Challenge and Reflection: Inadequate

Here are some startling statistics from Harry Schaumburg's book Undefiled: Redemption from Sexual Sin, Restoration for Broken Relationships:

• $3,075.63 is spent on pornography every second around the world.
• Worldwide, at any given second, there are 28,258 people looking at pornography on the internet.
• In the United States alone, there is a new pornographic video created every 39 minutes.
• In 2006, the combined revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and EarthLink were nothing in comparison to the $97 billion revenues earned in the pornographic industry worldwide.
• The top four countries for pornographic spending are China, South Korea, Japan, and the United States.
• In 2006, out of the seventy-five million search requests for the word "sex," 50% were by men and the other 50% were by women.
• Out of the 13,982,729 searches for the keywords "teen sex," 44% were men and 56% were women.
• Out of the over thirteen million searches for the words "adult sex," only 36% were men and the remaining 64% were women.

These might be the most disturbing statistics of all:

• Twenty percent of those searching for "sex," "adult dating," "teen sex," and "adult sex" were children under the age of eighteen.
• Another twenty percent were young men and women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.
• There is data to substantiate that 90% of eight to sixteen-year-olds have viewed pornography online, with the age of eleven being the average age of a child's first Internet exposure to pornography.
• 80% of children between the ages of fifteen and seventeen have had multiple (i.e. more than one) exposures to hard-core pornography.

Terrifying, isn't it? Most of this data is now seven years old. With recent improvements in cell-phone technology allowing photos and videos to be taken almost anywhere at any time and shared instantly, these statistics are likely far worse today then they were in 2006.

Therefore, the challenge to my readers today is, What do you think the church is doing about this growing problem and what do you think the church should be doing about this problem?

Obviously, these statistics make any parent want to chuck their computer out of the top-story window of the highest building in town. Sadly, however, this isn't just a computer problem anymore. Grab the cell-phone, the TV, the game consoles, the iPads, the Kindles, and the neighbor kids' stuff too. Between the age of eight and sixteen, our children are very likely to view pornography online. That is not only completely shocking and eye-opening, but that should fuel a passionate fire in every parent's heart to start doing something about this problem.

I think it is also important to consider how the word pornography is defined within these statistics. These statistics are talking about hard-core pornography. These statistics do not include the number of culturally "acceptable" forms of pornography rampant in our media: lingerie commercials and ads, sex scenes in movies, Carl's Jr. commercials, sexual innuendos in most of today's television shows, and so much more. If we define pornography biblically, then we have to include all of these forms as well and the statistics have to rise from 90% to 100% realistically.

So, what are we doing about it? Not only as individuals but as a body of Christ?

Perhaps you are still trying to wrap your brain around just how serious this problem is becoming and you don't know how the church is going to be able to fight this battle in the political sphere along with gay marriage and abortion. Arguably, there are opportunities to try to pass stricter legislation to protect our children from "stumbling" upon pornographic websites online, and I think that the church should consider some avenues to take those opportunities seriously. However, right here and right now, the damage has already been done in most households with at least one child between the ages of eight and sixteen. It is not meant to be humorous, but pornography is like a Lays potato chip, you are not inclined to consume it just once.

For pastors, the face of those struggling with pornography in their congregations is changing. It is no longer the males between eighteen and thirty that they have to worry about. In certain categories, there are more women looking at pornography than men now. And as I have already emphasized, the ages of those struggling is getting younger and younger.

Schaumberg (2009) relates that the first time that he heard about sexting (taking nude photos with your cell-phone and texting it to someone) was when he spoke at a middle school in Mexico in 2008. Fast-forward five years, and sexting has become a problem at schools all around America. I imagine that every parent, pastor, and Sunday school teacher finds it hard to imagine talking to eight-year-olds about what the Bible teaches about pornography. How, exactly, do we go about that? A Sunday school class covering the biblical responsibility of using technology for God's glory, perhaps? Do we have to talk to our kids about sex at a much younger age than before? How is a responsible Christian parent supposed to respond to these alarming findings?

Here is another alarming statistic from Schaumberg's (2009) book:

• Various studies show that about half of Christians are dealing with some level of involvement with internet pornography (informal data included).

The skeptic in all of us raises his little flag in our brains and says, "Wait! It's probably not that bad. I want to know how the study was conducted, if the sample was randomly generated, etc., etc., etc." True, it might not be about half. It might be less. Then again, it might realistically be more. However, I challenge every Christian reading this to consider this: even if 10% of Christians are dealing with some level of involvement with internet pornography, does it make the problem any less of a problem? If less than ten percent of your body was infected with cancer, would you wait until the cancer grew much larger before you started to address the fact that there is a problem and it is only going to get worse? We're not talking about just any body being infected, either. We're talking about the body of Christ, here.

I've been to a fair share of churches in my lifetime and heard a fair share of pastors and speakers. I've only attended with three separate congregations regularly. As I've related in my previous blogs, one of these was part of the Evangelical Free Church and the other two are part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. I can count the number of sermons that addressed the sin of pornography and Christ's sufficiency to overcome them on one hand. Maybe even two fingers. Sure, sexual immorality is alluded to a lot, but it is often a fleeting departure from the main message of the sermon. Sexual immorality, despite playing an influential role in today's society and the future of the church, hardly ever gets any "air-time" from behind the pulpit.

Having struggled with pornography since I was a young teen, I was twenty three when I heard the first sermon that specifically addressed the sin of pornography in the life of a Christian. I felt like my pastor was staring at me throughout the whole sermon. A couple of years had passed since I shattered the DVD of pornographic files that I kept hidden in my room. A lot had changed in my life. Pornography was not as tempting as it once was, but there were still times when I would fall to temptation. At the time of the sermon, I was only months away from marrying my fiancé. The sermon was a breath of fresh air!

My pastor preached from Colossians 3:5, and it was one of those sermons that caused me to walk straight up to my pastor after the sermon and say, "Thanks, that was exactly what I needed to hear." Although there are numerous passages that are appropriate texts to preach on concerning sexual immorality in the life of a Christian, Colossians 3 has always stuck out to me. The sins are clearly spelled out, the judgment for those sins is pungently outlined, and God's grace and Christ's death is freely given and perfectly sufficient for those who once walked in these sins but are now seeking to put them to death with the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. (You can listen to the sermon here)

In verses nine and ten, Paul writes, "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator." The Greek word Paul uses for "lie" refers to trying to deceive or cheat by falsehood. This is the same word used in verses three and four of Acts 5, when Peter confronts Ananias for only bringing a portion of his proceeds from selling his property when he claimed it was all of the proceeds. Furthermore, this is the same word used in 1 John 1:6, where John writes, "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." Therefore, it would appear that Paul is telling the Colossians, "Do not act like you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self when you are still living in these sins." Such deceitfulness is clearly a form of lying to one another. According to some studies, half of the church is lying to the other half about who they are. I think there is a problem here. What do you think?

For pastors, pornography remains a faceless issue in their congregations. Most pastors have to only assume that a large portion of their congregation is struggling with pornography in secret. Apart from a few brave souls that confide in their pastors and elders about their struggles with pornography, most of those in any given congregation with a pornography problem decide to keep their struggle a secret. Not only do their pastors not know, but their wives often don't know either (although both pastors and wives might be suspicious).

Pornography is a sinful struggle that most Christians try their best to sweep under the rug rather than seek the spiritual guidance they need and often desire. Pornography is a sin that requires discipline to overcome. And no, self-discipline is not effective.

Although I destroyed that DVD of pornography in my room, the fight was far from over. There was only so much that I could do on my own (self-discipline) to mortify my sinful propensity for pornography. In 2008, I confided in my pastor that I had been struggling with pornography since eighth grade. Half a year before my pastor preached on Col. 3:5 in April of 2010, I was asked by one of the elders at my church to share my testimony at a youth gathering. There, I shared my struggles with pornography with most of my peers at church. I told my future wife about my struggles shortly after asking if she would be interested in "dating" me. She encouraged me to confess my sins to my parents, and I felt it was necessary to ask for my grandmother's forgiveness for indulging in pornography while under her roof. Honestly, "coming out" (as it were) to my parents, my grandma, my pastor, my elders, and my friends was by far one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. As hard as it was, though, it was a necessary step towards the road of mortification. As long as you keep pornography and sexual immorality a secret between you and God, you will get nowhere in your mortification of those sins. Pornography is not a self-help issue that you can work your way out of it. Recovery and true repentance is only going to come by the grace of God, and that grace will be evidenced in accountability and discipline from those who know what you are dealing with, are constantly trying to help you guard your heart, and repeatedly remind you to put off the old man and put on the new man in Christ.

I challenge every reader, if you know someone who has a history of struggling with pornography because they confided in you, you need to hold them accountable. Accountability makes all the difference in the world for someone struggling with pornography. It might sound crazy to you, but they're dying for someone to ask them, "Is pornography a sin in your life right now?" Ask them every now and then. They confided in you for a reason. They want someone to hold them accountable. They didn't confide in you once just because they had to get it off of their chest. It was a cry for help! They're fighting a losing battle, and they are so desperate to overcome this sin in their life that they went way out on a limb and told you what kind of person they really are. They don't want your sympathy, they don't want you to accept them for who they are, but they want someone who is going to come along beside them, look them straight in the eyes (not down upon them), and consistently encourage them to look to Christ and their life hidden in Him in order to mortify this sin in their life.

Whatever you do, don't let them fall off the radar. They could go years without any problems whatsoever, and then something comes along, triggers temptation again, and they can relapse into a struggle with pornography. If you have "come out" once, and everyone you told helped hold you accountable and rejoiced in your progress, you don't want to "come out" again a few years down the road. I know, because I have been there and done that. As the one struggling, you cannot help but wonder how many times you'll have to "come out" before someone takes your problem serious enough to make a point of holding you accountable regularly. Unfortunately, pornography is not a sin that is mortified after two months of sexual sobriety. You could be porn free for months, and then something comes up out of nowhere and you are tempted to go back down a deadly road of sinfulness.  

Sexual immorality is not immune to the grace of God. The whole armor of God is sufficient to defend against and mortify sexual immorality, too. Struggling with pornography can often feel like a losing battle, and you will never gain the upper-ground if you try to fight the battle on your own. It's readily accepted that when Paul wrote about the whole armor of God, he was envisioning a Roman Legionnaire's armor. "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one" (Eph. 6:16). This most likely refers to when Roman Legions would band together as a group, shielding themselves by joining their shields into one giant shield, to make themselves  practically immune to volleys of arrows from an enemy. Take up the shield of faith, but more than that, stay in formation. You are part of a body, and when you suffer you cause the whole body to suffer with you (1 Cor. 12:26). You cannot fight this battle alone. You have to rely upon the faith of your fellow brothers and sisters, the added protection that their faith lends, by confiding in them that you are struggling with pornography and you need their help. Tell your parents. Tell your friends. Most importantly, tell your pastor. You will feel extraordinarily vulnerable, but you must decrease so that Christ may increase. Set aside your pride and your façade, and look for the helping hands of others who will remind you that your sins are not indestructible, and God's grace is sufficient for their mortification.

Pastors look at the statistics given above, and they cannot help but wonder how many men, women, and children in their congregation are struggling with pornography. It is a face-less problem, but it does not have to be. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 teaches us that, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." The difficult problems that the church often deals with are due to a lack of preaching on the difficult texts that God breathed out in Scripture.

I am sure that no pastor really wants to stand in front of their congregation and preach a sermon about sexual sins. It's uncomfortable and some pastors may even be struggling with some of the sins that they are preaching about. Pastors, you cannot continue to gloss over the numerous passages in Scripture that address sexual immorality. They're there for a reason. They're as numerous as they are in both the Old and New Testaments for a reason. Sexual immorality has been and will continue to be a huge problem that the church must combat. It must be addressed at the front-line, from behind the pulpit, rather than the field hospitals behind the lines, in counseling sessions and session meetings. The church is stuck playing clean up right now because the damage has already been done, and I honestly do not see much, if anything, being done in the church to prevent further damage from occurring at its increasing rate. Those in your congregations struggling with pornography are not going to be convicted of their sin, desire to repent and return to Christ, and seek to mortify the deeds of the flesh because you glossed over a passage about sexual immorality. You must preach harshly because God's Word is harsh on the subject. There is no room, whatsoever, for sexual immorality in the life of a Christian and there is no room, whatsoever, for sexually immoral brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living." Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities."
(Revelation 18:1-5)

Perhaps the great reformation and revival that the church needs today is a departure from Babylon the great. She has fallen, and God's people need to come out of her lest they continue to take part in her sins heaped as high as the heavens. There is a scary picture painted for us in these verses. The people of Babylon the great are building a new Tower of Babel, but rather than building stones that reach to the heavens, they are heaping sins one on top of another reaching to the heavens. Imagine reaching the heavens by standing upon a heap of sins!

I focus primarily upon the problems of sexual immorality prevalent within the church, but I am just as concerned about the church's witness to a culture saturated in sexual immorality. With each new generation, fewer and fewer people believe that there is anything remotely wrong with pornography. It's just another way for people to express themselves. It's not sin to modern culture, but an artistic expression of human love and passion. What is the church, domestic and universal, doing to counter this growing acceptation of the perfectly harmless nature of pornography? Sadly, we can answer with all the vibrato we want, but we have too much of an internal problem with pornography to claim, with any sincerity, that we are worried about the external problem taking place in the world today. People are going to do whatever people want to do in the privacy of their homes. Yes, they will. But is the church conveying the severity of the sinful act that is taking place in over 28,000 homes at any given second? The church must make a more concerted effort to not only preach about the sinfulness of pornography but also make an effort to reach out to the millions of people who worship the images and life-styles that they view in pornographic videos and pictures, and the church must share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth."
(Revelation 18:21-24)

"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. "Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!"
(Matthew 18:5-7)

Is it a coincidence that Babylon the great city will be thrown down with violence like a great millstone thrown into the sea and Jesus warns His disciples that whoever causes a child who believes in Him to sin would be better off having a great millstone fastened around their neck and drowned in the depth of the sea?

90% of children today between the ages of eight and sixteen have been exposed to sexual immorality via pornography! 80% of children between fifteen and seventeen have had multiple exposures to hard-core pornography. We cannot assume that these are accidental exposures. Children as young as eight might be tempted by curiosity to find pornographic images on the internet, and they will not have to try very hard at all. Christ's little ones are more exposed to sexual immorality and the temptation to sin sexually via pornography's proliferation on the internet today than ever before. Pornography is literally one click away. Are Christians doing what they can to address this issue? Is this a priority in the church as a whole? Is this a priority in your church? Is this a priority in your household?

Christians, we can no longer live in the midst of a city that has heaped their sins (ours included) up to the heavens. We must depart, and we must depart now! We cannot take part in the sins and plagues of a city where the blood of prophets and of saints is found. Babylon wishes to consume us as Christians, and it is time we mortify sexual immorality in our lives as individuals and as a church. On account of these, the wrath of God is surely coming. Are we prepared? I don't think we are ready.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
(Colossians 3:2-10)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:16-17)

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people--not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."
(1 Corinthians 5:6-13)

Sadly, how many would be left in the pews?

I close with a quote from Carl Trueman's blog "Pornography: The New Normal" (Aug. 6, 2013) on Reformation21.org:

"Internet pornography is probably the number one pastoral problem in the world today (emphasis added).  I wonder if it is set to become yet more so: as the social shame dimension passes away, it will be harder to maintain discipline on this issue.  The Christian church is currently mesmerized by developments relative to sexuality, not least because these development are couched in the rhetoric of civil rights and have serious legal implications. I wonder if a more serious and lethal internal issue for the church will actually turn out to be pornography.   Holding the line on this will probably not come with direct legal and financial penalties attached; but when even The Spectator carries not one but two articles in a single week which assume the harmless normality of porn consumption, the pastoral challenge of preaching and maintaining basic sexual purity in the church is set to escalate beyond our wildest nightmares."
  

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