Porn’s Dark Shame Shamed by Christ’s Brilliant Victory on the Cross

Although the Gospel’s light shines into our deepest darknesses, giving God’s people freedom from sin’s slavery, the dread blackness of shame, especially shame from sexual addictions, constantly deceives Christians into shutting their eyes. Sexual sin leaves one awash in an ocean of guilt, feeling as if the True Light is not already shining. Is the Gospel of Christ powerful enough to give true and certain freedom from the power and debilitation of shame’s blinding darkness?

In his penetrating and practical article, Gutsy Guilt, Pastor John Piper points Christians to Christ’s brilliant victory. Turning to Colossians 2, Piper explains the foundation upon which Christians can boldly open their eyes to the objective light of Christ and the benefits of His victory over sin and death. Surprisingly, the way Christians conquer the shame of sin is through Christ’s shaming of sin on the cross. Only with such a powerful weapon as Christ’s shaming victory can Christians overcome the false shame of sexual sin, or any other sin.

Here’s the opening to Pipers powerful article:

The closest I have ever come in 26 years to being fired from my position as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church was in the mid-1980s, when I wrote an article for our church newsletter titled “Missions and Masturbation.” I wrote the article after returning from a missions conference in Washington, D.C., with George Verwer, the head of Operation Mobilization.

Verwer’s burden at that conference was the tragic number of young people who at one point in their lives dreamed of radical obedience to Jesus, but then faded away into useless American prosperity. A gnawing sense of guilt and unworthiness over sexual failure gradually gave way to spiritual powerlessness and the dead-end dream of middle-class security and comfort. (Read the full article…)

Related Resources

A Sure Hope in the Pit of Pornography

John Freeman’s powerful personal testimony to the Gospel’s power over pornography begins, “Pornography is not new.” What is new, perhaps, is a newspaper willing to publish an article entitled, There is a way, today, to rise from pornography’s deep pit (Daily News | 09/08/2007).

Learn more about Freeman’s unique organization, Harvest USA Ministries — “Proclaiming Christ to a Sexually Broken World”

(HT: Ref21)

From a Pastor to Pastors on the Perils of Pornography

William Shishko, pastor of Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, NY, writes a word to pastors regarding pornography that many ministry leaders need to hear, “Get your head out of the sand!“:

My plea to pastors in this article is that you get your heads out of the sand! The ostrich knows that an adversary is present, but avoids the problem by looking away instead of bravely facing it. My fear is that too many pastors have their heads in the sand because they: (a) are not aware that the problem is really as bad as it is; (b) do not think that we should be so alarmed by it; (c) think that their only responsibility is to go about their ministerial duties of generally preaching and teaching in the hope that the problem will take care of itself in the people to whom we minister.

Brothers, I have news for you: (a) the problem is worse than you can imagine; (b) unless you want to deal with a lot of spiritual wreckage in yourself and others, you better be alarmed by it; (c) if you don’t get beyond “preaching the word” and “preaching Christ” in broad generalities, you will not be addressing the problem, and it will not take care of itself.

In short, the idol of lust is a deceptive bile. It tricks you into thinking that your “OK” as long as you bury your guilty conscience deep down and satisfy yourself with facades of spirituality. But while your lips speak, “Jesus is Lord!” your heart screams, “Lust! Lust! And more lust!” while your conscience condemns you.

Only the Gospel has the power to break sin’s chains. And, as Shishko points out, an important key to starting the Gospel’s powerful diesel engine is to get your head out of the sand–stop ignoring it, rationalizing it, avoiding it, hoping it will go away and start honestly repenting, believing the Gospel, and taking necessary steps to exhort oneanother every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13 ESV).

A Cry to God from the Throes of Lust

A prayer for all who have shipwrecked their souls in the storm of lust.

You fleeting promise of foreign pleasure,
You haunting regret of triple measure:

I thought you divine!
I bowed at your feet.

You mocking waster of money and time,
You dripping faucet of guilt in my mind:

I thought you sublime!
I ate of your meat.

You rusting raker of my spirit’s steel,
You leching leecher of my inner zeal:

My mind is awry!
I chose my will’s death!
My feelings I’ve wreck’d!
To Whom shall I cry?

O healing helper of my helpless state,
O flowing fountain of ceaseless grace:

Please fall fresh on me!
And make my soul clean.

O living Father, Savior, and Spirit,
Your given answer, Lord help me hear it:

“Repent and believe!”
“Repent and believe!”