I just knew. The minute we made contact, whether through a phone call or in person, I could sense what had happened the night before.
Pornography, again.
His tone of voice, his sunken spirit, his inward bent told the same, sad story. This brother had prayed, raised support, and finally made it to join us for six months to bring the gospel to the unreached. Here he was, on the frontlines, only to find himself sidelined by porn. It saddened me for him, but as I looked out at the people on our streets, it saddened me for them. Lust had crippled his passion for the lost.
Not only is pornography an affront to a holy God, it also functions like an oil leak in the engine of missions. If unaddressed, drip by drip, an engine with an oil leak will cease to operate. Dose by dose, porn renders a heart unfit for missions.
“Not only is pornography an affront to a holy God, it also functions like an oil leak in the engine of missions.”
Just last week, I was asked on two different occasions why I think so many godly ladies are signing up to engage unreached peoples while the men seem to be content on the sidelines. My answer: internet pornography.
I know the statistics point to how pornography isn’t merely a male problem. I understand, but I also have worked among young men enough to know this problem has reached epidemic proportions. Years ago, John Piper coined that paradigm-shifting statement about missions in Let the Nations Be Glad: “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” Among young, Christian men who don’t show concern for the nations, I’ve come to wonder if it could be said that porn lurks where missions doesn’t.
Here is my plea to porn-strugglers: not merely for your sake, for their sake—for the unreached nations of the world—get help. Pornography sidelines you when the nations need you. I want to help you realize the soul-conditioning effect of pornography in a way you may not have seen it before, particularly as it relates to missions. My aim is for this brief article to be a healing wound that sets a new trajectory in your pursuit of purity.
Porn conditions your soul in three ways, which grace can overcome.
1. Soul-Shrinking Desires
Going to that website functions like a trip to the gym. Porn shapes the soul like a seasoned trainer, pressing it into its desired mold. The drive of pornography is lust. The drive of missions, love.
Lust turns “need” inward and chooses porn as its twisted solution. Love, however, turns the soul outward and gives of itself to meet the real need.
Pornography shrinks the soul’s ambition to privatized self-indulgence at another’s expense. Missions expands the soul’s ambition to embrace self-sacrifice for another’s good. Thus porn, in a unique way, deconditions us for missions.
I hadn’t seen this deconditioning effect of pornography until I heard the story of one newly married couple. They had been married with all the excitement of finally reaching that coveted green-light from God to engage in physical intimacy. Three months into marriage, however, the man became disinterested. He physically couldn’t engage in real intimacy because he had trained his body to enjoy its fake substitute. His soul and body had been conditioned to prefer the screen over the real thing.
“The drive of pornography is lust. The drive of missions, love.”
But grace is stronger. Jesus frees the captive soul and expands one’s narrow borders of self-love. Grace instructs us to “deny godlessness and worldly lusts” and reshapes us into a people who are “eager to do good works” (Titus 2:12a, 14b HCSB). You can see this expansive dynamic in Paul’s use of the word “obligated” in Romans. Paul’s broad obligation was to the nations (Rom. 1:14), not to narrow demands of the flesh (Rom. 8:12).
By God’s Spirit, Christian, you and Paul share the same obligation. The flesh has no claim on you. You can defy its confining impulses with the new impulse that grace awakens to reach the unreached. To you who feel defeated by this sin, remember the resurrection of Jesus. The risen Jesus has made you a sin-slayer by the Spirit. Go on the offensive. Strike this sin, at its first inclinations, over and over with promise after promise; don’t give it a second to regather itself. Say “no” to that next temptation, and the next, until, by God’s grace, it is no longer you who are defeated, but porn. One eternally significant “yes” for the nations could be unleashed through the next “no” to forbidden nudity.
2. Soul-Constricting Gratification
A pornographic transaction yields immediate gratification. No one logs on just to wait. Therein lies the problem when it comes to the nations. Missions and momentary have nothing in common. Love suffers long (1 Cor. 13:4). Pornography may satisfy for a moment, but it contracts the soul, restricting its capacity to labor long for the oft delayed return of missions.
Paul consistently highlighted the need for endurance in gospel ministry, even going so far as to say to Timothy “great patience” is needed (2 Tim. 4:2). The unreached peoples of the world are unreached for a reason. These unharvested fields will need both good laborers and long labor. We may never see the fruit of our labors.
“Pornography may satisfy for a moment, but it contracts the soul, restricting its capacity to labor long for the oft delayed return of missions.”
It was long thought that boa constrictors suffocate their prey, but studies actually indicate they cut their prey’s blood supply. The pressure proves too much for the heart, not for the lungs. I’ve seen a similar effect of porn. This sin particularly constricts the flow of the gospel’s life-giving endurance. Paul boldly asserted there is simply no reason to lose heart in gospel ministry (2 Cor. 4:1, 16). But when porn tightens its grip on the soul, the Spirit’s flow of resiliency inducing power is strained. If giving in to porn comes easy, giving up in gospel ministry will too. Porn uniquely undermines patient endurance in gospel endeavors.
But here again, grace can re-lengthen our contracted souls. One way to counter impatient gratification that feeds the desire for porn is to cultivate thankfulness. Read Ephesians 5:3–4. Paul sees thankfulness as an attitudinal replacement for sexual immorality. As Gordon Fee stated, “Lack of gratitude is the first step to idolatry.” A satisfied soul will stretch longer into obedience than a soul seeking satisfaction. Incline your heart to thankfulness, and the desire for porn will decline by God’s grace.
3. Soul-Shriveling Shame
Engaging in pornography is drenched with shame. That’s why it prefers the privacy of a bedroom over the shared space of a living room. But shame saves its darkest assaults for post-porn. Like grapes become raisins, shame dries out the soul. Shame strips the soul of concern for others and replaces it with a navel-gazing self-absorption. This is why it is hard for people confessing porn consumption to look you in the eye.
But struggling brother and sister, look up. Don’t look down in shame or regret or self-pity. Look up!
Lift up your eyes to him who “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works” (Titus 2:14 HCSB). The Son of God became a man so you would find a sympathetic high priest who never turns a cold shoulder to struggling saints who plead with him for help (Heb. 2:17–18, 4:14–16). Maybe your struggle with porn has been long. But Christ’s patience stretches further. Jesus delights to use sinners whose stories display the riches of mercy and his “extraordinary patience” just like Paul’s (1 Tim. 1:16).
Grace says we’ve been on the sidelines for too long. The nations need us on the field.
Greg Handley served as a church planter and writer with the International Mission Board.