Why just a little pornography can be deadly

Written by Kendra White

“A little pornography can actually be a good thing,” I read in horror. A Facebook friend had just posed the question, “Is pornography good or bad?” and the comments were pouring in. “It’s fine as long as you view in moderation,” came the next reply.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading. We are talking about pornography, right? The stuff that rips apart marriages, ruins lives, and causes many in the church to give up their pursuit of a holy and righteous God? Pornography- the stuff that is scientifically proven to be bad for your brain and statistically horrible for relationships? Good? You are seriously going to make an argument that it is good? 

Isaiah 5:20 says:

“What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.” 

Good is being called evil and evil good. We live in a world that has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. The truth is this: even a little pornography is poison to your soul. Pornography is sin, and sin separates us from God (Matthew 5:27-28, James 1:14-15). You wouldn’t tolerate even a little poison in your food, no matter how much was put in! So why do Christians allow themselves to consume something as toxic as pornography?

Galatians 5 says sin is like a little yeast that works through the whole batch of dough. Pornography may start out feeling like just a little problem, but eventually it will work its way into destroying every area of your life if it is not confronted and dealt with.

As a culture, we have tolerated the sin of pornography and now its status has moved from “horrible” to “not that bad” to “good in moderation.” This is what happens when we make the mistake of comparing our holiness to that of those around us rather than to that of Christ. We think, “I’m doing better than the next guy,” and all of a sudden that one slip up becomes an addictive temptation that leads to spiritual death.

Scripture gives us a clear warning of the danger of giving into such temptation.

James 1:14-15 says:

“But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (emphasis added). 

Well-Placed Shame 

Here’s what I find fascinating though. The person who posed this question openly admitted that they felt shame for viewing pornography. “If it’s not wrong, then why do I feel bad about it?” they wondered.

The conversation then took an interesting turn as my peers began to discuss the potential source of this shame. A few possible reasons were discussed. “Maybe you need to stop hanging around with people who make you feel that way,” suggested one person who boasted he felt no shame in his own pornography viewing.

But no one said, “You are feeling shame because you have sinned against God and need to repent.”

According to pastor John Piper, there is such a thing as well-placed shame. He said, “Well-placed shame (the kind you ought to have) is the shame you feel when there is good reason to feel it. Biblically,  that means we feel ashamed of something because our involvement in it was dishonoring to God. We ought to feel shame when we have a hand in bringing dishonor upon God by our attitudes or actions.” 

I believe when it comes to pornography, the tightening in your stomach, the fear of being exposed, the uncomfortable feeling I hope you still feel…is well-placed shame. It is the result of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit at work in your life. And if you ignore that feeling you will eventually stop feeling anything at all.

We live in a world that rejects shame and encourages us to be our “true selves” no matter the spiritual consequence. “It’s natural to feel that way. Don’t let others look down on you for your passions and desires,” the world says. But God’s word says that those who belong to Christ Jesus have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” When the world tells you sin is okay, it only makes you feel comfortable on your path to destruction. Well-placed shame, however, can lead a person toward repentance.

Though feeling well-placed shame can be a good thing, it is not the same as repenting. To repent is to stop what you are doing and turn away from it. It is not feeling remorse for “getting caught” or feeling bad for how your actions have affected others. It is about you crying out to a Holy God and honestly admitting your faults. It’s about admitting that you are helpless without Christ and asking Him to give you the power to overcome sin.

When we truly repent, God takes away our sin and our guilt so that we no longer have to wallow in it. Rather, as Scripture says in Hebrew 4:16, we can “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

We no longer need to feel condemned because as it says in Romans 8:1:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” 

To read more about Piper’s thoughts on well-placed shame, check out these great articles:

http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/battling-the-unbelief-of-misplaced-shame

http://solidjoys.desiringgod.org/en/devotionals/what-is-well-placed-shame

This article was originally posted at AFA.net.

What a mess our world is in. What a mess America is in. What a mess the church is in.

Depressed yet?

Isaiah 5:20 encapsulates, I believe, the cultural condition of much of the world, most of America and an alarmingly high percentage of those who belong, or at least claim to belong, to the body of Christ. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

Calling evil good. That sums us up.

But, hey, “grace,” right? I mean, you’ve seen the bumper sticker. “Christ’s grace is sufficient,” isn’t it?

Well, yes and no. Christ’s grace is sufficient to give us His strength in our own pathetic weakness and to impute his perfect righteousness to us, despite our own filthy and fallen nature (see 2 Corinthians 12:9).

But strength to do what, exactly? Strength to continue sinning?

Hell no.

Understand that by “hell no,” I don’t mean “hell” in a crass, swear word, Donald Trumpy kind of way. I mean that to continue sinning in an unrepentant, guilt-free, “evil is good” manner, leads to death. It leads to physical, emotional and spiritual death, whether you call yourself a “Christian” or not.

It leads to hell.

“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:16-19).

So, in order to be “set free from sin” we must “obey.” To stop sinning is to obey. To continue sinning is to disobey. To disobey leads to death – it makes us “slaves to sin.” To obey, to stop sinning, leads to life. It makes us “slaves to righteousness.”

What does it mean to be “set free from sin”? Well, it means, as Christ admonished, that we are, among other things, to “go and sin no more” (see John 8:11). Sin, with its associated chains of bondage, is over there. We are over here. Sin is behind us. We’ve “put off [our] old self, which belongs to [our] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,” and, thusly, are “set free from sin” (see Ephesians 4:22).

Jesus said, “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

“Hmm,” you might say. “I don’t recall my pastor ever saying anything about ‘turning from my wicked ways’ in order for Jesus to ‘forgive [my] sin and heal [our] wicked land.’ What did Christ mean by ‘turn from their wicked ways?’”

Well, after centuries of robust debate, a debate, mind you, that rages on even today within the body of Christ, an ever-so-slight majority consensus has emerged that maintains the following, rather nuanced and theologically highbrow thesis:

Jesus meant to turn from your wicked ways.

Best-selling Christian author Randy Alcorn once wrote, “Any concept of grace that makes us feel more comfortable sinning is not biblical grace. God’s grace never encourages us to live in sin; on the contrary, it empowers us to say no to sin and yes to truth.”

We can all agree that, when we repent and ask His forgiveness, Jesus forgives us our past sins. Still, there is a deceptive tendency in much of the church – and by “deceptive,” I mean demonic – that suggests Christ came to set us, captives to sin without Him each and every one, free, not from sin, but, rather, from guilt for that sin.

This, of course, is yak manure. Jesus did not come, nor was He tortured to death on a tree, so that, by His grace, He could kill our guilty feelings for ongoing, habitual and unrepented-for sins.

Jesus came to kill sin.

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2).

It is hellacious error to say that, as Christians, we are not supposed to “feel guilty” when we sin. When you sin, you feel guilty because you are guilty. Feeling guilty, otherwise known as “being convicted” in our sin, is a painful symptom of a dying soul. Christ’s grace is not spiritual Percocet intended to numb the pain of guilt. Guilt is the warning sign, sin is the cancer and Christ’s grace, the cure.

There is a deceptive, deadly, and evil brand of false “grace” out there, prevalent within the Christian church. It’s a grace that says yes to sin and no to truth, that calls evil good and good evil. A guilt-free, prideful, “gay”-affirming, gossiping, slothful, “pro-choice,” kids will be kids, always use protection, God will forgive my abortion, nicer than Jesus kind of grace that is leading millions of people who honestly believe they’re saved, born-again Christians, straight to the flaming pits of eternal damnation.

Too much “hellfire and brimstone” for you, my friend? Well, sorry. I care about your soul. I care about your eternity – even if your false-teacher, likely-bound-for-hell-himself pastor, priest or bishop doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not self-righteous. To the contrary, under my own power, and in my flesh, I lack a righteous bone in my entire body. I’m the worst sinner of all.

Even so, through the amazing and perfect power of the Holy Spirit, I am able to call sin sin, evil evil and good good. I am able to recognize sin in my own life, sin in the life of our once-great nation, and sin in the life of the church. I can then repent and, with and through the Holy Spirit, “go and sin no more.”

That’s it. That’s what God requires. That’s true grace.

And that kind of grace is sufficient.

You’ve heard the old adage, “Love the sinner hate the sin.” Some complain that it’s found nowhere in the Bible.

True, not word-for-word, anyway. Still, this transcendent truth, this overall concept, is found throughout the Holy Scriptures. We are literally commanded to hate evil.

“Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good…” (Amos 5:14-15).

So, there you have it. That’s grace. Love Jesus. Love others. Hate evil. Repent and “go and sin no more.”

Now get moving.

And Christ be with you.

Earlier this week, the presidential inaugural committee announced that President Obama has chosen Richard Blanco to be the 2013 inaugural poet. Blanco, it just so happens, is Hispanic and homosexual. Liberals would label a choice like this “tokenism” if made by a conservative, but let’s  just call it fealty to two of Obama’s critical constituencies.

But that’s not all Obama did this week to pay obeisance to the all-powerful homosexual lobby. He also pressured the evangelical pastor whom he had invited to give the benediction at his inauguration to withdraw.

By now many are aware of what Dr. Al Mohler has colorfully deemed the “Giglio imbroglio.” Rev. Louie Giglio was asked to give the benediction at President Obama’s inauguration as a result of his work to end human trafficking. But yesterday homosexual activists apoplectic over his invitation exposed Giglio’s dark secret, which led the White House to compel him to withdraw from participating in the inaugural ceremony.

And what was Giglio’s sin? His “sin” was preaching a sermon fifteen years ago that expressed theologically orthodox views of homosexuality (gasp). (The more serious issue to the theologically orthodox faith community is why Rev. Giglio has not preached about such an important scriptural issue for  almost two decades, particularly when biblical truth about homosexuality is under sustained assault from virtually every quarter of American public life. And why is he distancing himself now from the words he spoke fifteen years ago?)

Giglio’s compulsory withdrawal wasn’t enough, however, to soothe the savage breasts of homosexual activists—you know, those lovers of tolerance and diversity. The White House had to perform some public penance by tacitly apologizing for ever having invited such a morally flawed man.

Not only has the White House in effect disinvited Giglio, but infamous and unpleasant homosexual activist Wayne Besen has arrogantly demanded that Giglio reveal whether he has “evolved on gay rights.” Dr. Mohler warns us to see to writing on the wall:

The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment….[A]nyone who has ever believed that homosexuality is morally problematic in any way must now offer public repentance and evidence of having “evolved” on the question…This is what is now openly demanded of Christians today. If you want to avoid being thrown off the program, you had better learn to evolve fast, and repent in public.

Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addresses  the serious constitutional issues that this inaugural dust-up reveals:

The statement Giglio made that was so controversial is essentially a near-direct quotation from the Christian Scriptures. Unrepentant homosexuals, Giglio said (as with unrepentant sinners of all kinds) “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” That’s 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Giglio said, “it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change.” The Bible says God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30), the same gospel, Giglio says, “that I say to you and that you would say to me.”…

When it is now impossible for one who holds to the catholic Christian view of marriage and the gospel to pray at a public event, we have a de facto established state church.  Just as the pre-constitutional Anglican and congregational churches required a license to preach in order to exclude Baptists, the new state church requires a “license” of embracing sexual liberation in all its forms….

Notice that the problem is not that this evangelical wants to “impose his religion” on the rest of society.  The problem is not that he wants to exclude homosexuals or others from the public square or of their civil rights. The problem is that he won’t say that they can go to heaven without repentance. That’s not a civil issue, but a religious test of orthodoxy….

We don’t have a natural right to pray at anyone’s inauguration. But when one is pressured out from a previous invitation because he is too “toxic” for simply mentioning once something universal in the Christian faith, we ought to see what we’re looking at: a state church.

Obama’s unflappably cool demeanor and “can’t we all just get along” rhetoric are exposed for the deceits they are by his relentless in-your-face assault on conservative values and religious liberty. He’s not liberal; he’s radical. And he’s not an irenic unifier; he’s a presumptuous and aggressive divider. He’s now using the ceremonial occasion of his inauguration, which should be a moment of national unity, to slap conservatives in the face—no, make that stomp on their faces with mud-encrusted jack boots.

“Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter!”
~Isaiah 5:20