Purity in A Pornographic World (Part 1)

On Sunday mornings at Ellendale Baptist Church I have been preaching through the Gospel of Matthew. In the last eight weeks I have preached on the Beatitudes. Each of the sermons can be downloaded from our church website www.ellendalebaptist.org. When we posted the sermon “Purity in A Pornographic World” based on Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God,” the dowloads shot up almost overnight. Obviously the sermon hit upon an area where help is desperately needed. How does one maintain a pure heart in such a corrupt and evil world? No matter where one may go in today’s world we are bombarded by sexually explicit images and pictures. Not to mention people who have no concept of modesty in dress. Not only is there the outward enticement we face on a daily basis, but there is also the inward battle which stems from an evil heart. Jesus made it clear that it is the things that come from out of the heart that defile a man (Matthew 15:19). The corruption we see in society today is the evil fruit which originated in the heart of man. Jeremiah said “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Recent statistics on the growth of the pornography industry affirms that fact. Consider these alarming facts: every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography, every second – 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography, every second – 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography, and every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the United States. The total porn industry revenue for 2006 was 13.3 billion in the United States; 97 billion worldwide (Internet Filter Review). According to a Focus on the Family poll 47% of famlies said that pornography is a problem in their home. 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation (Christians and Sex Leadership Journal Survey 2005). The average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old. The largest consumer of internet pornography is the 12-17 year old age group.

It seems that even ministers are struggling to maintain purity of heart. Over half of evangelical pastors admit viewing pornography last year. In a 2000 Christianity Today survey, 33% of clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit website. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the past year, and 18% visited sexually explicit sites between a couple times a month and more than once a week. Roger Charman of Focus on the Family’s Pastoral Ministries reports that approxiamately 20 percent of the calls received on their Pastoral Care Line are for help with issues such as pornography and compulsive sexual behavior. Those are just a few stats I discovered in research, we could go on and on. Suffice to say that this is a serious problem!

This is not, however, a new problem. One of the reasons God destroyed the earth by a universal flood in Noah’s day is because of the corrupt condition of the heart of that antediluvian generation.  ”And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” (Genesis 6:5). So what is the answer? How is the heart cleansed and purified? The psalmist asked the same question thousands of years ago, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” (Psalm 119:9) The answer that was true then is still true today, “By keeping it according to Your word.” The Word of God is the way to purity. Psychology may present to society today all types of solutions for this type of “addiction.” But the only real solution to the corrupt human heart is the sanctifying power of the Word. Trying reading, memorizing, and meditating on Scripture and see! The psalmist added, “Your word have I treasured in my heart that I might not sin against You.”  Let me offer several steps that can aid in keeping your heart according to the Word.

1. Confess and forsake all known sin. The key word here is forsake. Walk away from it and stop it! You might say, “Well I can’t I have an addiction.” Addiction is the secular term, let me give you the Biblical term, it is “slave.” Scripture says you are a slave to whomever you yield yourself to. Paul said in Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin [In this case pornography] resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” Bottom line, you choose what master you want to serve either pornography or Christ! The choice is yours. Don’t believe the lie of Satan that says you can’t help it. If you are a Christian you have the power of the Holy Spirit in you, don’t tell me you can’t make a choice of obedience and righteousness. You can choose which master, it is as simple as that! The reason some choose pornography is because they want it more than Christ. They would rather yield to that than to righteousness. The Bible does not give some magic formula nor give some long drawn out psycho-therapeutic solution, it simply says you choose the master, sin or Christ! Others have suggested, “Well, I need to bring my sin to God and lay it at His feet.” That sounds real pious and spiritual but show me one place in the Bible where we are suppose to take our sins to God. We are suppose to confess and forsake them. We are commanded to put to death evil desires and sins by dwelling on the beauty and purity of Christ revealed in the Word. We are to meditate on these things and give ourselves wholly to them (1 Timothy 4:15). That in turn grants us the inner desire to deny the flesh and thereby put the evil desire to death! God through His grace has given you, His child, that ability. So choose your master. Next post I will continue giving some steps that will aid in guarding the heart. I also want to borrow some material from the great Puritan John Flavel (1630-1691) who wrote a classic volume “Keeping the Heart.”

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