Some quotes from the book "Porn-Again Christian" by Mark Driscoll.
You are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined. In Paul’s day, he accused some people of worshiping their stomachs as their god, and in our day it appears that our god has simply moved a short distance south.
God tells us that his people tend to satisfy their thirst not by drinking from his streams of living water, but instead drinking from man-made toilets (Jer. 2:13). This metaphor is particularly adept in a world where men such as Tom Leykis, Dr. Drew, Howard Stern, and a legion of men’s magazines and porno providers become wealthy by selling glasses of toilet water to thirsty men across our nation, many of whom claim to be sons of God. Meanwhile, the church alone has access to the living water from God’s perfect Word, but largely fails to teach men masculinity in any area, particularly regarding their sexuality.
...we must refuse to speak in sanitized clinical euphemisms like calling adulteries “affairs,” fornication “dating,” and perverts “partners” because God uses frank words for deplorable sin so we will feel its sickness without anesthesia.
From chapter 1 "A Tall Glass of Toilet Water"
The Scriptures continually speak of the One True God as the God of glory. This means that God is to be considered most heavily, or weighty, in the lives of his people, and that the sinful desires in us and cultural norms around us be seen as unnatural, depraved, and light in comparison to him. Simply, until you fear God and weigh him most heavily in your life, you will remain an undisciplined fool.
First John 3:9 teaches that “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” Clearly, while no man of God can become perfect in this life (1 John 1:8), God does promise that Christian men have the ability to walk away from habitual sins of all kinds, including sexual sins, which are commonly accepted as undefeatable foes. Practically, this means that sexual sin should not be managed, but rather put to death because Jesus died for it.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, Paul says, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters . . . will inherit the kingdom of God.” Clearly, God takes the sexual sins of his men so seriously that men who remain enslaved to sexual sin will die in their sins and wake up in the eternal torments of hell. Sure, the naked people you like looking at are hot… but so is hell.
From chapter 2 "The Fear of the Lord"
... we must remember that, in the early 1950s, no stores carried soft pornography; in the 1960s, Playboy was made available out of sight behind the counter; in the 1970s, Penthouse made it next to Playboy on the shelf; and today’s decline has soft and hard pornography available on the magazine rack for perusing by children and adults who pick it up. In our increasingly brazen and desensitized culture, we have to be careful to not define pornography in terms of only harder forms while neglecting the softer forms. As an example, on an international flight I once took, movies with full nudity and sex scenes played on the headrest televisions around me while bored young children looked on. My point? Our culture is becoming increasingly sexualized and it has taken forty years to go from one dirty magazine under the counter at the local convenience store to today where it is expected that junior high boys have at least one nude shot of their junior high girlfriend on their cell phone.
...sexual sins are not “out there” in the media, strip club, or gal with low-rise jeans and hi-rise thong. Truly, the problem is “in you.” It is from the sinfulness of your heart that lust and sin proceed like sewage from a culvert. This is the painful, unvarnished truth.
From chapter 3 "A Theology of Pornographic Lust"
Proverbs 27:20 says, “Sheol [Death] and Abaddon [Destruction] are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.” If we apply this principle to pornographic lust, it becomes apparent that seeing such smut is not going to satisfy your lust but rather inflame it for more images. Lusting eyes may begin with a magazine, web site, or video and continue to view more magazines, web sites, or videos until they become bored and then descend into strip clubs, prostitutes, and/or easy women, which eventually become boring and lead to orgies, voyeurism, exhibitionism, pedophilia, and wherever else a crooked human heart can venture. Don’t kid yourself. Sin is an onramp to death. If you get on it and don’t repent, turn around, and exit, you will find the landscape getting darker, grosser, filthier, and deadlier. You may even be one of the millions of men who murder their own children in the womb of their mother, as yet another sinful fool proving yet again that sin leads to death.
From chapter 4 "A Practical Theology of Pornographic Lust"
To argue against masturbation with Genesis 38:6–10 is as ludicrous as arguing for masturbation like one young guy did with me by quoting Ecclesiastes 9:10, which says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”
In 125 AD, Athenian philosopher Christian Aristides reported on the sexual practices of the Christian church to his king. He said, “They (Christians) do not commit adultery or immorality… Their wives, O king, are as pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest. Their men abstain from all unlawful sexual contact and from impurity, in the hopes of recompense that is to come in another world.”
In our sick day we pray that the local newspapers would give the same report about God’s men and their wives and daughters under their loving leadership. Why? Because what you do with your eyes and your penis is not simply your business. If you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ then there is urgent kingdom and gospel business for you to be about and neither time or money for you to waste while standing on the sidelines with your pants around your ankles looking for a bottle of lotion.
Question: If I cannot stop looking at porno and masturbating, should I disconnect my Internet connection and get some roommates to live with for accountability?
Answer: Again, the problem is in your heart and not in your Internet provider. Paul is clear in Colossians 2:20–23 that legalistic man-made rules may sound helpful but in the end are worthless in restraining sin because they only address outward behaviors while neglecting inward causes. It may be wise for some men to not have cable television or an unfiltered internet provider, but unless their heart changes, they will simply rearrange the flesh and stop one sin to begin another, such as being proud of their morality once they have stopped looking at porno. Whatever you do, begin with your heart.
Question: When I get married won’t that cure my lust problems?
Answer: No. Satan did not even show up to tempt Adam until he had a wife. Many men simply kill their sexuality before marriage and once they are married, their desires awaken in full force. Consequently, once you have been married long enough to learn how to please a woman and be adventurous, you will likely find your desires for sexual sin increase rather than decrease, unless you have disciplined yourself to channel all of those desires solely to your wife.
...sin leads to death. Jesus died for your sin. You are in a war. Be a man. Put your sin to death.
From chapter 8 "Pornography and the Slippery Slope of Ted Bundy"
One woman forced into sex slavery shares her story:
There were many women in this one apartment. Some were crying. Others looked terrified. We were told not to speak to each other. Not to tell each other our names or where we were from. All the time, very mean and ugly men came in and dragged girls into the rooms. Sometimes they would rape girls in front of us. They yelled at them, ordering them to move certain ways . . . to pretend excitement . . . to moan. . . . It was sickening. Those who resisted were beaten. If they did not cooperate, they were locked in dark cellars with rats with no food or water for three days. One girl refused to submit to anal sex, and that night the owner brought in five men. They held her on the floor and every one of them had anal sex on her in front of us all. She screamed and screamed, and we all cried. That girl killed herself the next day.
Customers of these women are sex tourists, U.N. peacekeeper and international humanitarian aid workers, U.S. military men, and local men in the area. The presence of these “mongers” has provided a valuable, readymade market for local brothel keepers trading in trafficked women.
From chapter 9 "A Final Word to Military Men and Other Men Who Like Prostitutes"
In source countries, illegal trafficking is fueled by a desperate need for a better life. In the destination countries, it is driven by an insatiable, self-indulgent appetite for purchased sex, much too often by U.S. military men and transnational businessmen. The force that brings them together is organized crime, notorious for acting swiftly to attractive market forces.
From chapter 10 "Organized Crime and Corruption"
Militarized prostitution for R&R rewards soldiers away from the battlefield by giving them sexual access to and use of others’ women. Because access to women after a battle has been a traditional reward of war, it is impossible to discuss rape in warfare without touching also on prostitution, since the two have been linked in history. Not that if prostitutes are not readily available men will turn to rape “to satisfy their needs,” but that the two acts—raping an unwilling woman and buying the body and services of a more or less cooperating women—go hand in hand with a soldier’s concept of his rights and pleasure.
From chapter 11 "U.S. Military and Prostitution"
In the United Kingdom, according to a leading NGO, brothel keepers and traffickers force some victims to pay debts that could range as high as $39,000 to $78,000. Commenting on patterns of abuse in prostitution of East European women in London, Detective Inspector Dick Powell from Scotland Yard told the Guardian, “Some women have sex with as many as 40 men a day. It’s very rare for her to get to keep any of the money she earns. We’ve seen places where 300 pounds ($580) a day goes to the brothel pimp or ‘madam,’ and that’s even before the woman begins to try and pay off the ‘debt bondage’ of thousands of pounds charged to bring her here.” Often, the debt can never be repaid because costs for food, rent, medicines, and condoms are added every day.
Sex trafficking is considered the largest specific subcategory of transnational modern-day slavery. Sex trafficking would not exist without the demand for commercial sex flourishing around the world.
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