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Pornography—the Trap and the Way Out

By David Argue

David Argue, executive presbyter for the north central region and pastor of Christ's Place Assembly of God in Lincoln, Nebraska, preached the following sermon during a chapel service at the Assemblies of God Headquarters in Springfield, Missouri.

Pornography is one of the most insidious attacks of the enemy against our culture and against the church of Jesus Christ. The attack is pervasive—it comes to men and women, including pastors. 

In John 8:12, Jesus declared, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."¹ He also stated, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.... [But] if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (verses 34-36). And in 1 John 3:8, John wrote, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." He further stated, "The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (4:4). This is the truth of the Kingdom. It has not changed and Christ's power has not diminished. 

What is pornography? Pornography is anything in any medium—words, pictures, videos, drawings, people, anything—that represents illicit, immoral expression and is intended to arouse in a person illicit or immoral sexual feelings or responses. Pornography is more than XXX movies. Pornography is on the movie channels on cable networks, in magazines that are sold in wrappers, in the not-for-TV videos previewed on Pay-Per-View TV, and the Internet. Pornography also includes nudity and immorality in movies such as Titanic. Pornography encompasses the paperback novels with their sensual covers, and the Victoria's Secret catalogs. It includes the stories written to appeal to women's lustful fantasies; the soaps and the sitcoms with their graphic sexual scenes, their language, their innuendoes that teach it is OK to go to bed with whomever. Pornography involves all those things that entice people toward unbiblical sexual expression as a normal and suitable lifestyle. 

We are living in a plague of lust and sensuality and all of us are affected by it. Jesus lived purely and spoke clearly about pornography and lust. He said, "You know the commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt" (Matthew 5:27,28, The Message). 

Behavioral scientists report things that should alarm us. There are six progressive stages in the snare of pornography.

STAGE 1: TEMPTATION²

Pornographic temptation presents itself in many forms. Lustful urges entice you to see the forbidden. They tell you that you need to experience the excitement, to feed your flesh, to explore the intimate. You are made to believe you need this just this once; you need to be informed, and it really can't be that bad. 

Stuart Barton Babbage in Christianity and Sex states, "It is an elementary, psychological law that when the imagination and the will are in conflict, the imagination [most] always wins. It is in the realm of the imagination that the battle must be won. If the imagination is inflamed, the battle is [well on the way to being] already lost."³ We need to keep our imaginations from becoming inflamed, by putting an early watch over our eyes, our minds, and our imaginations. 

James wrote, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (4:7). Resist at the earliest moment. Say, "Lord Jesus, this shall not have a place in my mind." If resistance does not come from our hearts, then temptation leads to the long look, the furtive time at the television set, the picture, or the passage in the book.

STAGE 2: AN ENCOUNTER

James 1:15 states, "Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." The death in pornography comes with a relentless pervasiveness. Pornography has with it a unique hellishness. It impacts the mind, the body, and the spirit—all at the same time. With pornography, a link is established between sin and hormonal release, and the effect is powerful. Just one encounter can begin for some a pattern that can—if not broken—lead quickly to the next stage.⁴

STAGE 3: ADDICTION

Most people do not understand that according to behavioral research, pornography is addictive in the same way that heroin, crack, alcohol, and gambling are addictive. Dr. James McGough of the University of California says, "Experiences at the time of emotional or sexual arousal get locked in the brain by the chemical epinephrine and become very difficult to erase."⁵ 

Jesus said it clearly in John 8:34, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin."

STAGE 4: ESCALATION

Because pornography involves stimulation without real satisfaction and sexual excitement without personal fulfillment, pornography takes the most intimate dimension of life and abuses it. Satan uses the immoral to take more and more from the soul, body, and mind of a person while giving less and less of the erotic buzz. The person who is addicted to pornography finds it difficult to get that same level of stimulation he or she received from previous experiences. This person then seeks stronger and usually more degenerate forms of stimulation. 

In Romans 1:21-32, Paul wrote about this sinful escalation. Researchers have verified that what is described in these verses is pornography at stage 5.

STAGE 5: DESENSITIZATION

What was once shocking and disgusting becomes acceptable. The conscience is impaired to the point of tolerating gross immorality (2 Timothy 2:4). And the harm is found rather quickly in the acceptance of rape myths, the degradation of women, the dulling of reactions to violence, and the negative impact on the family.⁶ In actual tests, college students viewed a limited number of hours of what researchers called soft pornography. In just a few hours, these students' reactions to nudity, rape, and unfaithfulness were dulled.

STAGE 6: ACTING OUT

You cannot sow into your mind ideas, pictures, thoughts, suggestions, and not in some way act out an unhealthy expression of them in your life. The impression will produce the expression. Jesus said in Luke 6:45, "The evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart." 

Spiritual life and pornographic dalliance cannot coexist. If you tolerate pornography, soon you will not have any spiritual vitality. 

There is a myth that pornographic expression is good for a marriage that is not doing well intimately. That is a lie. What happens is this: The partner becomes a plaything, not a person. Even comparing your partner to an airbrushed silicon lie in pornography can destroy your relationship. If you are having a struggle being intimate with your spouse, you need to learn to love your spouse and talk to him or her. Do not give your spirit to a lurid array of that which will spread distance in your relationship.

THE WAY OF FREEDOM

What is the way of freedom? There are two ways: come clean and live clean. Christ will help you to do both.

Accept the truth of God's Word.

Say, "Yes Lord, I have sinned, I have tolerated filth and succumbed to temptation. But Lord, I reanchor my life to purity by Your Spirit." 

With the help of Christ, do not allow any pornography in your life. Resist all temptation in this area.

Confess your sin.

Some people walk deeply in sin and then expect it to be "all gone" in a couple of minutes. The Cross is sufficient to redeem us from every sin, but it is in deep personal repentance that God brings change to our soul.

Cry out to the Lord from the depth of your soul.

Walk through each sinful action and repent. Then receive God's mercy and forgiveness. His mercy is great, and His pardon is immeasurable.

Turn your entire person over to Christ—your thought life, your sex life, your emotional life.

He wants all of you.

Strengthen the focus of your mind.

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7, KJV). A helpful exercise is to read the Book of Proverbs and find the many references to the truth about immorality. Note them. Build up your mind and gird yourself in the truth the Lord has for you.

Clean up your life every way you can.

Take complete inventory of the lust in your life and the ways that lust enters. Go into a cleanup mode. If you cannot, with the strength and grace of God, bring channel surfing under control, don't surf at all. For instance, if cable television is an inroad, get rid of it. You might say, "This is radical." But Jesus said, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell" (Matthew 5:29).

Avoid the places where you are tempted to view pornography.

"Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house" (Proverbs 5:8). 

As ministers, some of you are away from home quite often. When you are alone in a hotel room, the temptation may be prominent. Before you feel weak, be proactive and, with the Holy Sprit's help, devise a plan. 

Here is something I do. When I arrive at a hotel, one of the first things I do is call my wife and tell her what room I am in. I also say, "I have unplugged the TV." I don't want to go back to my room from a meeting in a state of weariness and start scanning channels looking for something to give me a lift. I want my time in a hotel room to be a safe retreat where the Lord and I can be alone. 

I sometimes bring pictures of my wife and family and hang them over the screen. There have also been times when I have gone into a room and have taken authority over the spiritual atmosphere of the room.

Be continually filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:15-18).

The Holy Spirit lives in you. He desires holiness, and He will help you live a holy life. He will strengthen your life and cause you to live in a holy manner.

Pray frequently when you feel tempted.

Ask the Holy Spirit to come on you in a fresh way and envelop you with the purity of Christ.

BE ACCOUNTABLE.

If you are struggling with pornography, you need to be accountable to someone with whom you can talk openly and thoroughly. You need someone who will pray with you and ask you, "How are you doing today?" 

Accountability is especially important for pastors. Pastors may feel alone in their profession and may not have someone in whom to confide. But they need to have someone—their wives or a close ministerial friend—who will hold them accountable. Accountability strengthens us before God and weakens the enemy's plot against us. 

Proverbs 5:20,21 is written to a young man, but it is for young women, too. It is for all of us. "Why should you, my son, be infatuated with a loose woman, embrace the bosom of an outsider, and go astray? For the ways of a man are directly before the eyes of the Lord, and He…carefully weighs all man's goings" (The Amplified Bible). 

The Lord will help us. His strength is given to make us strong against temptation. Confess and repent, and live in God's righteousness. You can break every vestige of darkness in this area and live in purity and power.

1. Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, unless otherwise noted. All links to online Scriptures are from the New International Version.
2. The author is indebted in the stage naming and development to an article by Dr. Victor B. Cline, "Healing Sexual and Pornography Addictions."
3. Babbage, Stuart Barton, Christianity and Sex (Downers-Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1963), p. 24,25.
4. Dr. Cline ecommends for further research his chapter, "Pornography Effects: Empirical and Clinical Evidence," in Media, Children and Family. (Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum Associates, 1994.
5. De. James McGough is cited in The Power of the Picture—How Pornography Harms by Dr. Jerry R. Kirk. (Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1992), 5,6.
6. For a detailed discussion on research relative to the impact of pornography see: The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, Chapter 18, "Social and Behavioral Science Research Analysis," (Nahsville: rutledge Hill Press, 1986), 246-290.

• Arnold, Heini. Freedom From Sinful Thoughts. New York: Plough Publishing House, 1973.
• Arnold, Johann Christoph. A Plea for Purity. Farmington, Pa.: Plough Publishing House, 1996.
• Babbage, Stuart Barton. Christianity and Sex. Downers-Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1963.
• Cline, Victor B. Media, Childre and Family.. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum Associates, 1994.
• Gallagher, Steve. Tearing Down the High Places of Sexual Idolatry. Crittenden, Ky.: Pure Life Press, 1986.
• Hall, Lauri. An Affair of the Mind. Colorado Springs: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1996.
• The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1986.