Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Pornography

Joseph Herrin (10-03-2017)












Pornography. The definition has changed over the years, but the effect has not. Pornography is defined as an image of a female or male in a sexual position. I would take it a step further. Depictions of female or male persons unclothed, or clothed in an immodest way, that grabs the attention of the person looking at them, in a tantalizing way.

It is necessary to define pornography today because most people would say that they are not subjected regularly to it. The problem has to do with “it.” Most of what I call pornography today would not be characterized as such by others. Ask Sarah and Jezebel what pornography are and you will definitely get two highly divergent answers.

It has gotten to the point that I won’t visit the news sites of British dailies. It is said that the British are used to getting their news with a bit of sex. The truth is that the companies that cater to the British, and many other of the corporate news providers, give the people whatever will keep them coming back. If you make news available with all the tabloid sex stories then you are creating a hunger for tawdry bits of “news” that will keep men and women returning for more.

Pornography is not a small problem today. I don’t know of a single guy who has a computer, or a smart phone, who is not been subjected to porn in one form or another on a weekly basis. As to the girls, I have the statistics to go on. Every third pornographic image is viewed by a female. One in six females are addicted to pornography, and the numbers are rising. They are by and large the greatest segment for pornographic pictures to be made.

Christians should keep the following in mind.

Matthew 5:27-30
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

























Take a close look at the graphics above. Ninety percent of children ages 8 to 16 have viewed porn. Get a young person, age 12 to 17, to wrestle with porn and they will not stand a chance. Seventy percent of men ages 18 to 34 visit a porn site every month. Fifty percent of pastors regularly look at porn. Thirty-eight percent of adults (men and women) don’t see any problem with pornography. To them it is morally acceptable. That is nearly 4 out of every 10, and the numbers are only growing.

I would like to think that my readers are far less prone to the failings of society as a whole. Yet my studies have done little to set me apart from the rest. If men and women, boys and girls, have nothing inside of them to keep them from pornography they will fall to its allure. Because I know of men who are among the godliest, and they have at times confessed to me some struggle with this area of their life, I know that it would be irresponsible for me to turn a blind eye and assume that it is not a problem. I have had my own problems with pornography.

I remember when I was about 13 years old. This was before the days of personal computers or smart phones and tablets. It was around 1974. A friend of mine invited me over to his house. He had 2 older brothers. They had converted their garage into a boys hangout. It served as their bedrooms and was off limits to their mother. My friend took me into this place. On the walls were hung pictures of naked women. It was the first time I had ever seen such, and my senses were heightened. I remember looking at the photos and thinking that there were magazines full of them. I was highly attracted to them. No doubt the mother knew they were in the room and chose not to get involved. I was only 13 years old and I didn’t ask God for a new way to be tested. I discovered that this was already in me.

Pornography became my greatest sin. It disturbed me greatly during my teens and twenties. I wondered how I could be born again and still have such a strong attraction to pornography. I would sneak a magazine home and spend hours in my room looking at it only to become disgusted and eventually throw it out. I got a job working at a hotel and part of its income came from weekly or monthly renters. I had to do maintenance in all of the hotel rooms and I discovered that one of the renters filled his room with pornographic magazines. He had some magazines I had not heard of. They featured women together giving one another pleasure. I was 22 years old at the time. I lived at the hotel and I snuck a couple of magazines to my room. I would finish them and return them. I would then take some others until I finished with them.

The pornography was a love/hate relationship. I would go through the magazines at night, loving the titillation. After I had sinned with them I hated them. I feared for my relationship with Yahweh. I would return them, and I felt like I couldn’t even pray until the next day, and then I would pour out my heart to God. I had some lengthy periods of rest from this battle, but the victory didn’t come until I was 37. It was then the Father spoke to me and He said “If you don’t take control of what your eyes see then you will forfeit the good things I have prepared for you.”

I put pornography away that day and did not look at it again for about 20 years. I had some trials that were cut and dried. I knew what was expected of me and I did it. In my heart I was faithful to God. This was the time I was called to write many books and smaller writings for Yahweh. I spent many years in this good place. I was walking in the favor and discipline of the Lord.

Then I had a stroke. My stroke debilitated me a good bit. I had to learn to use my right hand again. I had to learn to walk without a cane. This took some months. It has been 16 months since my stroke. I have gotten better, though not perfect at walking around. I no longer use the cane. I can type with my right hand again, though not as fast. I find myself struggling to talk at times. I can’t think of the words I want to use, especially when I am tired.

I have found something else is troubling me. During my recovery of the past few months I have found myself struggling with pornography again. No, I don’t go out and purchase pornographic magazines. I assume they still sell them, though not in the grocery stores that I shop in nowadays. The magazines are different in the stores, and they don’t attract my interest. No, I have found that when I am tired I am easily snared by subtle ads. I click on something, then I will click some more. I found one day that I had spent hours viewing images that were pornographic.

This happened to me about three times. The unusual thing is that you can now get into a whole lot of impure things without having to visit a so-called porn site. All you have to do is search on some word or phrase on Google. Google is now the world’s largest pornographic site. It has millions of pictures from every form of pornography. You don’t have to leave Google, either. In fact, you are ill advised to chase porn to its original sites. You may come down with some form of malware.

I found that I still had a love/hate relationship with pornography. You see, I am not a better person than the man next door because I do not wrestle with evil. I am only better because the Lord holds me in His hand. He has placed His Spirit within me to enable me to overcome the devil and the evil he has brought into the world. He did a good thing 20 years ago when He rescued me from pornography. He told me I would not be fit to share the mysteries with other people unless I controlled what my eyes would see. That word of warning saved me from much heartache and put me on the painful, yet blessed, pathway of obedience.

Having a stroke does things to your brain. It makes you more tired, and when I am tired I let my guard down. I don’t have to look hard for pornographic pictures. They are everywhere on the Internet. It was a given that I would fall into the morass of impure things. All I had to do was wait, and the opportunity would come.

I am glad I stopped. I do not say that I am glad that I quit being attracted to evil things. That would be too much to ask for this time on earth. We are still these moral spirits inside of immoral bodies. What we do depends upon how much we feed our spirit man and starve our flesh man. It depends upon what the Father speaks to us in a moment of weakness. I heard Him speak to me.

I began thinking about whether I would be allowed in to the wedding supper of the Lamb. I began thinking about the others that were there, the apostles and prophets of old. I wondered if any of them had problems with pornography. I am sure a lot of them did before they were Christians. After they were Christians they had to adopt a different mindset.

Hebrews 10:26-31
For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. And again, "The Lord will judge His people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Every word above speaks to the sin of pornography. I thought of the wedding of the Lord and how all those present were delivered from porn. That is to say, they surely did not cease to struggle with it in their beings, but they were able to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. I did not want to have suffered so much for Christ only to have it taken away from me at the end. Then another thought came from the Lord. I say it came from the Lord for it had not been there before and my mind was not to good at thinking up these things by itself. In that minute I thought of setting up my PC where it would not present a temptation every time I looked at it.

I got on the computer and within a few minutes I was looking at Top Ten Reviews. This is a site that does comparisons of a wealth of software categories. I was looking at their review for Content Filtering software.















http://www.toptenreviews.com/business/services/best-small-business-content-filters/

I had never done such a search before. The top rated of the ten packages was called Content Protect. I went to their website and found a trial version of their software.















I downloaded it and I had it working in no time. This is said by a man who has had a stroke and who has problems with software. I tested it on some sample sites.










You can see this is a site on MSN.com. It is not considered a pornographic site, but it has pictures of celebs and how plastic surgery has transformed them. It blocked this page, flagging it as Nudity. This is precisely what I needed. I had to go to the site categories and change them to how I needed them.















(Click on Image to View Larger)

You can see 4 different categories here. They are easy to change and highly effective. There were 9 other programs listed at this site. Some of them are free, such as the number two program that was bought by Cisco, but which has a family option.















https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/

This is supposed to be similar to the program I selected, if you take the middle option. Make sure you don’t take the other options when you click to the next page. They will charge you for no reason.

Brothers and sisters, I believe the Lord put this on my mind at this time because He wants all His sons and daughters with a problem with pornography to secure their machines with one of these programs. They are available in iOS, Android, and the various iPhone setups as well. You will need to read the software description

Should you spend the time and setup your computer, tablet, or smart phone with one of these software packages? Yes! You need to take control of this problem before it takes control of you, or your family. If you feel that you are not good at handling the software packages, get someone involved who is.

Above all, try out the software packages. These are all big programs that are marketed to businesses worldwide. If a business can use them for their purposes, then we can too. And we should.

There is no way to select what is safe for your family without a program like this. You need to test with different browsers. I found that Chrome and Google, both of which are Google products, did not protect the images in Google. Perhaps they would if I tightened down the security in Google, but I was able to delete them and use other browsers.

Will you let your family get to heaven and have the door to the wedding feast shut in their faces? Think about it.

Heart4God Website: http://www.heart4god.ws    

Parables Blog: www.parablesblog.blogspot.com    

Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063

7 comments:

Skip said...

Thank you Brother Herrin for so courageously and honestly addressing a subject which has affected so many people. One thing is certain, and that is once a specific type of sin has been committed by an individual, that one event opens the door to a flood of Satanic assaults in an attempt to keep that person in that state of sin, whether or not that person is born again. This applies to sins of lust, stealing, lying, adultery, etc., whatever the sin may be. The devil and his own know our weakness from that point on. That weakness will be a point of attack for the rest of our mortal lives. There is one fact which we should all remember who are born again by the spirit of our Creator. The power of the Spirit of Yahweh within is greater than the Satanic powers outside of us. When we literally cry for help, for protection from our spirit within, from the very depths of our soul, we will receive undefeatable help from above.

Unknown said...

Thank you for this post. I came here expecting to see something related to the recent shooting but this is far more vital to the daily struggle against temptation.

This is something I and people I know have struggled with. Sometimes successfully sometimes not.

There have been times when watching TV or searching the web that seemingly for no reason my mind would begin wandering towards this sin. That's when I realize that some of the content in front of me is subtly seductive. It's everywhere in varying degrees.

The software you mention won't block TV content but is worth a shot for surfing the internet.

Thanks for sharing.

pat said...

Thank you, brother!

Joseph Herrin said...

Dear James,

If a brother like you would take the time to download a program such as the one I have suggested, and would stick to it, I would consider all of my effort worth it.

Also, since you have mentioned television, please let me add the following to your statement. I have no television, but the Internet is just as bad. I have Amazon and it has many movies and T.V. shows for free and to purchase. I have found the same thing as you have when watching them. What is even more evil is when I don't notice it. It is like creeping frog sickness. Raise the temperature of the water a little at a time and you do not notice it.

I have also taken steps to mitigate this from happening. I have thrown out all of my videos of a questionable nature (practically all of them). I have also gotten rid of the downloaded videos. I am looking to other means to occupy my time when I am tired. There are loads of documentaries and preaching videos. I like to play a game of Scrabble by myself (against the computer) before I go to sleep at night, and it is good for people who have had a stroke. I am listening to Scriptures played in the evening. I am listening to my music collection. There are lots of good ways to spend quiet time.

Joseph Herrin

José María Armesto Caldeiro said...

Beloved Joseph,
Thank you for your sincerity, honesty and vulnerability, which will undoubtedly be a blessing to the Body of Christ.
Many years ago I stopped using the Hotmail-MNS page
and I moved on to Gmail, precisely because it showed provocative images.
Thank you for those filtering pages that are very useful for everyone, in the face of the obscene invasion that grows and grows without measure, even for those who do not have problems with pornography but do not want to be exposed. I just installed mine and replicated his article on my blog.
I pray with you that the Lord will use these tools for the benefit of all.
Blessings!

ByWaterAndBlood said...

Thank you for sharing your heart in such a candid way so that the body of Christ might be edified through your testimony. I have been struggling with a conflict between my desire to be entertained and/or informed and the content I am exposed to in these endeavors. I convinced myself that (by the power of the Holy Spirit) I could "eat food sacrificed to idols" and be strong enough to rightly divide the content I am exposed to. I have found that this is not the case. I am weak because *when I subject myself willingly* to sources of visually, aurally or intellectually stimulating content that I know will be imbued with evil I believe God removes His protection and lets me stand on my own power. I might be able to withstand it for a while but continued exposure wears me down. I sense it creeping into my subconscious. I find my thoughts, behavior and intentions changing, little by little until a seed of iniquity sprouts and quickly becomes well-rooted in my psyche. Even though I stopped watering them it takes time for these tares to die. Since I have canceled my Netflix account I have had dreams and urges in the night that haunt me. I thank Yahweh for alerting the Spirit within me that something was wrong. The whole armor of God... FLEE from idolatry.

I believe a fast of sorts is in order for me. I've felt a strong need to limit my time on the computer, what sites I go to (Facebook and YouTube INSIST on displaying women's lingerie ads even though I mark them as inappropriate, and Google image searches always seem to show something I really wish I hadn't seen), what entertainment I listen to and watch (even some of the more "wholesome" shows and movies have very subtle sexually suggestive material - arguably the most dangerous kind because it "innocently winks" at evil). In my opinion the worst sort of coercive content is the most subtle. These kinds of seeds go straight past our prefrontal judgment, especially when our brains and bodies have been worn down and/or induced to trance by the flickering lights on our screens.

So fast it is. When I first moved to Montezuma I didn't have internet or a cell phone for months. It was quite liberating. The Lord was giving me inspiration to write music in its place. I also notice a need to get a hold on my diet. I've been overeating junk food, especially when watching Youtube.

Reading back over this it is plain that the word "I" has been overused. This means that my ability to focus on serving and helping others is stunted by the wickedness I've allowed in my life. It is a real setback, but since He has made this evident I can now begin to move past myself and get back to doing His good will.

José María Armesto Caldeiro said...

Al leer el comentario de ByWaterAndBlood que me acaba de llegar, recordé una enseñanza que hace unos 21-23 años me dio el Espíritu Santo. Yo tenía entonces 5 ó 6 años en el Señor. Recuerdo que solía ir a comer a un restaurante asequible el menú del día. Ellos encendían la TV para que la gente la viera mientras comía. Yo solía comer y aprovechar para ver-escuchar las noticias. Lamentablemente en ciertas cadenas de TV, especialmente las privadas, las noticias iban acompañadas con "regalitos" visuales diversos. En el caso que recordé se trató de un "simple" desfile de moda, en el que las modelos lucían generosas transparencias. En ese tiempo yo había abandonado mi hogar siguiendo instrucciones del Señor. Debido a mi fidelidad el Señor tenía absoluto control de mi sexualidad, pues me concedió el don de continencia, ya que habiendo estado casado ahora no podía disfrutar de los beneficios conyugales al respecto por seguirle a Él. Esa noche después del desfile de moda del mediodía tuve una efusión nocturna durante el sueño. Cuando me levanté en la mañana le pregunté al Señor por qué había ocurrido eso y Él me recordó claramente las transparencias del desfile y que debía guardar mis ojos si quería seguir gozando de Su protección.
Como dice ByWaterAndBlood, nuestro subconsciente capta muy rápido ese tipo de imágenes y he notado que en algunas ocasiones penetran muy profundo y en tales situaciones después debo orar unas cuantas veces pidiéndole al Señor que las borre completamente; lo que usualmente toma un tiempo para que dejen de aflorar a la memoria.
En Twuiter y en Google + últimamente está habiendo una invasión. recuerdo que en Google + una vez me anoté en un grupo de frases célebres y tuve que salir de ahí rápido porque algunos ponían fotos muy subidas de tono. ¿Qué hacen esas fotos en un sitio de frases célebres? En Twuiter hay chicas dedicándose a publicitar sus servicios poniendo sus "Me gusta" en mis twuits y cuando uno mira la foto de quien puso el "me gusta", se da cuenta de lo que hay detrás; ya he tenido que bloquear a tres chicas.
Saludos y bendiciones a todos!!!