Porn vs The Holy Spirit

The New Millennium is bright with rosy hopes for grand prosperity and technological miracles. But a sinister phenomenon is burgeoning just beneath the surface. Charisma Magazine reports that in the last two years organized pornography has grown to ensnare 75 million Americans and 25 million children, including shocking numbers of "Christians," even pastors and church elders. Internet porno is "safe sex" in that one doesn't get AIDS with it. It's a moral (or immoral) quicksand. Just for the momentary fun of it, you stick your little toes into it and an invisible magnet then reaches out and drags you into the abyss by your feet. It's an addiction, and because it doesn't affect your driving or embarrass you in public as do alcohol and drug addictions, it is a convenient and alluring "Christian" addiction, Charisma implies. It's vicarious adultery, the direct antithesis of the plea of Jesus, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee" (Mt 5:28, 29). Porno is indulging that "right eye." And giving up the addiction in order to become "pure in heart" is like gouging out one's right eye. How does God view this amazing development that has blossomed so with cyberspace?

What does His Word say?

(1) God loves the porno addict, and pities his helplessness, for we read that "God . . . loved the world" (Jn 3:16). Amazingly, He also loves the porno merchants, and the women who sell their bodies to the photographers. God has "commanded" that "the truth of the gospel" be proclaimed to these helpless victims. There is hope for anyone who is sinking in this abyss.

(2) Porno is more seductive than alcohol or drug abuse. A more powerful gospel than the world has yet heard is needed to break its stranglehold on its victims, for only "the truth of the gospel" is "the power of God unto salvation" (see Gal 2:5; Rom 1:16).

(3) This current amazing success of porno is clear evidence that "Babylon the great is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons, and the hold of every foul spirit" (Rev 18:2).

(4) If this is so, then it is also apparent that the time has come for the "light" of that "other angel" to "lighten the earth with glory" (vs 1). That "light" will be a clearer revelation of the agape of Christ, of His sacrifice on His cross as the Lamb of God.

(5) Porno grabs at the very vitals of a person's soul, and modern cyberspace porno is seductive, secretive, alluring, overmastering.

(6) But there is Good News: That "Voice" of "the third angel's message in verity" (Rev 14) will unveil the gospel so clearly that victims can find deliverance.

(7) The Holy Spirit strives against "the flesh," and the soul who finds himself a slave to the flesh needs to know that the Holy Spirit is stronger than the "flesh" (see Gal. 5:16, 17). Don't hinder Him!