Bulletin Articles
HOW TO VIEW PORNOGRAPHY (part 2)
HOW TO VIEW PORNOGRAPHY (part 2)
(Note from Lanny: This is part two of the article from last week. The article was too large for one issue of the bulletin, so I divided it in half. Be sure to read last week’s article in order to have the full context.)
Rule #2: You’ll betray every relationship. The Industry Standard reports that 70% of porn traffic occurs between 9 and 5, when folks are supposedly on the job or in school. What kind of worker compromises his work and reputation for such tripe? How does he justify such willful and sinful neglect?
Furthermore, what kind of husband fills his mind with images of other women? And what wife would not suppose that he keeps himself “to her only” just because he lacks a willing partner or convenient opportunity for adultery? What man or woman would seek a spouse whose mind is polluted with thoughts of fornication? What son or daughter could reconcile a father’s moral teaching and love of family with the chance discovery of his lascivious double life?
What man would want a friend or neighbor who is in the habit of undressing other men’s wives or daughters in his imagination? What woman would befriend such a man? And once he’s discovered, who can easily trust such a person again?
Before you view pornography, be prepared to tell lies, to make excuses, to develop other contemptible habits, to neglect duties, to procrastinate, to hide bills, to delete e-mails and computer files, to shred credit card statements, to cover up at work and at home—in short—to betray every trust, break every truce, to risk your entire reputation, to compromise every relationship, to live a lie before men and God.
Rule #3: You’ll get cozy with hypocrisy. The pornography of our day doesn’t demand secret trips to the video store or subscriptions in brown paper wrappings. Cable television and the internet will pipe it into the home just like drinking water.
The devil makes it easy for those who drink from this cistern to live a double life with little fear of their hypocrisy being exposed once they’re practiced in deception. But don’t be fooled. Those who fill their belly with these waters drink before the living God who “judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).
Judas lived a double life and betrayed our Lord for thirty pieces of silver. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who feigns holiness, who pretends at purity, who secretly consorts with harlots and adulteresses? What reward does the kingdom hold for he who “tramples underfoot the Son of God” for such carnal pleasures (Heb. 10:29)? If you’re going to view pornography, get comfortable with being a pretender, and with earning the pretender’s price. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).
The hedonistic society of
Only God knows the fate of the righteous in such a land. Lot may have pitched his tent toward
--Jason Moore
