-The Scripture says that you shall know the truth
and the truth will set you free.
I used to be addicted to pornography.
It had a grip upon my life,
and knowing the truth,
knowing Jesus can bring liberty into your life.
I've experienced that.
You know, the statistics say that 12% of world websites
are pornographic websites.
One out of three viewers are women
and 70% from 18-24 year old's visit pornographic sites in a typical month.
25% of all search engine requests are porn-related.
And 35% of all downloads are pornographic.
An average child first time sees pornography at the age of eleven
that's when I was exposed to pornography.
Even though there was no social media and we had no access to internet.
The least popular day that pornography is viewed is thanksgiving
and the most popular day when pornography is viewed is Sunday.
You would think Sunday would be a place where people serve God
but unfortunately it's a time where a lot of people also are relaxed,
chillaxing and browsing through, and they trip and fall into pornography.
So here are seven facts or seven truths about pornography.
And I believe that as you know the truth, that the truth will set you free.
The first and the foremost is pornography, viewing it, consuming it,
Bible calls it sin.
Now there is no direct commandment or direct instruction
that viewing pornography is a sin, but we know that lust is a sin.
In Matthew 5:38 Jesus says that whoever looks at a woman to lust with her
has committed adultery in her heart.
So lust and adultery, fornication is not just a physical act,
it happens and begins in the heart.
The Scripture says in Ephesians 5:3,
God wants us to live a holy and a pure life.
God wants us to live that life not only physically,
God wants us to live that life not only in our finances,
but also in our relationships as well as in our thoughts and in our feelings.
And when you are watching pornography,
when you are consuming pornography,
you are committing that sin in your mind,
you're committing that sin in your heart,
and that is not pleasing to God because that begins already like sexual act,
but it begins there in the head already;
because all of the other sins, every sin takes its root in the heart.
The second truth about pornography is pornography is addicting.
Porn is like cocaine and heroin addiction.
You know there is 1.9 million cocaine users
and 2 millions heroin users in the United States
compared to 40 million regular users of online pornography.
Both drugs trigger chemical tolerance which requires higher quantities
of the drug to be used to achieve the same intensity of the effect that
a person achieved in the beginning.
And that's exactly how pornography works.
It's like this athlete's foot.
It itches and if you scratch it, it promises that it will stop itching
and then if you keep scratching it, it keeps on itching
it gets intensified
because God does not tell us that lust can be satisfied.
It needs to be crucified.
The worst part about pornography is that it starts first as a one look
a person looked at it and then it becomes a habit.
And then it becomes an addiction.
And then it becomes something that hooks you on
and you feel guilty about it, you feel bad about it,
it consumes your time, it consumes your finances,
it stains your consciousness,
and the worst part about is that the pornography that used to satisfy you
can no longer satisfy you.
And the person begins to look at harder pornography.
The person begins to look at all kinds of other violent pornography,
same-sex pornography, lesbianism and other stuff,
lesbian pornography, homosexual pornography,
to get the same kind of a high.
Because it's no longer just them now that gets the pleasure of that.
It's no longer just the flesh,
a lot of times it's a demon that already lives there that craves those images,
that craves that forbidden fruit and it desires that
and that desire gets stronger as you view it more and more.
You are no longer feeding the flesh,
you are feeding a demon that longs for the forbidden fruit.
Truth number three, pornography, porn is fake.
Now I know it's not necessarily something that you never knew about
but a lot of times what begins to happen is that people think
especially those who get married,
and they begin to imagine that that's how marriage sex is going to be like.
This is how you know, intimacy is going to be like in marriage.
And the problem is that the people in pornography are actors.
They are not spouses.
And that 45-minute video, it takes 3 days to make it.
There is gazillion takes.
If you watch the testimonies of people who came out of pornography industry,
and they will tell you, that stuff is fake.
A lot of them even feel dirty and ashamed afterwards.
All of that, it's actors that are playing, they are called adult entertainers
that are playing that act.
It's not real, none of that stuff happens like that in real life.
And when you go into marriage with these kinds of expectations,
with this kind of fascination and with this fantasy,
you will destroy your marriage because it's not real.
It only exists like that in the movies the same way as
you know, when you watch movies and you see people in the movies that are flying
or people in the movies like Ironman or Spiderman or all other men.
That stuff is not real.
All of that, it's an act.
All of that, there is effects that are involved in it.
And when you try to do that in the real life,
you will be extremely disappointed and you will hurt yourself.
And that's exactly what begins to happen when people bring pornography.
Eventually sooner or later, every person that watches pornography
and doesn't get free from it,
they begin to imagine and desire to see these kind of experiences in their bedroom
and they will become not only disappointed,
they will destroy their marriage
because they are trying to bring something into marriage that's just not real,
it's completely fake.
Number four, pornography degrades women.
Pornography sees women as objects.
Pornography sees women as something that you use not someone that you love.
Pornography views women as toys, as something that's not human,
something that's not made in the image and likeness of God.
And so in order to honor the humanity,
in order to honor the image of God in every person,
you have to walk away from watching pornography,
and walking away from it because not only you are satisfying your flesh
and you are feeding the demons, but you are also degrading.
You are also destroying God's image in somebody else
by letting it be used like that.
Number five, pornography twists the view, distorts the view concerning sex.
You know, sex is not supposed to be what pornography presents it to be.
A lot of times what pornography presents sex as, is something that's physical.
It's something that is just on the level of the bodies.
It presents as something that has this amazing looking bodies
and they are just completely ready,
and the woman just wants to do all of these acts,
and the men can do all of these acts.
But in reality, when you get married you realize that sex does not start
when you want to have sex.
Intimacy begins in the kitchen not in the bedroom.
When you get married you will realize that you just can't have sex.
This is not an act.
This is an overflow of closeness emotionally, closeness mentally,
closeness spiritually.
This is an overflow.
This is not just a pill that fixes everything.
And it's more than physical.
It's emotional, it's spiritual and it's mental.
Number six is viewing pornography leads to shame.
When I remember when I used to be addicted,
I was exposed at a very tender young age in the country I lived in, in Ukraine
and then I brought those images to my house.
We didn't have a television, I don't think we even had a radio
because in those times like 97 or 98, even before the year 2000.
And then we moved to the States a few years later
and I got really hooked on pornography.
And mind you, we didn't have high speed internet.
It was like this AOL internet that you had to wait for everybody
to stop talking on the house phone for you to use it.
And I was still able to find it.
And one of the things that it produced every single time;
and it wasn't because I was taught that pornography is wrong,
it was because it felt dirty.
I felt guilty.
I felt ashamed.
I felt like somebody just threw me in the pile of poop.
It's interesting that in that moment that I viewed pornography
you know, it gratified my flesh.
It satisfied something within me that wanted that at that moment.
And the moment I ended it, it was something that made me feel disgusted
made me feel guilty.
And I was already beginning to minister.
I was thirteen years of age, I was fourteen years of age,
I was beginning to already kind of like draw closer to God.
It was very difficult.
It made my walk with God very difficult at the time.
It brought a lot of shame, and it brought a lot of guilt.
At first I thought it was just the issue of the flesh.
You know, I just need to discipline myself more,
and I tried everything that I could to discipline myself more,
and it actually intensified.
And that is when through reading some books
and hearing other peoples messages and experiences,
I came to realization at a very young tender age
that I was dealing with a spiritual entity that had this intense appetite,
that lived inside of me, that wanted to have that.
And it would take over me at the moment of my weakness or once a month.
No matter how hard I tried, it would take over me
and I needed deliverance.
And I want to deal with that in another video.
But the truth number six is that it leads to shame.
It leads to guilt, it leads to condemnation
and God doesn't want us to live in shame,
God wants us to live in faith and He wants us to live in glory.
And truth number seven is that it will create dissatisfaction with marriage sex
and many times it leads to divorce.
I cannot tell you how many couples that I've prayed for
and how many people that I've talked with,
where the marriage is hanging on a thread
and a lot of times it will lead to adultery
because a person is no longer satisfied with that marriage.
They are chasing this fantasy
or a lot of times that person, either husband or a wife,
gets so isolated from physical intimacy,
from the emotional intimacy with their spouse and they live in this virtual bubble
where they constantly satisfy themselves by watching these images
and they go deeper and deeper into harder and harder pornography.
And then they start soliciting prostitutes,
they start soliciting escorts to all kinds of strip bars,
and the rest of the stuff.
And not only they destroy their Christian testimony,
not only they walk away from the Lord,
but many times they destroy their marriage
and they destroy their children through that
because these demons then pass on to their children.
The demons pass on to their grandchildren
because they did not walk in that blessing of purity that the Lord wants us.
God is not a kill-joy God.
He's not just wanting to steal away all your joy and all your peace
and all your satisfaction.
God created sex and it's beautiful within the context of marriage.
Sex is like fire in the fireplace.
It's beautiful.
It keeps the room warm.
But the moment you take that fire out of the fireplace
and you put it into the living room,
it will destroy the room.
Sex in marriage is like soil in the plant pot.
It causes the plant to be nourished.
But if you take that soil out of the pot
and you put it on your plate during dinner,
that soil no longer brings nourishment.
That soil becomes dirt. It stains your plate.
So when you take sex out of a bed and you begin to kind of watch it,
and you begin to watch other people act that,
they are doing it for money;
and you begin to fill your mind with that, guess what happens?
You're staining your mind.
You're staining your relationships.
You're staining your consciousness.
And I just to encourage somebody who's watching
or maybe you stumbled upon this video,
to let you know, listen, there is hope for you.
There is so many people that God has delivered from this affliction,
from this demon, and from this addiction.
And there is freedom for you.
And we have other videos in the description below
concerning prayer and concerning how to be free,
and what's some practical things you can do to beat this thing.
I just want to encourage you, there is a way out for you through Jesus Christ.
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until next time.