A Raging Fire
Acclaimed pastor and author Tony Evans has noted, "A fire in the fireplace is warm and delightful. But if that fire gets out of the fireplace, it can burn the house down. . .The fireofsex is meant for the fireplace of marriage. Once it leaves there, someone is going to get burned."
Men and women who are addicted to pornography can readily attest to the truth of Evans' statement. Pornography - anonymous visual or verbal communication intended for sexual excitement - is a classic case of what happens when God's gift of sex gets "out of the fireplace."
America's - and the Church's - problem with pornography is difficult to overstate. In the United States, it's a $13 billion industry - that's bigger than the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and Major League Baseball combined!
Long gone are the days when viewing pornography required a late-night drive to the seedy side of town. Pornographers may be evil, but they're also shrewdly entrepreneurial and technologically savvy.
Today most of their sales take place electronically. Porn can be purchased in the privacy of one's own home, while children play or sleep in the next room. One especially tragic result of this availability has been the increasing numbers of clergy who report addiction to pornography. And increasingly, consumers of pornography don't even need a computer and an Internet connection! One of the most booming segments of the industry is sexually explicit material created and delivered exclusively to mobile phones. Porn by phone was a hugely profitable business long before "sexting" - the trend among young people to send nude and semi-nude pictures to each other - ever generated a headline.
The nature of pornographic material also has changed dramatically in recent years. Pornography is no longer just photographs of nude women; yesteryear's "nudie mags" seem almost quaint in comparison to what the market produces today. Pornography increasingly depicts violent, degrading sexual acts. Perhaps chief among the evils of this industry, it numbs its audience to the horrors of violence, especially violence against women and children.

Back to Basics
If you want to know how so many people can become addicted to pornography, you have only to go to the book of Genesis. Like Adam and Eve, we always want what we're told we can't have:
"And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate" (Genesis 3:2-6, ESV).

Left to our fallen nature, we'll give in to temptation, just as Adam and Eve did. Pornographers depend on that weakness, and they are getting rich by shamelessly exploiting that weakness.

In researching programs for "Breakthrough" we were astonished to learn that pornography isn't just the world's problem - it's the Church's as well. The high-profile cases you may have read about influential ministry leaders who have been struck down by this epidemic of indecency are typical but not isolated. In fact, surveys show that 50 percent of Christian men are battling against the prurient attractions of pornography, and more than 30 percent of Christian women have intentionally accessed it on the Internet.

Marching Orders for Activists - Enforce the Law!
Pornographers routinely claim the protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when they attempt to justify this evil industry, as though the framers fought and risked their lives for the right of publishers and producers to sell smut. But the law actually sides with those who fight to keep it out of their communities.
A 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case, Miller v. California, declared material obscene if three conditions exist:

1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interests.
2. The work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state (or federal) law.
3. The work taken as a whole lacks serious artistic, political or scientific value.

So adult, hard-core and child pornography is not "protected speech." Yet it is freely available in print, video and online forms. Child pornography illegally depicts children less than 18 years of age engaged in sexual conduct. Yet attempts to regulate the distribution of these materials over the Internet has been consistently thwarted in recent years, both in Congress and because of the rulings of judges who have ignored the precedent of Miller.

As long as Christians and others who are concerned about this country's moral climate do nothing, pornographers will continue to sell their wares. And politicians will continue to lack the will to do anything about it.

Pornography is most effectively battled in individual communities, by concerned Christians who take up the fight. Often, porn shops close just because local officials are beseeched to enforce laws already on the books.

If you are concerned about pornography, you can also:

1. Set an appropriate example. So we should not expose ourselves or our children to inappropriate sexual themes. That means choosing wisely the TV shows, movies, music and printed material we allow in our homes.
2. Install software on your home computer to block pornographic materials. Some of the options available for Christian families include True Vine, WiseChoice.net, Hedgebuilders and SafeEyes.
3. Protest retail shops that sell pornography. Become a source of bad publicity for business people who choose to profit from obscenity.
4. Hold law-enforcement bodies accountable for enforcing the law - at the local, state and federal level. Write to elected officials to express your concern.
5. Pray for your family and your community, that they would have the will to resist all forms of sexual immorality. Pray also that God would change the hearts and minds of those who participate in this illicit industry, and that they would seek to reverse the harm that their business is causing to our culture.

Hope for the Addicted

The apostle Paul wrote, "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:18-20, NKJV).

The Bible clearly tells Christians to have nothing to do with sexual immorality of any type, and pornography certainly qualifies. Like Joseph when confronted with Potiphar's wife, we're to make ourselves scarce as quickly as possible! It's sheer folly to presume upon God, perhaps out of a misplaced sense of pride, that we can gain the victory through our super-spiritual powers of resistance.
We're in complete agreement with Pastor John MacArthur, who has said regarding these verses, "Sexual sin destroys a person because it diametrically opposes everything God intended for the body of a Christian." If you've defiled the temple of the Holy Spirit, however, rest assured that it doesn't have to stay that way.

Pornography is a crippling sin because it involves an escape from reality and relationships - so it makes sense that a return to reality and relationships comprise the way back to wholeness.

Reality in this case involves the words of the verse above - we are not our own, but rather were bought with a price. You are a temple, and a temple was made for worship! What you worship is critical; God will make you a living example of His character if you let Him, regardless of how much time and how much money you've spent at the altar of anonymous sexual gratification.

Returning to human relationships, instead of the anonymous encounters with false ideals typical of pornography, is another essential way to be restored from the sin of pornography. The apostle James counsels us to "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working" (James 5:16, ESV). Of course we are to repent of sins before God, but often a trusted friend - lay or clergy - can be especially helpful in confidentially confronting our failures and accompanying us to the throne of grace.
Be encouraged! We serve a God of second chances. Sins are forgiven and lives are re-directed to holiness at the Cross, and because of the Cross.

Here's Help

For more information about pornography and how you can deal with it from wherever you are, check out these links:

1. Pure Life Ministries - A ministry focused on recovery from pornography addiction for men and couples.This site also includes information about Jeff & Rose Colon's book "From Ashes to Beauty," which was featured on Breakthrough.
2. XXX Church- a ministry devoted to helping Christians addicted to pornography as well as reaching those in the pornography industry for Christ such as Donny Pauling who shared his testimony on Breakthrough.
3. Pat Trueman - The former chief prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, who was interviewed on Breakthrough, shares his efforts to help communities remove pornography from their neighborhoods.