This article originally was published on Whole Magazine.
In the quiet of night and the darkness of dusk, it calls out for you. It lures you in with its whispers as it begs to be pondered. The saying is true that “sin crouches at the door,” offering sweet lies but seeking to devour you (Genesis 4:7).
I don’t know your reason for tuning in. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe it promises satisfaction to your sexual appetite. It could be a way to find out what men seem to desire in a woman. Whatever your reason is, it’s not a good one. There are no good or logical reasons to watch porn. Anything seemingly pleasing it offers you is permeated with deceit.
Don’t be deceived, it will indeed take you down and destroy you.
Porn Will Kill Your Conscience
Did you know, every time we look at sex on a screen, our conscience dims a bit more? Each ungodly, sensual, and sexually immoral glance chips away at our ability to love our neighbor well and determine wrong from right, good from evil. When a person makes a habit of taking pleasure in sin, their craving for such things grows until it’s out of control.
Porn is killing your conscience.
It’s feeding your flesh and therefore causing you to view vile things as pleasurable. Porn thrives on the lust which resides in the heart of every person. Lust seeks to rule us as a master. Its first place of attack? The conscience.
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (Ephesians 4:18-19 ESV)
The enemy wants to use your porn addiction so that you would become darkened in your understanding and therefore, alienated from the life of God.
Porn Will Sacrifice Your Relationship with God
While it’s true that nothing can separate us in finality from the love of God in Christ, the true regenerate Christian will not remain entangled in sin forever. The Holy Spirit will convict and sanctify. However, for some, porn is the addiction which keeps them in bondage to sin and death, never turning to Jesus for salvation.
Furthermore, even for the born-again believer, we can sacrifice the nearness and sweetness of our relationship with Christ by our sin. The beautiful truth remains that the blood of the Lamb covers all our sin, even sexual sin like partaking in pornography. But when we keep striving after our sinful desires and rebelling against God, our communion with him is broken until we repent—until we turn away from our sin and back to our Savior.
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always,
but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity. (Proverbs 28:13-14 ESV)
Porn Will Kill Your Soul
Proverbs 7 speaks of an adulterous woman who persuades men to lay with her, taking them to their death (Proverbs 7:21-23). It’s fitting to replace the “adulterous woman” with pornography since it accomplishes the same task using the same means: our lustful hearts.
All at once she follows [it], as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; she does not know that it will cost her her life. (Proverbs 7:22-23 ESV)
We are not immune to this warning, ladies. We too can lose our soul to debauchery, if we don’t cast ourselves upon the mercy of Christ.
Let not your heart turn aside to [its] ways; do not stray into [its] paths, for many a victim has [it] laid low, and all [its] slain are a mighty throng. [Its] house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7:25-27 ESV)
Jesus Died for the Girl Who Watches Porn
This doesn’t have to be your path. Right now, you may feel like the grip of porn addiction can never be broken. Like its arms are wrapped so tightly around your fragile body that you’ll never be free. This is a lie. Because if you are in Christ, though your body is weak, the Spirit who resides in you is strong! This Spirit—the One whose power raised Jesus from the dead—lives in you, empowering you to break the chains of porn addiction and lust and say no to sin. You can be free. Jesus has already set you free from sin. Fight from the freedom he bought for you.
Maybe you feel like you can’t be forgiven—like you’re too far gone. Oh friend, if that was the case, I wouldn’t be writing these words. No one is too wicked for grace. Jesus’ blood covers the sins of everyone who calls upon his name for salvation. If you turn to him to be saved, repenting of your sin, he promises not only to forgive you but also to cleanse you. You are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 ESV)
Jesus died for women who have watched porn. And he offers you forgiveness and freedom from sin through his death on the cross. Turn away from lust and do all it takes to protect yourself from porn today, and turn to Jesus. He is willing and ready to forgive.
