Free of Porn — 6 minute read
By: Shane James O’Neill
Shaped by Porn
We know lust and pornography deeply impact us. Porn rewires our brains: porn creates grey matter, which stunts our thinking, memory, and jacks up our neural pathways. Porn prevents us from really using our minds.
97% of men in the church have watched pornography, female porn viewership is growing at a faster rate than male viewership, and a frightful amount of people admit to watching porn regularly while in marriage.
Using people, even people in pornography, changes what we believe about dating, marriage, sex, and human value. We begin to look at people as options, as objects of lust. We’ve all encountered this, as we find ourselves growing up with Victoria’s Secret in every major mall and casual sex in every popular movie.
Related: Is Porn Addictive?
These narratives about sex and the human body are forming our expectations for pleasure and bringing us up into a culture of pornographic love.
The science of mental addiction and the immersion of pornography within our culture begs the question, “Can I really get free from lust?” The answer is Yes, and here is how…
Leaving Egypt
The Exodus story of Israel from slavery can be found, helpfully enough, in the book of Exodus. Israel was locked into slavery for 400 years to the nation of Egypt. God (Jehovah, in Hebrew) hears the pain of His people and sends a prophet named Moses to deliver God’s justice to Egypt and to lead Israel out of slavery and into a land of their own.
Jehovah-God uses 10 plagues to upend Egypt — each plague attacking a deity in the Egyptian pantheon. Once the 10th and final plague is carried out against the Egyptians and their gods, the Egyptians are begging the Israelites to leave, even giving the Israelites gold and jewelry just to leave quicker.
To give us a picture of how quickly the Israelites left, the bread they had been making wasn’t even given enough time to bake and rise. They left in such a rush that not even their food was ready, though that didn’t seem to slow them down one bit.
Jehovah leads His people into the wilderness, but before very long the Egyptians realize that they just released a workforce of over 1 million people, and they freak out. So, they gather their armies and advance upon the Israelites.
Terror
Jehovah’s people are locked between a sea in front of them and the Egyptian army behind them. And, needless to say, the Israelites panic. Terror fills their thoughts as they begin to wonder if God simply brought them into the wilderness to die.
But in this crisis, Jehovah draws near.
Jehovah uses mighty winds to separate the Red Sea, enough for His people to pass through. And as the Egyptians try to pursue, God removes the winds and the sea collapses upon them, wiping out the armies of Egypt.
Israel is safe in a new land, with tons of loot, false gods having been dethroned, their oppressors and enemies destroyed, and the Israelites didn’t even have to swing a sword. They just had to move forward and follow a faithful and good God.
Israel begins to sing a new song, a song about hope, celebration, a new life, and the great goodness of Jehovah, the God who saves.
A few themes to pick out are the destruction of false gods, haste, a God who fights for you, and a new life of promise.
Exposing the god of Lust
Porn comes from the ancient Greek work, porneia — meaning “to buy” in a context of whoring or prostitution. The god of lust, as a force of evil, has been taking spouses from the marriage bed and enticing the young and old alike for thousands upon thousands of years.
Science is not a moral system; it cannot tell us how we should live. Science is a tool to discover knowledge of the physical world, it can be used for great evil (think Holocaust) and for extraordinary good (think disease vaccinations). We can use science to see how something is bad, but we cannot use science to prescribe why it is bad.
The god of porneia is first exposed in the book of God’s Word and then further exposed in the book of God’s creation. Scripture tells us why intimacy is sacred, as image bearers of an intimate Triune God, and science tells us how porn damages our neural pathways, corrupts our imaginations, and deconstructs our standards and values of life.
Related: Jesus and Porneia
People who argue for the use of porn and promiscuous living do so, not on the basis of Scripture, nor on the findings of science, nor even on the foundation of secular humanism, but on the system of post modernism.
The god of lust has been laid bare, and people cannot pursue the life it offers from a place of ignorance or a lack of awareness.
Making Haste
You and I know the hurt we bring on others when we follow this god, we know the ways we hide and isolate, the depression and anxiety it brings, and the emptiness we always feel once we’ve spent ourselves. We don’t use pornography; the god of porn uses us and leaves us exploited and empty once the lust is spent.
However, rather than being exploited, the god of lust is now exposed, and our noble King hung naked on a cross in order to rise over the power this false god has upon your soul. Will you follow Him?
Here’s how:
As we noted, the Israelites ran so quickly from slavery that even their food wasn’t given time to bake.
But what does this look like for us?
The founder of Proven Ministries, when he was journeying away from his enslavement to this stuff, cancelled his gym membership, discontinued all of his magazine subscriptions, and he and his wife even removed their television from their home for a year.
Personally, I have Covenant Eyes on my computer as a filter. I’ve also locked down my phone so that I can’t access the internet, except for a dozen sites approved by myself and my accountability brother. Every unchecked device and hidden image is an alter that whispers for us to come and worship to the god of lust. Eventually, the whisper will turn into a shout of demand from a slave-master offering chains and shame.
There are many ways to move with (haste!) away from your enslavement. Do them now, make them thorough, bring others in, and do them quickly — even if, like the Israelites, you aren’t prepared. Don’t leave any alters, don’t leave any idols. Move! Follow Him, and make haste!
How To Move Forward
There is a remarkable verse in the middle of this story. As Egypt is pursuing Israel, to slaughter and re-enslave them, and as the people of God are crying out in terror with chaos all around them, Moses says:
“Jehovah will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
As you move away from the god of lust, you will have moments of panic, you will physically withdraw, as your body demands feel-good chemicals to be released, and as your brain rewires itself to live healthy. You’ll want to run back in moments of pain, boredom, and anxiety, back to your Egypt. You’ll think, “It wasn’t so bad, the pleasure was worth it. Who was I really hurting anyway? If it only affects me then it’s okay to do.”
Don’t go back. Stay the course. It’s okay to hurt, it’s okay to feel. Bring people in, process emotion with Jesus, do this in community. Be steady, move forward, keep your heart still, and the Lord will fight for you.
The Age to Come
The hope of the Israelites was a land of their own, a land without slavery. So, what’s our hope?
There’s a cool phrase in the book of Hebrews (though in a rough context), it refers to the saints of God as “those who have tasted of the age to come”.
Jesus became your lust, your anxiety and depression, your adultery and shame. He became your sin so that you could become His hope and love, His righteousness, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:21)
The Father only ever sees the best of who you are. He looks at you and sees His beloved son, someone whom he celebrates, rejoices in, and carries a hope and a future for. We are the beings of His glory, we are those who have tasted of the age to come.
Another Way
As you struggle in your sin, know there is another way. There is something better for you.
Currently, one of my favorite things about life is learning to think, feel, love, and live without lust behind every thought and feeling. For you right now, lust may be a fire burning away at the fringes of every thought and feeling, or it may be a worm eating away the core of your desires, always behind every plan you make for the day and every relationship you pursue. I don’t say that to shame you, I’ve known the slavery of lust in each of these forms.
I say that to draw out that there’s more, but only Jesus can make you more. He sees you. He sees behind the sin that colors your soul and motives. Jesus sees the ways you can hope, the ways you love, the true affection you can give, the husband or wife you were made to be, the father or mother you long to be. He sees you and He who began a good work in your life will see it all the way through.
Why not start this particular journey now? Do it. I know you can, but only because He knows you can. Write out a list of the ways that lust is in your life. Find someone with integrity, confide in them and take action to eliminate those things from your life. From time to time, you’ll falter, but you’ll become you. That’s His promise; He sees the person you’ve always longed to be and He’s given His life to give you yours back.
The false god is exposed; move with haste toward a God who fights for you and who has a new life to give you.
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Shane James O’Neill is the Editorial Director for Proven Men Ministries. He is currently working on a graduate degree in apologetics at Liberty University’s Rawling School of Divinity.