How Does the Gospel Help Someone Addicted to Pornography?

How does the gospel help those who are addicted to pornography? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. As always, you can post your question on one of our social media sites, and you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. Well, many of us have been watching news reports, watching the images in Afghanistan over the last 24 hours, and are just grieved by what we are witnessing. And Adriel, I thought maybe it'd be a good idea for us to start off today by just praying for that situation there.

Yeah, absolutely, Bill. My heart breaks, and a passage of scripture that comes to mind is Hebrews chapter 13, verse 3. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. And so I want to just take a moment to encourage our listeners to pray with us, especially for our brothers and sisters, part of the body of Christ with us, who are there in Afghanistan facing persecution, for the whole country as well, for the peace of God. And so let's pray. Heavenly Father, we join You with many believers around the world, crying out for Your mercy. We pray that You would sustain, providentially care for Your Church that is in Afghanistan right now as they face difficult times ahead. We pray for Your protection for the Christians, for their families. We pray that You would sustain them in their faith, that You would strengthen their faith even in this time. We ask, God, that somehow through these circumstances, and only You can do this, Lord, Your gospel would continue to advance powerfully. Would You even bring to faith some of those who are persecuting Your Church, those among the Taliban? You are the God who could change the heart of Saul of Tarsus and cause him to be one who went from trying to destroy the Church to preaching the gospel that he once tried to destroy. And so, Lord, would You be with them?

And would You be with all those in that country who are suffering right now, who are afraid, who are struggling, not just Your Church, but everyone there, would You bring peace and work in that situation? Lord, we call upon You for this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that, Adriel.

Again, if you have a question for Pastor Adriel on the Bible or the Christian life, including what's going on in our world right now, what's happening in our culture, we would love to hear from you. Here's the phone number to call. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Robert in Memphis, Tennessee. Robert, what's your question? Hey, how are you today, Dr. Sanchez? I'm doing well, Robert. How are you doing?

I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. I was calling because I'm struggling with a problem, I want to say, of stealing, I guess, because I work at this few distribution warehouse where I'm sanitation and I throw away a lot of goodies, per se, and sometimes I wonder, like, okay, is it okay to take this piece or have this piece when it's going to be trash? So I'm just wondering, can you help me out with that? Yeah, that's a good question. So, I mean, is this stuff, Robert, that people are throwing away that they don't want anymore? Yes, sir, because it's like, the warehouse is very busy, so a lot of the guys, they break open packages and things just fall on the floor, things of that nature, so it's going in the trash, so when I see it sometimes, you know, I might take a bite or I might, you know, my mind just go, we'll have some time.

Yeah, yeah. Well, look, man, I don't see anything wrong with that, obviously, but people are getting rid of it if they don't want it and it's going to go to the trash. I don't think it'd be stealing or anything wrong with that. I guess the real question is, would there be any issue with your work? You know, does your supervisor have a problem with that? And so I would say, you know, just to maybe cover your bases, talk to your supervisor, whoever else is there, and ask that question to them, and if they give the thumbs up, then great.

If maybe there's some reason why that's not okay, well, then not because it's stealing per se, but just because it's kind of the protocol of the job, I would listen to my supervisor, but yeah, I don't think that, you know, if they don't have an issue, I don't think that there would be any problem, it would be an issue with, she needs to be an issue with your own conscience because it sounds to me like this is stuff that's going to get thrown away anyway. So hey, thanks for giving us a call, man. You know, Adriel, last week you left half a chocolate donut sitting on the desk there and I, well, I, yeah. Well, Bill, everybody knows that's not true because I never leave half of a donut anywhere.

The entire donut is always consumed, but my mom always taught me that I need to finish the food that's put before me, so I'm really good at that, especially when it comes to donuts, Bill. Okay, all right, just to clarify, thank you. This is CORE Christianity. If you have a question for Pastor Adriel, give us a call right now, 833-THE-CORE. Here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners earlier this week. I just wanted to ask a question, Dr. Angel Sanchez.

I appreciate your time and I listened to all your messages. If you have someone in your life like my parents, it says to honor and obey your parents, but your parents don't exude the fruits of the Spirit. They show inequity in all the things that are wrong. Siding with, from what I see, is how the devil acts. Do you still honor and obey them or, I mean, what do you do?

Because I'm really confused and I'd like to know. Adriel, I appreciate your time and I do appreciate what you're doing in the ministry. Thanks. Hey, appreciate that question. So, I mean, this is a tough one. When we're talking about submission to authority, whatever the authority is, you think about governing authority, think about our parents, the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother, the authorities that God places in our lives, what does that look like when those authorities are not Christian or not behaving in Christian ways? Well, I would say, look, we seek to honor them and submit to them insofar as they're not calling us to disobey God's law.

We might have disagreements with the government, for example. They may not be, the officials over us may not be Christian, and yet we're called to, as much as within us as possible, to live peaceably with all men, to submit, to show honor. Now, if your parents or any authority is calling you to do something contrary to God's word, well, then we don't submit to them. But even when we're not submitting to them in that, we can still show honor even while we don't submit because we're following God's word. So I would say it's never right or okay to dishonor or disrespect your parents or those authorities that God places in our lives.

We seek to love them. We seek to be submissive, you know, insofar as if, you know, I'm thinking of children growing up in the home. As you're growing up and your parents, as you're called to submit to your parents, to love them, to honor them. And even as we get older, we're still called to honor our parents as well.

It's a little bit different because we're no longer under our parents' headship, if you will, under their authority or under their household. And so the rules are a little bit differently, but we still seek to honor them and to respect them. And that doesn't change if they're not believers or if they live in ways that are contrary to the gospel. On the contrary, we seek to honor them so that we might show a good example and hopefully have an opportunity to talk to them about the things of the Lord and to encourage them so that God might work in their lives, drawing them to Christ as well.

So thank you for that question. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have kids or grandkids, we want to tell you about a wonderful book we have available, and it's one that will help to answer some of the tough questions they may have about Christianity. Yeah, Bill, I mean, we've offered this resource before. If you want to help your kids or your grandchildren answer some of the most difficult questions, important questions, facing the church today, this is one of the most important things I think we can offer you.

It's this resource here. How do we know Christianity is really true? Perfect for youth groups, perfect for you to go through with your kids. A fun, fast-paced book helps really ages 9 to 13 years old think through the big questions about the Christian faith. Again, it's how do we know Christianity is really true, and it's going to help equip your children to know what they believe and why they believe it.

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That's 833-843-2673. Well, here's an email we received from one of our listeners. This is from Jason, and Jason says, I've been trying to get out of porn for a long time.

I've been addicted to it since I was 18, and now I'm 37. I recently was re-baptized, and I've been trying to stay away from it, but I still mess up. I know God is still listening to me, and I trust him. I installed a program called Covenant Eyes on my computer, and I got some church friends to talk to about this.

What is your advice? Jason, thank you for reaching out to us with that email, and I'm sure as our listeners are listening right now, there are many people who are fighting with this. Porn is a huge issue in the world and in the church today, and it needs to be addressed, and it needs to be dealt with seriously. Of course, we know what our Lord Jesus said about sexual immorality. I think of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, where Jesus says, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

He's referring to the seriousness with which we should take our sin. This isn't something to minimize. This isn't a problem that you can or anyone can handle on their own. The first thing I typically tell people when they ask this question is, are you isolated? I ask them, are you isolated? Are you by yourself with your sin? That's one of the places where the devil wants us, is all alone with whatever our secret struggle is. It's there that that sin struggle begins to grow and to take over. We have to bring our sin into the light. I encourage you and others, you need to be one in a good church community, and you need to be transparent, talking to your pastor or the elders there, being able to confess your sin. John talks about this in 1 John. James talks about it in James 5. Bringing our sin into the light is one of the ways we turn from it, repent of it. We stop minimizing it. We say, look, this is what it is, and I need your help, God. We seek out the help of the people around us that God has placed in our lives. It sounds to me like you're starting to do that. I think there are internet software programs that help track, monitor internet activity where you can have something like an accountability partner. I think Covenant Eyes is great.

There are other ones out there that I've heard really good things about as well. Of course, this is a hard issue. Sometimes people will say, well, it's really a hard issue, so I don't need that.

Well, part of the reason I think those things can be really helpful is because they create distance, if you will, and make it more difficult for you to access that kind of material. Especially when someone is steeped in this, there need to be real clear breaks. I even go as far as telling people, just cut off the internet at your house. If this is such a temptation, you have to be serious about dealing with this, about removing yourself from that, getting the help that you need and coming before the Lord in faith and repentance. Another thing I've encouraged before, too, is there really is an addiction here at times. Maybe seeing an addiction counselor or therapist, someone who specializes in things like sexual addiction. Oftentimes, what an individual will find is it's not just the pornography per se. There's really deeper issues there. Individuals who are looking for acceptance, for a sense of power, for a sense of feeling wanted, for a sense of confidence. Those who are addicted to pornography are often longing for something for something deeper that they're hoping this pornography will supply for them. Of course, it never does because our sin just can't.

It's really addressing those deeper issues, I think, that can be helpful. When we think about the relationship of the Gospel to us as believers and Christians who are wrestling with this sin in particular, I go to the words of the apostle Paul. And here's what you need to know, Jason. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ, if you belong to him, if you've been baptized, you have faith in him, you're a part of the church community, this is what the apostle Paul would say to you. In Romans chapter 6, verse 6, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

This is your new identity. You are, despite this struggle, dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.

You need to. This is what the gospel gives us. By faith in Jesus Christ, we have a new identity. We have, with Christ, through baptism and faith, died to sin.

Yes, you're going to struggle with it still, but it doesn't it doesn't characterize who you are, if you will. You are new, a new creation in Christ Jesus. Live in light of that reality, the reality that your sins have been forgiven, that you can confess these things and bring them into the light because of Jesus Christ and what he's done for you, and you present yourself to God as one who is alive from the dead. Brother, meditate on that new reality, that new identity that God has given to you through his son Jesus, and use everything at your disposal to fight against this. That's Christian community.

That's programs like covenant eyes, all of those things, prayer, meditation on God's word. It is a fight. It is a fight, but you know what? It's a fight that God promises to be with you in.

Paul told the Thessalonians, this is the will of God, your sanctification that you would abstain from sexual immorality. God's will for you, Jason, is your sanctification. God is on your side, and so I would say pray. Continue to pray that the Lord would work in you, and know that this is a prayer that God wants to answer as you turn to him, as you bring this into the light, as you make use of the things that are before you to fight against this, and as you rest in your new identity in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's yours, but we so often forget about it. May the Lord bless you and be with you, and may God be with with all of those listening right now who are fighting this sin. Thank you for that, Adriel, and of course those passages apply to all of us regardless of what type of sin we might be struggling with.

We would encourage you to go to that that passage in Romans chapter 6, and just meditate on that, memorize it, and then apply it to your life. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can always call us at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. One reminder, some of the radio stations that air our program actually air it at a tape delayed basis, so if you actually want to call live into the studio, here's when you need to do it. 11 30 a.m pacific time, 12 30 mountain, 1 30 central, or 2 30 eastern time. For that half hour period, we're taking calls live in the studio. If you hear the program at a different time of the day, you can always call and leave a voicemail.

We check our voicemails daily at 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Dustin in Bretton, Nebraska. Dustin, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yeah, Pastor Sanchez, I've been, I recently joined a theology church, and I was trying to grasp the book of the Revelation, and I was given a book called, called, More That Conquers by William Henderson, and I've also been watching Dr. Godfrey at Ligonier Ministries, his teaching series, The Blessed Hope, which holds to that view. I was wondering, could you elaborate on that view, and if you hold to that view? Yeah.

Hey, thank you, Dustin. There are a number of different ways to view the book of Revelation that I think are within the bounds of historic Christian orthodoxy, and Christians can disagree on those different ways of understanding the book of Revelation. Then there are ways, I think, of reading the book of Revelation that are outside of the bounds. For example, something that would be outside of the bounds would be any view of the book of Revelation that does not believe in a literal return of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second coming, if you will.

Maybe they spiritualize it or something like that. There are some who have more of an allegorical interpretation all the way through the book of Revelation, if you will, who might take that view. Then there are other idealists, we might say, who see a lot of what's taking place in the book of Revelation, not in the same way that maybe our premillennial brothers and sisters would see it as primarily things that are happening, historical things that are happening in the future, but as relating to this present time, speaking to the church today.

I would say that's fine. One thing I would say, and so many people, I think, miss this when they're reading the book of Revelation is the primary goal of the book of Revelation was to comfort suffering believers, especially there in the first century. Think of Jesus and him addressing the various churches there in Asia Minor, talking to them about persevering in the midst of the persecution that they were going to be experiencing. I believe the book of Revelation is giving us a snapshot of essentially the church age, of the history of the church, and that it's going to be a time of suffering with Christ, if you will, persecution, struggle, but that ultimately God is going to usher in his kingdom fully, and finally, this consummated kingdom on the last day, and that's described later in the book of Revelation. That would be my view on the book of Revelation, and I would just say for those who are interested in learning more specifically, Dustin, there's a helpful resource that we've come out with here at Core Christianity, and it's a Bible study through the book of Revelation, and it gets into some of these things. I think it's a 10-week study written by a professor actually that I had in seminary, Dr. Dennis Johnson, who also wrote a book on the book of Revelation called Triumph of the Lamb, another really helpful resource that I would recommend to you. But yeah, I think that's as deep as I want to go right now. Get a hold of those resources if you want to go deeper.

I appreciate your question. You can find that Bible study on the book of Revelation by going to corechristianity.com forward slash revelation, again corechristianity.com forward slash revelation. Let's go to Mary in Lincoln, Nebraska. Mary, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yeah, Pastor, I'm a believer, and my parents were, and some siblings and friends of mine, and I know they went to heaven. My question is, will we know each other up there, or will we commune with each other?

And if so, I have a friend that had two husbands, and they both came to the Lord, so I don't know. Is it going to be awkward in heaven? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we don't have those kinds of feelings. That's right, yeah.

Well, thank you so much for that question. I believe, absolutely, yes, we're going to know each other. I think of what Jesus said in the Gospels. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. We're going to know each other in the kingdom of heaven and in the new creation, in the resurrection, but it's going to be perfect. It's going to be perfect fellowship around the Lord, so those awkward things, those feelings, the tension that existed maybe here on earth is not going to exist there, because we're going to be perfect.

We're going to be glorified. It's going to be the fullness of love in the perfect worship of the triune God. What a reunion that's going to be when we're in the presence of the Lord in heaven and in the new creation together with our family members who have gone before us and the peace that we have, the oneness that we get to experience there in the new creation with the whole church, a oneness that we often don't experience this side of heaven with the divisions that we see around us. It's something that we look forward to and praise God for. Thank you for your question.

Thank you, Mary. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. We have a YouTube question that came in from Yianni, and he or she says, in Mark 4-14, how does Satan take away the word that is sown? If he is bound, how does he still do that if he is bound by God?

Yeah, two questions there. Really, one related to our understanding of the book of Revelation and the binding of Satan in Revelation 20. There, the binding of Satan is there's a purpose given for Satan's binding so that he can't deceive the nations any longer.

I think that's precisely what's happened. Ever since the first century, Satan was bound by the Lord Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection. The Gospel has advanced to the ends of the earth so that now it's not just the Hebrews who know the one true God, but all the nations of the world are being brought into the kingdom, if you will, through the proclamation of the Gospel. And yet, we know that Satan still goes around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us.

And part of the ways he does that is still by deceiving, by tempting. And I think that's what Jesus is getting at in Mark 4-14. But we have confidence in the Gospel and in the work of the Lord Jesus in the world. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at CoreChristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.