“Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.” – Colossians 3:5-7
Whereas all addictions tap both body and spirit with their hooks, and whereas addiction to drugs and alcohol can bring deadly consequences to both life and body, so too does sexual sin bring deadly consequences to soul and relationships. It’s very important for you to grasp this as you deal with various sexual temptations and sin! Yes, it’s true that breaking God’s law and engaging in prolonged use and abuse of drugs and alcohol can cause serious bodily harm, possibly leading to medical emergency, among other problems. It’s also true that breaking God’s law and engaging in sexual sin should be viewed as incredibly harmful, and even more so spiritually and relationally, as feasting in the pit of lust brings heavy and heavier chains of guilt and shame, coupled with the pain of damage sin has caused, and will cause, as they march down the road that leads to multi-faceted destruction.
As I’ve helped people recover from sexual sin and be reconciled and restored over the years, a couple of good questions are- How does one go from 0 to 60 on the gas pedal of sexual addiction? What are the layers of that multi-faceted destruction? As all sin does, origination and acceleration begin in the heart. Specifically, they begin with longings and desires that are unmet and uncontrolled. As such continue to linger in the heart, they grow stronger. If they aren’t met or managed in a godly way, they become the seeds of lust, an adulterous heart, covetousness, and pride which then bring forth death. (James 1:14-15) Make no mistake- what you think will bring you relief, comfort, and pleasure, only brings fleeting pleasure with more pain and destruction to yourself and those close to and around you. (Proverbs 7:21-23) The first layer of destruction is you. As sexual addiction sets in, it changes and destroys you from the inside out. It changes the lens you look at people through, dulls your conscience, and skews your response to temptation and sin. Your relationships with God and those you love become increasingly disconnected and different. It then harms your love and intimacy with your spouse and your loving relationships with your children. Relationships with your friends, extended family, and the church are also affected, though you’ve tried to act as if nothing is going on with all of them.
Now, it’s important that you see and understand the details of what can affect and stir longings and desires in your heart. They can often be stirred by stress, fear, anger, loneliness, desiring attention, one spouse withholding intimacy in the bedroom (1 Corinthians 7:5), hormones and physical cravings rising in teens and single adults, discouragement, depression, spiritual or emotional wounds from a relationship, etc. When you don’t know how to address or manage the stress, pain, or cravings within your own heart, when you know how to but don’t want to, or when you’ve tried and failed to resolve conflict or have your spouse meet your emotional and physical needs, the temptation then becomes stronger to take matters into your own hands. The temptation becomes strong to no longer flee to Jesus, casting your cares upon Him, trusting in and leaning on Him for all of your needs. Rather, you convince yourself, even in a moment, that it’s best if you take the wheel and engage in self-initiated, self-controlled (not the fruit of the Spirit) gratification.
How does God categorize sexual sin in the Bible? Namely under the categories of fornication and adultery.
- Simply put, fornication is idolatry (Revelation 2:14-20, Revelation 17:1-2) that is often considered as committed acts of sexual immorality outside of the bond of marriage. However, it includes a wide variety of sexual sin under its umbrella, such as adultery, premarital sex, prostitution, and incest. Know that the Greek word the Apostle Paul uses in Colossians 3:5 for fornication is “porneia”. In addition to the sexual sins I just listed, porneia is the word that we get “pornography” from. Also know that porneia is derived from the Greek word “pernao”, which means “to sell off”. This properly refers to the selling off of one’s sexual purity. Really, the list that Paul gives in verse 5 has much to do with impurity, even as covetousness involves craving what isn’t yours.
- Adultery, on the other hand, always refers to the sexual sin of married people with someone other than their spouse. It’s important to remember Jesus’ exposition of the law in Matthew 5:27-28, where He makes it clear that adultery doesn’t start and stop with a physical act of defiling the marriage bed. No, Jesus says, “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (v. 28)
Considering this, I want to dive deeper in exposing and providing remedies to the dragon fueled sin and pit of pornography. For it’s often a “secret” sin (Psalm 90:8) that thrives in the shadows, behind closed doors. As such, it’s a secret assassin in Satan’s arsenal of devices. It’s about picturing, imagining, and fantasizing about immorality. This being true, I first want to point out that this pit doesn’t only enslave many men. No, there are many women who feast and are enslaved in its dark depths as well.
How does something so wicked and evil lure God-fearing Christians? How does something so impure and immoral that degrades and objectifies both women and men so easily hook those seeking to walk the paths of righteousness? How does pornography, which is well known to involve human trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation of children, teens and adults, prostitution, and all levels of sexual deviance, get Christians to not only look, but feed and return time and again to it’s table? Again, when the dragon’s hook hits the needy heart, if it isn’t cut off, hunger builds luring the person to the table. When his whisper resounds in the heart, if it isn’t rejected, convincing desensitization that it’s OK, maybe even good soothes objections. When the food (as disgusting as it is) is offered, consumed, and meets the craving, even if it’s just for a few moments, the goal of the desperate heart for relief (emotional/spiritual/physical), attention, and comfort is achieved. Yet, it never lasts.
This is the cycle of sexual addiction: Attraction and attention (temptation) leads to deception and distraction (lures and enticement), which leads to slavery and bondage (conception of sin), which leads to despair and destruction (death), which leads back to attraction and attention. Round and round the cycle spins.
How does one descend into the pornography pit? The heart longs (Satan’s whisper: You deserve this), the body craves (Satan’s whisper: You need this), desires grow (Satan’s whisper: Go and be satisfied), the person lies and self-justifies (Satan’s whisper: Keep this secret. Protect the secret. God won’t be displeased with you. You need to do this.), they indulge more and more, the idolatrous heart and unsatisfied body demand more, and the person feels guilt, shame, and self-loathing (Satan’s whisper: What have you done?! You’ve done it again. There’s no hope for you. God will never forgive you.).
Know that the body and spirit connection is very real with pornography. The more you feed the beast with pornography, the more dependent you become. Like drugs and alcohol, there is a strong physical craving that develops. Tolerance and withdrawal are active with porn addiction. Further, as the conscience continues to be seared more and more, and tolerance grows, one becomes gradually dissatisfied with pictures, and can desire to move on to more graphic and more deviant videos to bring the same effect, even at the severe end moving beyond media, desiring to connect with immoral people in person.
So, what is the fruit of all of this? Entrenched voluntary enslaved souls, seared consciences, estrangement from God, damaged relationships, wounded spouses, wounded children, their possible exposure to the debauchery being viewed (in addition to what they are exposed to with daily interaction with the deviant, hypersexualized world), broken trust, broken intimacy, confusion regarding what true love, trust, and intimacy are, questions about whether they can be restored, as well as scandalous harm to Christ’s church. This is the fruit of the adulterous heart and its pursuits.
What are biblical remedies? What is the path of recovery and restoration, by the grace of God? I’ll speak to this in the next edition.