It is said that in the average group of gathered men today, 70% of them will have viewed some kind of pornography in the previous week. That is not some wild statistic, but a statistic which has been demonstrated in several tests and surveys. D.A. Carson remarked that young men are coming into churches with their minds completely disordered by pornography, and requiring extensive discipleship to get them to even grasp the idea of true marital love.

Amongst pastors, Internet pornography use is at frightening levels, while in the pew, it goes no better. It is hardly blinked at in evangelical churches for the members to watch movies with explicit sex, nudity, while suggestive comedy is not even blinked at. Overall, the battle against impurity seems to be one that the church is losing. An absolute avalanche of suggestive and provocative images now pours upon people from movies, TV, music videos, the Internet, cellphones, magazines, billboards, not to mention the way people dress in real life. Few men are coming out of this tsunami of sexual imagery and temptation unscathed. Few Christian men are doing so either.

Here is why this strikes at the root of godly manhood. Pornography harms our consciences. A pure conscience is essential for spiritual boldness.

22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Heb. 10:22)
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. (1 Jn. 3:21)

Pornography harms our consciences not only because of the sin of adultery and fornication involved, but because of all the deception and hiding we must do to cover it.

When you combine this, you have men feeling like frauds, like phonies, like spiritual traitors. So men do one of two things. They either draw back, and refuse to take up spiritual leadership. Or, worse, they harden their hearts to the cries of conscience, and serve in church while nursing this sin.

A pure conscience is the mettle of godly manhood.

NKJ 1 Timothy 3:9 holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. (1 Tim. 3:9)
NKJ 1 Peter 3:21 There is also an antitype which now saves us– baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (1 Pet. 3:21)

How are we to battle and overcome this giant of lust and sexual temptation? I just want to be very practical and direct today, and combine the biblical teaching on this to grow our obedience and lessen the chances of failure.

Fire-fighters have various methods for fighting fires. One of them is to burn or cut down trees ahead of the fire. That way, when the fire reaches that point, it has no more fuel to burn and can’t go any further. When it comes to the matter of purity in sexuality, the Bible reveals not one but several ways of fighting sin. I think we can group them into three areas, almost like three fire breaks. If temptation gets past the first one, it should get stopped by the second. If it gets past the second it should get stopped by the third. The three areas are: firstly, the desires, secondly, your actions, and thirdly, accountability and consequences.

Now I’d like to take that list and work backwards. The reason for doing so is I’d like to end with the first fire-break which ought to be the strongest. The third and final kind of defence is not the strongest kind. It is simply the most drastic, and the last line of defence.

So let’s start by considering the outermost fire-break which we should build into our lives which is the

I. Rescue Rope of Accountability and Consequences

Sometimes I will hear Christians say something like, “I do not want to repent of my sins merely because of the bad consequences that come from those sins. I want to repent of my sins because I love the Lord.” And they are right for wanting that to be their chief motive in life. The truth is, that kind of thing is what drives us on our best days, not on our worst days.

On our worst days, when we are least spiritual, and thinking the least about spiritual things, our love for God is exactly what has failed. To depend only upon your love for God is simply an unrealistic view of self. There are times when a combination of things and choices leads us to be cold in our affections, prone to temptation and neglectful of the spiritual disciplines we need. On such days what we need is the outermost fire-break of Accountability and Consequences.

What does this mean? This is where we remember what Scripture warns us of what we might experience or lose if we give in to temptation.

• enslavement to sexual lust
• crushing guilt feelings
• spiritual paralysis and frustration
• a ruined marriage
• disqualification from ministry
• diminished interest in sex with one’s spouse due to sinful comparing and dissatisfaction
• increased temptation to other sexual sins, such as prostitutes, sexual abuse, and fornication
• increased anger toward one’s family as guilt builds up
• a growing distance and secretiveness as the person continually seeks seclusion to view pornography
• lying and deceit to hide pornography

One of the problems with sexual sin is that it thrives on fantasy. The whole thing becomes unreal and fantastical. As a man lives in this fantasy world, he tends to become more and more convinced that this is his own private sin and it isn’t ultimately a problem for anyone else. He rationalises. He explains it away. His deceitful heart finds all kinds of reasons why it is OK.

With this kind of phenomenon taking place, this fire break is to have someone external to you call you on your life. This kind of accountability is encouraged and called for in Scripture:

James 5:19-20

Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

James calls on us to turn one another back from sin.

Galatians 6:1

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.

Proverbs 27:5-6

Open rebuke is better Than love carefully concealed.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

What does this look like? For the problem of Internet porn, there are not simply filters, but accountability programs which email someone if you visit a questionable site. Covenant Eyes.

When travelling, have someone who you can phone or will phone you to ask what you watched. Mostly, it is having someone who can ask you the hardest questions: How is your personal walk with God? Where is Satan tempting you at the moment? But here’s the catch: you have to set this up in your life. Aside from diligent pastors, few people are going to have the temerity to ask you about your spiritual life. You will have to build up a relationship with another man, who will hold you to the standard of Scripture.

That means that you have to have a realistic picture of your own sin nature. You have to know that at some point, it will come to this. At some point, on my worst day, and I need something there. In fact, the very fact that you know there is a third barrier is often what keeps you back. It is not that your accountability partner calls you only when you are in trouble. Simply having that in your life can keep you far back from even approaching the need for it. But, in order to have this kind of relationship in your life, you must be aware that your sinful nature needs this very thing.

1 Corinthians 10:12

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Furthermore, you have to choose the kind of man who will not condone sin, but at the same time show the appropriate compassion. He needs to be the kind of man who confronts you with the scary question: what would you lose if you went ahead with this and it was revealed?

Accountability partners should be mature believers, not peers who consistently report their failures to each other but offer little true help to stop their immoral behaviour:

The when of accountability: Accountability is not primarily about confessing sin after you have looked at porn; it is about seeking help as you are being tempted to look at it. Heath Lambert: Many accountability groups function as an opportunity for a delayed confession of sin. You must change this pattern if you want to be free from porn. You must begin to reach out to your accountability partners when you are tempted instead of waiting for a meeting to confess your sins after the fact …. You will not experience dramatic change in your struggle as long as you use accountability to describe your sins instead of declaring your need for help in the midst of temptation. (Finally Free, 49)

Moving backwards, we come to the second fire-break, which we could call the daily battle against sin. If the third fire-break is a rescue rope, then this is

II. The Middle Wall of Moral Maintenance – Your Obedience, Your Actions

Every day, you are going to face sexual temptation. The billboards. The music in the mall. The way women are dressed at work, or at the gym. As you surf online.

There is an every day maintenance of right choices to keep this sin out. To keep your house from rain damage, you need to keep doing maintenance.

There are at least three ways that the Bible calls us to do this.

1) Get Away From Sexual Temptation. Your eyes, and the imaginations that come from your eyes are the fuel and fire of sexual temptation. So Job said,

Job 31:1 “I have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young woman?”

What does that mean? Job made a stern agreement with himself, that he would not feed himself longing looks at anyone except his wife. He knew what Jesus would later explain in detail:

Matthew 5:28

“But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

So the first attitude is the attitude of fleeing temptation. One speaker I heard said that he practised bouncing his eyes off a provocatively dressed woman or even sensuous images on magazines, billboards or TV screens. If he would see it, he learned not to linger but he would simply bounce his eyes off and let them land elsewhere. In his words, “I look away, I turn away, I walk away”. That’s fleeing temptation. That’s avoiding all appearance of evil. Before the thoughts can even incubate, you have stopped them. You have taken your thoughts captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.

For those of you who are married, we should think in terms of starving our eyes of the world’s offerings and saving them for our wives. If we choose to rest our eyes upon the fantasy images of beauty around us, we will have little joy or desire left for our wives.

2) Plan to be pure. That might sound strange at first. Who plans to sin? Well, many do, but let’s assume we’re talking about a God-fearing Christian who doesn’t plan to sin. The problem is, that doesn’t go far enough. You cannot merely don’t plan to sin, you must plan not to sin. You must plan your life so as to minimise your encounters with temptation.

When Solomon described the foolish young man who was ensnared by the adulterous woman, the key verse in

Proverbs 7:8

Passing along the street near her corner; And he took the path to her house

He did not give temptation a wide berth. He walked in the direction of temptation, naively (and half dishonestly) wondering if temptation might get him. Make no mistake, come close to temptation, and like the two opposite poles of a magnet, it will attract your sinful nature to itself and there will be little chance of resisting it.

The person who is seeking to maintain a holy life and fight against sin is planning not to sin. That is the idea behind

Romans 13:14

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

To make no provision for the flesh means, do not provide the sinful nature any opportunity to seize upon. Don’t make provisions for it. Don’t give it the space to act.

• Decide ahead of time when you will be on the Internet, and who will be at home.
• If you are frequently travelling, it is wise to decide what your policy with the hotel TV will be – and if you are alone, don’t switch it on.
• Don’t surf from channel to channel – you will find something provocative.
• Avoid bookshelves and magazine shelves and DVD shelves where lust is provoked.
• Don’t aimlessly look for entertainment on the web – use it for specific tasks.
• Don’t surf when bored, depressed, or lonely.
• Don’t surf late at night when everyone else is asleep.
• Set up your screen so others can see what you are looking at.
• Do not give your teenagers an Internet-enabled phone, or a connection to the Internet that they can surf alone in their rooms.
• Decide what TV programs you will watch, and what you will do if a provocative ad or trailer comes on.
• Decide ahead of time to avoid compromising situations of being alone with a member of the opposite sex not your spouse.

This is choosing to arrange your day to avoid temptation as much as possible.

3) Cut off what causes you to stumble. Jesus used very strong language in this regard.

Matthew 5:29

“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.”

To cut off one of your body’s members would be painful, and debilitating. The point of that illustration is to say, in the fight against temptation, you may need to let go of some things which are painful to let go of. It might even be that their absence in your life hinders you or hampers your life. Jesus said, rather be debilitated than condemned. Rather be slowed down, hindered, disabled than damned.

In the fight against sexual sin, we must take the battle that seriously. If cellphones have become the stumbling-block, then they may need to go. “That would really make life hard!” That’s the point of the illustration.

If the Internet has become the stumbling-block, it may need to go. “But I do my research there, and I would be crippled without email.”

If the gym has become a stumbling block, cancel the gym membership.

If travelling alone ends up being the stumbling block, you may need to give up travelling alone. “But that would make so many things difficult!” That’s the point of the illustration. Rather face difficulty and grow in holiness than continue with convenience straight into destruction. That’s the point of Jesus’ illustration. You can live without certain conveniences. You cannot live without holiness.

The day-to-day maintenance of the fight against sin is important. It is a way of putting works to the faith where we pray ‘deliver us from temptation’. Here we work out what we believe. We flee, we make no provision, we amputate.

But up to now the fire-breaks have all been negative: the fear of consequences, the denial of temptation. The truth is, the greatest power over sin in our lives is not negative, but positive. The greatest commandment in the Christian life is not a negative, but a positive: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This leads us to the first line of defence against sin, and it ought to be the strongest. It is:

III. The Front Line of our Desires

What we love is the most powerful defence against sin. A positive love will outlast and conquer mere negative defences. We are by nature positive creatures. We seek something to eat, no merely something to fast from. We want to go places, not merely avoid others. We want to do things, not merely abstain from other things. So the greatest power over immoral sexual desire is not merely denying the sinful indulgence of lust or by considering the painful consequences thereof, it is by loving something and someone more than the desire for illicit pleasure.

1) We must love God ultimately.
We need to understand that sexual sin is a form of idolatry. Pornography is idolizing the pleasure of sex by using the body of another for self-gratification. We idolise sex, by turning the human subject into an object, an object of lustful desire, purely to provoke and experience sexual pleasure selfishly. Instead of looking to God to ultimately satisfy us, we turn to the broken cisterns of sin.

At the heart of this sin is unbelief: God won’t meet my needs. I have to seek satisfaction outside His will.

But if we would be pure, we must learn to love God by loving what He loves, and hating what He hates.

2) We must love our wives like Christ
The temptation to look at pornography is counteracted by thankfulness, which is the opposite of being discontent. When a married man sees an alluring woman or a lust-stimulating photograph, he should capture and redirect his thoughts by praying, Thank you, Lord, for my wife. Thank you that she is the one whom you have given me and that in her I find my joyful sexual satisfaction.

Pornographic temptation is counteracted and replaced by fulfilling the biblical commands to rejoice, be satisfied in, and exhilarated by your spouse:

Proverbs 5:15-19

Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well.
Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets?
Let them be only your own, And not for strangers with you.
Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth.
As a loving deer and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured with her love.

Your wife will never live up to the fantasy world of porn. She is not supposed to. Love your wife as God has told you, not as Hollywood tells you. We need to reprogram our minds to see that even sexual love is not about a voracious quenching of an appetite for self-gratification, it is part of a sacrificial, sanctifying, satisfying and steadfast love relationship.

On the other hand, I Corinthians instructs husbands and wives to have a frequent and mutually satisfying sexual relationship. This is part of holy love between man and wife. To deny one another this right is, as Paul put it, to give Satan an opportunity to tempt. After love for God, our love for our spouse is the greatest shield against falling into sexual temptation. Put simply, the better the relationship, the more the spouse has ‘eyes only’ for the other. The deeper the bond, the greater the desire in the man to fight temptation.

We must admit that the thankfulness principle is harder for singles to apply than for married people. However, they too can be thankful for the gift of singleness (1 Cor 7:7) and in anticipation for the spouse that God will hopefully give them one day. A suggested prayer for singles:

God, thank You for making me a sexual creature with sexual desires. I don’t ask that You remove my desire, but that You help me to please You with it in my thoughts and actions …. Fill me with confidence that You have good things in store for me—something much better than what lust has to offer. (Joshua Harris, Not Even a Hint, 37)

For single men – learn to love women as God has instructed you – as sisters, mothers, neighbours.

We would like the fight against temptation to be a quick 5-step program. The reality of the power of sin is not like that. We must put various fire-breaks in place. For our worst day, we put in place the possibility of being found out and the stark reality of what we would lose, through reminders of consequences and accountability.

For our day-to-day, we maintain the defences against temptation by fleeing with our eyes, planning not to sin, and cutting off what keeps tripping us up.

But on the deepest level, we must love. We must love God supremely, so that our desire for Him drives out sinful desire like light dispels darkness. We must love our wives as God has told us to.

What about when we fail? Answer: we persevere. We remember that Christ has already paid for that sin, and God is not surprised by our sins. The sins we defeat are defeated sins. So we confess, we are cleansed, and we once again set about working on each of these three areas.

Proverbs 28:1

The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion.

How do we get spiritual boldness back? With pure consciences. By fighting this sin with all our might, so that we know that before God we have lived rightly and can approach Him with confidence.