Bulletin Articles
HOW TO VIEW PORNOGRAPHY (part 1)
HOW TO VIEW PORNOGRAPHY (part 1)
(Note from Lanny: I’ve had this excellent article in my files for several years. I decided it would make a nice companion to my sermon today on the timely topic of pornography. The only problem is, it was too big to appear on a single issue. For this reason, I have divided it in half. The first part will run today, and the rest next week.)
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.”
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).
--Jason Moore
