When you’re in a war there are two dangers. You can
underestimate your enemy and let overconfidence lead you over the abyss. Or
you can ignore him at your own risk.
The scriptures clearly tell Christians that we are in a war.
It’s a spiritual war but a very real one. Our enemy is not flesh and blood
but we are wrestling with someone or some thing that’s meaner than Jesse
Ventura and even uglier, if possible.
That enemy is Satan…and his horde of angels. Their job is
to pervert God’s holiness…to kill, steal and destroy…to make life
miserable for God’s most cherished creation…mankind.
We all know that God created sex. It was His idea. And like
everything else He spoke into being…it was…and still should be good.
But greed and lust have twisted this holy function of family
regeneration into something far different.
The most recent incarnation of this ancient human failing is
found in an ugly industry known as "pornography."
I was reading today about the sex trafficking industry in
America. The story indicated that about 700-thousand women and children are
being exploited here on a regular basis.
We could go into detail about the damage that’s done to
human bodies, the forced abortions and potentially life-threatening diseases
that result and the sacrifice of innocence on the altar of decadence.
But not all the victims of pornography participate in its
production and distribution.
Let’s consider the intimacy a couple loses when one spouse
turns elsewhere for physical satisfaction. There’s the time factor. A
husband addicted to internet porn spends fewer hours with his family. And
let’s not forget the financial strain imposed when hundreds or thousands
of dollars of needed family capital is poured down the internet sewer.
When you consider the total cost, it’s impossible to call
this a "victimless crime." And we’re not speaking merely of such
illegal abominations as "kiddie porn."
Now that we’ve briefly outlined the battle, let’s
consider the latest skirmish.
Internet pornographers are on the attack and their target is
Christianity.
The massive letter writing campaign that led that web-giant portal Yahoo to discontinue all sex related clubs and for-profit websites
has angered the cyber-porn industry.
Now, they have struck back at a Christian website,
KingdomBuy.com because of its ties to the American Family Association, which
led the fight against Yahoo’s sex clientele.
The sex traders mounted a letter writing campaign of their
own, which has led two of KingdomBuy’s biggest customers, J.C. Penney and
Nordstrom’s to discontinue their affiliation with the online shopping
mall, which donates a percentage of all its profits to Christian causes.
We are sure that many fine Christians work at J.C. Penney
and Nordstrom’s and we hope they would use their influence from within
these organizations to reverse such anti-family and bigoted policy
decisions.
The rest of us must decide to draw a line in the sand and
not do business with these firms until they make the right choices.
Through the years, I’ve hesitated to speak out forcefully
against pornography for fear of being labeled a hypocrite. You see, apart
from the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, I am certainly not without sin
either when it comes to misplaced, misused sexual desire.
But walking in His righteousness and not our own, even those
of us who have stumbled along the way can pick up stones and pursue not
enemies of flesh and blood…but the spiritual forces in high places
responsible for so much misery, that comes wrapped in such pretty papers and
bows.