Inadequate

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"All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace." (The Westminster Confession of Faith, On effectual calling)

"I had been extremely miserable in adolescence, miserable from its very onset, and as I prayed to you for the gift of chastity I had even pleaded, 'Grant me chastity and self-control, but please not yet.' I was afraid that you might hear me immediately and heal me forthwith of the morbid lust which I was more anxious to satisfy than to snuff out. So I had wandered off into the crooked paths of a sacrilegious superstition, not because I had any certainty about it but because I preferred it to other beliefs--not that I was investigating these in any spirit of reverence: rather was I opposing them with malicious intent.

"I had been telling myself that my reason for putting off duty day after day the decision to renounce worldly ambition and follow you alone was that I could as yet see no certain light by which to steer my course. But the day had dawned when I was stripped naked in my own eyes and my conscience challenged me within: 'Where is your ready tongue now? You have been professing yourself reluctant to throw off your load of illusion because truth was uncertain. Well, it is certain now, yet the burden still weighs you down, while other people are given wings on freer shoulders, people who have not worn themselves out with research, nor spent a decade and more reflecting on these questions.'" (Augustine, The Confessions, translated by Maria Boulding, 1997)

"And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, 'So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.' Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, 'My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.'" (Matthew 26:40-42, ESV)

My eyes had been opened in China. For more than two weeks I was forced to understand a larger worldview than I had adopted throughout my youth. The world was much larger than the bubble that I chose to live in. The Christian faith was larger than I ever imagined. The question of persecution forced me to consider what I believed and why I believed it. I left for China as an American dead in his sins, and I returned to America as a Christian alive in Christ. Shortly after my trip to China, I felt the cost of faith in Christ. In retrospect it was a small wound compared to the war to ensue in my life, but it was a painful cut, nevertheless, as one of my best friends rejected me because of my outspoken stance on abortion.

One hour of my newfound spiritual life in Christ passed by before I quickly fell into a spiritual coma. Returning to the daily grind, I fell back into my comfortable routine of work and slumber. It did not take long for my propensity for pornography to settle once more into my dreary life devoid of the love and companionship of the lady I sought. Unlike Peter and the disciples, I was not taking a momentary nap. I was lapsing back into a lifestyle that Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice to save me from. He drank the cup of the Father's wrath to the dregs to save me from this death-style, and I found myself entering into temptation time after time.

One of my favorite songs growing up was Switchfoot's "Something More (Augustine's Confession)". This was my only exposure to a man who knew exactly what I was going through over a millennium before. Sadly, I never listened to the words of the song and for some very strange reason I thought the song was about a slumbering dragon. If only I knew I wasn't the only one living a new life seeking chastity, but not just yet.

I had always felt that my propensity for pornography was bad, but everything was different now. I despised my seeming inability to thwart the temptation to view pornography not because it did not consist with my claim to be a Christian but because I hated its power over me. It was sin. It was filthy. It was destructive. It was killing me slowly and softly. It was separating me from my Lord and Savior. It was disobedience against my gracious and loving Father. My struggle with the sins in my life changed drastically. Before, I was only scared of being caught. Now, I knew that I was not sinning in secret and I hated my desire to view pornography because each moment I spent in sin was another moment I spent running away from my Heavenly Father who was calling out to me, "My grace is sufficient! My only begotten Son's sacrifice is sufficient to take away your sins!"

The Westminster Confession of Faith explains that those whom God effectually calls, "come most willing, being made willing by His grace." My experience might seem to oppose this claim, but let me reassure that I was more than willing to enter into the gracious embrace of my Heavenly Father through the reconciliation afforded by Christ's death on the cross and the Holy Spirit's work uniting me to Christ by faith. Conversion, however, is not a seamless process. Much like Israel's doubts shortly after leaving Egypt and their mad desire to return once again into slavery, I too had been freed from sin but parts of me desired to return back to slavery; parts of me, sadly, that were stronger than my will to walk upon this newfound, narrow path I had been placed upon by God's grace.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Consider these words of Christ and contrast them with this statement, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is unwilling." I felt like I was caught in the middle of a civil war between my flesh and my spirit. My flesh loved the "high" I received from setting my senses upon pornography, but my spirit despised it. I would go from a fleshy high to a spiritual depression. I appeased the flesh by entering into temptation repeatedly, and once my flesh was appeased my spirit was downcast and severely wounded. Jesus' words to His disciples, however, must be understood correctly. For it would easily appear that Jesus is telling His disciples that their flesh is pitted against their spirits, but that is not what Jesus is saying. Jesus tells His disciples that their willing spirits are impeded by their weak flesh. The flesh does not work against the spirit, but rather it is a weighty burden that the spirit must wrestle with in the believer's mortification of sin in their lives.

Unfortunately, those who struggle with pornography before the gift of saving faith is bestowed upon them will struggle with pornography while they are being conformed into the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit. That is not to say that the struggle will be a losing struggle, but rather that there will be a constant struggle against the desires of the flesh until the day of peace comes. The temptation to view pornography might not be as strong and as persistent as it once was, but it will nevertheless remain a constant crux in the life of a Christian who made a habit of it before their walk with the Lord. Their willing spirits will always suffer from a weak flesh that grows weightier when the temptation to indulge in something that is physically pleasurable but terribly sinful presents itself.

Augustine's prayer strikes a chord with many young Christian men who struggle with licentiousness in their lives: Grant me chastity and self-control, but please not yet. It should come as no surprise that after Paul lists several sexual sins in his epistle to the Colossians to be put to death in the life of a Christian, he ends the list with, "which is idolatry" (Col. 3:5). Sexual sins are tantamount to idolatry. Our sexual desires and their fulfillment easily become an idol that we worship with greater propensity than we do the one, true, living God. Making the situation worse, it is seemingly much easier and more fulfilling to worship the idols of our sexual desires than our gracious God who desires obedience; obedience that even outlaws our sinful sexual desires.

I loved pornography. It was the closest I had ever gotten to feeling like I was in love. It tricked my brain into feeling loved and wanted. It tricked my brain into thinking that I had companionship and that I was no longer all alone. Whenever I was depressed because of my lack of belonging and acceptation, I just needed to push some buttons and all of my problems were solved. I could live my miserable life swamped in self-consciousness, self-pity, and self-worship without the destructive side-effects of depression and suicidal thoughts. Pornography was not the end, but rather, it was always a means to an end. It fed the fantasy that I had created, it sustained it, and it restricted the destructive side-effects of self-worship (not withstanding destructive side-effects of its own).

The people on the other side of the screen invited me to watch their most intimate moments. They seemed to want me there, and they even seemed to need me there. Pornography was more than a habit for me. It was a reliable friend. It was a distraction. It was an endorphin factory. It gave me the euphoria I needed to block my spiritual depravity. It became a learned behavior. I could either be depressed or I could tap into my medicine via the world-wide-web. I could either deal with stress in a healthy manner, or I could get a quick fix of pornography to take the edge off. It was a learned addiction. It was a bad habit that progressively became more prominent and useful as I learned that it was effective for what I needed it for. It's not a disease. No bacteria, virus, or alien substance caused me to do these things. Rather, I just found a way to use my own body to provide a euphoric high that relieved stress, overcame depression, and fulfilled my emotional desire for companionship. I was addicted because I wanted to be.

However, after I returned from China as a new man in Christ, the one thing that seemed to fix my problems seemed to be causing more problems than it was fixing. I used pornography to gain a sense of worth, love, and companionship. In Christ, I no longer needed pornography to feel worthy, loved, and a sense of companionship. In Christ, I had an undeniable relationship with my Lord, Savior, Creator, and God. He knew my name! He stopped at no length to know me; He even gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross that I might be reconciled and united to Him. Pornography no longer created feelings of worth, love, and companionship, but, rather, it impeded these feelings and created feelings of distress, betrayal, and great sorrow.

A destructive chain reaction ensued. I used pornography to overcome stress, but this fall to temptation caused me to feel more and more unworthy of my newfound, loving relationship with God. I felt like I had just been given pardon for unpardonable transgressions and then turned around and stabbed Him who became a ransom in my place in the back...repeatedly. This caused great depression and distress in my life, and despite my struggle, often my willing spirit was impeded by the dead-weight of my weak flesh that only knew one remedy for these destructive feelings. A vicious cycle ensued. Although it was pornography that I hated and detested, I constantly turned to it to overcome my spiritual woe of betraying the precious blood that was spilt to cleanse me of pornography's inky stain.

I tried prayer, I tried reading the Word, and I tried fasting. The means of grace were effective, but not instantly. If I was deeply distressed about something, I would first seek to pray to the Lord and seek His comfort and wisdom. I passionately searched the Scriptures and meditated upon them and how I could apply them to my circumstances. I even went days without eating, waiting for all my "faithfulness" to take effect. Constantly, like a demon in my mind, there was an insidious voice that told me that with a few clicks of my mouse the pain could all be gone. Days would go by where I fought off temptation, but eventually I would crumble. My spiritual will broke under the weight of my flesh's dead-weight to fight this battle with sin in my life. I fell, and although the pornography worked momentarily, it caused a much deeper trough than it provided a high. This process kept going, the problem of pornography in my life growing exponentially worse as I turned to it rather than my Heavenly Father to overcome my need to overcome pornography's grasp on my life.

Where was God in all of this? Didn't you feel quickly abandoned by God's great love as you struggled with sin in your life? You might wonder how I could think that God was with me, that He still loved me, and upheld me through this darkest of times in my life. I never doubted His love for me and the power of His sanctifying Spirit in my life. I never felt like God was sitting idly in the other room, just waiting for me to pick myself up and open the door to let Him in. No, I always felt His presence throughout every fall; feeling Him hold me by the arm telling me, "My grace is sufficient, Matthew. My power is made perfect in weakness, Matthew. I'm not letting you go, but I will raise you to your feet and I will bear your burden lest you be destroyed." The only reason I survived my spiritual rehab was because God was by my side every step of the way, working in me that which is pleasing in His sight.

Throughout my struggle with pornography as a young convert, another desire in my life played an important role in my early Christian walk. For most of my life, I had just accepted the tenants of the Christian faith without question. It was truth because it was what I had been taught. However, after returning from China, I had a great desire to search the Scriptures and develop a defense for my faith. I find it no coincidence that Augustine follows his struggle with overcoming the sexual sins that plagued his newfound life in Christ with the recounting of his search and desire to know the truth. As he recounts, "I had been telling myself that my reason for putting off duty day after day the decision to renounce worldly ambition and follow you alone was that I could as yet see no certain light by which to steer my course."

As a Christian convert at an older age, I can testify that we know truth before we find the truth we are seeking. Jesus says that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). As converts, we know the truth (Jesus) before we know how that truth affects our entire lives. Apart from the truth, we have no access to the Father. Jesus is the skeleton key, as it were, to unlock every answer we ever questioned throughout our lives. Jesus as truth unlocks myriads of mysteries that baffled and burdened us before our eyes were opened to see the glory of our sovereign Father. In Christ, our darkened eyes are given sight to gaze upon the bright glory of God. Much like a blind man receiving sight for the first time, an insatiable desire to see everything clearly comes hand in hand with having been spiritually blind but now seeing everything with the light of Jesus Christ illuminating our heavenly sighted eyes.

I did not have much money set aside in my savings account at the time, but every penny I had to spare was spent buying books. I had spent my whole life estranged from my Creator, my redeemer, my Lord, my loving and gracious God, my helper and comforter, and I wanted to know Him desperately. I dived into the depths of Scripture, and the shroud had been lifted. How could I have missed this before? My efforts as a young teen to know God through the Law without Christ were futile, but the work of the Holy Spirit was evident in my ability to now see Christ promised throughout all of Scripture to save us from our inability to be righteous by our works of obedience to the Law.

My parents bought me John Calvin's complete commentary on the Scriptures for my birthday, and I decided to start in Genesis. Seeing Jesus Christ throughout Genesis was eye opening. I quickly consumed J.C. Ryle's expository thoughts on Matthew. I grabbed John Calvin's Institutes at a local bookstore and flew through it as if it were light reading. I desperately desired to know more about my Heavenly Father, my Lord and Savior, and the Holy Spirit that dwelt within me. It was not an insatiable desire for knowledge that I possessed, but an insatiable desire to know my God so that I might love and serve Him more and as He desires.

My cramped bedroom at my grandma's house quickly got crammed with volumes of books about Scripture. John Calvin, J.C. Ryle, John Owen, A.W. Pink, G.K. Beale, Charles Spurgeon and many others were scattered throughout my room. My savings account quickly depleted, and I developed a savings plan to supplement my book-buying fever. I always was a book-buyer, preferring a bookstore over any other store hands down. However, I had never experienced such an overwhelming interest in one subject. I had no desire to read anything unless it pertained to Scripture and God as He reveals Himself therein. I juggled more books than I ever had before. I would read Genesis, Calvin's commentary, Matthew, Ryle's commentary, an article by Pink, followed by a sermon by Spurgeon. All of this reading quenched a thirst I had to know Christ and Him crucified, it quickened me to be in prayer to my gracious Heavenly Father, and it over-powered my desire to turn to pornography to bring me peace from my woes.

My growing library was representative of a change taking place in my life. This wasn't just a phase that I was going through. This was a sign that something had drastically changed in my life. My desire to know more about God as He reveals Himself in Scripture was nothing in comparison to my love for God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For the first time in my teenage life, I felt loved. I felt wanted. I felt worthy. I felt forgiven. I felt free. I felt redeemed.

The books offered a distraction from my desire to overcome distress and spells of loneliness with pornography. My tendencies to fall to temptation were fewer and further apart. It was evident to me that God was perfecting a work in my heart, day by day. It was apparent to me that God heard my prayers and was answering them according to His will. My faith was increasing, and with it my spirit was strengthening. My flesh too was being transformed. My flesh, along with my spirit, was being sanctified. It was no longer exposed to the defilements that it once was, and I felt a greater and greater desire to honor God with my body.

I believe it was a Saturday, an especially dreary Saturday. It was cold outside. The holiday season had erupted, and the week before I had put my interest in a girl at work out on the table only to have it kindly dismissed. I was feeling more vulnerable than ever before and the holiday season made me more susceptible to feelings of loneliness and depression. Grandma was spending the day away, and I was home alone. I had no desire to leave the house, and I had no desire to spend time with anyone. I just wanted to spend the day alone, reading, writing, playing the piano, listening to music, and watching television.

The early afternoon arrived faster than usual, and the sky outside seemed to get darker than usual during the midday. I had spent the whole day self-loathing, but I had escaped from many temptations to look at pornography already by reading Calvin's Institutes. Out of nowhere, I was overcome with an uncharacteristically strong desire to hop on my computer and load some pornography saved on a DVD in my room. I felt overcome with weakness. It felt as if my spirit was trying to traverse over a deep cavern on a very narrow path with a fleshy burden dangling over the edge. All of a sudden, the fleshy burden became ten times heavier than ever before. I felt myself starting to slip off of the narrow path, about to fall headlong into the abyss.

I didn't try to shrug the temptation off this time. I knew I had to mortify the sin in my life. Mortification is not an ignoring of sin but a putting of it to death. I grabbed my sword, opening the Psalms. I cannot recall which Psalm I read, but it was providentially appropriate to my circumstances (something that will happen again at another turning point in my life later on). I found myself praying on my knees. Before I knew it, I found myself prostrate on the floor, begging my Holy God to help me overcome the temptation to look at pornography and to rely upon His strength rather than my own. I was literally trembling as I felt my strength begin to dwindle. My willing spirit could no longer carry the burden of the weak flesh drawing it off of the narrow path.

I found myself grabbing the DVD with pornography saved on it. Tears began to swell in my eyes, as I literally began to sob uncontrollably. I fell to my knees, and what happened next will stay with me to the day that I die. I took that DVD full of pornography in my hands, I bent it in half, and it shattered into a million pieces throughout my room. There was nothing left of it but miniscule particles scattered on my bedroom floor and furniture. As the DVD lay scattered throughout the whole room, I felt a great burden lifted off of my shoulders. Sometimes you have one of those out-of-body-experiences, where you feel like you're watching your actions being orchestrated for you rather than performing them on your own. You don't feel like a puppet, but rather, you feel like you're drowning and somebody grabs your legs and kicks them for you to keep your head above the overpowering waves.

I wish that was the end of pornography's burden on my walk with the Lord. It was certainly a turning point in my mortification of pornography's power in my life, but it was not the destruction of my desire to view pornography. Despite pornography's continual temptation, I always have that memory to remind me that every temptation can be overcome through prayer and reading God's Word. I saw my shackles to sin disintegrate before my very eyes. Many a day since that Saturday I have recalled that sight as I sense being overcome by temptation. I didn't just see my shackles to sin disintegrate but I also saw my sinful idol crushed before my eyes into a million pieces. Although it was my hands that destroyed that DVD, I have never felt that I overcame my own temptation that day. I have always recognized that God quickened me to do that which I could not do on my own.

From that Saturday on, an inadequacy that I had felt since returning home from China was extinguished. I woke up from my sinful induced coma. "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation." Keep your eyes on the Lord and combat temptation with prayer. It is a simple remedy for temptation, but even today I need a constant reminder of it.

I realized that Saturday that I was at war with the old man who still clung desperately to me. I was a new man in Christ, but the old man still resided with me, tempting me to return back to the slavery of sin that Christ rescued me from. I also realized that God would not ever let me return, but rather, He would intervene with great power to overcome the powers of darkness that sought my destruction. I was not my own but I was the Lord's, and nothing could take me from His loving grip.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.
(Ephesians 6:10-13)

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)