“Here, take a look at this,” whispers Satan to a teenaged boy. “It’s only the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue… it isn’t going to hurt you.” The young man drinks in the images, and wants more… with less clothing involved… so he “stumbles” onto soft-core porn. Perhaps he’s exposed to it in an R-rated movie that he watches with Mom and Dad (Chip Ingram recently said that around 70% of Christian kids he surveyed watch R-rated movies on a consistent basis). Or maybe it’s on the internet on the family computer, or his cell phone. 

The soft-core stuff is great, he thinks, and parks here for a little while. He discovers masturbation, which intensifies the experience. The bad part of the deal is that the peak lasts for moments, while the shame hangover drags on. He feels hollow inside, like a part of his soul has been scraped.

The soft core stuff didn’t satisfy, so surely the X rated material with full blown sex will. Wow. That was great… but … now the crash is awful; much worst than before. In addition to feeling shame and empty, he feels dirty; soiled.

He spends years sticking to the X rated stuff. “It’s safe ‘cuz I’m not doing anything with a person, and I won’t get caught or hurt anyone,” he thinks. “Besides, I’ve got this under control.” Over time his heart goes cold. “Pictures aren’t enough anymore; I want the real thing.”

Now he’s entered dangerous territory; anything can happen. My journey in the danger zone took me to sex with prostitutes, stripper bars, a one night stand where I contracted an STD, and an affair where I broke up a family of five. Oh, and did I mention that some of this happened when, I, a Christian, was married?

Once we’ve allowed lust to snap its jaws around our heart, it can take us to places we never would have believed before. I’ve talked with men where lust took them to prison; some had inappropriate contact with a teenage girl who was a close relative, such as the daughter of a wife from a previous marriage.

Some men cross gender lines. A few go into darker places that involve children. News stories of church-going men, even pastors, who were arrested for child porn are all over the news.

“Awwww, that’ll never happen to me” some think. Hopefully not. But if you would have told me that I would have committed adultery less than two years after I got married to my Christian bride, I wouldn’t have believed it. I imagined that getting married would resolve my lust issue and that all would be well. I didn’t realize that the stresses of marriage flush out a man’s coping mechanisms and can intensify his drive for sexual sin.

 

Once boundary lines are crossed, the consequences can be severe. STDs, broken marriages, lonely children who are set up for their own struggle with sexual sin because they stumbled on Dad’s porn stash, ruptured families, and, ultimately, the corruption of the church. 

This is the message the church should be proclaiming loud and clear:

Porn will always leave you empty, hungry for “better and more.” It never satisfies.

Porn will destroy your life, put a wedge between you and God, and corrupt your character.

Porn can take you places you never thought you would go. There’s no guarantee you won’t cross into the danger zone; it don’t matter if you’re a pastor, a missionary, or a pew-warmer. In fact, pastors and missionaries may be more at risk because they tend to be isolated. The more you indulge in lust the weaker you become, while its grip on your life tightens.

Your porn use will deeply hurt your loved ones, especially your spouse and children.

The church must take a bold, no-compromise approach to sexual sin. This doesn’t mean heaping condemnation on those who want help, but ripping open the veil of secrecy and shedding light on the issue so that cleansing can take place. This will offend a few people who freak out when they hear the word “SEX,” and others who bristle at the idea that the church is one of the porn industry’s biggest customers, but we need to go there. There’s too much at stake.

The church should be the first place people look for help because it serves the one who sets captives free – Jesus Christ. It should sound the alarm that some are falling away because the “pleasures of this world” are turning them into spiritual driftwood.

In these last days where society is rotting, many will search for answers. A church where 50% of the men are masturbating to porn is not the lighthouse God has called us to be. 

 Mike Genung struggled with sexual addiction for 20 years before God set him free in 1999. He is the founder of Blazing Grace, and the author of The Road to Grace; Finding True Freedom from the Bondage of Sexual Addiction, available at www.roadtograce.net