introduction
"I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl."
– Job 31:1 (NIV)
You are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined. In Paul's day, he accused some people of worshiping their stomachs as their god, and in our day it appears that our god has simply moved a short distance south.
As the pastor of a large and growing church filled with strong men, many of them young, I have seen the secret sins of pornography and masturbation paralyze many men with shame, guilt, and embarrassment. I have written this booklet to discuss these matters in a manner that is both theological and practical, in hopes of contributing to each of you experiencing the power of the gospel to forgive, renew, and empower you by grace. Because I am speaking to fellow men, my tone may not be well suited for some women and, therefore, I would request that they not read this booklet, unless they are a wife whose husband has read it first and he can discuss its contents with her in love. For men wanting to encourage other men to lives of purity, I pray this booklet would be a useful and readable piece of literature that you could pass on to as many dudes as possible as a pedagogical tool for cranial-rectal extraction.
We will begin by learning what God intends for our sexuality, and then proceed to examine how we sin against him. In the opening pages of Genesis, we see that our Trinitarian God made everything "good." The only thing that is not called "good" is that our first father, Adam, was alone. He had creation below him, and God above him, but no one alongside of him to walk as an equal. In this way, Adam was not able to show forth the Trinitarian community of God; Adam was alone on the earth and not in community. For this reason, among others, God said it was "not good" for the man to be alone. So, God made a woman, our first mother, Eve, to be Adam's helper and bride. God then essentially walked her down the aisle and officiated the first wedding between the first man and first woman. Thus, God set the precedent that, though different, men and women are equal as his image-bearers, that marriage is a gift for one man and one woman to enjoy, and as a result called all of this "very good."
Furthermore, God created their bodies for sexual pleasure to be enjoyed in marriage without shame, saying, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Gen. 2:24–25). Therefore, God's intent is that men and women would marry and enjoy sexual pleasure without shame.
Simply, according to God, marriage and sex are related, connected, and exclusive. Sex as God intends it is for one man and one woman in marriage with the overarching purpose of oneness. Subsequently, by definition anything that contradicts God's intent is sinful. Thus, sinful acts include homosexuality, bestiality, bisexuality, fornication, friends with benefits, adultery, prostitution, rape, polygamy, sinful lust including pornography, prostitution, rape, polygamy, pedophilia, incest, and anything else invented next to try and escape the clear teachings of Scripture.
Tragically, when sin entered the world, human beings were separated from God and from one another. For example, in Genesis 3 we see our first parents hiding from God and one another in shame that includes confusion over their nakedness and sexuality. In the rest of Genesis sexual sin of every sort and kind springs forth because when sin entered the world, everything was marred by sin, including sexuality.