Pornography

The word itself makes us feel dirty. Just reading an article with pornography as a title makes us wonder if we should let others see us reading it. “Why are they reading an article on pornography?” Or, “Why is he writing about this?”

Clearly, no one is a winner when associated with this sin. We need teaching on pornography because we live in a time when it is a very lucrative industry, raking in over $57 billion a year.

Today’s generation not only must face a daily bombardment of sexual temptation, in the same way Joseph was approached daily by Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:10), we must resist sexual immorality in ever-growing ways. According to a 2009 study by Alexa Research, the most researched word on the Internet is the word sex. The fourth is pornography.

Pornography is available now on cell phones, video games, and even satellite radio. Can you believe it? There are adult radio stations! If ever a generation needs warnings against sexual immorality it is ours. The tragedy in pornography is that it’s not needed. There is nothing we can find in it that we cannot find even more so in giving our self to our mate. Marriage is completely satisfying and rewarding when two people are committed to one another in ways God’s word instructs, especially sexually.

In fact, marriage is God’s solution to sexual desire. “Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). If people would listen to what God is saying they would not feel a need to pursue sexual activity outside of marriage, whether in pornography or promiscuity.

To avoid sexual immorality, each man and woman is to serve their mate sexually. It is God’s will for every Christian to meet these obligations to their mate when possible (verses 3, 4). Pornography is not a legitimate alternative to a lack of intimacy in marriage. God gave us those desires to enjoy in marriage (Proverbs 5:15-20).

To use those desires to lust after anyone else besides our mate is sinful. Jesus said, “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his hear” (Matthew 5:28).

Pornography not only causes us to violate this warning, it ruins, perverts, and destroys whatever intimacy we have in marriage. In 2009, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (divorce lawyers) said 56% of all divorces have one mate addicted to pornography, while 68% of all divorces occur because of relationships made through the Internet. All of this could be avoided if people would listen to God and drink water from their own cistern!

Pornography does more than rob us of precious moments with our mate, it will cost us our eternal soul (Ephesians 5:5-7). For these reasons Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:29). He was not referring to literal physical mutilation because the physical body is not the problem. Sin is the product of the heart (Matthew 15:19), which is why we must avoid seeing things that stir up lust (Job 31:1).

However, Jesus is saying that if there are activities in our life that we are unable to have without being tempted to sin, we need to get rid of them—even if it will be as inconvenient and debilitating as losing an appendage. Thus, if your satellite, Internet, or wireless connection is causing you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is more profitable for you that you live without the conveniences of modern technology, than to maintain those services and lose your soul in hell.

​~Michael Thomas