A young orphan girl was raised by her cousin, her name was Esther. The King got rid of his wife and Esther was made queen of the Empire via a beauty contest, hiding the fact she was a Jewess. At the King’s banquets the Queen was meant to display herself immodestly in front of lustful men. The Queen refused to be paraded. She preserved wisdom and modesty.
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, Ephesians 5 v3
‘Impurity’ is not an activity, this is deeper than immorality; it is an internal disposition. It is inside. The word is akatharsia.
Akatharsia means a filth of heart and mind. It is what you see and imagine.
It was used by Jesus to describe the decaying bodies in a tomb (Matthew 23:27) and then in the other 10 times it is used in the New Testament it is used for thoughts, passions, ideas or fantasies that are filth or rubbish or like pus around an open wound and it specifically refers to sexual sin.
It is difficult to spot impurity. It hides behind masks of purity, pews and pulpits. Eventually it seeps through and takes over, defiles more than ‘it is just this’ and takes over like a cancer that then breaks out into activity.
One of the saddest verses in the Old Testament is this:
From his vantage point on the roof King David saw a woman bathing (2 Samuel 11:2)
No one else saw him, but he from his vantage point, alone, was able to see what was for him beautiful.
The world’s most successful industry is the porn industry and yet it is the most destructive in a person’s life and on those involved.
When I was a teenager – only vantage point was on the highest shelf of the newsagents. You would have to stand on the Readers Digest and puzzle shelf to have any chance of reaching it and then risk causing a collapse of the whole shelving unit. It wasn’t worth it. It was left to the diagrams in the human biology books!
Today it is so different. The vantage points are all around and so easily accessible.
A recent survey published by Psychologies magazine in the UK found that a third of 14-16yr olds had first seen sexual images online when they were 10 or younger; 81% looked at porn online at home and 63% from their mobile phones. The effect of porn in our culture is that men are devoid of any knowledge and understanding of having relationships with real women. Women themselves find that this porn-obsessed culture we live in means their true identity is affected and for many they are robbed of their own sexual desire in fear of aligning themselves with those that men lust after.
The voice of the Christian should be NO to the plight of what porn is doing to our children and our families. Whatever the consequence is for the Church, no matter what people think of us as being old-fashioned etc. The truth is PORN is not innocent, it is destructive.
And if you are hooked into it then you must seek counsel, accountability and help whether you sit hiding in the pew or preaching from the pulpit. It will destroy you. There are many Christian websites that will be the first step to recovery, for example, https://www.covenanteyes.com or buy this book by one of my Pastors, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Better-Kind-Intimacy-Price-Overcome/dp/1909728810
I was going to title my blog, “I when no one sees me” but I decided on using the word Porn to shock those who think it should never be mentioned (perhaps that’s the reason why the Church has so many broken people because it is silenced) and to bring it into the light for those who have no one to talk to. But when no one is around you then that is who you are. When no one sees you that is the real you. Of course there is always one who sees you all that happens in your heart and mind and He loves you more than you could possibly know. But you should try and find out more about that!
The Apostle speaks about sex quite a lot and it has led some to believe he had some kind of phobia about it whereas others have argued over words he used and their meaning with regards certain activities and lifestyles. Here he is in prison speaking about impurity, it must be important to him and to us. It is. Put it off. Don’t let the inside of your life become filth as it will destroy you.
Missions Paul 