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MORE OF SODOM

By Michael Pearl
April 15, 2002

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.

Leave a Reply

18 comments on “MORE OF SODOM”

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. You're partially wrong.
    Prostitutes and sodomites do not fall under the demesne of addicts. Prostitutes may be low-spirited but they as a whole are not addicted to sex, if that's what you were implying. I'm sure that if they could find a higher-paying job in another field, many would switch to it. The real issue is that their pimps won't let them.
    And... sodomites? Really? It's the 21st century and you're still upset over sodomy? Please, learn to pick your battles.

    1. It is true that most prostitutes detest what they do but many ex-prostitutes testify of the difficulty in participating in healthy sex. Any sex will trigger responses that are also common in those dealing with other addictive behaviors.
      Being in the 21st century is irrelevant to the destructiveness of sin in general and sodomy in particular.

  5. While I agree that pornography is a terrible habit and a relationship killer to boot, we must understand that neither you, or me, or Michael Pearl are anymore worthy of salvation than a porn addict or a prostitute or homosexual. We all have sinned, and not one of us is worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is by God's never ending grace that we can be saved, not anything we do or don't do.

  6. Ouch. This article does not demostrate the love or compassion of Jesus. I'm not at all going to excuse my husband's sin, he chose to do it, and he is repentant. But it's articles like this that will keep a man in bondage. My husband has repented and is praying about an accountability partner, but I will never ever condemn him as much as my flesh tells me to. My anger is righteous. I love my husband, but I hate the sin! And your article doesn't love the sinner AT ALL. Sex addiction is perverted, it distorts what God made so beautiful. But sex addiction is still an addiction, just like a drug or alcohol. So many men long to be free, and it's not as easy as just getting rid of Internet and television in your home. It's choosing to walk in honesty and integrity. Choosing consciously at all times to bounce your eyes. I am a female and don't necessarily understand the depth of the struggle but if I were to throw stones at my husband like you have done, then my husband would still be hiding in his shame. I'm very disappointed in this article.

  8. Michael,
    You are right on, and it needs to be said so directly. Thank you for your forthrightness. My only criticism would be...please be respectful. None of us Christians should call others names. Being disrespectful will cause others not to listen. As Proverbs says, "The sweetness of the lips increaseth learning." Thank you for your ministry.

  9. Michael; THANK YOU for this VERY CLEAR statement! I council with men in marriage ministry and have done so for over a decade. I am SO TOTALLY SICK of grown men whining about porn addition and even MORE sick of the unrepentant men that just toddle their way thru life letting porn destroy their relationship with God, marriage, manhood, brain, parenthood, career, everything. Porn has totally destroyed one man that I know in business and he STILL can't get enough. It destroyed his brain, family, marriage and career. One of his kids is a homosexual sex offender now because of being exposed to so much porn as a child by this man.

    I tell men that porn is SELF-DIRECTED HOMOSEXUALITY. It causes you to commit fornication, unmarried sex, with another man, YOURSELF!!

    Whereas God's plan is to give you the DESIRE of your heart, then GIVE you the desire of your heart! He will make your wife irresistible in your eye and she will want you too!! Enjoy sex with your wife your WHOLE LIFE.

    Men, GROW UP!!!!! REPENT!! Get in the WORD and LET GOD HAVE YOUR FLESH and He will BLESS you!

    Thanks again Michael for your ministry! You're a warrior! I want to go throw an axe at a tree now!!!

  11. To those struggling with sin:
    Repentance in the Greek is -metanoia - and it means to have a change of mind. The answer isn't to hate your sin so much that you quit, but to see the truth made flesh in Christ, the Word of God, Jesus, Who came to crush the head of the serpent and fulfill His promise to give us life, which He promised from the beginning. (We all naturally hate our sin because we weren't created for sin to manifest in us, some call this a conscience.) The answer is a person, Jesus, the mediator between God and man, (the Son of God and also the Son of man) Who came to remove the veil from our eyes by showing us the Truth! The truth about ourselves and God - that we are His beloved, created to be His dwelling place, perfectly designed to be a vessel of His Spirit. God is your Abba and He created you to be a partaker of His all satisfying life and love. One of the primary definitions of the Greek word for "sin" is: to be without a share in. A share in what? God Himself, His life, which is our inheritance as His children and image bearers. We partake of His life through intimacy with Him by doing the one thing that's needful: sitting at His feet and hearing the Word He has spoken over us through the incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, wherein we can see the proof of His love for us and believe. And as He persuades us of His goodness and perfect love our flesh is put to rest, no longer lusting after ANYTHING, whether it's a "good" thing or an "evil" thing, because His Life is SATISFYING. HE is our only need. To sin is to not partake in His life, and not partaking in His life causes us to look to the flesh to give ourselves life, but we cannot give ourselves life, there is no life outside of God, only death, when we look to this world or our flesh for life it brings forth the acts of sin, or, as Paul called them "the works of the flesh." Contained within the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is anything "good" or "evil" that we do/don't do in order to satisfy our need for life instead of partaking in the tree of Life, which is intimacy with God through Christ Jesus. "To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled." (Titus 1:15) who are "the pure"? Those who are partaking of their inheritance unto the satisfying of their souls and therefore no longer looking to their flesh or anything in the world to satisfy their need for life. This is not something we do but something we partake of - something that He does in us as we sit at His feet and allow Him to satisfy us with the fullness of Himself. There are so many different versions of "the gospel" in the world today but there is only one Truth. Jesus described repentance when He said "you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." One of the meanings of Grace is: the divine influence upon the heart and it's reflection in the life. We've heard grace defined as God not punishing us, but that is a weak and watered down interpretation, grace is the power of God to manifest what He has promised in our lives, both here and in the world to come. We were all in bondage to sin and death, Jesus came to set us free from that enslavement because it was destroying us and we couldn't save ourselves. He created us to experience life, not death. And He couldn't bear to see His beloveds dying. He wills that none should perish. God looks on you in your bondage with compassion, not anger. He knows that He is your only hope of freedom. So hear the truth and let Him love you, by His Spirit He will bring forth His life in you and you will find that you no longer "need" or want any of the weak and beggarly versions of "life" (aka death) that your flesh can offer you, because you will be satisfied with the goodness of your Abba.

  12. I agree that the power of the cross is the power to set us free but it's grace that frees us nothing else.
    I was bound by porn for years. I did fast. Once for 17 days. I memorized almost the entire book of James. I prayed for hours but still found no freedom. I finally read about t slave who was emancipated by Lincoln who never left the plantation because his old master told him he wasn't free to leave (A lie) because he believed the lie he stayed for 4 more years. Finally he saw the other slaves were gone and he understood he was being lied to, then he left as well. Many Christians believe lies and these keep them bound. (Rom 6:5-7,12) I then shared my struggle with my in-laws (Christians) and they prayed for me and much grace came (James 4:6, 5:16) I found the grace to free me in HUMILITY. I finally found I needed to get rid of my TV as that was an open door for the enemy to pull me into temptation again. (Phil 4:2)
    It never worked for me the way you said Mike, and believe me I did all the work. I believe GRACE is the key. Blessings Lloyd

  15. What are we to tell women who have men who would rather take care of themselves than have sex with their wives? I think there needs to be teaching on what women need to do when their husbands are addicted to porn. It has to be a very lonely place. Thank you for all of your teachings!!

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 3 John 4

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