Dear Michael,
I am a husband and a stepfather of a three-year-old. I’m hooked on pornography. I sometimes think I can’t make it without it.I read your pamphlet Pornography, Road To Hell, and it fit me. I’m 29 and I need someone to talk to. I need lot’s of prayers. I want to stop this bondage I am in. I could use some help. God bless your website.
MICHAEL ANSWERS
You don’t need to talk to anyone. You don’t need help. You don’t need prayer. You need to repent. Nearly every porno freak to whom I have spoken has expressed a desire to be free from his addiction. The same is true of alcoholics and dopeheads. I have spoken with prostitutes and Sodomites. They all say the same thing. They are miserable; life is a disappointment. They know they are in trouble. They want to quit very badly, but they are “so dependent on it.” I have seen them cry, swear they will never do it again, and then go right back. They will confess their sins, ask for special prayer, let you cast the devils out of them, and then crawl back to their sin. Many professing Christians, preachers and priests included, are caught in a web of debauchery.
I said you don’t need to talk to anyone, because no one can help you. You don’t have an emotional problem that you need to “work through.” You don’t need affirmation or understanding. Yours is not a failure of information. You are a sinner, living after the flesh, and you are dead in trespasses and sins. No counselor can help you deal with your sin.
I said you don’t need help because no one can help you decide what you value. If you love the flesh and do not fear God, if you are not afraid of hell, if you do not value your marriage and your self-respect, if you choose to have the worldview of a baboon—to eat, sleep, and play with yourself—no one can help you except to assure you of the misery you will experience in this life and of damnation in the next.
I said you don’t need prayer, because God does not help sinners quit their sin. God commands the sinner to repent, and then God places his Spirit inside of believers, and by that Spirit the children of God are all overcomers. Those who are not overcomers are overcome of sin and will continue to be enslaved unless they become truly born again.
When you fear God and hell, you will lose your appetite for everything but forgiveness and restitution. You will stay on your knees, fasting, until you touch God and receive the new birth. When you repent to God, you will hate sin so thoroughly that the very thought of a porno image will make you sick to your stomach.
You have never been sincere about ceasing to do pornography. By the time you receive this reply you will doubtless have returned to your lonely room of self-love. If you really wanted to quit, you would permanently disconnect from the internet. If you must use computers at work, you would get a job working in lawn care. You would disconnect your TV from the cable or satellite. You would burn all the images you now have, and you would spend your free time in the Word of God—that is, if you were sincere. There are other, more drastic and permanent methods of ridding oneself of the means to lust, but I will not recommend them. I will leave that to the words of Jesus, found in Matthew 5:29-30: 18:9.
Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). I have seen many porno freaks, queers, lesbians, prostitutes, dope heads, alcoholics, and adulterers repent toward God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and never return to their sin a single time. Either the gospel of Jesus Christ is what it claims to be or it is empty religious nonsense. Either Christ forgives the sinner and delivers him from the acts of sin or we are at the mercy of counselors and therapists.
The move is yours, not God’s. God did everything that is necessary to forgive the greatest sinner and to keep him from committing sin. But God cannot save the unrepentant. And, my friend, you have never repented to God. The choice is yours.
From years of experience, seeing God change lives, I have every confidence that the same gospel that has worked a change in others will work a change in you—when you are willing.
Michael Pearl
Thank you for this. I am a 23 year old single woman searching for a Godly young man, and I am quite sad to say there are none Godly that I have found (outside of my family!) Two prospects so far have been addicted to pornography (there are prospects no longer!) and I am discouraged and angered to say the least. I am quick to forgive to I allowed myself to think such perversion was only a struggle and was proven wrong by their lack of turning away from it completely, even though they shared ‘heartfelt’ feelings of ‘sadness’ over their sin. Thank you for this and the preceding article! The good Lord has shown me that it is a deathly serious issue and that it’s not an option to be with a ‘christian’ that ‘struggles’ with such filth. It’s a tough world out there, and I’m not perfect…but the Lord rips me from my sin and I repent completely. How can I expect less of any man?
Thank you for your ministry! I have been learning from your materials since age 16. Praying for your wisdom and knowledge always.
What you say makes sence, the person needs to admit & confess their sin… I am not the alcoholic, my spouse is,
so is the only thing I can do is pray & wait? I have been praying, I am tired of praying, tired of his alcohol addiction- tired of all of it. I have asked in prayer the desire to drink is taken away.
God knows the problem.
Jesus said if you love me keep my commands. how much do you love Him to give it up? how much do you love your kids, your wife, and your God that died for you? when you choose to sin it is your choice. like Mr. pearl said you have to repent. here is a new level you have to want to repent. you have to want to stop. you have to ignore your feelings of temptation. remember temptation is just a suggestion, you don’t have to act on it. i know its hard to give up. you ever seen that movie Lord of the rings? that character gollum? he is the one the loved the ring, always called it, my precious. you remind me of gollum, looking at pornography and saying its my precious. ive gone through that, i know how you feel. its time to let it go. start calling God your precious. you need to fall in love with Him again. you need to give up your rights to God. stop stealing your life back from Him. and really give it up to Him. i know it hard to let go, but you have to do it. good luck brother in Christ.