July 2013: What Porn is Doing to Us
A while ago I called a female vendor to ask some questions about her services. When I told her what Blazing Grace was about, she burst into tears; she told me she’d lost her marriage because of her husband’s sex addiction.
A number of the wives of our prayer team have lost marriages due to their husband’s porn addiction.
Laurie Hall, author of An Affair of the Mind, published by Focus on the Family, lost her marriage to her husband’s sex and porn addiction.
Some years ago, a Christian man who came to our local support group shared how upset he was because his wife was divorcing him for “just porn” He rattled off his list of ministry accomplishments as if his porn habit shouldn’t have mattered.
Like that man, I think a lot of people view porn as something that doesn’t hurt anyone; “boys will be boys.” I’m not just talking about those outside of the church. I’ve heard of church counselors or pastors who told a wife “oh dearie, you just need to be a better wife and he wouldn’t do that.” (Translation, give him more sex and he won’t use porn).
I want to blow chunks when I hear stuff like that.
I think a lot of people, Christians included, don’t get it that porn is far more deadly than just a guy masturbating to pictures. Here’s the deal:
1. Porn is destroying thousands of marriages and families. It will destroy your marriage if you continue in it.
At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers in attendance noted that the Internet was playing an increasing role in marital splits, with excessive online porn watching contributing to more than half of the divorces.
Patrick Fagan of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion recently called “just porn” a “quiet family killer,” and said that a spouses’ porn obsession was a factor in 56% of divorces.
This isn’t a small problem tucked away in the corner of society that’s affecting a few – it’s a virus that’s swarming through wide swathes of the population and blowing up families.
2. Porn will mess your kids up; you could even shipwreck their faith.
A porn addict is sex and self-obsessed; the biggest thing in his life is when he can get his next fix. The needs of others, especially his kids, get sidelined when he’s in a place like this. It gets messier when a child discovers Daddy’s porn stash. This happens all the time. One wife posted on our forums of how devastated her teenage daughter was when she discovered her father’s porn collection. I’ve heard stories in our group of how men got their first exposure to porn from Dad after stumbling onto his magazine collection. Kids see God through the lens of their relationship of their father; discovering Dad’s porn habit can warp their perception of God. If Dad is a hypocrite, what does that say about his faith? Or the God he says can overcome any sin?
3. Porn is creating single parent families.
Mothers who are left on their own to raise their kids see their standard of living drop; making ends meet becomes a struggle at best. Then there is the emotional fallout of the woman and her children from how the husband-father has abandoned them… for porn. Imagine the pain of knowing your husband or father left your family because he chose porn over you. That’ll take 50+ hours in a counselor’s office to cope with, if you can afford it. Fatherless children are more prone to end up in prison. Girls without a Dad are more likely to be promiscuous.
To tear a family apart is to unravel society. Perhaps this is why Josh McDowell recently called porn the greatest threat to the church in the last 2000 years.
So what should we do about this?
First, come to grips with the fact that the church has a big problem. One Christian missionary agency stated that 80% of their applicants admit to struggling with porn. Recently a youth minister stated that 90% of the kids who come to him for help… all who are from Christian families… are addicted to porn. Plenty of current statistics are available at the porn statistics page, so I won’t keep going. Our culture is awash in sexual depravity, and the church is swimming in the same cesspool.
There is an even seemier side of the porn epidemic that has a steady undercurrent in the church; one that many won’t touch – child porn. Most weeks there is an article where a man from any level of the church, pastors included, is being arrested for child porn. If this doesn’t freak us out, nothing will.
Second, we need to start reaching our kids at the early junior high level with the truth about porn. They need to hear in no-holds barred fashion that porn will destroy their lives. Waiting until they’re in their mid-teens is too late. Most kids have smartphones today, and they’re educating each other about the sexually charged content they’re discovering. If we don’t reach our youth then we might as well start putting money away in a “when my child has to go to counseling for years to deal with his porn addiction” fund and pray that it doesn’t get worse.
Next, pastors need to get in their congregation’s face and confront them with hard truths.
When a man is in bondage to sexual addiction, he wraps himself in a thick, defensive layer of justification, denial, and fear of discovery. We hear comments from wives that “my Christian husband won’t give up porn.” Most people don’t understand how deep and powerful the bondage to sexual sin is; it often takes bold confrontation (or painful consequences) to jolt him out of fantasy land and into reality. He needs more than “the Bible says porn is sin.” He knows that. He needs to hear that “you will destroy your life, devastate your wife, and corrupt and possibly destroy your kid’s faith if you keep on this path.” Men need to be confronted with words like “you’ve got to choose which one you want – God and your family, or porn, because you can’t have both! Get off the fence and make a choice.”
Finally, we need to reach out to both husbands and wives for healing. When’s the last time you heard a minister talk about how porn and adultery affect a wife? Just because the husband stops acting out it does not equate to healing for the wife. If she doesn’t heal the marriage may not make it; we need to provide healing and recovery for both sides, as well as the kids.
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Two for the Price of One
I now have copies of my new book, 100 Days on the Road to Grace; A Devotional for the Sexually Broken in hand. The Road to Grace website, where you’ll be able to purchase the books, is now being updated. This should be done by the early part of the next week. Once that is done I’ll send you a second newsletter with excerpts of the new book.
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Seeking God Retreat in September
For those who love the Lord, spending extended time alone to seek Him is one of the most wonderful experiences in life. There’s nothing like the joy that comes from hearing from and drawing close to Him over one or two days in a secluded place away from the rat race. I try to go to a Christian retreat alone for an overnight stay once every 4-6 months; every time I do I come away with a deep sense of peace and joy from my encounter with Him. My batteries are recharged and there is much needed clarity on what’s important.
I’m looking at holding a “Seeking God” retreat in September, from Friday morning the 13th through Sunday morning the 15th. You would need to arrive by Thursday night the 12th so we can all start Friday morning. This would be held at a Christian retreat center in Beulah, Colorado. There are no TVs in the rooms and no cell phone service (there is a land line). You would be expected to leave all the electronic gadgets home, or at least packed in your luggage; otherwise your time there would be wasted and you might be a distraction to others. The retreat is an eight bedroom building with a meeting room and kitchen, nestled in the majestic beauty of the Colorado Mountains. Attendance will be limited to eight persons or couples.
I won’t be teaching on sex addiction or anything like that; I will be there to facilitate and support your search for God. There will be scheduled times for the group to get together, share, and pray for each other. Otherwise, you will spend your time apart from the others, going after God.
For some, the idea of spending that much time alone with the Lord sounds difficult; even a waste of time. Once the mind settles down and all the insanity of the rat race fades away, the spirit begins to soften and we put ourselves in a place where we can hear from the Lord. Once He begins to speak, teach, lead, or even convict, there’s nothing like it. I often have to drag myself out of there to go home.
They have a cook who provides 3 meals a day for $20.00 per person. Lodging is $50.00 a room per night for the first night for singles; $40.00 a night for the second and third nights. Add $20.00 per night to these rates for couples. There wouldn’t be any other cost to you other than your travel expenses to get there; Blazing Grace isn’t charging for this.
I can’t guarantee what God will do when you’re there; He doesn’t work the same way with everyone. I will share that He changed my life and set me free from the bondage to sexual sin after an intense time of seeking Him. If you do a word search in Scripture for “seeking God” you’ll see there are many blessings promised to those who seek Him with all their heart; see Jeremiah 29:13, Psalms 119:2-3, Deuteronomy 4:29, Hosea 10:12, Matthew 6:33, and the verse quoted in Final Words at the end of this newsletter.
**Please email me if you’re interested in attending so I can reserve a room for you.**
The sooner the better; they are already booked for the previous weekend, and that time of the year is busy for them. No deposits are needed.
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Newsletter Archives
You can read this and previous editions of the Blazing Grace Newsletter online at www.roadtograce.net:
June 2013: Which One Will You Serve?
May 2013: What Defines You?
April 2013: 15 Principles for Freedom
March 2013: I Believe; Help My Unbelief!
February 2013: Adultery
January 2013: Speak, Lord, Your Servant is Listening
December 2012: Healing the Wounds of Rejection
November 2012: A Look at Grace
October 2012: When Someone Shares their Sin
September 2012: Willpower Doesn’t Work
August 2012: Look Who’s One of the Porn Industry’s Biggest Customers
July 2012: For Those Who are Control Freaks (and Don’t Want to Be)
June 2012: Blazing Grace on a Sunday Morning
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More Reading
Healing a Broken Marriage
It’s Just a Little Porn; I’m no Sex Addict
Masturbation
Sexual Sobriety isn’t Enough
The Answer
The Destructive Force of Adultery
Winning the War in the Mind
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Final Words
And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this: ‘I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of (sexual) immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
Revelations 2:18-20
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Blazing Grace’s purpose is to minister to the sexually broken, encourage believers to draw closer to God, and encourage the church to effectively deal with the porn epidemic.
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May God’s grace abound to you.
Mike Genung
All material copyright 2013 Mike Genung