For Men Only (I guess women can read it too...)
Okay guys, you know what I am talking about. At first, you want a wife. You have struggled with this thing your whole life and you are betting all your chips that your suffering will end once you get a wife who will gratify your needs. Time goes by and coping with your problem isn't getting any easier, but finally a woman comes into your life and you begin to settle down with her. It is your utmost service to honor her and protect her, yet somehow you still feel drawn and sometimes you still fall in the trap. Finally, the big day comes! A ceremonious wedding ushers you to that fateful evening where it seems your prayers for deliverance will finally be answered! But then, time rolls on and you tremble as there is still that insatiatiable desire that rattles around your brain, startling you awake most mornings and echoing into the day.
Gentlemen, this is a real issue. This is pornography addiction. They always say that a preacher always preaches most on what he struggles with and for myself that is true! I am a recovering porn addict and this is my mission to be outspoken on Satan's atomic bomb in the Church. But before we get into that discussion I want to draw a distinction between a normal, God-given, sexual desire and a sinful affinity for lust.
We can actually observe this outside of the Christian world. I spent most of my life outside of the Church and I have had girlfriends in the past and have had sex with them. If I was gratified simply by sex, then I wouldn't have had a continual longing for more women. Meaning, I would not be drawn to porn. In addition, I should have been satisfied by any one of those sexual experiences right? Wrong. Sex outside of the commitment of marriage is really a beast in itself. It is not the intimate experience that binds us in love like we want it to be. Instead, it is a selfish force that drives lovers apart. Isn't that why we go from partner to partner, breaking hearts and taking irreplaceable pieces of one another? Sexual experience does not gratify what seems to be our sexual desires.
Which leads me to a very dark portion of my being. With shear honesty and transparency, many of us could dig this out of our depths. It's not the act of sex that brings gratification, it's the defacing of that which is sacred that feeds our desires. Ouch, that sounds harsh, but give me a moment to elaborate.
There is a reason why we wear clothes. There is a reason why we call our reproductive parts, private. There is a sanctity to our sexuality that any father would instill into his daughter. It is the holiness of marriage that God has ordained in His creation. It is the consuming of that sacred piece of something that feeds the evil that lives and grows in each one of us and that is the inner craving that sex alone cannot satisfy.
This is what our culture is rampantly trying to cover up. If we can desacrilize sex and abandon the Almighty than we can be free to feed the evil within. Don't take my word for it. In his book, Ends and Means, Aldous Huxley writes;
"For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”
Enter Postmodernism. Is there any meaning left? All is empty rhetoric, corporate gain and corporate loss. God is dead. Philosophy is void. Men write meaningful books on meaninglessness. Advertisers remind us vividly that we are unhappy without their products and families spiral into heaps of flaming debris believing them. Words have lost their meaning, truth has become relative, and morality has dissipated into the foggy haze.
And out of such haze are those who seek to engender a new sexuality. Like tyrants, they build their agenda on the broken backs of a beleaguered society. They espouse themselves to a new freedom. A freedom that has been tried and found wanting. Convinced by the unattainable gratification of sexual experience in experience alone, they disregard nature and reason and hearken to their own lusts to create a new social norm.
This is where the Church does not remain silent. This is where She stands for virtue. This is where men and women are liberated from their "liberators." Boundless sex has never gratified any soul. It has only ensnared its victim, torn their hearts, and stolen what was sacred. Only Christ, by His transference of righteousness and promise of transformation, can resurrect and restore the sanctity and innocence that so many of us have lost.
So do we see what's happening here? Sex is commonplace and pornography is the modern gateway to the desacrilizing of our sons and daughters. It is often a highly debated statistic, but one I would not argue, that 90% of boys are introduced to pornography as early as age 12 (and with more modern means of access that age is said to have shifted to 8.)
This leaves us with the all consuming question of what now? What should we do? Is there any way we can influence a society that is dead bent on publicly parading its defamation of sexuality? Sure, why not be honest? How often does your pastor mention the p-word? How many churches have more than the four or five member small group devoted to this issue? I am not so sure that every preacher that struggles with this addiction is actually preaching on it. In a 2002 study conducted by Christianity Today, over 1300 pastors were asked if they accessed internet pornography. In this case, 54% admitted to using internet pornography. We must address the issue from the pulpit!
We must speak openly of that evil seed that lurks in our shadows. We know it exists. It's Satan's atomic bomb! It's the one thing, as Christians, we think we can deal with privately, but in reality, it's the one thing we need the most outside help with!
The ramifications of a sex crazed church is fatal to our culture. We are not the only ones hurt by this! Many men and women are shocked when their hearts are pierced and their future is dashed by infidelity. There is a staunch difference between sex and taking a piece of somebody and it is the latter that our society prides itself in! We feel the onslaught of the purveyors of perverse agendas. We know that it never stops with sex alone. Imagine no voice of reason... Anyone who has ever struggled with this sin knows what it feels like to fall into it, the debilitation of your prayers, your faith, and your devotion. Now imagine over 50% of our church leaders feeling that way! Truly, we will be as sheep without shepherds.
There is hope. Even as bleak as it sounds. Christ can change our hearts and our desires, but must expose that evil seed that devours another's sanctity to the light. Only then is it possible for any of us to attain gratification.
Gentlemen, this is a real issue. This is pornography addiction. They always say that a preacher always preaches most on what he struggles with and for myself that is true! I am a recovering porn addict and this is my mission to be outspoken on Satan's atomic bomb in the Church. But before we get into that discussion I want to draw a distinction between a normal, God-given, sexual desire and a sinful affinity for lust.
We can actually observe this outside of the Christian world. I spent most of my life outside of the Church and I have had girlfriends in the past and have had sex with them. If I was gratified simply by sex, then I wouldn't have had a continual longing for more women. Meaning, I would not be drawn to porn. In addition, I should have been satisfied by any one of those sexual experiences right? Wrong. Sex outside of the commitment of marriage is really a beast in itself. It is not the intimate experience that binds us in love like we want it to be. Instead, it is a selfish force that drives lovers apart. Isn't that why we go from partner to partner, breaking hearts and taking irreplaceable pieces of one another? Sexual experience does not gratify what seems to be our sexual desires.
Which leads me to a very dark portion of my being. With shear honesty and transparency, many of us could dig this out of our depths. It's not the act of sex that brings gratification, it's the defacing of that which is sacred that feeds our desires. Ouch, that sounds harsh, but give me a moment to elaborate.
There is a reason why we wear clothes. There is a reason why we call our reproductive parts, private. There is a sanctity to our sexuality that any father would instill into his daughter. It is the holiness of marriage that God has ordained in His creation. It is the consuming of that sacred piece of something that feeds the evil that lives and grows in each one of us and that is the inner craving that sex alone cannot satisfy.
This is what our culture is rampantly trying to cover up. If we can desacrilize sex and abandon the Almighty than we can be free to feed the evil within. Don't take my word for it. In his book, Ends and Means, Aldous Huxley writes;
"For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”
Enter Postmodernism. Is there any meaning left? All is empty rhetoric, corporate gain and corporate loss. God is dead. Philosophy is void. Men write meaningful books on meaninglessness. Advertisers remind us vividly that we are unhappy without their products and families spiral into heaps of flaming debris believing them. Words have lost their meaning, truth has become relative, and morality has dissipated into the foggy haze.
And out of such haze are those who seek to engender a new sexuality. Like tyrants, they build their agenda on the broken backs of a beleaguered society. They espouse themselves to a new freedom. A freedom that has been tried and found wanting. Convinced by the unattainable gratification of sexual experience in experience alone, they disregard nature and reason and hearken to their own lusts to create a new social norm.
This is where the Church does not remain silent. This is where She stands for virtue. This is where men and women are liberated from their "liberators." Boundless sex has never gratified any soul. It has only ensnared its victim, torn their hearts, and stolen what was sacred. Only Christ, by His transference of righteousness and promise of transformation, can resurrect and restore the sanctity and innocence that so many of us have lost.
So do we see what's happening here? Sex is commonplace and pornography is the modern gateway to the desacrilizing of our sons and daughters. It is often a highly debated statistic, but one I would not argue, that 90% of boys are introduced to pornography as early as age 12 (and with more modern means of access that age is said to have shifted to 8.)
This leaves us with the all consuming question of what now? What should we do? Is there any way we can influence a society that is dead bent on publicly parading its defamation of sexuality? Sure, why not be honest? How often does your pastor mention the p-word? How many churches have more than the four or five member small group devoted to this issue? I am not so sure that every preacher that struggles with this addiction is actually preaching on it. In a 2002 study conducted by Christianity Today, over 1300 pastors were asked if they accessed internet pornography. In this case, 54% admitted to using internet pornography. We must address the issue from the pulpit!
We must speak openly of that evil seed that lurks in our shadows. We know it exists. It's Satan's atomic bomb! It's the one thing, as Christians, we think we can deal with privately, but in reality, it's the one thing we need the most outside help with!
The ramifications of a sex crazed church is fatal to our culture. We are not the only ones hurt by this! Many men and women are shocked when their hearts are pierced and their future is dashed by infidelity. There is a staunch difference between sex and taking a piece of somebody and it is the latter that our society prides itself in! We feel the onslaught of the purveyors of perverse agendas. We know that it never stops with sex alone. Imagine no voice of reason... Anyone who has ever struggled with this sin knows what it feels like to fall into it, the debilitation of your prayers, your faith, and your devotion. Now imagine over 50% of our church leaders feeling that way! Truly, we will be as sheep without shepherds.
There is hope. Even as bleak as it sounds. Christ can change our hearts and our desires, but must expose that evil seed that devours another's sanctity to the light. Only then is it possible for any of us to attain gratification.
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