Pornography is a terrible and dangerous immorality, as we all know. There is much more to porn than just the sin of lust, which is what we know individuals who engage in it have done. You are committing sins far more serious than lust when you launch your browser and start seeing those pictures and videos. When you view porn, you are doing these eight crimes.
You have allowed porn to take the place of God as the source of your happiness the moment you start watching it.
You are guilty of idolatry. All sin is idolatry, an effort to find happiness and fulfillment in things that God condemns rather than in God himself (Exodus 20:3-6). Matt “To put it simply, an idol is anything that is more important to you than God,” Papa adds. It is anything that has taken the place of God as the most important factor in your life—something that you love, trust, or obey more than God. You have allowed porn to take the place of God as the source of your happiness the moment you start watching it. The sin of idolatry has been committed by you.
You are guilty of adultery. The most blatant immorality that comes with using porn is this one. Jesus makes a direct link between adultery and lust in Matthew 5. “You’ve heard that the phrase ‘You shall not commit adultery’ was used. However, I tell you that every guy who gazes at a woman with desire has already cheated on her in his heart (27–28). Lust is what pornography is, and it exists to feed lust. However, lust is merely a manifestation of the more general sin of adultery, which is the act or desire to engage in sexual relations with someone other than your husband.
You are guilty of the sin of dishonesty. The act of hiding or misrepresenting your behavior is called deception. You will either cover it up, hide it, or refuse to admit it since pornography creates shame. You are engaging in dishonest behavior when you delete your browsing history to hide it from your parents, use it covertly to hide your addiction from your spouse, refuse to proactively confess it to an accountability partner, and partake in the Lord’s Supper despite being unrepentantly enslaved to it. Furthermore, the Bible forewarns of the terrible outcomes: “No one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes; no one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house” (Psalm 101:7).
You are guilty of stealing. Piracy and the illicit distribution of copyrighted content are seriously harming the porn industry. According to some estimates, five videos are downloaded illegally for every one that is downloaded lawfully. Pornographic material makes up 60% of all unlawful downloads. God makes it quite plain that “you shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), therefore even though we can be happy that the industry is in terrible shape, we have no right to take part in such theft. By using porn, you are most likely engaging in the viewing of stolen content and so contributing to its theft.
The sin of greed is what you do. Taking advantage of someone else to cheat them of something that is rightfully theirs is a sort of sexual sin, which is greed. “That no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter [of sexual sin], because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you,” as Paul states in 1 Thessalonians 4, is crucial (6). In this context, the translated term “wrong” is to take something from someone else out of greed. It’s letting greed drive dishonesty and using someone else for your own shameful ends in an unfair and illegal manner.
You are guilty of the sin of laziness. In every aspect of life, we are urged to “redeem the time,” to recognize that we only have a brief existence and that it is our duty to God to maximize each moment (Ephesians 5:16). Sloth is a sign of laziness, an inability to manage one’s time effectively, and a readiness to spend time on detrimental rather than beneficial endeavors. Pornography is a waste of time in this sense. It is wasting valuable hours, days, and moments to hurt people rather than to help them, to encourage sin rather than to eradicate it, to regress rather than to advance, and to follow an idol rather than the living God.
Sexual assault is rightfully committed by the one who willingly witnesses it for titillating intentions.
You are guilty of sexual assault. It is reasonable to charge a person who drives a getaway car for a group of bank robbers with murder if someone is killed while committing that crime. Sexual assault is rightfully committed by the one who willingly witnesses it for titillating intentions. Additionally, a sickening amount of pornography depicts men abusing women and is violent in character. These women have occasionally volunteered for such degrading treatment, and other times they have been coerced or sexually assaulted into it. To witness such heinous smut is to partake in it and to carry its moral stain.
Ignoring the Holy Spirit is a sin that you commit. Being indwelled by the Holy Spirit is a great honor and benefit for Christians. You receive an internal warning against sin as one of the ways the Spirit ministers to you. “Therefore whoever disregards this [warning], disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you,” Paul says after reassuring them that the Spirit specifically warns against sexual sin (1 Thessalonians 4:8). To engage in sexual sin is to deliberately ignore and silence the Holy Spirit’s warnings that you don’t need to or should. Everything needed to withstand this temptation is provided by him (1 Corinthians 10:13). It is a grave transgression against a holy God to reject the Spirit and disregard his ministry to you.
Lusting for someone else and using pornography to feed this desire are sins. However, the immorality associated with pornography is much more profound than simple lust. It includes sexual aggression, idolatry, adultery, deception, robbery, greed, laziness, and disregard for the Holy Spirit. “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God,” says Romans 14:12. Fortunately, via the gospel, God gives what he demands. Those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ can rest assured that he has provided us with his own righteousness, that he has appeased God’s wrath over our sin, and that he has satisfied our account. However, we must also understand that Jesus did this so that we could “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness,” rather than continue to live in sin (Ephesians 4:24).
