Over the Summer, I had the opportunity to clean up the grounds of a rental property that had a few large non-permitted structures in the backyard and they needed to be demolished.
All the structures were cheaply constructed, one was a shed which had apparently been used for some kind of entertainment room. It had a carpet, microwave, chairs, and the remnant of a video collection (which I would discover later after the demolition) and other garbage left by a tenant who had little motivation to clear out everything.
The property had been abandoned and so it’s hard to say what all the cheap shed contained before when the property was inhabited.
By the time I was able to see some details of the contents was after the main demolition was performed and almost all the construction materials were disposed of. This left me to help remove the floor covered with the contents of the former shack.
What I was to discover was coming on the heels of having watched “Sound of Freedom“, a movie based on the true story of law enforcement agents rescuing children caught in the horrifying world of sex trafficking.The movie has been raising the awareness of this international and domestic problem.
Back to the demolition cleanup, the piles of garbage included porn magazines and part of a video library in the form of X-Rated and Amine videotapes.
Using mainly a rake and a shovel, I worked to transfer the disgusting debris to garbage bins. All I wanted to do, as efficiently as possible, was to transfer the loads of garbage into the nearby 50 yard dumpster without having to look at that filth for any more time than was necessary.
Surrendering to Christ, one takes effort to make every thought captive to be worthy of Christ. It’s not easy but a worthy process.
“…casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”
– 2 Corinthians 10:5
Pornography is one of the worst things that people casually accept, producing unreal and immoral assumptions of the sex object in the minds of those who are exposed to it whether by intent or by recurring accident. It doesn’t have to be X-Rated films like I saw strewn across the floor of a demolished shed.
Modesty is eroding ever faster with the advent to the internet and advertising and marketing are constantly pushing the boundaries of yesterday’s decency.
I would go as far as asserting that although what is deemed acceptable immodesty by the main stream continues to drift into more brazen acts of sexual misconduct. In other words, movie producers and marketers fall into the trap that shock value must continue marching down the road to ever greater immorality which subsequently drives the actual increasing problems with illegal sex trafficking of children.
If they cannot make it more brazen, they will release their depravity to younger minds if not actually victimize younger children by exposing them to immoral imagery or forcing them to commit immoral acts. It’s abuse.
What’s the Connection?
What I am about to write, let me be clear, I am not judging you, it’s a measure to judge yourself and myself from a biblical perspective. This sin train makes everyone who takes part in it accomplices in the moving spectrum of immoral and depraved behavior, not only the sick criminals who are involved with the child sex trade. When the spectrum moves, it involves most everyone in one aspect or another.
The dangers of unrestrained images and messages, in hard or soft pornography, are more easily understood for their immoral nature in context of Jesus teachings about adultery.
Most of you think that adultery is only a crime if you are married and caught cheating on your spouse. Consider this:
27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” – Matthew 5:27-28
If you were wondering how you are doing with keeping the Ten Commandments, Christ gives clarity in reference to God’s standard.
This Matthew passage is classic when it comes to destroying ones self-righteous attitudes. God’s perfect standard of holiness and moral excellence reaches into the thought life so that people’s self-righteous behaviors are worse than filthy smut laying on the garbage ridden ground of a demolished porn shack.
God is not fooled.
You may wonder, if God’s standards are perfect, how can anyone with a sin-filled mind ever achieve acceptance by God through works for the purpose of salvation.
Good question. God says it is not possible.
Jesus stated in his conversation with Nicodemus, who was one of the most revered religious Jews of the time:
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ – John 3:3-6
What Jesus stated was that, unless you are born-again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.
The simplest way I can put “born-again” in context and meaning, is by asking a question:
Did you do anything to help your mother give birth to you? The point is, you are as capable working towards your salvation as you worked to birth yourself. In other words, you did nothing to help in your own physical birth, so you can do nothing to help you in your spiritual rebirth. It is by the grace of God that you be “born of the water”, being spiritual cleansed, and God’s work for salvation is perfect.
As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. – Psalm 103:12
Before we are born again, we are spiritually dead in our sins and in need of God’s mercy.
With an attitude of repentance from your sins (sorrow over your sins against God with a sincerity of desire to make things right), you then believe and trust in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It’s quite simple. It’a not easy necessarily, but it is quite simple. The Apostle Paul wrote:
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. – 1 Corinthians 1:21
For a detailed explanation of who Jesus Christ is from the Bible’s perspective go to the video in this website , “Who is Jesus Christ?”
CKY
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