“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Ephesians 5:3-5
If the title of the blog post is what caught your attention and caused you to read it today, maybe these staggering statistics will break your heart.
Every second of every day…
1. …$3,075 is spent on pornography.
2. …28,258 people around the world are viewing pornography.
3. …372 people are typing adult search terms into their search engines.
Every 39 minutes of every day…
1. …a new pornographic video is created in the United States
The U.S. porn industry generates an annual revenue of over $13 billion…this is more than professional sports revenues combined. This is enough to feed nearly half of the world’s hungry for an entire year.
If you’re not disturbed enough already, keep reading how this is affecting our children.
• There are 116,000 daily requests for child pornography.
• There are 100,000 websites that are currently offering illegal child pornography.
The average age of first internet porn exposure is 11. Are you wondering when is a good time to have “the talk” with your kids? It’s now. The world will get to them before you do if you wait.
• There are 4.2 million pornographic websites.
• There are 68 million daily porn search engine requests.
• There are 1.5 billion pornographic downloads per month.
• 42.7% of all internet users view pornography. That’s nearly half of all people that use the internet!
• 72 million worldwide internet users visit adult sites per month.
Had enough? When will we, as Christians, stand up, draw the line, and say, “Enough is enough!”? We are being sexually assaulted by the enemy every day, and every time we compromise purity for pleasure of any kind that is contrary to God’s Word, we give the enemy more ground to destroy us.
Some of you might be looking over those statistics and thinking, “How disgusting! I would never…!” The moment we think we are immune to any sin is the moment the enemy begins to target us in that very thing. Where we are not covered and where our guard is down, it is there that he shoots his arrows. And forgive us, Lord, for thinking that this is solely a man’s issue and doesn’t pertain to us women. You saw the statistics. Nearly half of all people that use the internet view porn. That’s ladies, too. Make no mistake about that. Where will we draw the line on impurity in our lives? Every time we excuse behavior or entertainment choices that would neither please God nor honor Him, we compromise integrity and become increasingly susceptible to this downward spiral of sexual sin.
If I haven’t gotten specific enough, allow me to clarify. Ladies out there reading this who claim the name of Jesus Christ, you have no business exposing yourself to the filth of such forms of “entertainment” as Magic Mike and 50 Shades of Grey. It is simply not fitting for a child of God, and in engaging in this behavior, we’ve given the enemy a foothold in our lives, in our families, in our marriages. Sin is sin; evil is evil. The enemy loves nothing more than getting us to believe the lie that there is such a thing as “acceptable evil”, and that it doesn’t affect us. Some of us, in efforts to excuse the impurity in our lives, have offered the excuse of, “At least I’m not as bad as “________.” When did that person or thing become the standard of holiness that we are called to live up to? God and His righteousness are what we ought to be comparing our lives to, not our neighbors.
It’s time to gain a biblical conviction about purity. Without it, we are easy prey to our enemy that is relishing in his victory over our sex-crazed society. Let’s stop letting him win. Let’s cease giving him victory in this area of our purity. Let’s stand convicted on God’s Word, and choose to walk in freedom from sexual sin in all its forms.
Cherie,
Thank you so much for posting this reality for us. Often times as Christians we think pornography is either not an issue for the Church or it is only a man’s issue. I personally have struggled with it as a woman and have been hurt by it in more ways than one in our marriage. Not only that but as women we often think reading or watching things is not considered porn or improper. I remember when Magic Mike came out I was excited to see it…. Then I prayed about it and it truly was convicting that I would rather look at a man dancing then spend an evening with my hubby. I know a lot of people don’t want to hear that watching movies like that could hurt your marriage or even for 2.5 hours distance you from God’s voice because culture says its ok. But we are to be holy for He is holy. That doesn’t mean we are to be perfect but instead to be set a part and point people to Jesus.
Thanks again!
The children’s song ” Be careful little eyes what you see…”etc. is even more applicable today than ever before…pornography floods not only the internet but movies and sexual immorality is rampant on television…the family friendly programs are few and far between…a good friend of mine here at work pays for cable tv but usually watches the old black and white sitcoms from the 60’s…can’t find a decent thing to watch he says…I even get offended by some things that are in “PG” movies…we do need to guard our hearts….more than ever