To anyone who has ever struggled with sexual sin, you are not alone. It also is nothing new to our human experience. Though today it certainly has not become any easier to avoid it. In our culture we are constantly bombarded with images that are sexually suggestive. From a very young age, I was exposed to this evil and for most of my adult life, I was entangled in is unrelenting web. One night, while I was away on business, the story below nearly wrote itself. I felt compelled to write it. I had felt these feelings for many years and they had to be brought into the light. I had to admit what I had become.
Though we may have fallen victim to the trap of sexual sin, whether it be porn, adultery, fornication, homosexuality and any other form of sexual sin, there is hope. There is a way forward. Below are some scriptures that I would like to share with you in hopes to make you aware of how serious this sin is. Perhaps to convict your heart and to stir you into repentance. There is hope and forgiveness can be found if you do repent.
The Heart of the Porn Addicted
It’s a cold night. The air…it cuts straight to the bone. It feels just like my my heart, cold, frost bitten and numb. I need something…something to stir it to life, something to make me feel alive. Walking along this lonely cold path, my mind wonders how I could feel so alone when there are so many people around me. Why can I not enjoy whatever happiness they do? Is there such a thing? Is there such a thing of true contentment?
My wife is waiting for me at home, but she doesn’t fill this emptiness inside me. There has to be more. Right now only one thing can stir any life into this stale heart. She is never tired and never has a headache. She waits for me tirelessly. Stunning is her beauty. When I look at her…nothing else matters. My care slips away as my eyes become fixted to her inviting form. Just when I begin to tire of what I see, she transforms. She becomes older or younger, pale or tanned, clothed or unclothed. She becomes whatever. Sweet or sinister. She just wants me to feel like a man. To feel the carnal, animal impulse that is only natural because after all, thats what men are, animals right? It’s not my fault nature made me this way is it?
I shake my head as it becomes heavy, looking over at the clock…4am? Where did the time go? Hands tired from all the clicking, stomach growling with hunger, kids sleeping, wife dreaming, me…….sinking. This is hell.
She was supposed to make me feel better. She promised she would. But now I feel more drained, more empty, and more alone. How did she wound me? I was watching her the whole time. Soft, subtle, sly woman! How carefully have you guided me. Directed your movements to ensnare my eyes and capture my heart. You have made me a prisoner in my mind with your image. When I am weak you persistently wedge yourself into my thoughts. You bring me back home where your arsenal awaits to inflict more harm. You never relent. So what escape do I have? How do I find a path where you do not exist in this world?
To your enjoyment and to my utter torment, no such path exists, not here in this world. It belongs to you and your father. You seek to lure men like me into your snare with your beauty. You promise us the best experience with just one more image, but the ultimate you promise…I’ve never found and you fail to provide. You’ve convinced me that she is still out there. That if I search harder, look longer, then, maybe then I’ll find what I’m looking for. Again, what hope is there for me to find a path where you don’t exist?
The path isn’t found in this world. The narrow path is hard to find and difficult to stay on. But this path…Oh how different it is! I have found this path and though I find myself far from it at times, the promises made by it are true and sweet and fulfilling! The path, the narrow path, is small indeed. But where it is the most narrow, there is the most joy! Where there is the least worldly pleasure, there is the greatest heavenly pleasure. Oh this path…it leads to my home where my father waits. He sees me coming from a long, long, long way off and I see him. By him I know my way home. When I look away I fall off the path. But my father is long-suffering.
As my drunkenness from her temptation fades, my vision becomes clear and I once again find the pathway home. The glorious feelings I experience here! The trees that line this path are unwaveringly strong. Their leaves so bright and the light on the path too radiant for my human eyes! There is no loneliness here. Inches away however, if I look to the right or to my left…dread is right there. Just beyond the bounds of this narrow road, she waits. Ready to shower me with shattered dreams, broken promises, a broken heart and an empty, lost soul.
Lust begins in the heart and mind
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matthew 5:27-28
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person…
Matthew 15:19–20
Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life. Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished. (Proverbs 6:25–29)
Proverbs 6:25-29
“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? What would be my portion from God above and my heritage from the Almighty on high? Is not calamity for the unrighteous, and disaster for the workers of iniquity? Does not he see my ways and number all my steps?
Job 31:1-4
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
James 1:13-15
Lust is natural to unbelievers
But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you.
They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved
2 Peter 2:12-19
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Romans 1:21-27
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
1 Peter 4:3-5
Believers must fight against lust by showing self-control
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
2 Peter 2:20-22
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galations 5:16-21
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.
Colossians 3:5-8
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
1 Peter 2:11
Sexual sin can be forgiven
A woman who was caught in adultery was forgiven and charged by Jesus to go and sin no more.
Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
John 8:10-11
King David, sinned when he saw a woman named Bathsheba bathing. She was the wife of one of his fighting men and he called her to himself while her husband was away at war and he slept with her making her pregnant. To cover up for his sin he tried to hide it by having her husband come home to be with his wife. When he refused to sleep with her, David had him sent to the front lines to be killed. So King David was not only an adulterer but also a murderer. Nevertheless, God forgave him because he confessed and repented.
I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.
2 Samuel 12:13
There are many more scriptures that I could reference but, hopefully you now have a sense of how serious this sin is. We are told that we cannot live this way and have any expectation to receive the mercy of God. We must repent and turn away from it. We are given a promise that if we do, then God will forgive us. I leave you this final passage:
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:5-10
