Internet Pornography – a "Piperism"

One of my most beloved Bible teachers, John Piper, was treading through Romans 7 and discussing the topic of sin. Piper is dealing with a few different objections, but one that comes up by critics (now and during his time) is that someone needs to you can only about sin if you’ve participated in it. Or, you can only know the weight of the temptation of sin if you’ve been enslaved to it.

Piper does a good job of destroying this ridiculous objection by painting a picture of different people struggling with this temptation.

“No, you don't need to experiment with particular sins in order to know the power of sin in your life. Think of it this way. Someone says: How can you really know the power of the temptation to lust – say to look at Internet nudity – if you've never given in and experienced it? Let me give an answer in a parable. There are three men – women, you supply the necessary changes to make the parable fit your situation – and each of the three stands beside a pit of lewdness and sin. Three ropes extend out of the pit, one bound around each man's waist. The strength of this narrow cord is one-hundred-pound test.

The first man begins to be pulled into the pit that looks exciting, but that he knows is deadly. Five pounds of pressure, ten pounds, fifteen pounds. He resists and fights back. Twenty pounds, twenty-five. He digs in his heels with all his might. Thirty pounds, thirty-five pounds, and the rope starts to squeeze and he stops resisting and jumps in. Click goes the mouse button.

The second man begins to be pulled into the pit. Five pounds of pressure, ten pounds, fifteen pounds. He resists and fights back. Twenty pounds, twenty-five pounds. He digs in his heels. Thirty pounds, thirty-five pounds, and the rope starts to squeeze. He says, No! and fights back. Forty pounds, forty-five pounds, fifty pounds, fifty-five pounds. It's harder to breathe as the rope tightens around his stomach and it begins to hurt. Sixty pounds, and he stops resisting and jumps into the pit. Click.

The third man begins to be pulled into the pit. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five pounds of pressure. He resists and fights back. Thirty, thirty-five, forty, and the rope starts to squeeze. He says, No! and fights back. Fifty pounds, sixty. It's harder to breathe as the rope tightens around his stomach and begins to hurt. Seventy pounds and his feet start to slip toward the pit. He cries out for help, and reaches out to grab a branch – shaped like a cross. In the distance he sees his wife going about her business, trusting him; he sees his children playing, and in their hearts admiring him. And beyond them all, he sees Jesus Christ with a gash in his side standing, with both hands lifted and fists clenched and smiling. And filled with passion, the third man holds fast. Seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five pounds, and the rope cuts into his sides and the pain stabs. Ninety, ninety-five and the tears flow unbidden down his cheeks. One hundred and the rope snaps. No click.

Question: which of these men knows the full power of temptation?

If this were a message on lust I would look around this room and say, "Are there any soldiers here? Does anyone in this room have blood on his shirt and scars on his side? Do you know the power of temptation? Or do you just jump in before its power is spent?"¹

No one “trips” and “stumbles” or “falls” into pornography. Sure, if you’re surfing the web for something innocuous, you may land on something vile, but that first unintended hit is the temptation. It is the subsequent leering and voyeurism of pornography that is not just a stumbling into sin…but it is jumping into it.

Later in the above sermon, Piper made it clear that the words describing the men going into the pit were “jump” because you don’t accidentally trip onto your mouse button. This issue of misusing the Internet (specifically) or other forms of media for the purpose of sexual immorality is so pervasive to the culture that it is truly troublesome. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were just the pagans acting like pagans, but there is every reason to believe that just as many people who identify themselves as born again Christians regularly dive into this type of sinning.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and while this picture may be a little trite, I hope that you catch the eternal truth conveyed by it.


“If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:6,7)

---

¹ “The Importance of Knowing Our Sin” by John Piper (April 1, 2001) http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2001/50_The_Importance_of_Knowing_Our_Sin/