Daniel and the Lion’s Den

  When people have authority they often get to appoint people to oversee those under them.  In this particular case, a man named Daniel is given a place of authority as an administrator.  Because Daniel was so distinguished compared to the other administrators, he was going to be in charge.  All of the other administrators were ticked off because they wanted to have his position.  They tried to find a way to get him in trouble but they were unable to because he was a man of integrity.

The other administrators decided to go over his head and convince the King that they should pollute the world with pornography.  They should have soft porn on cable TV, hardcore in movies and magazines, strip clubs in nearly every city, and brothels where prostitution took place.  They should create technology to put porn on phones, computers, and on billboards.  If they could entice everyone with the lure of pornography, they could possibly get Daniel to compromise his integrity.  When he did this he would be trapped and would no longer have the same amount of power.  They also said that you weren’t allowed to worship other gods than the ones endorsed by the country.  You were allowed to worship celebrities, money, and sex but all other gods would be considered idols.  So they put this decree in writing.  The decree stated that anyone who even prayed to another god would be thrown into the Lion’s Den.  They knew that they would get Daniel now.Daniel heard about the decree and he went and locked himself in his room.  He spent hours on his knees praying to the God of the Bible and giving him thanks as he had always done.  The other administrators found Daniel in his room praying and asking God for help.  They went to the king and reminded him about what they must do to Daniel because he was praying to the God of the Bible.  Because of this, the king ordered to throw Daniel into the Lion’s Den.  The king said “may your God rescue you”, in a mocking tone of voice.  The locked him in the Lion’s Den so he was unable to get out.  Daniel was surrounded by the luring temptations of porn and sensation that surrounded him; movies, games, lingerie, magazines, novelty items, etc.  Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by the gods of sex and lust.  He remained steadfast on his knees in prayer asking that God protect him from the temptations. After being locked in for one day, the king came to see if Daniel had been rescued from the Lion’s Den.  Daniel told the king of how God had protected him and how he wasn’t hurt and he was found innocent in the eyes of God even while trapped in such an evil place.  The king gave orders to be removed from the Lion’s Den and Daniel remained unscathed.  The men who had accused Daniel of worshipping the God of the Bible were then thrown into the Lion’s Den.  They were overpowered and devoured by the temptations of porn.  The king then responded that everyone must worship the God of the Bible because he rescues and saves from the enemy.  As a result of his integrity and faith, Daniel lived a life of prosperity.    It is interesting to me that there are adult superstores all over the country and they are called the Lion’s Den.  This story is similar to the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den in the Bible.  I believe that there are many well-meaning people who worship the God of the Bible living with me in this world that is saturated with sex and pornography.  We feel like it is overbearing and often it seems as if there is no way that we can avoid it.  Many teens give in to the pressure and participate in the watching of movies, the viewing of magazines, and other pornographic acts that can destroy us.  It seems as if we are trapped in a literal Lion’s Den and porn is hard to avoid.  We can learn from the example of Daniel, that God’s power is greater than the powers of porn and sex.  He is able to rescue us and save us from any temptation that comes our way.  One of our greatest assets as believers is prayer.  When we are constantly talking with our Lord, He is close to us.  The apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians that we should, “Pray continually”.  While that may not seem practical or even possible it is necessary in order to refrain from the temptations that pornography often throws at us.  When the pop-up appears if we are praying, we will have the power to click out of it.  When friends pressure us to participate, God will give us the strength to remain pure.        

To read about this great man of faith grab a Bible and check out Daniel 6. 

who is god online?

If you google individual words pertaining to pornography, here is what you will find:

Sex
786 million hits

XXX
276 million hits

Porn
238 million hits

If you google individual words pertaining to Christianity, here is what you will find:

God
727 million hits

Jesus
210 million hits

Bible
149 million hits

It appears as if sex, xxx, and porn are more often thought about, wrote about, and looked at than the very God who made us.  It seems as if sex is the online god!  Think about it…

Jenna Haze (pray for porn stars)

I believe that we must pray for people instead of passing judgment on them.  For whatever reason, girls become Porn Stars.  We don’t know their stories, but there is a face behind every statistic.  When we quote stats about the amount of money the porn industry makes each year, it is because they hire women to have sex on camera and then solicit the women’s body by selling sex to people all over the world!  Every Star has a name, face, and a story.  I believe we must go to the Lord and pray for them by name.  Because of this, I will feature a Porn Star that we can pray for every once in a while.  When you read this post, don’t pass judgment, but rather pray for them by name!

Jenna Haze was awarded Female Performer of the Year in 2009 by AVN.  She has appeared in more than 400 pornographic films.  She is from California and still resides there.  She dropped out of school at the age of 15 when she discovered boys and sex.  She never went back.  She began stripping at the age of 18 and entered the industry when she was 19. 

Lord… Jenna is Your daughter!  It breaks my heart that she has chosen this for her life and I know that you want something greater for her.  Please get her attention.  Use those who love you to reach out to her and point her to the love and hope that only you can offer.  In the name of Christ Jesus draw her to your heart… Amen!

iPhone app for porn and sex addiction

If you are addicted to porn and/or sex, or you think that you might be, here is a great resource.  Visit Hope for One.  The great news is that they also have an iPhone app if you have an iPhone.  Search for the app by typing in Hope for One.  It contains news, podcasts, videos and more all designed to help anyone who is dealing with an addiction to porn and/or sex. 

Jesus Loves Porn Stars

According to CNBC, there is $3,075 spent every second on porn.  Each second, 28,000 people are viewing porn online, and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is being produced.  It is not just made for movies but also for iPhones and Blackberry technology.  The fact is that the industry of porn is larger than the revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and Earthlink combined!  It brings in more revenue than those of the NFL, NBA, and MLB combined!  This means that Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy are bigger stars than Peyton Manning and Kobe Bryant.  There are more than 400 million porn pages online accessed by more than 40 million adults in the United States.  Recently CNN reported that 70% of Christians admitted to struggling with pornography.  Oprah acknowledges that pornography is America’s #1 addiction.  This pandemic must cause us to pursue the wounded, engage in the issue, and love the broken.    

In the Gospels, we find a story where Jesus walks in on judgment.  He approaches a woman naked and ashamed facing imminent death by stoning of the crowd around her.  She has been caught in adultery and dragged into a common area where those passing by would soon be encouraged to join in the stoning of this woman.  Jesus comes on the scene and in humility walks near to the woman and drops down to His knees and draws in the dirt.  The crowd surrounds them both, with stones in hand, paying close attention to what Jesus is doing.  We are never told what is written, but we know that those who condemning this woman walked away in silence.  This is a great picture of us standing around those struggling with porn.     

As the statistics show, you know several people who are struggling with porn.  You probably know people who have reached out to you on this issue and you brushed it off because it was too scary.  Jesus gave us an example of how we must pursue the wounded.  Jesus didn’t come to the woman and scold her for what she had done.  Other people had already done that.  Jesus didn’t stand at a distance and counsel the woman on how to leave her life of sin.  Jesus approached her with no stone in hand and got down next to her in the sand.  Jesus got dirty.  Notice that Jesus didn’t offer advice.  He just wrote in the dirt.  The woman knew that Jesus didn’t approve but she knew that Jesus didn’t condemn.  It is time to stop encouraging those around us from a distance.  We must go and be with them. 

Jesus also gives us an example of what it looks like to engage in an issue.  The penalty for adultery in those days was being stoned to death.  Jesus engages in the issue when He arrived at the scene of such an incident.  He doesn’t avoid the crowd or the woman.  He gets with the woman and humbles the crowd.  I believe that often when we see the crowd as it pertains to porn and purity we run in the other direction.  We are called to engage in the issues of those around us.

At last, Jesus loves the woman in her broken state.  He asks her to choose life and to leave her life of sin.  He offers no condemnation, but offers her wholeness that can only be found in him.  Love looks like a cross where the crowd surrounds the broken, and the broken can be made whole.  God wants to use us as we engage in this issue with our brothers and sisters.                                      

It is important to understand the destructive power of sin.  We must not separate ourselves from the sinner because of their sin.  While we must stay away from situations that we can’t handle, we must not stay away from those in sin.  How are you interacting with those so that they may see the love of Christ?  How are you modeling the love of Christ while living among the sinners as Jesus did?  We must choose which is more important:  to make it hard to sin, or to make it easy to see Christ.  Love should look like Jesus, not like judgment.  Jesus loved the wounded and the broken.  Jesus loves you, and… Jesus loves porn stars! 

(This article was published in the March 7, 2010 issue of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in the Living section on page 6D under the heading title “Love can conquer porn’s wiles”)

Shelley Lubben: Loving People out of Porn

Shelley Lubben is a wife and mother, ordained Chaplain and missionary to the sex industry, fighter for truth and advocate for sex workers and porn performers who are abused by the adult industry.

Shelley is also a former porn actress fighting tirelessly against the pornography industry which affects most of the world in a destructive way. Unrelenting in the cause of human rights, Shelley is passionate to educate people all around the world about the abusive and illegally operating porn industry as well as inspire the world to stop viewing pornography and stop contributing to the destruction of men and women who are being abused daily in the pornography industry.

Shelley’s message: PORN IS NOT GLAMOROUS.

Here are some stats that she shares on her site…

66% of porn stars have Herpes, a non-curable disease.

Chlamydia and Gonorrhea among performers is 10x greater than that of LA County 20-24 year olds.

70% of sexually transmitted infections in the porn industry occur in females.

25 HIV cases among porn performers since 2004 reported by Adult Industry Medical Healthcare.

20 suicides and 28 drug related deaths among performers that we know of since 2000.

Over 100 straight and gay performers died from AIDS.

The largest group viewing online pornography is ages 12 to 17.

More than 11 million teens regularly view porn online.

Worldwide pornography revenue in 2006 was $97.06 billion. Of that, approximately $13 billion was in the United States.

There are 4.2 million pornographic websites, 420 million pornographic web pages, and 68 million daily search engine requests.

Click (HERE) to visit her site to find out more about the hope of people leaving porn!

porn over public safety

Porn ruins lives… Police officers provide the public with safety.  Recently on our family vacation to Lauderdale-by-the-sea my wife and I counted billboards that promoted pornography.  These billboards included advertisements for strip clubs and adult video stores.  We also counted the amount of police officers that we noticed out and about provided a safe environment for people.  Here are the results:

Pornographic Billboards – 36

Police Officers – 13

Apparently promoting pornography is more prominant that promoting the safety of citizens. 

I tried to get caught

I was speaking recently with a student who is a sophomore in High School.  We were discussing his addiction to pornography in his middle school years.  He was describing how he went and received professional counsel, and how important that was in the healing of his addiction.  He was explaining how, for months he would always come home from school, and the first thing that he would do would be to get online and view pornography.  He didn’t want to do it, but it was just something he couldn’t stop.  As he was describing his addiction to me he said, “I tried to get caught!”  He spoke of how he never deleted his internet history and would look at porn at times when his parents were home hoping that they would catch him.  He didn’t have the courage to come out and tell them but he desperately wanted help.  He attributes his success in overcoming this addiction to professional counseling along with the power and strength that he received in Christ.  He is one success story among the many hurting high school students who are doing things in private hoping… just hoping… that they will get caught!

the Porn Pastor Purpose

I will provide consistent resources, and informative updates, relating to the problematic pandemic of porn.  With love and grace I point to hope for those struggling with porn, and insight to those wanting relevant education on the issue!

Porn Gone Wild

Joe Francis, who is responsible for the “Girls Gone Wild” franchise is getting his way and we be offering porn on the TV for people to view for free!  It will be available on many basic cable packages.  It is a reality show in which girls will take pictures in exotic locations trying to be crowned “The Hottest Girl in America”.  This is an uncensored show created by a man who is known for searching beaches and exploiting young women who will expose themselves for a t-shirt.  This 12 part series will be on a late night prime time slot on the HDNet channel owned by Mark Cuban who also owns the Dallas Mavericks.  This is a network that is known to be included on Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and Verizon.  This show is sure to contain graphic porn that is masked as being cool and targets the youth brand.   Not only does this send a destructive message to girls that this is the way to get noticed—both by the opposite sex and a large viewing audience—but it also sends the message to boys and girls that a female’s value is based on her body and sexual appeal and little else.  

Francis said thousands of girls submitted videos and pictures in the hope of being “discovered” for the reality series, but only one “lucky” lady (as determined by viewer voting) will become his next hot property. And apparently, we’re all going to be surprised that there is more to Francis’s company than just drunk, naked 19-year-olds. “In all the focus groups it actually scored higher with women than men. You’re going to be surprised; it’s not what you’d expect. It has every element of our GGW brand in it, the gratuitous nudity all over it and all uncensored, but it’s an incredible look at the company on all levels – it is a great story line with great characters,” Francis said.  

To read more on this story, click here!

This is not good!  Sometimes I feel like we are fighting a losing battle.  Pray for Joe Francis.  Pray that the show will never air.  What are your thoughts?