Allen Raynor Weblog: “Pornography and The Gospel of Christ”
(June 8, 2017)
(June 8, 2017)
The world is full of problems some of which we hear about constantly, some occasionally, and some hardly at all. Pornography falls into that last category but make no mistake, porn is a huge problem. Andrew Walker says “Pornography is perhaps the most widespread, supposedly anonymous sin afflicting both American culture and the culture of the local church.” (“Introduction” in The Gospel & Pornography; 1) The numbers are almost too overwhelming to comprehend while the effects are hidden, yet destructive, much like carbon monoxide in a sealed garage. Tim Challies reports “In 2016, people watched 4.6 billion hours of pornography at just one website [Pornhub] (the biggest porn site in the world). That’s 524,000 years of porn or, if you will, around 17,000 complete lifetimes. In that same time people watched 92 billion videos (or an average of 12.5 for every person on earth). Significance: So many people are using so much porn today that it is really impossible to tabulate. But understanding how much is consumed at just one site can at least help us see that this problem is nothing less than epidemic. (Tim Challies; “10 Ugly Numbers Describing Pornography Use in 2017” available at https://www.challies.com/…/10-ugly-and-updated-numbers-abou… )
In the past people had to go to a store and purchase a magazine or go to a seedy adult theater in a bad part of town to view pornography. It involved a lot more effort than it does today to simply set at your computer or with your iPhone. There was risk involved in the past that you might be seen by someone your knew, but the anonymity of the internet has created a near perfect environment for pornography to grow exponentially and flourish.
It is not just a problem for men. Increasing numbers of women are getting hooked on porn. Children at younger and younger ages are seeing porn for the first time, then becoming regular viewers. Not so long ago, the answers were “filtering software” and keeping your home computer in a public, open area of the house. Now children and teens have access to the entire internet on the phones they carry and even with filtering software they can easily access it by picking up a Wi-Fi signal somewhere else.
Statistics point to widespread usage among Bible-believing Christians and even many church leaders. Believers are taught to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is our reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12 1-2). The mind has always been a battleground where demons, the Holy Spirit, and we ourselves battle it out. Satan wants to see our minds captivated by sin. Pornographic sex scenes never present sex as God intended but a deviation from His design because what God really said is never good enough for Satan. You can almost hear Satan saying as he perverts sex in many different ways "Hath God said” . . . just like he did in the Garden of Eden.
Trevin Wax writes “Pornography is a vice that touches on many aspects of human sinfulness: the glorification of sex outside of marriage, the objectification of other human beings made in God’s image, the fanning of the flames of lust, and the indulgence of our worst instincts . . . The world sees porn as something to be managed; the Bible sees it as something to be killed” (Trevin Wax; “What Are We For?” The Gospel & Pornography; 6-7) Perhaps surprisingly, the root of the pornography problem is not sex, but rather dissatisfaction with God. Wax goes on to write “When Adam and Eve ate from that forbidden fruit, they were taking something good that God had made and directly violating His command. They were grasping for something ‘delightful’ and ‘desirable’ apart from God’s original intention and design.” (Wax; 13)
God is not against sex. He created it and even gave mankind the command to “Be fruitful and multiply.” When God first made Eve and presented her to Adam, his response was “Wow!” He immediately recognized that she (woman) was the perfect complement to him in every way, including physically/sexually. Sex is one of God’s many wonderful gifts, but there are certain parameters which God gave. In the Garden of Eden there was all things to enjoy except for the fruit that grew on one tree and God said to leave it alone. God is 100 percent in favor of sex inside the commitment of the marital relationship. But God warns that expressions of sex, including pornography, outside marriage is hurtful and harmful to us.
One-hundred years ago sex was almost universally associated with marriage, and it was almost universally linked to procreation. Further, this had been the overwhelming pattern of all of history. But the 20th century saw rapid changes one stacked upon the other. The highly flawed Kinsey Reports of the 1940s were a major factor in the society’s movement toward more deviant behavior. The advent of sexual liberation and free love in the 1960s, no-fault divorce, birth control pills, cohabitation and its widespread acceptance, homosexuality and its widespread acceptance, easy access to pornography, etc. have made the sexual values of the past almost unrecognizable. Little by little sex and marriage were separated and little by little sex and having children were separated from one another. Wax writes “Pornography is just one [of many] examples of sexuality being severed from its original purpose . . . We separate sex from procreation, then separate sex from marriage, and even separate sex from partnership (think of the ‘recreational’ or ‘casual’ sex). Pornography goes further than these other steps, leading to the separation of sex from another person . . . In pornography, the ‘one-flesh union’ of a man and a woman becomes the ‘no-flesh’ aloneness of a man or woman before the flickering image of a screen, or in the pages of a novel.” (Wax; 15-16)
No one is really safe from pornography’s reach. It is pervasive in our culture. It is hard, even embarrassing, to address. It makes for uneasy conversations, sermons, and lessons. But, the church of the Lord Jesus has to admit the ugly reality taking place in our midst. Christ has already defeated pornography, along with all sin which brings forth death in the most ultimate sense; however carnal, weak, human flesh seeks to fill certain, unmistakable voids. It has been pointed out that many do not have a “porn” problem, but rather a “worship” problem. Jared Wilson writes “Every sinful act is the product of a sinful belief, a disbelief in God. Sin is faithless. It is how we demonstrate our distrust in God to satisfy us, comfort us, or provide for us. When we sin, we are saying essentially, ‘God, You cannot be trusted to meet my needs. Right now I choose instead to trust this.” (Jared C. Wilson; “How Should the Church Engage?” The Gospel & Pornography; 72) These may seem like strong, even harsh words, but they are true words. He goes on “Until we replace the idol of porn with the glory of Jesus found only in the gospel, we will just be switching out one idol for another.” (Wilson; 75)
The allures of the flesh are undeniably strong, but the Holy Spirit of God is stronger. All people must continually submit themselves to God and prayerfully ask for His strength. We also should be praying for our families, friends, and leaders that they too will have strength to not be led astray. The availability of pornography is so overwhelming that we are all vulnerable all the time. As we submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus we echo the words of the old hymn and make it the prayer of our heart today; “Just a closer walk with Thee; grant it Jesus is my plea; Daily walking close to Thee; Let it be, dear Lord let it be.”
In the past people had to go to a store and purchase a magazine or go to a seedy adult theater in a bad part of town to view pornography. It involved a lot more effort than it does today to simply set at your computer or with your iPhone. There was risk involved in the past that you might be seen by someone your knew, but the anonymity of the internet has created a near perfect environment for pornography to grow exponentially and flourish.
It is not just a problem for men. Increasing numbers of women are getting hooked on porn. Children at younger and younger ages are seeing porn for the first time, then becoming regular viewers. Not so long ago, the answers were “filtering software” and keeping your home computer in a public, open area of the house. Now children and teens have access to the entire internet on the phones they carry and even with filtering software they can easily access it by picking up a Wi-Fi signal somewhere else.
Statistics point to widespread usage among Bible-believing Christians and even many church leaders. Believers are taught to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is our reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12 1-2). The mind has always been a battleground where demons, the Holy Spirit, and we ourselves battle it out. Satan wants to see our minds captivated by sin. Pornographic sex scenes never present sex as God intended but a deviation from His design because what God really said is never good enough for Satan. You can almost hear Satan saying as he perverts sex in many different ways "Hath God said” . . . just like he did in the Garden of Eden.
Trevin Wax writes “Pornography is a vice that touches on many aspects of human sinfulness: the glorification of sex outside of marriage, the objectification of other human beings made in God’s image, the fanning of the flames of lust, and the indulgence of our worst instincts . . . The world sees porn as something to be managed; the Bible sees it as something to be killed” (Trevin Wax; “What Are We For?” The Gospel & Pornography; 6-7) Perhaps surprisingly, the root of the pornography problem is not sex, but rather dissatisfaction with God. Wax goes on to write “When Adam and Eve ate from that forbidden fruit, they were taking something good that God had made and directly violating His command. They were grasping for something ‘delightful’ and ‘desirable’ apart from God’s original intention and design.” (Wax; 13)
God is not against sex. He created it and even gave mankind the command to “Be fruitful and multiply.” When God first made Eve and presented her to Adam, his response was “Wow!” He immediately recognized that she (woman) was the perfect complement to him in every way, including physically/sexually. Sex is one of God’s many wonderful gifts, but there are certain parameters which God gave. In the Garden of Eden there was all things to enjoy except for the fruit that grew on one tree and God said to leave it alone. God is 100 percent in favor of sex inside the commitment of the marital relationship. But God warns that expressions of sex, including pornography, outside marriage is hurtful and harmful to us.
One-hundred years ago sex was almost universally associated with marriage, and it was almost universally linked to procreation. Further, this had been the overwhelming pattern of all of history. But the 20th century saw rapid changes one stacked upon the other. The highly flawed Kinsey Reports of the 1940s were a major factor in the society’s movement toward more deviant behavior. The advent of sexual liberation and free love in the 1960s, no-fault divorce, birth control pills, cohabitation and its widespread acceptance, homosexuality and its widespread acceptance, easy access to pornography, etc. have made the sexual values of the past almost unrecognizable. Little by little sex and marriage were separated and little by little sex and having children were separated from one another. Wax writes “Pornography is just one [of many] examples of sexuality being severed from its original purpose . . . We separate sex from procreation, then separate sex from marriage, and even separate sex from partnership (think of the ‘recreational’ or ‘casual’ sex). Pornography goes further than these other steps, leading to the separation of sex from another person . . . In pornography, the ‘one-flesh union’ of a man and a woman becomes the ‘no-flesh’ aloneness of a man or woman before the flickering image of a screen, or in the pages of a novel.” (Wax; 15-16)
No one is really safe from pornography’s reach. It is pervasive in our culture. It is hard, even embarrassing, to address. It makes for uneasy conversations, sermons, and lessons. But, the church of the Lord Jesus has to admit the ugly reality taking place in our midst. Christ has already defeated pornography, along with all sin which brings forth death in the most ultimate sense; however carnal, weak, human flesh seeks to fill certain, unmistakable voids. It has been pointed out that many do not have a “porn” problem, but rather a “worship” problem. Jared Wilson writes “Every sinful act is the product of a sinful belief, a disbelief in God. Sin is faithless. It is how we demonstrate our distrust in God to satisfy us, comfort us, or provide for us. When we sin, we are saying essentially, ‘God, You cannot be trusted to meet my needs. Right now I choose instead to trust this.” (Jared C. Wilson; “How Should the Church Engage?” The Gospel & Pornography; 72) These may seem like strong, even harsh words, but they are true words. He goes on “Until we replace the idol of porn with the glory of Jesus found only in the gospel, we will just be switching out one idol for another.” (Wilson; 75)
The allures of the flesh are undeniably strong, but the Holy Spirit of God is stronger. All people must continually submit themselves to God and prayerfully ask for His strength. We also should be praying for our families, friends, and leaders that they too will have strength to not be led astray. The availability of pornography is so overwhelming that we are all vulnerable all the time. As we submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus we echo the words of the old hymn and make it the prayer of our heart today; “Just a closer walk with Thee; grant it Jesus is my plea; Daily walking close to Thee; Let it be, dear Lord let it be.”
In Christ,
Dr. Allen Raynor, Pastor
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