys who are initiated into sex through [pornography] become indoctrinated in a way that can potentially stay with them for the rest of their lives.” Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and director of Men’s Health Boston says, “A lot of the men who grow up now watching internet porn learn their sexuality and how to become stimulated…in a way that is not mimicked by actual sex.”

Porn is Killing Marriages: Here’s How**

Have you ever woken up in the morning and thought, “I wonder how I can destroy my marriage relationship today or how can I undermine it. I wonder how I can give a huge amount of insecurity to my spouse.” Probably not, but that is exactly what pornography does to your closest relationship, your spouse.

Most women see no acceptable role for porn within their own committed marriage relationships. Following a 30-year study of the effects of pornography, researchers Jennings, Bryant and Dolf Zillman at the University of Alabama found that, “Consuming pornography makes many individuals less satisfied with their own partners’ physical appearance, sexual performance, sexual curiosity and affection. Over time, many users grow more callous toward females in general, less likely to value monogamy and marriage and more likely to develop distorted perceptions of sexuality. They are also found to be significantly less intimate with their partners and less satisfied with their romantic lives. Lastly, more end up cheating on their partners.”

I mentioned above that porn rewires the brain. Another issue in marriage that is harmful is porn consumption leads to less satisfaction and interest in one’s partner. Users actually become less responsive sexually. Think about it, men and women in porn look amazing, young, their lifelong best, surgically enhanced and airbrushed to perfection. One author wrote, “Today, real naked women are just bad porn.”

What Happens in the Soul Realm With Porn Use?

Viewing pornography opens the door of our soul and spirit to spiritual oppression, confusion, hopelessness, hurt, control and domination in evil ways. Women feel betrayed, rejected, humiliated, unattractive, abandoned, lonely, worthless, angered and shame-filled by husbands who use porn. They are being cheated on, really. Women feel as though they cannot compete with the images their husbands are viewing. It is an illusion that says women will do anything to please their man while no woman in the real world lives within that kind of fantasy. It brings insecurities to her and can destroy her esteem. She will question her attractiveness and her adequacy as a lover. She can eventually think and believe that porn is more important to her husband than she is to him, an ultimate sexual betrayal.

Men, however, often view pornography as an innocent harmless fantasy or a fix for loneliness or not having a sexual partner that agrees with his desires. Men rationalize and justify their behavior by attempting to call it “normal behavior” of a man who is simply visual. That visual connects with the woman or women in porn who have nothing but time on their hands, a desire to be perpetually aroused. She is young and attractive and anxious to please. She is never bored or annoyed and never has a bad day versus the wife/mother who has wrestled with a toddler all day, worked in a tense job situation or is simply dealing with aging parents who are zapping her energy for love-making.

  • When people condition their brains to be aroused by these totally amped up, exaggerated versions of sex, they have real problems when it comes time to actually get between the sheets. Basically, porn is to real sex as Spam is to steak—a cheap, exaggerated imitation. And not only is porn making men have worse sex, it is taking away their ability to have sex at all.
  • Porn kills real love because it’s fake. Every page, every site, every movie is fake. It’s not real! Porn users become cynical about love and become less committed to their partners. In the end, porn can permanently kill their sex life!
  • Porn is not only fake; it’s all built on lies. Lies like, “It’s just watching people have sex and sex is natural.” Another lie, “Porn is just an innocent distraction and harmless.” And, “It’s a safe way to learn about sex.” Or how about, “It hurts no one.”

(*Fight the New Drug)

A not-so-obvious soul wound of pornography is that most relationships become affected by the changes that take place in the brain. It can distort the way consumers see people, their friends, family members, coworkers, a neighbor’s daughter or son, your own daughter and even strangers on the street. How? Porn tells consumers that people are objects with the sole purpose of providing sexual satisfaction and that directly relates to making a human life the sum of body parts, discarding their true worth and value.

Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. The porn user becomes a self-hater, also. It is a slippery downward spiral of addiction to false images, false love and a false life.

Pornographers Dark Secrets**

In pornography subjects are dominated, beaten, sexually abused, humiliated–and it’s all based on consent and contract. But to many, this is modern-day slavery or human trafficking. Human trafficking is buying and selling humans, or moving humans so they can be used for a profit. The estimated number of slaves around the world is 21 to 32 million. About 22 percent are trafficked for sex acts.

Often pornography and sex trafficking are one in the same. It is reported that nearly half of sex trafficking victims also report that pornographic films were made of them. These persons come from around the world lured by false offers like, “Come to America to start your modeling career or your new life.”

The Results

By viewing pornography and by going to their websites, you are supporting the porn industry and helping it to grow. You are contributing to the sexual exploitation of victims caught in this world. You are adding to the sin of human trafficking. You are saying “yes” to a multi-billion dollar industry that feeds and preys on innocent men, women and children and can even lead to their abduction or death. You are learning to see and treat women as a sex object. You are destroying those trapped in this industry (which today includes more teenage girls than ever), your marriage, your own family and yourself.

You excuse it and rationalize it. You tell yourself it’s not that bad, just a quick look, it’s a natural desire and some of you even change your theology to tell yourself…no, try to convince yourself, that it’s actually okay with God.

This May All Be True, But I’m Not Addicted!

Maybe even right now you have messages going to your brain saying, “But that’s not me.”

*How do you know if you are addicted?  Here are some guidelines:

  • You feel controlled, out of control and powerless to resist the temptation to use pornography.
  • You have and are experiencing an escalation in frequency and use.
  • You are lying about your use.
  • You are preoccupied with sexual thoughts and fantasies.
  • You tell yourself you are not as bad as others or downplay your use.
  • You have unsuccessfully tried to stop ongoing use.

(*Adapted from For Your Marriage.org)

There Are Answers

One thing we know from God, the Creator of sexuality, is that His love is completely satisfying. One thing we know from the evil one is that lust is insatiable and can never be satisfied. Pornography and lust are a drive to serve oneself rather than one’s life mate or others.

Viewing pornography may start through curiosity, trying to fill a void, attempting to heal or cover-up a deep wound or through simply looking for an escape. But escapes have a way of becoming an addiction (food, alcohol, TV, novels, etc.) and addictions have a way of pulling us away from God, the One who provides a way of escape. See II Timothy 2:26: …and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.

  1. God is love: I John 4:8. If you know nothing else at the start, know God’s love for you. It is inescapable, incomprehensible, determined and relentless. He loves you and Jesus died for this sin on the cross.
  2. We all struggle to maintain a clean heart. Many really good persons also struggle with sin and this sin in particular. You are not alone. Do not let the evil one tell you you’re alone in this battle. Whatever sin has created, there is far more grace available to heal.
  3. Recognize that pornography affects the whole individual, so healing is needed through and through. Not only does God desire to cleanse and heal your mind, He longs to set you free from lust, fear, anxiety, wounds, frustration, emptiness and shame. He died, naked and exposed, for sexual shame on the cross and says to us, “Shame off of you through my sacrifice.”
  4. Come clean, disclose and confess to God, yourself and others. Start being truthful about yourself and your sin. Discover the denial you have been walking in. Start taking full responsibility and recognize the gravity of your life situation. Be truthful with your spouse, your counselor, your mentor. Commit to ruthless truth telling to yourself and to others. Receive God’s forgiveness because He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin (I John 1:9).
  5. Grab hold of a vision to stop and why you desire to stop. Ask yourself, “Who is this hurting?” Ask yourself, “What is this costing me in finance, time, self-deprivation and life goals?” Do a personal damage assessment.
  6. Be aware of the neurological aspect of this addiction and the brain chemicals we spoke of earlier. This is not just a moral problem. You have created paths for your brain to need and desire this chemical charge through the sin of pornography. These paths that have been flooded with the imagery and the fake will need to be starved to death. This is not about reading our Bibles more or praying more; a transformation is needed. It starts when you identify what your triggers are that lead to porn use. As you identify them, you can ask God why they are triggers, what healing is needed and how to locate that healing. This means examining, listening to your thoughts and feelings that stem from those thoughts and eventually discovering your beliefs. God can reveal whether or not those beliefs are true or are based on lies. Ask your heavenly Father for truth to replace the lies (Romans 8:5-9; 12:1-2).
  7. In time, you’ll have to locate any deep wounds from your past to discover how those wounds have affected you. Holy Spirit must be your companion for this to happen safely. If we are unable to get to this place, we will just be treating symptoms over and over and eventually give up. Is there a shame-filled sexual wound? Did you experience abuse of some kind? Did you retreat and find comfort in pornography and masturbation? Why?
  8. Discover relational healing by purposefully mending broken relationships. Find new relationships that will help you heal. These could be support groups, personal counseling and close accountability with a real live person(s). Monitoring software can be important, but will not replace real accountability by those who love you and care for you.
  9. Resources – find what fit you in terms of books, videos or other resources. A video series like The Conquer Series, groups like “Pure Desire” and websites like Faithfulandtrue.com or Be Broken Ministries can be extremely helpful. Fortunately, today there are quite a number of resources and websites available to us. Search on the internet for Christ-centered materials and computer prevention programs like Covenant Eyes and X3Watch to place on your devices.
  10. Deliverance ministry can be helpful, as our souls and our spirits were open to very demonically oriented material. Openness to evil creates a pathway for more evil. Believe that healing is not only possible, but also forthcoming. Remember that sometimes failure is a part of the process. Get back up, move on and keep seeking first God’s healing and His kingdom (Matthew 6:33).

What To Do If You Fall

Each of us are growing and being restored by the transforming power of God.  Transformation is a lifelong process. Parents never give up on their child walking; don’t give up on your healing. Here are some helpful steps you can take when you stumble and fall.*

  1. Don’t hate yourself. Do not go to self-deprecation, it will not help you, but rather it will reinforce your need for more pain relief. If you are grieved in your conscience, then it’s a good guilt, but do not allow yourself to wallow in self-hate and self-criticism. God is not out to get you, but He is out to redeem you. Be like David who said in Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love…blot out my transgressions…wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin…cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow…create in me a pure heart…do not cast me from your presence…restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit…”
  2. Do not back away from your God and your earthy relationships. You need them now more than ever. The enemy wants you to give in and give up, to hide in shame. Keep your fall in the light and do not give the enemy an opportunity to keep it in the darkness. Confess and be real with God, yourself and others.
  3. Pray. Fight the silence by opening up to God. Renew your mind with God’s truth by remembering where the true struggle is: “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want”  (Galatians 5:17).
  4. Get back up! Proverbs 24 and verse 16 reminds us that even though the righteous fall seven times, they get back up again.
  5. Look back and evaluate. What were you thinking? What was occurring at the time? What was happening in your life? What pressure were you feeling? What triggers can you recognize?

(*Adapted from Desiring God, article by Paul Maxwell)

And To the Young Persons

If you start viewing pornography, or when you view it, keep in mind that through mental stamping of the brain (what we talked about earlier with brain chemicals) you will have the opportunity to carry most of those images for the rest of your life. You will take them into your relationships and into your marriage. While that may seem like a long time away, I can still remember from my teen years some of the images I saw in magazines that I found along country roads while riding my bike. And the more we use mental recall of those images for sexual gratification, the more they are stamped into our brain. Your appetite will increase and you can become addicted. Once addicted, you will begin to suffer loss. What are some of those possible losses?

  • The loss of God’s view of sex.
  • The loss of discovering, knowing and feeling real love in a relationship.
  • The loss of your personality.
  • The loss of always telling the truth, as you will need to hide so much.
  • The loss of sexual control.
  • The loss of purity and righteousness.

Parents, if you take a “boys will be boys” approach or simply the “sin” approach you need to start sharing the things I am sharing with you in this article. If your children desire a healthy sex life one day with the man or woman that God so generously gives to them, teach them to stay away from pornography today. Educate them and give them the tools to help them. Protect your computers from access and check them regularly.

Important Ideas to Share With Your Children

Children are being exposed to pornography at earlier ages all the time, especially with prime time TV shows and commercials. The following are some important things you can share with your children.

  1. Define pornography for them. Help them to have an understanding of what it is.
  2. Let them know that God says “yes” to sex, rather than simply telling your children “no”. Obviously, we need to place that “yes” within God’s holy perspective and context of sex. While porn is bad, God’s idea of sex is good. Share the Genesis chapter one scriptures along with Psalm 139:13-15. God is not a prude when it comes to sex; He is the creator of this gift.
  3. God desires that we bond in relationship with Him, not with pornography. Let your son or daughter know that through our spirit we can bond with evil or with good. As we are bonded with our parents and parents are bonded with their children, so our heavenly Father wants us to be bonded with Him. He desires this bonding because we are created in His image – we are image-bearers of God. Anything the evil one hands us has to do with bondage, which leads to hurt and harm.
  4. Pornography invites and arouses toward self-gratification and self-sex or masturbation. Again, sex is good and arousal within God’s boundaries is right.
  5. Sex is about giving and loving while pornography is about lust and taking. Pornography use is self-centered and based on false imaginations. It is fake and habit-forming.
  6. Watching pornography is dishonoring to God and helps to hurt those involved in the making of pornography, such as human trafficking of men, women, boys and girls.
  7. God loves us and has an amazing, wholesome plan for His children, which does not involve pornography and sexual immorality. He desires us to live purely for Him and take that purity into marriage one day.

The New Testament Writers Acknowledge Our Struggle with Immorality

I love these verses that Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: But since there is so much immortality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each another except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control (I Corinthians 7: 2-5).

 

Tying it all Together With the Story of Joseph

The psalmist David was on his roof one day and he noticed a woman bathing. That look was the beginning of adultery, murder, depression, death and untold pain for God’s chosen King David. Conversely, there is a wonderful story in the Bible of holy resistance followed by incarceration, but then redemption and hope for a family and a nation. That story is the story of Joseph.

In Genesis Chapter 39, we read the account of Joseph who was serving in Potiphar’s house. The Bible says God blessed him and he prospered in his Egyptian master’s home. God gave him success in everything he did. In time, the blessing that followed Joseph also affected Potiphar’s household and Joseph was placed in charge of everything Potiphar owned.

Joseph was described as “well-built and handsome,” and he made a noticeable impression on Potiphar’s wife. She repeatedly attempted to allure  Joseph by saying, “Come to bed with me!” Joseph stood firm and refused. Joseph’s words were, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”

Joseph’s response cost him his job and his freedom as Potiphar’s wife lied about Joseph attempting to, “make sport of me,” or, as we might say, “rape me.” Even so, Joseph refused to compromise his integrity.

Joseph did not fail his test. Had he given in to temptation, it could have caused the death of millions by famine. He would have never been reunited with his family and he would not have had the opportunity to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. The favor of God rested on Joseph because he held fast. Otherwise, he would have been just one more casualty of leadership.

The point is clear. You and I have a destiny given to us by God. Your freedom from the sin of pornography is not just about you, but the hundreds that you touch. Your life-long call is tied into others with the life call of Jesus. When so many around you sicken of their life of sin, you will have the answer for them and the life that exemplifies that answer. Be a hero like Joseph and confess his words with me, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against my God.”

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all (Psalm 34:17-19).

God is our deliverer

**From articles found on, adapted from and quoted from the web site, Fight the New Drug. The author wishes to acknowledge and thank them for this valuable information.

 

Learn more in the book Identity: the Distinctiveness of You by Steve Prokopchak. Check it out here!

 

About Steve Prokopchak

Steve serves on the DOVE International Apostolic Council and has been involved in the Christian counseling field for over 20 years. He earned a Master of Human Services from Lincoln University. He is the author of several books, including Called Together, a premarital counseling workbook. He also travels throughout the world teaching and imparting to the lives of many, especially leaders. Read more about Steve or catch up on his blog.