“And when he arose from his bed that evening, he went to his desk and turned on the computer. After he had logged onto the internet, he busied himself searching here and there. Then suddenly an unexpected image of a woman flashed across the screen; and the woman was very beautiful to look at. So he went to the website and made arrangements to meet her…”
Had the story of David and Bathsheba happened today, it might have resembled this scene. Every day millions use the internet, and each day the most explicit and degrading images are poured into homes, businesses, schools and even church buildings. Never before has the devil made pornography so graphic and accessible. Men and women are just a few clicks away from the depths of hell itself when they use the internet. Some go there looking for this garbage; others go looking for something else — until a vile picture or suggestive advertisement pops onto their screen and they are lured to sin.
Who can measure the damage done by this ungodly material? How many marriages have been torn apart because the husband filled his mind with internet pornography? How many children have been molested in their own home by fathers who view unspeakable perversion on a computer screen? How many boys and girls view so much of this smut that they lose any sense of decency and respect for themselves or anyone else? How many preachers are eaten up with guilt because they act pure in the pulpit on Sunday but sit in a church office and look at internet pornography on Monday?
A tidal wave has hit our culture. There use to be lines people would not crossed: too much familiarity between men and women, indecent clothing to expose or reveal the body, and public, casual talk about private, intimate, personal matters. Those lines have not just been crossed; they have been erased. Are we surprised that people are not embarrassed to talk about the most intimate matters in mixed company? Is anything private anymore? The love expressed between a husband and his wife ought to be their business alone, but now that relationship has been perverted and made so common that people talk about it as casually as they talk about eating lunch. But what else can we expect when people burn vile images into their souls every day?
The mating instinct in animals is based on pure impulse. Human beings are supposed to be different. God created us with a body that has desires, but He also gave us a mind to control those passions. When a man goes by his physical desires alone, he is acting like an animal. He has no concern for what he does to himself or to others, and he has no sense of danger. Solomon said a man who commits adultery with a woman is like an ox that is being led to the slaughter house (Prov. 7:22). He doesn’t see what is going to happen to him because he is not thinking at all. He is just feeling his way around. In other words, a man like this is as dumb as an ox.
Pompeii, Corinth, and other ancient Roman cities were full of open pornographic images — a sure sign of their moral degradation. Those cites now lie in dust. This problem has been around for thousands of years, and it has been in our culture for many decades. But like a cancer that spreads, when it saturates a society, it will destroy it.
Kerry Duke
