What are your views on pornography?

by Grant
(near L.A.)

Porn is a huge problem not only for lost folks but also for saved folks who self-identify as Christians. Pornography creates a fake world where there are no consequences for sin, where your partner is always gorgeous and sex always seems pleasant and mutually satisfying, where no one gets STDs, where no one gets HIV or AIDS.

Porn uses your own testosterone against you, to get you hooked on the fake porn world. Your physical urges drive you to "consume" porn and in the process of watching porn, you become psychologically hooked on and habituated to something that isn't real. Instead of spending time with your real wife or partner, you are doing time in the prison of porn.

In the Bible, God's answer to porn was to destroy all their pictures, Numbers 33:52 and break off relationships with the people who produced the pictures. In plainer words, God said, "Get rid of it, destroy it, don't keep looking at it, don't hang around people who produce it."

Christians are not just people who decide to follow Jesus. Christians are genuinely saved and born again people, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, slaves of Jesus Christ, no longer our own, bought with a price, disciples at any cost, sold out to Jesus.

The only way a Christian can successfully quit porn is to recognize that the porn world has created a "fake reality" which eats at the roots of spiritual life and slowly destroys your joy in spiritual and spousal intimacy.

Whenever we attempt to break an emotional psychological physical addiction - porn is all three - we must replace the addiction with something equally strong. And we must recognize that trying to quit porn in our own strength instead of relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, Galatians 2:19-20, 5:16, only strengthens our unregenerated flesh.

It is also important to understand that viewing porn is sinful and emotionally destructive. Once the sin of viewing pornography has a foothold in your life, it becomes a battle when you decide to quit porn.

The emotional, mental and physical habits formed by your porn addiction can be defeated and replaced by the habit of daily Bible reading, Bible study and Bible memorization but it will not be easy. It normally takes at least a month to cultivate a new habit. In the case of porn addiction, it may take many months to break the porn habit and cultivate your new habit of Bible reading, study and memorization.

It is generally impossible for anyone to break porn addiction on his own. It helps to have an accountability partner, someone who will look you in the eye and question you weekly or even daily to see how you're doing, someone who will pray for you, someone who knows you and sees you on a regular basis, someone whom you have to look in the eye during your accountability sessions.

Your accountability partner may be your spouse if s(he) is spiritually strong enough to fill that important role. It may be better to ask your pastor or a deacon in your church or someone whom you know, love and trust to be your accountability partner. Finding an accountability partner is not always easy. Statistically, more than half the Christian men in evangelical churches struggle with porn problems. And the stats are not much different for pastors, deacons and full-time Christian workers.

Therefore as you look for an accountability partner you'll need to be proactive in asking them if they are watching porn, if they are struggling with porn addiction. If they are, then keep looking. Someone who himself is hooked on porn is not a good accountability partner.

When a Christian man repents of the sin of watching porn and turns from porn, he quickly discovers the reality of spiritual warfare. Biblical teaching on Ephesians 6 which used to sound like nothing more than theory quickly becomes rubber meets the road reality. You are in a very real spiritual warfare with the forces of darkness and the fight against porn is a front lines battle.

You will not win the battle against porn without an arduous fight. It will be emotionally wrenching, physically difficult. Remember that your own testosterone has been used against you to get you physically and psychologically hooked on porn. Deciding to quit porn does not cause your body to stop producing testosterone. Therefore your physical and psychological urges will continue but without the outlet of masturbating to porn to provide temporary relief.

Over time, through prayer, relying on the Holy Spirit for power to resist temptation, spiritual accountability to a real human being who loves you and prays for you and consistent time spent reading, studying and memorizing scripture, you can break the porn addiction and replace it with genuine Christian living. God created us so that our physical sexual needs and our emotional psychological intimacy needs would be met by our partner with whom we are in committed relationship, 1 Corinthians 7:1-9.

However, beyond replacing the porn habit with scripture reading, study and memorization, beyond accountability, you will need to rebuild your emotional and physical relationship with your spouse (if you have one), allowing that real relationship to replace the fake relationships you established and cultivated in the prison of porn.

If you will spend as much time, effort, money and consistent dedication to: 1. building your emotional and physical relationship with your spouse, and 2. reading, studying and memorizing the Bible, that you applied to your porn addiction, you have good hope of success.

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