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The curse of pornography.
A great tree can suddenly fall if rot has gradually eaten into its roots.
Invisible on the surface, but if left unchecked and untreated it will, in due time, fell the great tree.
Pornography is the great character rot that while invisible in the outward Christian man or woman, slowly and steadily effects their worldview and their mindset. And many once-great trees are falling, or have fallen.
Few 'decent people' go round proclaiming the truth "I love watching porn" Especially Christian folk.
Yet the statistics show that pornography is now deeply embedded into our culture, and into the church.
Charisma Magazine published figures from a 2014 survey which revealed that those who identify themselves as born-again Christians have struggles with pornography and affairs:
A 2006 ChristiaNet poll showed that
For those of us in prayer ministry these figures are not a shock.
The Bible is relentless on the sin of immorality and we are commanded to flee from it.
For good reason.
Pornography is immorality embraced, honoured, submitted to, worshipped and glorified.
Promising to be our secret friend it becomes our cruel master.
Indeed it may well be satan's number one weapon as he seeks to steal, kill and destroy.
Viewing pornography floods the brain with the chemical known as dopamine. and over time it rewires the brain’s reward pathway and actually changes the make up of the viewer’s brain. This can result in an increased appetite for pornography. Cambridge University scientists confirmed that it rewires your brain and show brain scan examples to prove it.
Thus pornography is addictive. It 'enslaves' it's addicted followers and steadily defiles, corrupts and diminishes them. It becomes their 'dirty little secret'.
The spirit behind pornography hates marriage and hates families.
It hates children and it rapidly defiles and corrupts their sexuality from an early age. Four out of five 16-year-old boys and girls regularly access porn on the internet and one in three ten-year-old children has seen explicit sexual material.
Even as I write this, news reports that two girls (aged 13 and 14) who kidnapped a 2 year old girl in a store had searched "rape", "people getting rape", "young people getting raped" and "poor little thing getting kidnapped and raped" on their tablet computer just prior to the abduction. Thankfully they were caught shortly after the abduction.
Government figures - not surprisingly - show the horrific reality of pornography linked to rape.
And whether or not those who watch pornography want to acknowledge it, the truth is that it links them into a vast, wealthy, seedy world of deep immorality, violence and trafficking.
Without customers it could not succeed.
But how does it affect our Christian worldview and mindset? And behaviour?
The New Testament continually calls us as Christians to make judgments between truth and lies. Between morality and immorality. Between light and darkness. Between Christ and Belial. Between the culture of the Kingdom of God and the culture of this world. And warns us of the consequences of choosing immorality, darkness, Belial, and the culture of this world.
When Christians join with unbelievers in watching pornography they become 'yoked' with them. All are feeding from the same unclean, forbidden and demonic trough.
There is a growing school of thought (hypergrace) that says if unbeliever's indulge in an immoral lifestyle they will face judgment whereas Christians can behave in exactly the same way with no consequences, "Thank-you Jesus!'
Scripture, especially the New Testament, does not speak that language.
It speaks of ungodly behaviour that may result in grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching the Holy Spirit in our lives.
It speaks of believers returning to the world's vomit.
It speaks of being obedient slaves to sin leading to 'death'.
Jesus equated lusting after women with adultery and spoke of dire consequences for doing so.
He warned against letting darkness enter through our eyes.
The Holy Spirit - through the apostle Paul - issued a salvation warning to the church,
The Greek language has two words for ‘do’ and Paul uses ‘prasso’ which means to continually do as a lifestyle. Had he used the word ‘poieo’ it would mean an occasional act. In other words it means,
Even on the very last page of the Bible the same clear warning is there,
However, scripture also tells us that before we judge others we must first check our own lives. That the judgment we use is the judgement we will be judged by.
So if a Christian man or woman is secretly embracing the sinful pleasures of pornography they know only too well they are in no position to make a scripturally based moral judgment on the sexual behaviour of others without being acutely aware of their hypocrisy.
And when a substantial percentage of pastors and youth leaders are actively viewing pornography they are unlikely to speak against it without being acutely aware of their hypocrisy.
So as society and the church darkens, many Christians - instead of being salt and light - find themselves beginning to agree with the logic of the culture's sexual revolution since they themselves are drinking from the same poisoned wells. The thinking goes like this,
And the devil smiles.
The next stage is to become, or to find, a church which is 'liberal' in it's scriptural interpretation - (Denying moral absolutes; As long as you are sincere God will let you go to heaven; A person's feelings supersede biblical revelation; Homosexuality is not a sin - it is an alternative lifestyle; etc) - in order to affirm this thinking, and 'voila! ' we have a 'Christianity' that is now an affirming friend of the godless culture.
Calling itself culturally relevant because it is acutely mindful of the things of men.
Here's the truth. As already shown, scripture leaves us in no doubt that submitting to the lusts of the flesh carries God's displeasure and inevitably leads to spiritual death. The tree falls.
But now the good news. If the rot is identified (owned and confessed) and repented of (agree with God), forgiveness received, and Godly help sought and graciously submitted to, then the rot can be treated.
Bringing spiritual life instead of spiritual death.
We will never have complete victory in everything until we stand in heaven, but the immediate and relentless call on our lives is never to be conquered by the world, the flesh or the devil, but to be conquered by Christ and be more than a conqueror through Christ who loves us.
Following Jesus was never described as easy.
The desires of the flesh are very powerful because they are pleasurable.
And so Jesus would ask this challenging question to those who have embraced pornography.
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