Last time we discussed, to no one’s surprise, that porn is harmful. We noted the many ways that porn harms and kills, literally, spiritually, and otherwise. It is not a victimless crime but a crime with many victims, from the perpetrator, or porn user, to those on film and those related to the user and those associated with the making of porn.
Porn is a crime against God, nature, and all participants. It fuels the illicit human trafficking “industry,” and it is a gateway drug, for lack of a better term, into more lurid and perverse types of behavior. We described it as slow-motion suicide and slow-motion murder. Feeding the porn industry brings about death to others, and your willing participation results in the slow murder of others. It is slow-motion suicide because you die through the death of a thousand cuts as you sear your conscience, kill your soul and moral compass, and eventually, everything you say you hold dear. Porn, as we discussed, creates a physiological reaction that increasingly requires more to satisfy the hormonal responses it makes in your body to the point that more and more porn, like more and more drugs, is needed to fulfill the “addiction.”
Here’s where we must be careful. Our culture tries to destigmatize our wrong moral choices and their effect by often giving them a medical-sounding label (like addiction). As we discussed and must reiterate, “addiction” (some call this a really bad habit or besetting sin) often results from bad moral choices. It is part of a sin and its consequences equation (Romans 6:23). Our moral choices have consequences.
If you want to beat this addiction, then you first must “really want to.” There are no half-measures. There is no easy way out. What’s involved? It’s easy to describe; however, it is challenging to implement and maintain.
Step One: take responsibility. Let’s be clear. You’ve sinned and sinned willingly. All the 12-step meetings or Sex Addict Anonymous Meetings in the world will make no difference if you don’t call it what it is: sin. It is not a sin against a “higher power.” It is a sin against the One True God. Fundamental to having the power to change is to know personally the God of change, Jesus Christ. Gospel. ABC. I may have offended you earlier by referring to porn users as perpetrators or the high-tech version of a Peeping Tom. Taking responsibility involves coming to terms with these ideas as fact. You are engaging in a perverse voyeurism by choice; the fault is yours. You cannot blame shift. You must take responsibility and accept responsibility for your actions. This moves us to our next step.
Step Two: pursue and accept accountability. While your knee-jerk reaction is toward secrecy, you cannot manage this crisis alone. If you could, then you would not have this habituated sin. You would not be bound to these perverse, hurtful, and harmful urges.
You need help. Proverbs tells us that when two walk along together and one falls into a ditch, the other pulls him out. Galatians 6:1-5 summarizes the need for accountability and to accept responsibility nicely. At this point, I’m addressing Christians as non-Christians will likely lack the framework and access to the supernatural ability to begin to grapple with this.
Gal. 6:1-5 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.
What’s going on here? In this scenario, one has either been detected (caught) with a sin problem or is caught in it in the sense that they are trapped in it or by it (v. 1). Others come to his or her aid to help him or her break free from this problem (v. 1b). And they do so or are to do so with a spirit or attitude of gentleness. Why is this? The answer is found in 1c: “Keep watch on yourself unless you find yourself in the same or similar mess or condition (“By the grace of God there go I...”). Notice the call to handle the sinner with gentleness. There is a kind of tentativeness rather than a harsh condemnation. The long road of repentance will have fits and starts.
Seek responsibility, not anonymity. For more on this, read Psalm 32 about the blessings of admitting one’s sin and confessing it and the peace that comes. It begins, “How blessed is the man...” (remember David wrote this as a hymn of worship for the Temple):
Psa. 32:1-6 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 6 Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found...
There’s no hiding this problem... You must admit it, confess it, address it (to God and others). You must seek accountability. You’ll need help. Most cannot do it on their own. Seeking accountability and taking responsibility means going to a group of trustworthy people who are not sentimentally attached to you (lest they be tempted to cut you slack—slack is not what you need, and it is not the same as grace or mercy). God to your pastor or ask for an appointment with an elder—or ask to get on the agenda for the following elders’ meeting. Disclose your sin problem to them and ask for prayer and accountability. With their support, it’s time to take action.
Taking action. Here’s where taking responsibility and accepting accountability merge and strengthen. Arrange to text the group daily that you are “clean” and free of porn. This is a simple, mechanical, and practical step that you can concretely take. I’ve used this with drug addicts and others. It doesn’t require a lot of your time or theirs. It involves daily accountability. It involves your initiative and commitment. They do not necessarily respond to this text—unless you don’t send it or unless you engage in porn. Your text could say, “Clean of porn and sexual sin in the last 24 hours. This text could come at the end of the day or first thing the next morning.
There should be a separate text regarding your spiritual disciplines. Invariably, those who do not seem to win the battle against porn have a lack of discipline on multiple levels. First, there’s often a problem of sporadic or shallow bible reading, devotionally speaking. Second, there is an absence of prayer. With these comes a lack of meditation on God’s word with an eye toward application. Many times, such folks are adrift.
Taking action involves discipline and structure. You’ve got to establish a holy routine and stick with it and stick to it. You may only hit these four days or six days a week. But keep at it. In time, it will take hold.
Taking action means embracing consequences. But... warning: It’s all up to you in the end in one real sense. You can choose failure. You can choose to lie, misrepresent, and or cut yourself some slack. Don’t lie by text. If you miss a text, explain yourself. If you fail to choose righteousness over porn. Admit it.
Choose consequences. One of the challenges of the psychological model is that there are few, if any, consequences because there are schools, streams of psychoanalysis, and “therapy” which do not believe either in sin or guilt. This is why we see people in therapy for decades with little or no change. There must be consequences for a lack of change—a lack of repentance. If you spend time in Ephesians 4 or Colossians 3, you see the work and pattern of biblical change... the so-called putting on or putting off. A lack of progress should have consequences.
You should set milestones or timetables. There should be zero tolerance for your sin. If you were newly saved and a converted serial killer, would allowances be made for your desire to kill? Of course not. There should be no allowance or tolerance for giving up, throwing in the towel, or lying.
Milestone number one could be texting faithfully for six months. Implicit in this is keeping “clean” for six weeks and then six months. Add to this Bible reading and prayer. You are putting off and putting on, “Let the one who steals steal no longer that he may do something good with his hands...” (Ephesians 4:28).
Taking action means “spending” all your time wisely. All your time... wisely... spending. Think of time as money. You’ve heard the old saying, “Time is money.” Budget your time so that you don’t have too much downtime on your hands to waste on porn. Keep busy.
Seek, if possible, opportunities to serve and worship if you are in a local church. Investigate small groups. Show members hospitality. Investigate Sunday Schools or Fellowship Groups. Volunteer. Get connected and fill up the calendar where and as appropriate.
Keep track of your efforts in a journal. It is in this journal that you engage in added prayer through letters to God. This way, you can track your thinking and debrief yourself (and others if necessary). This can be very encouraging as you see how often you begin to pray and pray. You can also see problems start to develop when you neglect spiritual disciplines, like prayer and Bible reading.
Taking action is both positive and negative. Add activities. Add service. Add accountability. Embrace accountability. Seek it. BUT there is a negative or subtraction aspect: there are people, places, and things in your life that have to go. Jesus puts it this way in dealing with low-tech pornographic thinking in the 1st century AD:
Matt. 5:27-30 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right-hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Detach and discard. You’ve got to get rid of stumbling blocks in your way (and protect others from stumbling blocks). Changing habits often involves changing friends, locations, and past times. Think of it this way... “drunks shouldn’t go to bars...” And “drunks shouldn’t hang out with drunk friends. Toss the things, even the people, that “cause” or tempt you to sin.
These are all steps in a walk of repentance. While you’ve got to take the initiative to put one foot in front of the other, there are spiritual family (accountability partners) who support you in prayer and outright encouragement.
Take action now. Often, people spend too much time planning and thinking and too little time doing. Be biased toward action. Get after it now!
Is breaking free of porn this easy? Is change really this simple? It can be. Quitting porn takes work. It is difficult, though not impossible, to “quit.” There are physiological urges that will come. Sin is crouching at the door, but you must rule over it, and you can in the power of the Holy Spirit, with a mind informed by the word of God and the people of God coming alongside you.
Get started by building your plan and sticking to it. Again, difficult doesn’t mean impossible. Have hope! And begin the journey of repentance and change. The road ahead will be bumpy but the endpoint of the journey can be glorious!
Next week: Helping those who struggle with porn
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