How Big Is Porn To You?

I’m in the Orlando, Florida area this weekend speaking at a God Encounters young adult event that is focused on moving people to a 24/7 worship
experience. My family
is joining me today (Friday) and we’re going to Disney World on Monday. It’s really warm and muggy here!

I was thinking this morning about what kids must be thinking when they come here to Orlando to visit Disney World? For a kid, and maybe quite a few adults it is HUGE.
It certainly is expensive, but even beyond that there’s no way you
could ever come to Orlando, Florida or the central Florida region, and
not know that Mickey is in town.

When the Israelites
were prepared to go into the land of Canaan Moses sent spies to check
out what they were up against. As it turns out he got mixed reviews
from the spies, but the people could certainly pick up on the fact that
they were up against something much BIGGER than themselves.

But then there’s Caleb and Joshua.
I’ve really grown to love Caleb, the guy in the Bible who was part of
the spy team that checked out the land of Canaan before the Israelites
were to take possession. You’ll remember that it was Caleb (along with
Joshua Numbers 14:6-8) who came back with a more positive outlook on
things while the other spies were essentially shaking in their sandals.
Over in the book of Joshua (Joshua 14:6-15) there is a special place of honor for Caleb because of his courage and vision.

In Numbers 13:30 Caleb encourages the people with, “Then
Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘we should go up and
take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But it’s the report of the others that seems to get the most attention. The other spies report in Numbers 13:28, “But
the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified
and very large.” In verse 31 they continue their report, “…We can’t
attach those people; they are stronger than we are.” Not only
did they say that publicly, they began to spread it all over the place.
And you know how it is negativity is a lot more contagious than being
positive, at least from my experience.

The report doesn’t end there though, and the spies who are overwhelmed by fear offer one last revealing observation in Number
13:32, “…The land we explored devours those living in it. All the
people we saw there are of great size…we seemed like grasshoppers in
our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

There’s no doubt that porn is BIG in America, and all over the world. I could give you a bunch of stats
that proves that the industry is quite daunting. But I won’t. Why?
Because it’s big enough as it is, and for many guys and ladies
(including pastors) it would seem that porn is so big that we’ll never
be able to move beyond it. In other words we’re much like the spies who
came back from the PROMISED LAND trembling in fear and
wondering why in the world God would GIVE them something that seemed
impossible to acquire. PORN seems too big an enemy to overcome, and the
“promised land” of freedom and sobriety seems impossible to attain.

For some reason God gave Caleb a different vision one that was not intimidated by the size of his
enemies nor the embellished reports of his peers. We find ourselves in
much the same situation with this porn thing. The “reports” we’re constantly getting is that it is a “growing epidemic”.
That the porn industry is a multi-billion dollar industry (“billion” is
a BIG number) and us poor little Christians are so small and powerless
that there is no way we’ll ever be able to beat the porn giants even
though the God of CREATION has promised us freedom and joy.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not doubt the enormity of porn and I’m
certainly not going to be naive about it’s influence, but I do think we
need to see things the way Caleb did.

Listen to Caleb and Joshua in Numbers
14:6-9, “Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among
those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the
entire Israelite assembly, ‘the land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good.
If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land
flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel
against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”

It
would be easy to think that you don’t stand a chance against porn.
Trust me, I’ve been there. I can tell you that I never thought I would
see the day that I would go without the GIANTS of PORN and MASTURBATION. They were just too BIG a deal to ever go without. Not only were they big I had given up so much “land”,
and space in my life to them that it seemed I would never move out of
their shadow. Perhaps that’s where you’re at, thinking you’re in too
deep, and that BIG bad porn has got a grip on you so tight that you’ll never get free. Well maybe it’s time to change the way you see things.

I
heard a counselor/psychologist guy give some good advice recently on
how to get sober and maintain sobriety. He said that day-to-day we just
shouldn’t let porn be a big deal. That doesn’t mean that we are
casual about sin it just means that we don’t have to hyperventilate
every time we’re bombarded by it. It means that sometimes when we freak
out about it, it does more to strengthen its grip, and give it more
power. It means that when we struggle and even fail we have to get back
up and not crumble in fear, guilt and shame rationalizing a week long binge. We confess, repent,
reestablish some accountability and allow Jesus to pull us up (Psalm
41:1-3) and we enter the promised land we’ve been given and don’t look
back.

Perhaps a better way of seeing things is to see them the way Caleb did. To see freedom and sobriety as the Promised Land that God has given to us. To see things in such a way that says that I TRUST that God is BIGGER and more POWERFUL than anything occupying the land and that I don’t need to be afraid.