Pornography: The Secret Assassin

Sin is most powerful in the darkness. Sin’s power to operate in secret has destroyed many followers of Jesus. Open sin can be confronted, rebuked, challenged and repented. Secret sin eats away like acid on skin. Jesus warned us the most dangerous things to us come from inside ourselves (Matthew 15:16-20).

Sin is most powerful when secret

Sin is most powerful when unknown, and few sins among Christians are more destructive in secret than pornography. In Bible Studies for Life, Chip Ingram writes, “13 percent of all web searches are related to erotic content [and] almost 9 out of 10 young men (85 percent) and almost half of young women (48 percent) report viewing pornography.”¹

More troubling than the overall data is that related to followers of Jesus: 50 percent of men and 20 percent of Christian women regularly view pornography. Too many from the body of Christ are being eaten up from the inside by this secret sin. Marriages are suffering. Husbands do not love their wives as they should. Wives are looking for pleasure apart from their husbands. Single adults are allowing pornography to substitute for actual relationships rather than remaining mentally pure. Seven of 10 teens have accidentally been exposed to pornography online.² This exposure could permanently affect their ability to have deep relationships. It could torpedo marriages before the “I do’s” are even spoken.

Pornography wounds not just you, but others

As bad as those things are, pornography does not only affect the person consuming it. Pornography is “like shrapnel [which] will damage and wound those around us.”³

The Old Testament hero of the faith, Job, recognized the need for purity saying, “I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I look at a young woman?”⁴ The Apostle Paul instructed us, “For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God.”⁵

Mental and physical sexual purity are required by God. Physical impurity is always preceded by mental sin.

Pornography can be overcome

Victory over pornographic use or pornographic addiction should begin with the spiritual root. All sin is a result of wanting selfish desires rather than God’s desires. Sin is a not merely an unwise choice or unhealthy decision. Sin is the replacement of God’s authority with our own. This is why all sin, including the viewing of pornography, must be repented.

Followers of Jesus must use the word of God to combat the temptation to indulge in viewing pornography. The power of God’s Word is the power to overcome sin, any sin. Reading it, meditating on it, memorizing it, and internalizing it lead to victory over sin. The work of the Spirit in the power of the Word is the power Jesus’ followers need to overcome temptation.

He has not left his people defenseless against sin and temptation. The allure of pornography and the damage that comes from it can be overcome in the power of God’s Word.

Saturate your life in every way with God’s Word. Be filled with the Spirit at all times. The Word and the Spirit together will lead you to overcome pornography.

Yours for the Great Commission,

Ronnie W. Floyd

Senior Pastor, Cross Church
General Editor, Bible Studies for Life
President, Southern Baptist Convention

¹– Bibles Studies for Life, Ready, Chip Ingram quoting “Pornography Statistics” (2014 edition), [cited 13 May 2014]. Available at www.covenanteyes.com.
²– Ibid.
³– Ibid.
⁴– Job 31:1 (HCSB)
⁵– 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 (HCSB)