For Men Only

I recently read an article by John Piper entitled Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies. After reading the article… well, I think I am going to take a break from television for a period of time. Here is an excerpt of the article:

“I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity... that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.

All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it. “

--John Piper

For Men Only - Part Two

I am following up my last blog concerning lust with a copy of a recent writing by James Emery White, the Senior Pastor of Mecklenburg Church in Charlotte, NC. His comments are dead on. If you want to minister to other men, pass this along to every man, young man, teenage guy that you know... they need to read this.

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Is Porn Really That Big of a Deal?

When it comes to porn, the question facing many men is simple: is it really wrong? Is it really that big of a deal? I mean, it’s just an image on a screen. It’s not someone I know (so it’s not lust, right?), or someone I’m having an actual affair with, so I’m still faithful to my wife. It’s just sexual release, like masturbation, and we all know that masturbation is not condemned in the Bible. It’s not even mentioned. And isn’t sex a good thing, so what’s wrong in watching it happen? I’m just admiring beauty. And besides, I’m single, so what do you expect me to do with all this pent-up sexual energy? It seems like a safe release until I am married.

I’ve heard all of this, and more, from men.

So is it really that big of a deal?

Yes, and here’s why:

It is sexual sin. Jesus made it clear that when we give in to lust, it is akin the act itself. It makes no difference whether you know the person or not; lust is not tied to relationship.

It is addictive. The ubiquitous nature of porn is new to our culture, and to human sexuality, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is highly addictive in nature. As a result, it can not only begin to dominate a life, but can demand ever-increasing levels of exposure and ever-increasing degrees of experience to continue to stimulate.

It is degrading to women. In pornography, women are treated as objects. They are not fulfilling God’s dream for their life as His precious daughter, nor are they fulfilling His design for sexual expression and fulfillment. You are watching a woman who is being sinned against, treated in a way that is contemptible to her heavenly father (whether she sees it or not – and the fact that many may not only adds to its tragic nature).

It leads to other sins. Studies are beginning to show that the effects of porn on men is more than temporary sexual stimulation: as they see women treated as objects, they begin to treat women that way. They become more sexually aggressive, leading to date rapes and expected “hook-ups.”

It harms your relationship with your current, or future, spouse. It is absolutely bogus to say that watching porn enhances a sexual life. Instead, it cheapens it. Porn quickly becomes a substitute for sexual intimacy with your spouse.

It desensitizes your soul. Sin of any kind desensitizes your spiritual life. Continued exposure to a sin such as pornography is like shooting novocaine into your soul. It deadens you and grieves the Holy Spirit in your life, forcing Him to withdraw His utmost filling in a way that diminishes His power and presence in your life.

It distorts sex. “You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was some equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”

I’m a pastor. I talk with men who are dealing with the spiritual torment and guilt of engaging in a sin while trying to rationalize it away; I talk with men who are having to fight it as an addiction; I talk with men who are finding it is leading them to a warped view of women; I talk with men who are experiencing it’s direct path to other sins; I talk with men who are seeing its assault on their marriage; I talk with men who are trying to awaken their souls from its deadening grip; I talk with men who have distorted views of what sex is about.

I have a front-row seat to how it’s impacting their lives. I don’t need to wait for a host of studies. I’m in a living laboratory. So don’t tell me it’s no big deal.

I know the men who can prove you wrong.

James Emery White


Sources

For help with pornography, as well as accountability software, visit www.xxxchurch.com.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.