Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Do not give the enemy any power



September 1, 2015
Thoughts while driving home from Tiara Ladies Retreat August 2015
Pornography was brought up by one of the ladies at retreat as being a devastation to our country and she is committed to getting the message out on this horrible sin that is everywhere.  But being me and loving the Old Testament and easily set on other paths, my thoughts turned to Hosea and the things I have been sharing with the Adult Sunday School class at church.  We have been looking at Israel’s spiritual adultery and the problems they had with the worship of false idols.
An integral part of cultic worship is sexual in nature.  And the reasoning behind it is to stimulate the local deities into producing abundant harvests and needed rains and just all around fruitfulness.  As I thought about that component of worship the thought came to me that these temple prostitutes and their “worshippers/johns” were acting out or doing pornography for their false gods. They were the living videos and smutty books and sexual pictures to get these gods/demons all excited and out there making the land fruitful by having intercourse with their demonic counterparts. Every one of these cults seemed to have a male and female god that were fertility gods in one way or another.
So how does that affect us today, where most people are not out at the Ashtoreth pole, or up on the mountain or in a grove worshipping but simply sitting at their computer surfing the porn sites?  What about those many people that have come to believe that it is ok to have multiple sexual encounters prior to settling down. Or those that have become so callous to what is common to be shown in our movies, TV, magazines and even video games that they have come to believe that anything goes?
There must be something to the fact that these demons need to be stimulated and they are stimulated in watching humans sin.  So it then becomes a vicious cycle.  The person sins sexually, which gives the demon power, which makes them lead the person farther and farther into their sin.  A demonic catch 22 if you would, where power is increased in the demonic realm the more that sin is increased.  And the only way to break the cycle is through Jesus.  Obviously the demons do not want to break the cycle and very often the person involved in the sin cannot see a way out through shear will-power (there will be those that do break their addiction through will-power but the root cause will still be there and it will surface elsewhere)
But Jesus died to break those chains and when we come to Him with a repentant heart then freedom can be won and the cycle broken.  If we really understood that our sexual sins, whether actual or in thought, are like food and water and energy to the demonic, overcoming and repenting of them should become more of a priority.  Who wants to be the one that is supplying the enemy with all the equipment and armament they need in order to defeat them and the ones they love?
What soldier would take his food, water and bullets and go across the DMZ and hand it all over to the enemy that is there to kill, maim and destroy everything they love.  But that is exactly what we are doing when we continue on in these sexual sins.  You may say it is only my mind that strays from time to time, I would never be unfaithful to my vows…that may be true but you are underestimating how powerful those thoughts are in the spiritual realm.  Jesus reminded us that as a man thinks, so is he.  That even to just look at someone or think about something in a lustful way is sin.  That we are as guilty as if we had actually done the act of rebellion.  That is why it is so important that we learn how to break those ties and to take every thought captive.
But once again we are back at the very real problem that we cannot do this on our own strength for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities in the spiritual realm.  So then closing down all pornographic sites will not cure us.  Because the problem is not external but internal.  After all the Israelites in Hosea’s time did not have the internet and they still had the very same problem.  Does that mean we sit back and do not fight…no…but we need to go into the fight with our eyes open.  We fight to bring the captives out of the prisons made by this industry, whether boys and girls sold into prostitution and pornography or the fact that our children need to have safeguards in place to keep them from becoming entrapped by looking at these images and warp the way they feel about sex. This is a fight for the heart and soul, not just a modification of our physical life.  And since it is demonic in nature we must fight in the spiritual realm first and foremost.  As Christians we need to use our God-given authority to cast down these strongholds.

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