Pornography = Road to Hell

Attention:

After I posted this I got into a discussion with a great brother in Christ that pointed out to me something that I originally did not see before my post. At face value I took the article written as a healthy rebuke to men concerning their pornography. This brother pointed out to me a different perspective concerning how the Gospel was represented. He felt that there was a lot of condemnation towards unbelievers only and even though some time was spent on the Gospel at the end of the article it didn't seem to offer any hope for a Christian that is struggling with this sin.

I don't want to remove the article because I think the many people that read it will have one or the other of these perspectives that my brother and I came to while reading it. However I do want those that struggle to know there is hope. Sometimes a rebuke is necessary but we should do it in love. Like my brother said to me the Gospel should be enough. It condemns but also provides hope and salvation. The video below shows this hope and is a great testimony.

I praise the Lord for Christian brothers like the one that contacted me.






A decade ago I wasn't saved. I hadn't been born again by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. I was consumed with porn. My friends and I even had autographed videos from porn-stars. I thought I was fine and I was just "being a guy." Looking back now I realize how badly I misused a beautiful gift from God that is meant for a husband and his wife.

Pornography is something that is considered taboo in most Christian churches these days. And while I agree it is a very sensitive subject, it is still a terrible sin that is infecting our churches and destroying many pastors and families. It should not be swept under the carpet.

Too many pastors are wasting their pulpit. They are consumed with tickling the ears of their congregations with promises of eternal life by checking a box on a card and experiencing life now! The problem with this is when these people are confronted by the Gospel and the scriptures they get defensive and say "my god wouldn't do or say that." They are exactly right because the god they believe in isn't the one true God of the scriptures. (I promise I'm going somewhere with this and not just ranting.)

I know people that enjoy these churches because they are hip and the messages usually last about 30-35 minutes. The problem is because the scriptures aren't taught these people leave there and the rest of the week they indulge in all sorts of sexual impurity. Instead of worrying about building funds and the latest trend to attract people to your church, just imagine how many lives would be changed if the scriptures were shown to them and Lord willing the Holy Spirit convicted them of their sin and led them to true repentance!

Please don't be like "America's Pastor" and say "I Don't Know" when it comes to these serious subjects.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
(2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)

Below are some scriptures that speak about this horrible sin:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
(Matthew 5:27-28 ESV)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food"--and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two will become one flesh." But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:9-20 ESV)

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 ESV)

The following is very lengthy. It is directed towards men and husbands in particular but please don't assume that pornography is something that is only a man problem. Many women are being destroyed by this sin as well. The following is written by Michael Pearl. My knowledge of his ministry is limited to one book about 6 years ago. I have heard that he teaches "sinless perfection". I am in no way promoting or recommending his ministry. I only wish to use this resource of his because this is one of the best written articles on this subject I have found. There is one section that I have put in bold and italicized that I don't necessarily agree with. I left it because I wanted to keep the entire source intact.

I pray that if you have read my attempt to bring this sin out in the open this far that you will continue on and use Mr. Pearl's advice at the end of his article and seek Jesus Christ today!

Pornography - Road to Hell

This publication is dedicated to child training and family. It would seem that a dissertation on pornography should be confined to a different format. But we receive many letters from wives concerned about their husband’s pornographic indulgence. The letters we receive are from homeschooling, no birth control, go to church, ‘put on a good front’ families. Wives want to know how they can train up their children to follow the Lord when their husbands are secretly following porn queens. At one large meeting of several thousand "Christian" men, over 50% of those present confessed to having "used pornography" in the previous seven days. Most ministers avoid ever mentioning this shameful subject. Of those that do, the majority treat it as a "weakness" that Christians should "overcome with counseling." I disagree. We too have avoided addressing the subject because of its sensitiveness. Some of you who live in isolation (thank God that you do) may be offended at my frankness. But you must understand that the life of many families and the souls of their children are at stake.

I would want my children to read this article. The degree to which they understand the words would be a general guide as to how much they are ready to consider. I would then discuss it with them, according to their maturity. But you may not. It’s your choice. Just be apprised of the fact that most kids are exposed to some form of pornography by the time they are ten years old.

Now I am speaking to you, fathers. If you isolate yourself in a room and indulge in pornography, you are not sick; you are evil. You are having intercourse with a computer, or with the pages of a publication. In effect you are having an erotic experience with the editor—probably another man. While you are fanaticizing with that commercially produced image, know that there are thousands of others engaged in eroticism with the same image, at the same time as you. You are part of a disgusting group of perverts, all piled onto the same image together. And somewhere there is a sexually dysfunctional editor enjoying the extent of his erotic powers.

You are not oversexed. You are not even sexed. You are alone. At best you are copulating with yourself. Don’t tell me that you are getting yourself primed for a conclusion with your wife. It is the priming that draws you back again and again, not the conclusion. You are a pervert. A real man is bigger than his member. He is big enough to say no to his passions. A man whose passions are stimulated to the point of being all consuming is not a man of greater prowess. He is a man whose soul has shrunk until his little member is the strongest thing left. God created us with sexual drive, but he also gave us a steering wheel and a brake to direct and control our drives. If you can’t control yours, it is not a statement of the strength of your drive, but of the weakness of your soul. You are wasting away to the level of an alley cat. Adam fell, but you are falling even further. You are plunging your soul into eternal destruction, moving as far away from God as you can get. You are lost and helpless by choice. You do not deserve sympathy or understanding; you deserve condemnation and scorn. You are not a victim; you are a perpetrator. You justify your addiction by pointing to the many who have fallen as you have, but you are condemned by the many who have not fallen, and by the many who were once where you are but have since repented and been restored to normalcy.

While you justify yourself, your own conscience condemns you. You sneak around like a thief as you lie and deceive. Your whole life is dedicated to the dragon. Your body is being consumed as your soul is being digested. You are having communion with the devil – bowing in worship of the flesh. You are a disciple of evil. You have chosen to be part of a group that defiles their own flesh, – "that worships and serves the creature more than the Creator, whose god is their belly, whose glory is their shame." (Romans 1:25; Philippians 3:19).

Very few ever return from the pit into which you are sinking. You have taken the downhill slide into Hell, and there is absolutely nothing to stop you except your willingness to apply the brakes. The problem is that you are more addicted today than you were one year ago, and you will continue to fade into the shadows of debauchery until you are one with the evil on which you feed. You are on the road of no return and every day you are less likely to reverse your course.

The lust you have created is never satisfied. It is an itch with no scratch, only more itch. Pornographic satisfaction is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – always just out of reach. The lust of pornography draws a man ever deeper into the dark tunnel of promise until he discovers he has missed life and love. Pornography destroys your ability to "make love," and replaces it with the cunning wit to use and abuse. There comes a point when any attempt at a normal relationship is nothing more than assisted masturbation. Your world grows ever smaller until you are alone with your semen. You stink of self. You do not deserve a woman.

You have nothing to be proud of. You are not a bull. You are a dog. There are millions just like you. Most are not as hypocritical as you are. Some of them hang around bars, nightspots, and porno shops; but take note, you feed on the same diet. Your soul is a receptacle of the same putrefaction. You may yet join them, sharing not only the same books and videos, but also the same dirty motel rooms with their indigenous occupants.

"Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." (Proverbs 9:17-18).

So your wife is frigid? Don’t tell me that pornography is a substitute for a good woman. I was not homeschooled and protected. I am fifty-four years old. I preach in state prisons every week and have done so since I was eighteen. I have ministered in coffeehouses and rescue missions and on the street since I was sixteen. You might convince yourself that you are forced to your actions by an unresponsive wife, but I don’t buy it. I have known of porno-freaks that got married to good women, but found that they liked to be alone better than sharing. We have talked to women who are willing and ready, but their husbands prefer their own company. Pornography and a wife are not alternate ways to fulfill the same drive. The drive for a wife is a natural drive, whereas the drive for pornography is a cultivated, perverted passion that has nothing to do with love and marriage. If a pornographer were to marry a porno queen, he would quickly become dissatisfied with her and crawl back in his little hole, alone with his imaginations and the images created by an industry that makes its money not by satisfying its customers, but by keeping them dissatisfied and hungry for the artificial. Your secret world is revolting to real men who know how to love one woman and dedicate the rest of their energies to creative living.

But the most destructive thing about your sin is the effect it has on your children. We live in a spirit world of both righteous and fallen angels. We are surrounded by evil spirits seeking the moral destruction of every human soul. The children of godly parents are protected from unclean spirits by being under their moral umbrella. But when a father gives his mind over to wicked lusts, he removes the hedge of protection around his family and invites impure devils into his home. Wishing them away will avail nothing. Any prayers you pray for their safety are negated the moment you open the pages of a pornographic book or glare at an electronic image. When you tune in to electronic pornography you have established a two-way link with the spiritual underworld. When you lie in bed at night and conjure up wicked images, the devils won’t stop with your mind; they will gleefully rush into the bedrooms of your children and assault their little souls and bodies. Evil thoughts will come to their minds – thoughts you have been thinking that are telegraphed to them by the devils. Your defenseless children will be taken captive, and you are the one that threw the gate open to the enemy.

If sodomy is sin, pornography is its "significant other." If the Bible be true when it says that those who commit fornication (Greek porniah, the root of our English word pornography) "shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:19-21), then the future of any and all pornography users is the suffering of eternal damnation. And in Ephesians 5:6, again speaking of fornication (porniah/pornography), he says, "Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." If you think you can indulge in pornography and still be a Christian, you are blindly hoping against the clear statements of Scripture. Disciples of Christ read their Bibles, not the dirty books of Sodomites and lesbians. Every time you retreat into your world of lust, you shut the door in God’s face. You are dangling your soul and the souls of your children over the fires of eternal damnation.

I have not been as hard on you as God will be in the day of judgment. You have only one hope, and that is to repent toward God. I did not tell you to repent of your sin of pornography, because as an unregenerate man you will not find the power to forsake your first love. You must repent toward God. This you can do while still in the slavery of your sin. To repent toward God is to prefer God and his righteousness above everything else. It is to desire his holiness in your life – to hate the sin that binds you. Make no mistake. The man that repents toward God is a desperate man, a man that longs for the holiness God will bring into his life. The man that repents toward God will experience restless nights and skipped meals in his search for God. A man that repents toward God will find no pleasure or peace in anything until he can rest in God alone. It will not do for you to walk down an aisle and pray a sinner’s prayer. It will not be sufficient for you to ask for prayer, or to confess your sins, or go to counseling. You must go directly to God through the Lord Jesus Christ with no hope and no confidence but the mercy and grace of God.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but it is a blessed thing to stay there until you are forgiven, and cleansed, and then empowered to walk in holiness. The dragon can be killed by Christ alone. Whom Christ makes free he shall be free indeed. I have seen God save and deliver lesbians, Sodomites, and porno freaks as easily as he saves children. Christ is sufficient.

I have done you a service by increasing your guilt, by bringing the law down on you like it will in the day of judgment. Your conscience will not be satisfied by anything less than your exposure and punishment. The good news is that Jesus Christ took upon himself the shame of your sin. God laid on him your iniquity. God made Jesus to be sin in your place. He was treated as if he was the pornographer, the guilty sinner. He died the death you should die. Your sin has been paid for in the sufferings of Christ. If you repent toward God, God will forget your sin as if it had never happened. He will put away your sin and remember it no more. He will remove the guilt and free you from sin’s power.

It will take years for the temptations to go away. The devils will return every day and night to offer you the opportunity to rehearse the sin you have laid down, but God will deliver you from yielding to the pull of temptation. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. He is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by him.

The next move is yours. Are you so far gone that before the week is out you will return to that dirty place, or will you repent toward God and see your perversion come to an end? I wrote this for one reason – to see some children saved when daddy repents toward God. It’s your move. Your children, your wife, and your God are waiting.