Sometime in 2015, while a student in a Russian Preparatory Faculty in a city in the Southwestern part of Russia, there was a season that lasted a couple of months in which I found myself waking up at odd hours of the night and not being able to return to sleep for several hours. As a result, I also developed the habit of scrolling through my notifications during those odd hours. I would go from one platform to the other: Gmail, WhatsApp, and Facebook scrolling through random stuff and waiting to fall asleep again.
On one such occasion, as soon as I logged into Facebook, I saw a video posted by a friend on my Facebook feed. In some modern devices, videos begin to play immediately as soon as they are centralized on the screen, but on the older device I used then in 2015, I had to tap the play button for videos to begin to play. Nevertheless, each video had a slightly blurred thumbnail but was clear enough for anyone to see what was there. I had not yet tapped the play button, but my heart leaped in shock at what I saw through the thumbnail. It was probably the most explicit picture of a man and woman having sex that I’ve ever seen.
I quickly got off Facebook, not wanting to hang in there for any second because I knew the potency of the temptation I was facing. It was about 1:30 am. I put my phone down and decided to fall asleep. No matter how hard I tried to sleep off, my mind could not stop wandering back to the picture I had seen. There seemed to be an invisible force luring, pulling, and even forcing me to go and take a more detailed look.
I could almost hear a voice, as if a personality was sitting beside me on my bed, persuading and nudging me to at least take a look, or watch it for the first three seconds, or get a clearer view of what they were doing, or use it to learn a bit about reproduction since I’ll one day be married to a woman myself, and on and on with the persuasions.
More than once, I picked up my phone and hovered through my applications page, stopping only short of tapping on the Facebook icon. I was in the valley of decision where I fought between two options: should I? Or should I not? It was so intense and persistent. After some time, I looked at the time and saw that it was 4:30 am. It had been three hours since I initially saw the video’s thumbnail. I got angry and felt a bit sinful that I had even considered taking a second look for that length of time. I prayed for God to forgive me.
I got up from my bed and walked to the laundry room at the end of the fifth floor of the hostel building. This was the room where I used to pray in the early hours of the morning. I lifted my hands and began to sing and pray. In a few moments, the presence of God flooded that room, and my peace returned. I’m glad I can tell this story today from the standpoint of an overcomer rather than from that of a wounded soldier.
I wonder how many other rising stars were cut down by a social media post at 1 am. I wonder how many champions swallowed the bait Satan threw at them during a season of temptation. I wonder how many up-and-coming young men and ladies went to bed as captains but rose as captives because they lost the nightly battle.
There is a real battle every young person of this generation must fight, and it is a battle you must not lose. In the book of Exodus, we see that as soon as the principalities of Egypt knew that it was time for a deliverer to be born, they moved through the Pharaoh to make a decree that every male child be thrown into the Nile River. This was an attempt to end the life of any potential deliverer before he had the chance to grow up and accomplish his destiny. Several centuries later, as recorded in the book of 2 Kings 11, a wicked Queen Mother by the name of Athaliah would make a similar attempt to destroy every male child in the royal family. She did this out of envy after the death of her son.
Note that on both occasions, the Pharaoh and the wicked Queen Mother made attempts to attack and cut short promising young men before they grew enough to fulfill their destinies. In between these two events was another equally gruesome event recorded in the book of Judges. A king named Adonibezek cut the thumbs and big toes of his seventy brothers after becoming king (Judges 1:7).
A man with no thumb will never be able to grab anything, and a man with no toes will never be able to stand upright. Adonibezek, in an attempt to insulate himself against the possibility of being overthrown by any of his brothers, decided to hinder them. They didn’t die, but they never could stand in the place of their destinies or take hold of the futures they were born to accomplish. They were born princes but died paupers, as mere beggars only at the mercy of their brother. Although these three events concerned young men, it also applies generically to all children of God (young men and ladies).
I see a combination of the passionate jealously of Pharaoh, the brutal envy of Athaliah, and the cruel wickedness of Adonibezek being unleashed on the youth of our generation today. Like the Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, the devil has seen that there is a deliverer in you. Like the wicked Queen Mother Athaliah, the enemy has seen a Prince (or Princess) in you who is capable of ruling the kingdom.
Like Adonibezek, the enemy has identified you as a potential threat to his domain. While it is impossible to throw us into any physical river or physically cut our big toes, the enemy has found an equally potent weapon that can incapacitate any young man or woman, making it impossible for them to stand and fulfill their destinies. This weapon is called pornography. It has been strategically placed at critical junctions where it will be impossible to miss. Right from childhood, children are being exposed to explicit sex. It is so ubiquitous that it now looks like the norm.
John the Elder gave a warning in his letter to the early Church:
Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; 16 for all these worldly things, these evil desiresthe craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importancethese are not from God. They are from this evil world itself.
1 John 2:15-16, TLB
One of the characteristics of the evil world we must not love is its craze for sex. Sex is now used for advertising everything, including little consumer goods such as toothpaste.
A few days ago, while chatting with a friend on WhatsApp, I attempted to find a gif that demonstrated the word shakara. Shakara is a Nigerian slang that is used when someone is showing off. To my greatest surprise, under the section for gifs, when I typed the word shakara, I was greeted by several random gifs of an almost totally unclad woman dancing seductively. I was shocked. I quickly erased that word shakara and found a sticker to use instead. I later discovered there is a notable Colombian singer and songwriter called Shakira, and the search engine assumed she was the one I was looking for.
I wonder why the search engine did not think I was looking for Shekinah and show me a gif demonstrating the glory of God (afterall, the word Shekinah is also close to shakara). It simply proves that sex has been essentially wired into the DNA of the world system. It will be impossible to interact with the world without having sex flashed at you daily.
But there is a way out! God did not leave us helpless in the world at the mercy of the world system and its Prince, Satan.
The Bible says in 1 John 5:4 that whatever is born of God overcomes the world. There is enough grace in Christ Jesus to live above the world system and the baits it throws regularly at us. I will do another blog entry to deep dive into further issues about this matter.
But for now, I want to encourage the young man and young lady who has not yet been caught in this trap of pornography:
- Do all you can not to get into it. Stand fast in the liberty that is in Christ Jesus. Speak the Word . Declare it. We counter thoughts with words and not thoughts.
- Flee all appearances of evil. Dissociate yourself from sources of wrong influence (movies, songs, cartoons, books, magazines, shops, friends, social media channels, etc.) that only trigger inordinate sexual desires in you. I see you numbered among the champions in Jesus name.
And now to the brother or sister who got into the trap before understanding the potency of the poison they swallowed, or to those who were introduced to it when they were too young to discern right from wrong, or to those who voluntarily walked into the trap because of dangerous curiosity, I want you to know there is hope for you. The power of God is able to refix your big toe and help you to stand again, to the disappointment of the devil, who hoped you’d be crippled forever. The blood of Jesus is able to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
What should you do?
- Confess your sins to God and ask for mercy. Expose it to the Light. The power of sin lies in its secrecy.
“If you hide your sins, you will not succeed. If you confess and reject them, you will receive mercy.” Proverbs 28:13 - Confess also to a trusted leader. Relinquish pornography of its power over you and talk to your leader. Be accountable to him/her. Pray with them and follow their directions.
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working”. James 5:16 - FLEE all appearances of evil! It wouldn’t make sense to do the above and still preserve the resources you once used. Permanently delete the links/apps, movies, songs, books, magazines, Social Media accounts; anything that raises those uncanny desires in you, run from them.
- Go deeper in your studies with God. Take the Word of God as drugs in doses. Fix a specific time for each dose. As you start and progress, your mind would be cleansed and renewed.
- But all these won’t be profitable if you haven’t decided to stand. See the evil of pornography as it is and make up your mind to be free. May God open your eyes to see. There is freedom in Christ and the grace to stand in it.
For a more personal counseling, follow up, or prayer, or if you don’t have someone to talk around, please reach out to us by sending us a mail at abbasdwellingplace@gmail.com. There is an option of anonymous chatbox, if you desire anonymity. We will love to pray with you.