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.


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