Porn in the Pews - International Pentecostal Holiness Church

tice. In front of the camera lens is another human being
who ought to be treated with the dignity of someone created
in the image of God. By clicking on or paying for
pornography, we endorse an industry that regularly preys
on the vulnerability of others, and treats them as commodities.
Idolatry
The great drama of Scripture is this: whom will we worship?
The themes of idolatry and the supremacy of the
true God over false gods leap off the pages of the Bible.
Idolatry is one of the great unifying themes of Scripture.
Wherever sin is found, we find idols lurking close behind.
The critical
question is not
“What desire
is driving me?”
but “Who is the
master of my
thoughts, feelings,
or behaviors?” Is it
the Creator God,
or is it an idol?
The Bible doesn’t limit idolatry
to the worship of graven
images, but expands this
category to include the
“idols of the heart” (Ezekiel
14:1-8). Paul called covetousness
idolatry (Ephesians
5:5; Colossians 3:5). He says
those who live as enemies
of the cross of Christ have
made their own appetites
their god (Philippians 3:19).
To speak of sin is not merely
to speak of behavior but to
address the heart, the seat of our desires, imaginations,
and longings. The critical question is not “What desire is
driving me?” but “Who is the master my thoughts, feelings,
or behaviors?” Is it the Creator God, or is it an idol?
We are not just people with wants and needs. We are
people with masters and gods. Tim Keller 3 says this best:
Whatever we worship we will serve, for worship
and service are always inextricably bound
together. We are “covenantal” beings. We enter
into covenant service with whatever most captures
our imagination and heart. It ensnares us. So
every human personality, community, thoughtform,
and culture will be based on some ultimate
concern or some ultimate allegiance—either to
God or to some God-substitute. Individually, we
will ultimately look either to God or to success,
romance, family, status, popularity, beauty
or something else to make us feel personally
significant and secure, and to guide our choices.
Culturally we will ultimately look to either God or to
the free market, the state, the elites, the will of the
people, science and technology, military might,
human reason, racial pride, or something else to
make us corporately significant and secure, and
to guide our choices. [...]
Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more
fundamentally making good things into ultimate
things. Sin is building your life and meaning on
anything, even a very good thing, more than on
God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us
and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry.
When it comes to viewing pornography, there may be
many motivations at play, but as preachers we can help
others see these motivations as idolatrous. For one guy
the idol might be the porn images themselves. This is
garden-variety lust: a fascination with the female form that
compels someone to take the second, third, and fourth
glances, consumed with the image of her. For another
person the idol might be something the fantasy woman
gives him in his fantasy world: approval, respect, a desire
to be loved, a desire for companionship, comfort, pleasure,
control, or power.
When the preacher speaks of idolatry and pornography
together, this helps others to “frame” their sin, to start labeling
it in Biblical terms. This is central to how we renew
our minds: we no longer conform to worldly labels that
excuse, justify, or downplay sin (Rom. 12:2), but we begin
to see sin as God sees it.
Speaking this way also gets at the root of the problem: the
heart. When we address only behavior, at best, only behavior
will change, and even then not for very long. As biblical
counselor Tim Lane says, we don’t behave ourselves
into sin; we worship ourselves into sin. Thus we must worship
our way out of it. As people begin repenting of their
idols in the heart and focusing on the all-surpassing glory
of Christ, this will bring about lasting change.
Porn in the Pews • © 2010 CovenantEyes
6