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| How
To View Pornography |
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| Jason
Moore |
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Pornography is not a new malady.
It has existed from ancient times. The entertainment, the literature, and
religions of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were full of lewd
images and conduct. But these were mere representations in clay and stone or
other media.
The age of photography and
filmography made possible a new kind of pornography depicting real subjects
and real acts of unspeakable and unprecedented shame. The realism of
pornography in this age has created a more voracious appetite for vicarious
sensual pleasures. And the advent of the internet has rendered pornography
epidemic.
According to the Nielsen Net
ratings, 17.5 million internet users visited porn sites from their homes in
January of 2000 alone. Never has so much raw obscenity been so accessible to
so many both in public and in secret. Never has it been such a profitable
industry and never so affordable for the consumer.
Pornography is no longer a
back-alley business. It’s no longer viewed as deviant behavior. It is
gaining the legitimacy of mainstream entertainment, lobbied as a freedom of
speech. It is fast becoming a respectable indulgence, legitimate art and
entertainment, the object of light humor, the subject of sitcoms, the bulk
of billboard advertising and certainly email solicitations, the perverse
goddess of the Information Age. And we are seeing only the beginning.
Christians have not been
unaffected. Thus the reason for this warning. If you’re going to look at
pornography, you need to understand the rules. You need to know what it
demands of you as a viewer, what it will cost your soul, what it will do to
your character, what compromise you make with carnality.
Pornography is not a sin. It
is a whole world of iniquity. It is the devil’s snare. It is no small
crime. If you view pornography, on whatever scale, in whatever way, this is
how it’s done. These are the rules:
Rule #1: You’ll do business
with the Devil. And his business is booming. Pornography is big business—presently
an estimated $14 billion dollar per year business. “The pornography
industry took in more than $8 billion dollars in 1999. More than all
revenues generated by Rock-n-Roll and Country music, more than America spent
on Broadway productions, theater, ballet, jazz and classical music combined”
(“Porn.com.” U.S. News. 03/00).
Your purchase or viewing of
pornographic materials supports the devil’s work in adulterating women,
debauching men, defiling the marriage bed, corrupting children, trampling
innocence, numbing consciences, polluting habits, mocking holiness, scorning
purity, and promoting rank hypocrisy.
No matter if it’s free.
Free internet, just like radio or television, exists because of paid
advertising. When you view free pictures and movies, or visit a website,
some sponsor sends a few cents to an internet provider, a director, a
photographer, a camera man, an agent, and a porn star. Your participation as
part of a viewing audience pays their salaries, expands their business, and
supports their profligate lifestyle.
How do you give on the Lord’s
Day, when you’re a contributor to the Adversary’s work on Saturday
night? Pornography doesn’t just affect you. You can’t make it a private
matter, no matter how private the sin. It’s a crime against the souls of
men perpetrated by the Devil, and to whatever extent you’re involved, you’re
in partnership with him, and a rightful heir of his damnation. “Do not be
deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also
reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap
corruption” (Gal. 6:7-8).
Rule #2: You’ll betray
every relationship. The Industry Standard reports that 70% of porn traffic
occurs between 9 and 5, when folks are supposedly on the job or in school.
What kind of worker compromises his work and reputation for such tripe? How
does he justify such willful and sinful neglect?
Furthermore, what kind of
husband fills his mind with images of other women? And what wife would not
suppose that he keeps himself “to her only” just because he lacks a
willing partner or convenient opportunity for adultery? What man or woman
would seek a spouse whose mind is polluted with thoughts of fornication?
What son or daughter could reconcile a father’s moral teaching and love of
family with the chance discovery of his lascivious double life?
What man would want a friend
or neighbor who is in the habit of undressing other men’s wives or
daughters in his imagination? What woman would befriend such a man? And once
he’s discovered, who can easily trust such a person again?
Before you view pornography,
be prepared to tell lies, to make excuses, to develop other contemptible
habits, to neglect duties, to procrastinate, to hide bills, to delete
e-mails and computer files, to shred credit card statements, to cover up at
work and at home—in short—to betray every trust, break every truce, to
risk your entire reputation, to compromise every relationship, to live a lie
before men and God.
Rule #3: You’ll get cozy
with hypocrisy. The pornography of our day doesn’t demand secret trips to
the video store or subscriptions in brown paper wrappings. Cable television
and the internet will pipe it into the home just like drinking water.
The devil makes it easy for
those who drink from this cistern to live a double life with little fear of
their hypocrisy being exposed once they’re practiced in deception. But don’t
be fooled. Those who fill their belly with these waters drink before the
living God who “judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb.
4:12). “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are
open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb.
4:13).
Judas lived a double life and
betrayed our Lord for thirty pieces of silver. How much severer punishment
do you think he will deserve who feigns holiness, who pretends at purity,
who secretly consorts with harlots and adulteresses? What reward does the
kingdom hold for he who “tramples under foot the Son of God” for such
carnal pleasures (Heb. 10:29)? If you’re going to view pornography, get
comfortable with being a pretender, and with earning the pretender’s
price. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God”
(Heb. 10:31).
The hedonistic society of
Sodom and Gomorrah could not sustain ten righteous souls. Not even one
righteous man—not even the nephew of Abraham—could live there unscathed.
Only God knows what fate the future holds for a country which, in the words
of Robert H. Bork, is “slouching toward Gomorrah.”
Only God knows the fate of
the righteous in such a land. Lot may have pitched his tent toward Sodom,
but at least he tried to bar the door. If you’re going to open the door
and play outside with Sodom’s sons and Gomorrah’s daughters, or invite
them into your home, know that your sin, like theirs, “is exceedingly
grave” and your condemnation, like theirs, is coming though Abraham
himself should plead for your pardon (Gen. 18:20). Learn from Lot. Run
pilgrim! And don’t look back!
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Copyright (C)
2008
Southside Church of Christ
All rights reserved.
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