THE IDOL OF SEXUAL IMMORALITY
-The next idol hasn’t just slipped in the door, it has kicked in the door. It is the Eros problem, our society has overdosed on immoral sexual behavior. Kids in my generation had to seek out things that had sexual overtones and it was usually pretty difficult to find it.
-This generation doesn’t have to look for it, instead they are having to run from it.
The Kaiser Foundation conducts research regarding sex on television. In a recent study of 1,114 randomly selected programs, the study discovered sexual content on 68% of all shows, up sharply from 56% just two years earlier. Not only that, but the closer you look the worse it gets. For instance, 84% of all sitcoms and 89% of TV movies involved sex or sexually oriented language. During prime time hours, 75% of all shows featured sexual content of some kind. And the participants are getting younger: in the two years between the studies, the portion of the characters involved in sexual relationships that were teens tripled.
-Tack on the information superhighway of the internet and we are choking in a sea of idolatrous immorality and sex. Pornography is literally wilting the life out of our men; it is killing our prayer lives, diverting us from the Word, and choking out our worship.
-Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoker in their book Every Man’s Battle write:
You’re still teaching Sunday School, still singing in the choir, still supporting you family. . . You’re getting ahead, living in a nice home with nice cars and nice clothes and a nice future. People look to me as an example, you say. I’m OK.
Yet privately your conscience dims until you can’t quite tell what’s right and wrong anymore, watching things like Forrest Gump without even noticing the sexuality. . . And nagging you is the worship. The prayer times. The distance, always the distance from God.
-We must get the Ark in the chambers of your heart! Dagon will fall down if you ever get the Ark loaded up!
From a sermon by Philip Harrelson, A God That Will Afflict the Enemy, 5/14/2012