“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”
Ephesians 4:17-19 NKJV
In the battle against pornography and sexual immorality, there is no such thing as defeat—only surrender. There is never a time when temptation defeats you, or when sin defeats you, or when the devil defeats you. When you fall to porn or sexual sin, it’s not because you are overpowered. It’s because you surrender.
Sin is always voluntary, never compulsory. No one, and no thing, forces you to look at pornography. No one, and no thing, compels you to masturbate. Yes, the desire may seem irresistible, the urge may appear impossible to resist, but you always have moral agency where sexual sin is concerned because God always supplies a way of escape. Despite what 12-step recovery programs teach, you are never powerless over sexual temptation. If you feel defeated, it’s because you give in.
This is what Paul means when he says the Gentiles “have given themselves over to lewdness.” In the battle against sexual sin, they have yielded, capitulated, submitted, given in, conceded, folded, caved in, thrown in the towel and quit. When you watch, listen to or read pornography, you act like these godless Gentiles. You give yourself up of your own accord to the slavery of your lust, like a soldier who gives up the fight and raises his hands in surrender while the battle is still raging. When you visit that adult website, when you read that immoral book, when you satisfy your sexual lust on your own, you voluntarily yield yourself up to the power of your own sensuality and sexual lust. You let your lust command you without resisting it.
But you, says Paul, as a Christian man, are no longer to walk as the Gentiles walk. You are to fight. You are to win. You are to never, ever surrender. Because, where porn and sexual immorality are concerned, you are never a helpless addict. A volunteer? Yes. But a victim? Never.
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