Sunday’s message was about pornography and how we can Break Out of this destructive pattern of sin in our lives. All week we are giving tips, scripture, helps, etc for different challenges related to pornography.

Today I’ll post two separate times with stats. I know they are just numbers, but they help us measure how real this issue is to every single one of us.

One of the major reasons porn is such a problem is that we hide it and treat it like its no big deal. We say “boys will be boys” or “its just a magazine.” Read these stats and I think you may just have a change of heart.

Pornography and Children

• Incidents of child sexual exploitation have risen from 4,573 in 1998 to 112,083 in 2004, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (Reports of child exploitation up. USA Today Snapshots, 17 February, 2005.)

Pornography

• The Internet accounted for US $2.5 billion of the adult industry’s $14 billion in U.S. revenues in 2004. (Dirty Downloads Ready to Go on iPods, Ron Harris, www.macnewsworld.com, 2005)
• 70% of 18 to 24 year old men visit pornographic sites in a typical month. 66% of men in their 20s and 30s also report being regular users of pornography. (First-person: the culture of pornography, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Baptist Press, 28 December 2005.)
• 23% of American adults believe “whether one likes it or not people should have full access to pornography under the Constitution’s First Amendment.” (No Consensus Among American Public on the Effects of Pornography on Adults or Children or What Government Should Do About It, Harris Poll, 7 October 2005 www.harrisinteractive.com)
• 40% of adults surveyed believe that pornography harms relationships between men and women. (No Consensus Among American Public on the Effects of Pornography on Adults or Children or What Government Should Do About It, Harris Poll, 7 October 2005. www.harrisinteractive.com)
• According to pastors, the 8 top sexual issues damaging to their congregation are: 57% pornography addiction, 34% sexually active never-married adults, 30% adultery of married adults, 28% sexually active teenagers, 16% sexual dissatisfaction, 14% unwed pregnancy, 13% sexually active previously married adults, and 9% sexual abuse. (More Sex, Please. Christianity Today International, Winter 2005.)
• According to 2004 IFR research, U.S. porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion). Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises. The pornography industry, according to conservative estimates, brings in $57 billion per year, of which the United States is responsible for $12 billion. (Internet Pornography and Loneliness: An Association? Vincent Cyrus Yoder, Thomas B. Virden III, and Kiran Amin. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, Volume 12.1, 2005.)
• One out of every six women grapples with addiction to pornography (Internet Pornography and Loneliness: An Association? Vincent Cyrus Yoder, Thomas B. Virden III, and Kiran Amin. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, Volume 12.1, 2005.)
• Playboy’s third quarter profit rose to $3.2 million from $1.9 million in 2005. (Porn may be on the way for iPods, Rebecca Barr, www.azcentral.com, 2005)

Sunday’s message was about pornography and how we can Break Out of this destructive pattern of sin in our lives. All week we are giving tips, scripture, helps, etc for different challenges related to pornography.

Today, practical tips for MEN. Porn can destroy our lives, our marriages and our ministries!

In Matthew 18:7-9 Jesus basically says that if your right eye causes you to sin then gouge it out! Its time to be the MEN that GOD has called us to be! Its time to do something DRASTIC!

Here are some crazy sounding, practical steps that I have seen work in mighty ways! If you are here for a spiritual solution such as “pray more” or “just read this verse” then this isn’t the post for you. However, if you have tried everything…if you feel stuck…if you know that you are addicted to porn and that you need to break out then this post is totally for you.

#1 – Get accountable! Drag it out into the light! This does not mean that you go find someone who has the same problem as you that you can call each week and say “I messed up” and then feeling OK because you were not the only one to sin. I want to challenge you to find someone who does NOT struggle with the problem…and ask them to get in your face on a regular basis. This has some serious POWER!

#2 – Ditch the internet! For some of us, this is tough. But, Jesus said if your right eye causes you to sin then gouge it out…so I don’t think its that crazy to say if your computer causes you to sin then get rid of it. Check out free software from xxxchurch called X3 Watch that will keep a record of any questionable site that you visit and then send it to your accountability partner. If your iphone or blackberry is the source, then ditch it! Get a plain old phone…your marriage and relationships with your kids are worth it!

#3 – Don’t travel alone! I am serious! Never ever travel alone if you are struggling with porn. Pastors, tell your church that you wish to be a man of integrity…that temptation is real! We have a rule at Revolution that I never travel alone to conferences, etc.

#4 – Bring your wife in the loop! Want to REALLY ditch this stuff? Tell your wife. And wives, pray for your husband! You might as well come clean now because when she finds out…not if…because she WILL find out…when she finds out she will feel lied to and cheated on.

#5 – Beg God to re-teach you how to view women in a healthy, Godly way. Retrain your brain to think “That woman is some mans daughter…and I would not want anyone looking at my little girl that way!”

#6 – Go to a recovery class / meeting / small group and realize that you are always an addict. Put a lifestyle that includes a filter in place!

#7 – Read Every Man’s Battle. Yeah, I know you hate to read, but if you replace the amount of time you look at porn each week with reading this book you’d probably have it read pretty fast. Seriously, though, there is a growing amount of GOOD material on this subject matter. As the porn problem grows, so does the amount of resources geared towards helping us!

What other tips would you share?