My testimony regarding p———phy

By: American Decency Staff

On occasion I give my story regarding pornography.   It isn’t that I like to expose myself for the addiction I once had, but rather I tell it because it tells the account of the power of God to transform lives.   This is only my account – many others have their accounts whether it’s pornography, drugs, finances, homosexuality. 

Jesus Christ saves.  God’s Word is truth.  The media hates this kind of account as do many others – perhaps even a few of you.  But what I have written below is the truth.  I know because I experienced it.

My testimony regarding pornography. 

Here it is in short. 

–Free of pornography until about 18.  Immersed in sports.
–Turned to using pornography while an undergraduate student.
–Was heavily addicted to so-called soft-core pornography

Though I knew pornography wasn’t a good thing to be engaged in, I was anyway and became increasingly addicted. 

This went on for about 4 years.

I was a liberal at the time, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  – yes – me.  Far more could be said, but I will spare you. 

I began to go to church with my wife-to-be because I was in love with her not because I was in love with God.

I opened my mind to the possibilities that the Bible could be True. I began to try to take the Bible to heart regarding pornography and lust.

God called me out of the darkness of unbelief – of the lie from the pit of Hell that there was no God.  By His grace, I became a believer.

I began to ask God to help me understand the Word.  I began to feel badly that though I said I loved God, I was engaged in lusting still.  I was an out and out hypocrite.

I heard a man that I admired say that one of the ways that he learned to keep lust out of his heart and life was by turning the other way when seductive images – lust-producing images – came before him.    He said don’t give a stronghold to satan.

I began to make it a practice to do the same – to not fuel lust. I memorized Scripture. 

See below for examples. 

Little by little I began to realize that the sin of lust was becoming less and less a thing with me.  The eyes began to find detestable that which was not pleasing to God.   

God has given me the victory over pornography since my mid to late thirties.  I’m now 66.

Some people have said I am passionate in regards to my convictions.  If it is true, it is because God saved me out of spiritual darkness.  The Lord only knows where I would be if I had stayed stuck in the web of dirty pictures and dirty thoughts as I was so long ago now.

Once I was a strong agnostic and a scoffer regarding Christ and His power to change lives and of the working power of His Word.

Many years have gone by.  "The anchor holds”  as the old hymn writer wrote.

It saddens me to see our culture with its secularism perpetrated by the media in all its forms and our secular schools. Even our soft-preaching churches say so little about the shed blood of Jesus Christ and say little to nothing about the remedy to our depravity, found only in and through Christ. 

We’ve lost a lot of ground in America since I first became a Christian in the early 1970s. 

We have been seduced by the “enemy” and we are paying a great, great price. 

Viewing things that dishonor God and that degrade His people is a sin.  The Bible tells us that.  He is the One that created us and He tells us what is good for us and tells us what is not good for us.  When we turn our back upon Him as individuals it will show in a wide variety of ways:  lust, unfaithfulness, a loss of intimacy in marriage, a lack of trust, sexually transmitted disease(s) due to unfaithfulness or promiscuity, broken lives, broken relationships, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.

We are a stiff-necked people.  Rather than turning to that which saves and builds up, the strong tendency is “being wise in our OWN understanding”, we turn to cheap pleasures that ultimately degrade and destroy.

That’s what I have learned and have seen first-hand and what I see day after day all around me.

In closing, this all was prompted by an article entitled:  “Porn Identity”.  Here is a small quote from it:

Pornography is no longer just a guy thing, however, with one in three porn pages on the web now being accessed by women, suggesting that some, at least, don't mind being objectified. But in this Age of Porn, Struthers believes we have lost something.

"We used to call it making love," he says. "Now it's more often called f…ing.http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/porn-identity-20130225-2f0ck.html#ixzz2PECPdsK0

A sampling of a few Scriptures that God used in my life.  As I meditated upon them and asked God to build them into my life, I found that He in fact – did!

Romans 12:1,2:  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Psalm 101:3a: I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes:

I Peter 1:14-16:   As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:  But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Joshua 1:8:  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Colossians 3:17:  And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Hebrews 12:14:  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

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