Overcoming Pornography

Overcoming Pornography

I mentioned last week

that today is Porn Sunday,

when hundreds of churches across our nation are going to be talking about how to overcome the problems of pornography.

So this morning I want to talk about the dangers of and how to get free from pornography.

I know its an uncomfortable topic.

That’s the whole reason that hundreds of churches this morning are setting aside a day to talk about it.

Because we’d really rather not,

we’d really rather ignore it,

but its an increasingly important issue,

that families and churches and Christians

cannot ignore.

Men, I’m talking primarily to you this morning,

because though pornography does have a huge impact on women,

women are usually the victims and not the users.

To start with, did you know that some of the best business minds in the country are working really hard to get you and your sons hooked on pornography,

because there’s huge money to be made.

60 Minutes did a story on this recently.

and brought out some interesting facts:

From 1973 - 1999 the revenue generated by the pornography industry increased 1000 fold.

The sex business in America has revenues of more than $10 billion/yr.

which is more than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises or the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC

Also more than all the movie revenue generated in the U.S.

Two of the biggest distributors of pornography, are

DirecTV Satellite network sells more graphic sex films than does Hustler pornographer Larry Flynt.

EchoStar Communications, the No. 2 satellite provider, makes more money selling sex films than Playboy does.

Every night, between the peak hours of 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., about 250,000 Americans pick up the phone and dial a number for commercial phone sex.

Of course, the Internet is the number one source of Porn.

About 25% of all search engine requests are for porn of some level!

and Americans will spend about $320 million this year at fee-based pornography web sites.

Average age of first exposure to porn is 11,

and the 12-17 age group is one of the highest consumers of internet porn.

Playboy’s web site alone now averages about five million hits a day. And these aren’t just at night-time.

This has become a big problem for businesses.

A study by Nielsen Media Research showed -

In just one month, employees from IBM, Apple and AT&T visited the Penthouse website 12,823 times.

Compaq Computer dismissed 20 employees, each of whom had accessed sex-related Web sites more than 1,000 times.

What impact is all this having?

Psychologists and Counselors see a direct link between this increased use of pornography,

and their increased caseloads of marriages affected by pornography,

and increased caseloads of victims of pedophilia and rape.

Make no mistake,

we are in the middle of a battle,

one that very much impacts Christian families and churches.

This is spiritual warfare. Satan wants to keep people in slavery and bondage

because he knows that if he can get you addicted to pornography,

that God will never be able to use you fully,

and you will miss out on God’s purpose for your life.

So lets look at some steps to overcome

the temptation of pornography.

The first step,

1) CONFESS TO ANOTHER PERSON THAT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM

James 5:16 NIV

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

Confessing that you’ve got a problem is the first step,

and its also the hardest step.

You see, pornography is a secret sin.

If it wasn’t secret, it would have little power.

Take for example a Christian man,

a loving father,

trying to be a good husband,

and he sits down at his computer,

and is tempted to visit a porn website.

If he knew that his wife and kids

would instantly know what he was doing,

he wouldn’t go there,

and those websites would go out of business.

The power of pornography is its secret,

and so the first step to destroying its power,

is to confess to another person,

so that its not a secret any more.

Now before you confess something,

you need to understand what the sin is.

And there are

3 Common Myths About Lust

The first myth is that

a) Simply thinking or looking is not a sin

When I was younger I had a friend who had a real problem with checking out every woman that walked by,

and he’d tell me,

It doesn’t hurt anything if I window shop,

as long as I don’t try on the merchandise.

Believe it or not,

the men in Jesus’ day had the same excuses.

Even the religious leaders.

The Pharisees thought that as long as they didn’t commit adultery, they could think about it all they wanted to.