Transcript
Ben Fallon: Today's question comes from a teen.
I have been addicted to pornography for three years, and I've really been wondering if there is still hope for me. It has seared my conscience into not even feeling guilty about it anymore. I have been living as a ‘whitewashed tomb’ within my church, and I know it. Even if I hear a great sermon that seems to speak to my problems well, it just doesn't stick. My mind wanders elsewhere while I pray, and that really makes me question the authenticity of my faith to begin with.
Where would I draw the line and conclude that I am, in fact, not yet saved? And how would I go about pursuing salvation at this point? Every prodigal in the Bible or person that just came to Jesus seems to have a lot of emotion and especially brokenness over their sin. I just don't have that brokenness that I so wish I harbored, like David expresses in Psalm 51. I understand Jesus' love for me and my own sin in concept, but I cannot seem to apply it practically and I guess the question becomes, “How can I?” Any advice or wisdom in navigating this mess would help me so much.
Paul Tripp: So, it is true that you can't grieve what you don't clearly see. By “clearly” I mean, “see as God would see it.” And you can't confess what you don't grieve, and you can't repent of what you haven't confessed. Let me say that again. You can't grieve what you don't see, you can't confess what you don't grieve, and you can't repent of what you haven't confessed. And I think there are two spiritual dynamics here.
One is—again, I talk about this, answering these questions—is the tactics of the enemy to diminish in our hearts and minds the seriousness of sin. And we have such an ability to minimize sin. You know, the guy at the mall lusting after a woman will say, “I wasn't lusting, I'm just celebrating God's creation, the way he's created beauty.” Or the parent who is screaming in unbridled anger at their children will say, “I wasn't screaming, I was just being like one of God's prophets, thus saith the Lord!” Or a person who is lacking generosity will say, “Oh, I'm not being selfish, I'm just trying to be a good steward of what God has given me.” We find ways of making sin more acceptable to our conscience–appear less sinful. And all of us have that ability to minimize sin. We all do it someplace in our lives, and to the degree that we're successful in doing that, we're not embracing the seriousness of this thing that meant the death of Jesus.
There's a second dynamic, and it's what the Bible talks about, of the hardening of the heart. Hebrews 3:12–13, a passage written to believers, talks about being careful about the hardening of the heart. When your heart becomes hard, what bothered you doesn't bother you anymore. And think of that, if I have a stone in my hand and I squeeze it with all my might, what do you think is going to happen? Well, nothing, because it's resistant to change. So, you have what bothered me doesn't bother me anymore, and I'm now resistant to change.
And the Bible has a name for both of these things, it's called “Spiritual Warfare.” There's a war that's taking place, always, all the time, for the rulership of our hearts. And that war is going to rage until we're on the other side. So, part of what's always going on is this battle between God and the forces of darkness, between a heart that is soft and tender and sensitive to sin, and a heart that's cold and hardened and resistant to change. And I have to be honest here; there are no easy keys to solve this spiritual war–God's tools are his Word and his church.
One of the ways the Word functions, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is to progressively set us free from the sin that captures us. Jesus talks about his truth “setting us free.” And I don't know what relationship a person who is addicted, and it doesn't seem to bother him, has to the Word, but the Word is a very, very powerful tool in the hands of the Spirit of God to rescue, deliver, and transform us. His church–often, people who are struggling with some form of addiction hide from the church; they are embarrassed. They are afraid people are going to ask them questions. But the teaching and the worship of church is vital as well as the sanctifying ministry of believers.
I want to know, have you confessed your addiction to someone? Is there someone who was in regular contact with you, trying to comfort you, trying to encourage you, trying to hold you accountable? We all sin, but we don't all sin the same. And some of us have troubling areas of sin in us that others don't struggle with. And there's a way in which sin turns all of us into addicts. We all become idolaters; we all become enslaved. And so, we all need the help of God's Word; we all need the help of God's church; we all need the ministry of the body of Christ. We need it every day so that we can be free from the things that hold us.
There are two final things I want to say here. One, you are not alone. Probably the person who could relate to you most to in the Bible is the Apostle Paul. And hear his words, these are his words talking about himself. This is Romans 7, beginning with verse 15:
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
These are the words of the man who wrote Romans and Corinthians and Ephesians and Galatians and Philippians and Colossians! And Paul says three things: “Sin is a law, Sin is a war, and Sin is a prison”–holds me captive. By “sin is a law,” he means something like gravity. I can't independently decide I'm not going to follow gravity anymore and jump out my second story window; I'm going to hurt myself. “Sin is a war,” a constant battle that rages. “Sin is a prison,” it has the power to take me captive, and my only hope is found in Jesus Christ.
I want to say one final thing. It is a sign of the ongoing operation of God's grace that this would even bother you. The average person walking down the street in my city of Philadelphia isn't haunted by the fact that they're not taking sin seriously enough. They're not haunted by their addictions. If that haunts you, if that bothers you, that's a sign that God's grace is still operating in your heart or it would not bother you at all. So, there's comfort in this struggle. Know that you're not alone. Run toward the resources that God gives you in his Word and his church, and don't let the enemy beat you up.
BF: Well, Paul has written a devotional on Psalm 51 called Whiter Than Snow, which you can find at paultripp.com/whiter or his book Sex in a Broken World, which you can find at paultripp.com/sex. We also have a teaching series called Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies. All of these and many more resources can be found in our store at paultripp.com.
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