Over 50% of evangelical pastors admitted to viewing porn last year. More than 70% of men from the age of 18 to 34 visit a pornography site each month. Nine out of ten children from the ages of 8 to 16 have viewed porn on the Internet. (Stats from Safe Family)
I suppose there is not a family in America who has not been adversely affected by sexual related issues, whether it comes from the Internet, sexual abuse, fornication, adultery, or our culture’s bent toward immodesty.
Three of the more common areas associated with sexual related issues are lust, pornography, and masturbation. Their prevalence is mainly due to the secretiveness associated with these sins. Porn is one of the biggest worship disorders happening in our church today. No one is insulated from the temptations of porn, even those in ministry. In fact, pastoral ministry is one of the more fertile areas where lust can survive, grow, and flourish.
The First Worship Disorder
Satan told Eve that if she disobeyed God she could be like God. For whatever reason, his suggestion was enough for her to say “No” to God and “Yes” to the devil. She believed a lie rather than the truth and Adam fell along with her. Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God. They chose the path of futile thinking and because of their foolish choice, their hearts were darkened. As improbable as it may sound, though they walked with the Truth, they willfully chose to embrace a lie.
And God’s response to His two friends was not to change them back to their former state. He decided to give them up to the impure lusts of their hearts. He allowed them to exchanged the truth about Himself for a lie and the affect of their sin was an insatiable desire to worship and serve the creature more than the true and living God. (See Romans 1:21-25)
Self-Worship
The first sin scene in the Bible is the story of a man and woman who wanted to be god. Rather than resting in the All Sufficient and Self-Existing One, they wanted to experience their own version of self-reliance and independence. They wanted to experience life on their own terms by doing it their own way. Though they knew God, they implemented a “do it yourself” plan and practice.
One of the benefits of the self-sufficient, self-reliant model that Adam and Eve implemented, is that you get to receive all of the credit (glory) for the things you accomplish. And a craving for glory is at the heart of the porn problem.
You don’t behave your way into sin, so you can’t behave your way out of sin. You worship your way into sin, so you must worship your way out of sin. – Tim Lane
For guys, porn is not primarily about boobs and bottoms. Yes, there is some sort of twisted visual pleasure that comes through gazing and gawking, but that does not get to the heart of the porn issue. The practice of porn is a subtle and secret way for a person to be worshipped, to receive glory. The more obvious way in which he receives glory is by surrounding himself with a harem of cyber ladies who are “made” to worship him. Of course this is more about the “theater of the porn guy’s mind” than reality. But isn’t all sin madness and distortion?
Guard your heart from self righteousness: Because we’re all “in Adam,” there is a heinous craving within all of us to be worshipped. Though your problem may not be porn, you are not above the temptation to be worshipped. We all have a worship disorder.
Characteristics of the Porn Guy
Need to be empowered – A component of the porn problem is a craving for power or to be empowered. Surrounding yourself with naked women that you imagine are fawning all over you is one of the ways a man can feel a sense of strength and appreciation. Self-reliant people do not want to be perceived as weak or rejected.
While some of you may look aghast at this kind of twisted thinking, you struggle similarly, though your behavioral sin issue might not be porn. Your issue may be caring too much about what others think of you as you shudder at the thought of being exposed for who you really are. You, too, do not want to be perceived as weak or you don’t want to be rejected so you succumb to people-pleasing.
Feeling drained – What has been termed as workaholism is many times a man’s craving for power and reputation through his work. His sense of worth and identity are wrapped up in who he is and what he does rather than resting in and enjoying his identity in Christ.
Getting his craving for power and reputation stoked by working long hours leaves him drained and exhausted. It is in those weak moments that he believes he needs a “you-deserve-a-break-today-pick-me-up,” which he finds through the pleasures of pornography and masturbation.
Neutered at work – Alternately, if his job is not gratifying and he is not feeling a sense of appreciation and applause through his work, he will be tempted to find appreciation and applause through the portal of Internet sex. In the darkness of the night, in the basement of his home, in the theater of his mind, he surrounds himself with his harem and enjoys a private screening in which he is the center of attention. The movie always ends with the same climatic, euphoric, pleasure that comes through masturbation.
Neutered in marriage – God said that Eve’s desire would be to rule over Adam. This inherent temptation is within all women. Some women have wonderfully, humbly, and graciously deferred to their husbands in the biblically appropriate ways that the Bible teaches. However, in too many cases where porn is a problem for the man, the wife has been a nag or not submissive or not edifying or not humble or some other behavior(s) that has pushed her husband toward porn, though he is fully responsible for his sin.
(I am not saying that every man who is in porn has a difficult wife. But the majority of the marriage counseling cases that I have counseled through the years would attest to the wife complicating the porn problem by her own sinful temptations and issues.)
A Worship Reorientation
The Christian porn guy has yet to come fully into a proper understanding of the Gospel. He either does not know or does not know how to rest in and enjoy the beneficial pleasures the Father bestows on all of His children. There is a block between him and the Gospel that has hindered his relationship with the Father. Rather than seeking to fix his relationship with the Father, if he is aware that it is broken, he chooses the quick fix that is found in pornography.
First sin – He will worship whatever is important to him at the time. If porn is trumping God in the moment of temptation, then he needs to know that porn was more important to him than God, at least in that moment. Porn worship speaks to a broken or insufficient relationship with God. Rather than choosing God in the time of temptation, he chose relief through porn.
Second sin – And then after he commits his porn sin, he chooses not to tell his wife, his pastor, and his close friend because he believes that his reputation is more important. In the first instance of sin, relief was more important than God and in the second instance of sin, his reputation was more important than God.
The common denominator in both of these cases of sin is that his worship was more focused on himself rather than on God. This points to a lack of understanding, a lack of appreciation, and a lack of respect for God. God is moved to the periphery and self is move to the center of his worship structure. This person needs a worship reorientation.
The first thing to do is find out what is broken in his thinking about God. He is willfully choosing porn over God and there is a reason for his choice. In the moment of temptation porn trumps God: Why is this? Or, another way of asking the question is, “Why do you not like God, especially in the moment of temptation? What is it that porn can bring to you that you do not believe God can bring to you?”
