Last year, a poll conducted by Second Glance Ministries found that 50% of Christian men and 20% of Christian women are addicted to online pornography.
The consequence of this sad reality will not just be sexual dysfunction and broken relationships. According to John Piper, it will also be the slow decline of a person’s ability and willingness to follow his God-given dreams. Here’s an excerpt from a message he gave at the Passion conference last week:
The great tragedy is not mainly masturbation or fornication or acting like a peeping Tom (or curious Cathy) on the internet. The tragedy is that Satan uses the guilt of these failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had, or might have, and in its place give you a happy, safe, secure, American life of superficial pleasures until you die in your lakeside rocking chair, wrinkled and useless, leaving a big fat inheritance to your middle-aged children to confirm them in their worldliness. That’s the main tragedy.
I have not come to Atlanta to waste your time or mine. I have come with a passion that you not waste your life. My aim is not mainly to cure you of sexual misconduct. I would like that to happen. O, God let it happen! But mainly I want to take out of the devil’s hand the weapon that exploits the sin of your life to destroy your valiant dreams, and make your whole life a wasted worldly success.
It’s worth reading the whole message.
Update: On a semi-related note, Piper’s book on depression, “When The Darkness Will Not Lift,” is now available for free online. Grab it as a PDF here.
(HT: JT)