(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

The title of the sermon is Pornography and Prostitution. Now if you look at your scripture there in Revelation 18 verse 11, the Bible reads, And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no man buy at their merchandise anymore, the merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones and of pearls, and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and all thine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass and iron and marble, and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots, watch this, and slaves and souls of men. Now of course this is about Babylon. I believe the end times Babylon to be a reference to the United States of America in our time. And when we see the word slaves and souls of men, those aren't necessarily the terms that we would use in today's vernacular for this type of merchandise, but the modern term for this would be human trafficking. Who's ever heard that term before? Human trafficking. So we don't necessarily talk a lot about slavery in the United States. That was of course abolished 150 years ago. Usually when people say slavery today, they're referring to something that's legal, something that's institutionalized, whereas human trafficking is referring to the souls of men that are sold and the slaves that are sold illegally. And let me tell you something, there is a huge human traffic industry, a multi-million dollar, probably a multi-billion dollar, it is a multi-billion dollar, human trafficking industry and the United States has a big part in it. Now you say why would you relate pornography and prostitution or why would you relate these two things onto human trafficking? Because of the fact that those who produce pornography, those who are on camera are by definition a prostitute. That's what they're doing. They're selling their services for money and of course those who are involved in making pornography are usually the victims of human trafficking, unfortunately, sad to say. Let me give you some statistics on pornography just to let you know why this sermon needs to be preached. Every second, 28,258 users are watching pornography on the internet. Every second, $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography on the internet every second, over three grand. This is a major industry. You can see why God would list in all of this merchandise of Babylon having to do with things that we would traditionally think of as merchandise that he would throw in the slaves and the souls of men because it's a major industry. Every second, 372 people are typing the word adult into a search engine, 40 million American people regularly visit porn sites, 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography, 25% of all search engine queries are related to pornography or about 68 million search queries a day. 34% of internet users, listen to this, 34% of internet users have experienced unwanted exposure to porn through pop-ups, et cetera, where they get a virus or it takes over their computer and starts putting pornography on their screen. A third of people have experienced that. Seventy percent of men age 18 to 24 visit porn sites on a monthly basis. Did you hear that? Seventy percent of men age 18 to 24 are visiting a porn site in a typical month. Sixty-nine percent of pay-per-view internet content market is pornography. The porn industry generates $13 billion each year in the United States. And $3 billion of that is internet porn. And of course the USA is number one in producing and consuming pornography. Now, can anyone dispute that this is a really serious issue based upon these statistics? That this is something that needs to be addressed because it's a major, major problem. Now let me start out by giving you the serious dangers of pornography. Turn to Proverbs 27. Here are some serious dangers of pornography. Why you need to understand that you need to stay away from this and not have anything to do with it. Yeah, it's not a big deal. No, no, no. There are some serious dangers with pornography. Let me give you them. Number one, it takes you further than you want to go. And I've often preached this about sin in general. That sin always takes you further than you want to go. It keeps you longer than you want to stay. And it costs you more than you're willing to pay. And so it takes you further than you want to go. I'll read for you Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 8. All things are full of labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. Proverbs 27 verse 20. Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of man are never satisfied. You see how when someone looks at that pornography, they think that it's going to satisfy a craving that they have. But the Bible says the eyes of man are never satisfied. And so it takes them down a dark path of constantly escalating how bad what they look at is. And they keep moving on to something worse and worse and worse because the eyes of man are never satisfied. And by the way, I forgot this somehow in my statistics that one third of pornography users are women. We wouldn't think of that. You know, we would assume this is a temptation for men. And truly, men are at least twice as likely to be involved in it. But even women are involved in this wicked sin today. You know, even their women, as it says in Romans 1, you know, can get into these type of sins. And worse, Romans 1 is obviously describing something much worse. I'm going to get to that in a moment. But the Bible says in James 1, every man is tempted when he's drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath it conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. And when we give in to lust, we don't desire death, but it takes us further than we want to go. And lust conceives and it brings forth sin. Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. And here's the thing about it, and I want to be very delicate about how I say this because I don't want to corrupt anyone here. But the bottom line is that when people go to seek out this stuff, they seek out one thing but they end up finding things that are worse and escalating to that which is worse too. Now here's the thing. Obviously if you're going to look at pornography, if you're going to sit there and watch basically people committing fornication. By its very nature, as a man, if you're going on and watching pornography, you're basically looking at the same gender as well because you're looking at both genders around that image. Everybody understand what I'm saying? So that right there is perverted in and of itself, number one. But number two, because a lot of people don't want to look at that, then what they'll do is they'll basically look at two women. And then now they're looking at the perversion associated with Romans chapter one at that point. Do you see how a person goes into it not desiring to look at weird things necessarily, that they think they're going to look at that which is milder, but you can see how it could escalate to them looking at something that is horrific. That is wicked. That is the worst sins a la Romans chapter one. Number one, it takes you further than you want to go. Number two, it warps your mind. Now go if you would to Proverbs 27. Are you still there in Proverbs 27? Okay great. Now I want to show you verse seven. It says this, the full soul loatheth on honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. I'm going to read for you from Ephesians where the Bible says, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. People can get to a point where they're past feeling and what past feeling means is desensitized. At first they're very sensitive to something and they have strong feeling towards something, but over time they are desensitized and the Bible used the term past feeling. Because they're past feeling, they give themselves over to lasciviousness and working all uncleanness with greediness and so forth. He's talking about people there that are very wicked people, but then a few verses later he says to Christians, be not like unto them. Don't have fellowship with them. Don't go down that same road. You need to put on the new man. You need to put off the works of the flesh in Ephesians chapter four there where that quote is taken from. Now the reason that I bring this up is because I've had people come to me and tell me, when you're a pastor people come to you and tell you these things sometimes and I've had people say to me that they've become addicted to pornography and that they no longer find their own wife attractive. What a shame. What a tragedy. What a sad thing. That beautiful relationship between husband and wife because they're exposed to all these women and exposed to all this garbage and then they get so desensitized to all of it that they can't become excited about their own wife anymore. Because the full soul of the honeycomb. Think about when you overeat a little bit and we all overeat from time to time. I overeat from time to time. When you overeat and you're just like, oh why did I get seconds or why did I do that last? Right? You get full. I don't care if someone offered you your favorite thing in the world, you don't want it. So what happens is people are filling up on all this junk, all this trash and then they go to the meal that God has prepared for them, their own lawful spouse and all of a sudden it's like they're not hungry. And then that could destroy the marriage. Look there's some serious dangers. I call that point, you know, it warps your mind. It messes up your mind and your body through watching this stuff. So number one, it takes you further than you want to go. Number two, it warps your mind. Number three, you could, and turn if you would to Matthew 5, this is kind of the famous verse that everyone would think of in regard to pornography, right? Matthew chapter 5, verse number 27 and 28. Number three, you could lose your job or your marriage. Now the reason I bring up losing your job is because people have lost their job by basically being caught on the job looking at this stuff and then they lose their job. So you could lose your job. But not only that, you could lose your marriage. Now this is the most famous verse that people would think of in regard to pornography. Matthew chapter 5, verse 27, you've heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Now here's the thing about this. I'm not saying that if somebody looks at a woman to lust after her that that's as bad as literally going out and committing adultery. Obviously those are two different things. Adultery in the heart is wicked. Physically going out and committing adultery is way more serious, okay? Now the reason I bring that up, I want to tell you this story but I don't want you to misunderstand the story, okay? A friend of mine literally, he was looking at pornography and he was caught by his wife and his wife divorced him over that issue. And she went to her pastor and the pastor said, oh yeah, you have every right to divorce him for looking at that and you're totally justified to divorce him. And his wife, and he tried to work things out with his wife, he said he's sorry, he begged for forgiveness and she refused to forgive him, she refused to be reconciled and even when he tried to send her flowers, she got a restraining order so that he can't even try to make things right. Now the reason I bring that up is to show you how it can destroy your marriage, it can even make you lose your marriage or lose your job, okay? Now I don't want you to think that I'm condoning her doing that because honestly, I do not believe that husbands should divorce their wives or wives should divorce their husbands for any reason. I don't believe in divorce, the Bible says God hates putting away but a lot of people will twist the scripture and say that this is a grounds for divorce and in fact, they'll even say, oh you just, he, one time I saw him looking at a woman who walked by and it's like oh yeah, I mean that's adultery right there. Now that would be just as ridiculous as saying, you know, because the Bible also says whoso hateth his brother is a murderer, doesn't it? First John chapter three, whosoever hated his brother is a murderer. Obviously it's not like, oh you hate your brother, let's put you in the electric chair, let's put you in the gas chamber. Okay, what these scriptures are teaching us when they say, hey, if you look on a woman to commit adultery or I mean, I'm sorry, let's start over. If you look on a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery with her already in your heart, what that's saying is that look, that's a wicked sin. Just like hating your brother is a wicked sin, okay? So God's just trying to let us know that what we think in our mind is not just, well it's all good as long as we don't do it. Is that what the Bible teaches? We can have whatever going on in our mind and our heart as long as we don't do it. Is that what the Bible says? No, the Bible's saying, look, you're committing adultery in your heart. You're murdering in your heart. Now that's not to say that the law should be called on you because of your thoughts because a lot of people will twist this into like a thought police where basically you'll try to tell them, hey, we should have the death penalty on sodomy or we should have the death penalty on adultery. People say things like, well, you know, everybody has looked on a woman to lust after so we'd all be executed or, you know, we've all hated or, you know. That's not what the Bible's saying because there's a difference between criminal law and sin. And let me tell you something, it is a sin. The Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin. The Bible says it's a sin to hate your brother in your heart. The Bible's teaching it is a sin to look on a woman, to lust after her, it's called the lust of the eyes, it is sin. And you say, oh, well, then, you know, then my marriage is fine. No, because guess what? Right or wrong, your wife might divorce you or your husband might divorce you if he catches you watching it. Does everybody get what I'm saying? It doesn't matter what I think or you think whether marriages till death do us part, you would not be the first person whose wife or husband divorced them over this issue. Is it really worth it? Is it really worth it? Look, there's serious dangers of pornography. Number one, it takes you further than you want to go, it leads you into perversion. Number two, it warps your mind and ruins your marriage in that way. Number three, you could outright lose your marriage or lose your job. It's not worth the risk, people, it's wicked. Number four, actually there were only three under that point, but let's move on to another thing. What should we do to avoid this sin? How do we avoid the sin of pornography? I'm going to get to prostitution a little later. How do we avoid the sin of pornography? Well, go if you would to Jeremiah Chapter 5. My mom is visiting this morning and she always taught me when I was a kid, she said, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. If we were just sitting around bored doing nothing, she would say, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. I think the number one way probably to avoid this sin is to not just be idle and bored and just randomly surfing YouTube or the internet, just bored. I mean, you're just bored, you're just killing time, so you're just sort of randomly idly just going to YouTube, just seeing what's on, you know, look, use the internet with a purpose. You know, I mean, look, if you need to do your banking, type in that banking website and do your banking. You know, if you need to check your email, type in the email, check your email, deal with your emails. Okay. If you want to watch something on YouTube, let me tell you what you should not do. I don't just type in youtube.com because then it takes me to a homepage where they just sort of advertise whatever Hollywood movie or whatever junk and whatever weird stuff if you just go to youtube.com, whatever's trendy now or whatever. Here's what I do. If I go to YouTube, it's to watch something specific. Don't just surf and look, if you just surf YouTube, the problem with that is that idle mind is the devil's workshop and you can just end up falling down a rabbit hole of watching stuff that you shouldn't be watching and so whenever I use YouTube, I type in youtube.com slash my videos, so it takes me to my own videos, okay, so now I'm on or I type in my own channel, right? Then I search for whatever I specifically, you know, if I want to listen to Brother Jimenez's latest sermon, you know, ripping on, you know, the reprobates, you know, then I type that in or whatever into the search bar. But I'm not just going to go to the homepage and just be like, I'm bored. What's the most popular video right now? Do you see how you could get into the wrong stuff doing that or just randomly surfing the internet, just randomly, just whatever's out there, whatever's popular or trendy now, you know, don't just get bored and look, even just forget the internet, just being idle and bored in general because when you're idle and bored is when you would even reach for the laptop and even begin to surf for that which is not good for you to look at and I'm trying to be delicate about the way I handle this but it needs to be taught, it needs to be covered. Look at Jeremiah chapter 5. This is just one scripture of many that I could turn to. It says in verse 7, how shall I pardon me for this, thy children have forsaken me and sworn by them that are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, then they committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlot's houses. They were as fed horses in the morning, everyone knade after his neighbor's wife. This is, this fed horses in the morning analogy is referring to horses that are, they're not doing any work. They're just being fed and they're just kind of in the barn, sitting around and then they start looking at their neighbor's wife and everything like that. Look, staying busy will keep you out of sin. Working hard, stay, look, work hard at your job. Don't goof around at your job. I mean a lot of this happens at people's job because they're just goofing off at their government job or whatever or whatever the job that doesn't really keep them that busy. You know, if you're ever at your job and there's nothing to do, find something to do and get guess what, that's a good way to get promoted too. That's a good way to get a raise. When you show up at the job and there's nothing to do, grab a broom and start sweeping it. Take out the trash. Well, that's not my job. Yeah, but you know what? It's better than sitting around doing nothing. Your boss will appreciate it, you'll make more money and you'll stay out of trouble. And when you get home, spend time with your wife, spend time with your children, spend time working in the yard, spend time doing church activities, winning souls or reading your Bible or playing a game with the family, you know, do something quality, not just sitting around just... And by the way, give your children stuff to do. Keep them busy because an idle mind is the devil's workshop. Number two, how do we avoid this sin? Go to Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23. Number two, we should avoid the gateway drugs that could lead to pornography, okay? Gateway drugs that lead to this pornography addiction. What do I mean by the gateway drugs? Well, things that could even be just laying around the house even in a godly Christian home because people just aren't really thinking about it. What about the lingerie advertisement that came in the mail or the swimsuit edition or whatever, you know, that kind of stuff laying around or the television shows and the Hollywood movies could be gateway drugs, right, that basically get people to begin to crave this type of material. Even though people think, oh, this is just, no, no, no, that's the gateway drug. It's going to take you further than you want to go. So we need to be careful to guard our minds. The Bible says in Proverbs 4, 23, keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. And the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Now obviously in our society, we have a lot of this stuff put in front of us. It's hard to keep it out of mind sometimes because you drive down the road and there are all kinds of provocative billboards, provocative magazines in the checkout, provocative images. Women are dressed in a provocative way that basically would get us thinking along these wrong lines, these sinful lines. But our home at least we can purify this stuff and not have these gateway drugs, quote unquote, lying around that could lead us down that road. Number three, how do we avoid this sin? Don't give children unfettered access to the internet or smartphones. Now listen to me, you say, oh, come on, Pastor Anderson, you're over the top, it's 2016, everybody's got to have a smartphone. Do not give your children unfettered access to internet or smartphones, it must be supervised. Here's why. Because nine out of 10 boys and six out of 10 girls are exposed to pornography before the age of 18. Did you hear that? Nine out of 10 boys and even six out of 10 girls. The first exposure to pornography among boys on average is 12 years old. Twelve years old. I mean, these are statistics that are out to 83% of boys and 57% of girls, I'm trying to be delicate here, are exposed to pornography that involves more than two people involved in the encounter. We're talking 83% of boys under 18 and 57% of girls. That's virtually almost all of them that even saw pornography, that's what they saw. Did everybody get that? Ninety percent of the boys are being exposed to pornography before 18, 83% of that were looking at something where it's more than two people. Unbelievably wicked. And this is, that means only 7% looked at that which would be considered, oh, yeah, that's pornography. No, no, no. You don't understand, it takes you further than you want to go. It leads into perversion. Listen to this. 32% of boys and 18% of girls have been exposed, this is before they're 18, they've been exposed to, and again, that's a third of boys, 18% of girls under 18 have been exposed to pornography that has to do with, you know, lying with a beast, as the Bible says in Leviticus 20. Seventy percent of boys, I'm sorry, 69% of boys and 55% of girls are exposed to sodomy in pornography. That's more than half, folks, of girls, 70% of boys are being exposed to this stuff before turning 18. How are they seeing this stuff? Is it being put on a screen in the classroom? I sure hope not. Maybe in, you know, some places like, you know, Denmark or Sweden it probably is. I mean, are they seeing this in classroom at school? No. Look, are they seeing it on TV? No, because even though TV has plenty of wickedness, it doesn't have that type of extreme wickedness yet. Give them a few years. Where are they seeing, how could they be seeing it? How can 9 out of 10 be seeing it? I mean, is that, are it just videotapes and DVDs being, no, no, no. It's through the unfettered access to the internet and the smartphone. That's how it's happening, folks. And children don't have the discernment, the discretion, the wisdom to avoid this stuff. We as our parents need to, we as parents we need to guard our children from this stuff. Number four, how do we avoid it? How do we avoid it? Number one, don't be idle and bored just randomly surfing the internet or YouTube. Number two, avoid the gateway drugs that could lead to pornography, the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, the lingerie ad and things like that. And you think, oh, well, that is in the back of the cat. Tear that part out and throw it away just to avoid that temptation in your house. Number three, don't give children unfettered access to the internet and smartphones. And number four, I believe that you should talk to your children about the facts of life and you should offer to answer their questions. I believe that. Now, some people might say, oh, we don't need to have that talk with them. Look, in today's world, I think it's a no brainer that you need to have that talk with your kids because of the fact they're getting exposed to all these things and they need to have it explained from a godly perspective. I'm not saying to go into graphic detail or anything, but I'm saying you need to explain to your children the basics of the birds and the bees and the facts of life. You need to have that basic talk with them and explain that to them. Now, go to Romans chapter 16, if you would. Romans chapter 16, you know, one Bible verse that came to mind on that was Song of Solomon chapter 8, 2, which is in the context of the bedroom, says, I would lead thee and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. Listen, when my kids get to the age of puberty, okay, I have a talk with them and I explain to them the facts. And here's what I tell them. I tell them, listen, if you have a question about something, if you're curious about something, you need to come and ask me. Don't just go looking on the internet. Don't just go... And look, you say, oh, well, it's just the internet. What about the public library? Because the public library could also be a source of bad materials, okay? You know, even the grocery store could be a source of, you know, of materials, where curiosity could get the better of a child and they could go and want to look at stuff. And I explain to my children, I say, look, don't let curiosity get the better of you. Listen, if you need to know something, come and ask me, talk to me about it, because I'd rather that they come and ask me about it and I can give them a godly answer from a biblical perspective, okay, I can give them a truthful, accurate answer than to just get it from all the garbage that the world has out there on this sensitive subject. Now I want to speak to all the children here right now, you know, and especially those that are young teenagers and at that age. Listen children, curiosity killed the cat, okay? Adam and Eve, part of that sin with Eve is she was curious, she wanted to try that fruit that was off limits. And children are naturally curious and the temptation is there just to look at some of this garbage just out of morbid curiosity or because you feel like, well, I don't understand this subject, I need to educate myself on it, I need to learn about this so that I'm not that dorky kid, you know, all the other kids know about, I need to know about, you know. And I know that's the type of pressure that goes on in the public school system where that, you know, everybody knows about this and you're an idiot if you don't have all the expert knowledge or whatever, even though they don't have the knowledge necessarily. The point is that children are susceptible to this thing of curiosity and wanting to know these things. So this is what I would say to all the children in here, okay? That which you are seeing on TV, on movies and on, even worse, this, you know, pornography videos is not real. TV is not real. Movies are not real. Pornography is not real. It's not real, friends. Children, are you listening to me? It isn't real. Now if you actually ask your parents a valid question, and you know, if your kid is six years old, you know, I'd kind of blow them off if they asked me a question about this because they're not ready to know about this yet, but I'm saying if your child that's a teenager or, you know, an adolescent, you know, going through puberty, you know, obviously you need to explain them some basics and give them some understanding about the changes that they're going through, the feelings that they're having. But listen, if you young people ask your parents a valid question, they're going to give you a real life answer. They're real people that have real experience that are going to give you a real answer to your question. Everything that you're seeing on the screen there of your little smart phone or computer or TV or whatever, that's not real. So don't get this attitude of, oh, I need to learn about this. Look, that is just as stupid as when I was a kid, I thought you could learn about martial arts from watching martial arts movies. That's how stupid it is. I'm not kidding. Listen to me. When I was a kid, I spent hours watching kung fu movies, karate movies, you know, I'm watching Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee and I'm watching, and I'm learning, I mean, I'm learning everything there is to know about fighting from watching these guys. You know, and I mean, I'm learning how to box from Rocky Balboa, you know, I learned all about boxing. But then I remember the first time I actually, you know, turned on ESPN and watched a real boxing match. And I was like, this isn't like Rocky at all. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, I'm watching this boxing match and they're, they're kind of, they're all like hugging each other, hanging out, they keep getting pulled apart and they, you know, it was like, I was like, this is nothing. I mean, in, in, in the movies, it's just pop, pop, pop, you know, but it was just so inaccurate. Then, then when I was a teenager, I started going to a kickboxing gym and started learning Muay Thai and I was like, whoa, this is nothing like Jean-Claude Van Damme, you know, and guess what anybody who's, who's done some kind of formal training in the sense that you've gone to a dojo or you've gone to a boxing gym or you've gone to a martial arts gym, you know, put up your hand nice and high if you've had any kind of formal training like that. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? How inaccurate the movies because in the movies it's a lot of high flying kicks and everything. You know, in real life you're kicking them in the knees, you know, and you're, and you know, you're on the ground, you're rolling around fighting and everything. It's totally different. Real fighting is not like in the movies. So it'd be foolish to think like, oh man, I'm going to become the best fighter by watching Rocky. I'm a watch, you know, martial arts films and just get so good. No, no, no. It's, it's a lie. It's fake. Okay. Or, or, or from the WWF, you know, you're going to learn, you're going to learn fighting, right? Listen to me. It's just as foolish children to think that you're going to learn about the bedroom from watching a bunch of TV and Hollywood movies. Oh, and that's going to tell you everything you need to know going into marriage so you can go into marriage and you'll know what you need. Look folks, it's fake. That stuff's not real. And listen, I don't have experience with pornography, but I do have experience with Hollywood movies and TV. I grew up watching a lot of this junk that has bedroom scenes in it. And probably most people here have seen TV and Hollywood movies and you know, that have bedroom scenes in them, right? And let me tell you something. It's not realistic. It's not accurate. It's not real. It does not work that way in real life. And so people who watch this just get a bunch of weird, stupid ideas and have a lot of weird, stupid expectations. Look, it's not real. So don't you children think that you need to watch some R-rated video or X-rated video or one of these triple X videos to learn about this subject? No, no. You don't need to learn about this subject. You can get a few basic principles from your parents teaching you. And then here's how you learn by doing. You get married and you learn by doing. And guess what? You don't have to know everything about it the first year of marriage because you're going to be married for decades, right? So you're going to learn more, you're going to grow and you're going to do more. You don't have to just go into it just knowing. And look, listen to me, children today are going into it with their mind just filled with most of it just fake garbage, just perverted, a fairytale, unrealistic, and they fill their minds with the subject before they've ever even experienced it in real life. Then they get married and they're going into marriage all wrong and it's all – look, you don't need to have all this wicked information in your mind to go into marriage and have a good marriage. People for thousands of years have been getting married and enjoying each other and having a good time and you don't need to sit there and get educated by some filthy Hollywood porn industry. Look what the Bible says in Romans 16 verse 19, for your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I'm glad therefore on your behalf but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. God doesn't want us to be wise about evil and listen, when you watch this junk, you're not getting wise about the bedroom. You're just getting wise about evil because it's all fake anyway. You're getting wise about evil, you're getting wise about sin and perversion. God wants us to be simple concerning evil and wise concerning that which is good and you get wise about that which is good by actually getting married, being a virgin when you get married, you get married, one man, one woman and then you spend the rest of your life enjoying that relationship. Don't ruin that relationship as a teenager by watching this stuff. I'm telling you, look, you're going to live a long time. When you're a teenager, you don't see the big picture sometimes and you just, you can only see just what's right in front of you but let me tell you something, you're going to live on this earth chances are for 70 or 80 years and you're going to be married probably God willing for 40 or 50 years in this life but why would you just ruin that relationship by filling your mind with a bunch of junk through your teenage years so that you can start that off on the wrong foot and maybe even do irreparable damage to your brain and your body through watching this stuff. You say, well, what do you mean my body? What are you, some kind of a voodoo science guy or what do you mean my body? What is this? Hey, it's a chemical reaction in your brain when you look at this stuff that's similar to people when they're taking drugs and stuff and it will mess with your body on a physical level where you can develop a physical addiction and it could physically mess with your body and I'm not going to go into details because obviously I'm trying to keep this G rated. Number five, how do we avoid this sin? Number five, to those who are married because we've spoken to the young, we've spoken to children how they avoid it. Don't get sucked into this curiosity thing. Don't surf YouTube and the internet unfettered but how do we as married people avoid this sin? Go to 1 John chapter 2. The way that we as married people would avoid this sin is that we would have a right relationship with our wife and have a right relationship with your husband. What can help you to avoid this sin? Look at 1 John chapter 2 verses 15 and 16, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And I want to point out there the lust of the eyes. The lust of the eyes. Now what does lust mean biblically? If we were to biblically define lust, what are some words that would come to mind? Covetousness, right? According to Romans chapter 7, Paul connected thou shall not covet with lust. Coveting is desiring something that is not rightfully yours that does not belong to you. The lust of the eyes, what are we talking about? The desire to look at something. Now the reason I bring this up, flip over to Hebrews chapter 13. With that in mind, the lust of the eyes, that concept, which is coveting with your eyes. Look at Hebrews chapter 13 verse 4, it says marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as ye have for he hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Now look, I don't think it's any coincidence that he finishes telling us that marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled but that whoremongers and adulterers God will judge and then he follows that up immediately with the teaching on covetousness. Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. Remember what was one of the things in the list in the Ten Commandments when he said thou shalt not covet, one of the things on the list was thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. And what the Bible is teaching here is that we need to enjoy that relationship within marriage and not covet something that we don't have. Be content with what we do have and don't lust after what we don't have. So a woman needs to be content with the husband that she has, not lust after a husband that she doesn't have. The husband needs to be content with the wife that he has and not lust after the wife that he doesn't have. Flip over to Proverbs chapter 6. Proverbs chapter 6. While you're turning there the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7, 1, Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, it's good for a man not to touch a woman, nevertheless to avoid fornication. Let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body but the husband and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other except it be with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. Few verses later he says, But if they cannot contain, meaning single people, let them marry for it's better to marry than to burn. So instead of burning in an undue lust, he says, Hey, get married. Be married. And he says, When you're married, that the wife needs to render due benevolence unto the husband, the husband needs to render due benevolence unto the wife and that the woman does not have power over her own body, the husband does not have power over his body and that they should not defraud one another of this physical relationship because if they do then Satan would tempt them for their incontinency which means not being able to contain themselves. Satan will tempt if that relationship is not right between the husband and wife. Now let me ask you this. Based on the statistics that I read earlier, would you say that this is a pretty big temptation today in America when you heard the percentages of how many tens of millions of users and how this is a huge percentage of people that are using this stuff. It's obviously a big temptation. So God's saying here, look, if you don't have the right relationship with your spouse, there's a temptation to seek gratification either through the eyes or through the flesh somewhere else. Now obviously going out and committing physical adultery is one of the worst possible things you could do in this earth and obviously the Bible was clear back in Leviticus chapter 20 verse 10 what the penalty was. That's a big sin. That's huge. But look, here's the thing about it though. When you are not having a physical relationship with your wife, you might think, well I'm not going to go to that level but I'll just look at this stuff to receive gratification and you know what? That is a wicked sin and we need to beware of that sin as well. And so not only does having a right relationship with our spouse protect us from physical, literal adultery, it could also protect us from desiring to look at things that we shouldn't be looking at as well. And so this is very important. Look, if you would, I had you turn to Proverbs, didn't I? This pretty much teaches the same thing as we saw in 1 Corinthians 7. Look at chapter 6 verse 24. To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman, watch verse 25, lust not after her beauty in thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids, for by means of a hoarse woman a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulterous will hunt for the precious life. Look at chapter 5 verse 15. Drink waters out of thine own cistern. This is in chapter 5. We're going back one page. Verse 15 of chapter 5, drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well, let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets, let them be only thine own and not strangers with thee, let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe, let her breast satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love and why wilt thou my son be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger. What's that saying here? Is that if you enjoy your own wife or your own husband, then why would you go to a stranger at that point? So this is a way to avoid adultery. This is a way to avoid also pornography because of the fact that you are practicing that relationship within its proper boundary of being married, within the bounds of marriage. And look, here's the thing. A lot of people, the reason that they seek out this stuff or whether they would seek out prostitution or whether they would seek out pornography is that they're not satisfied with what they have at home. Now first of all, number one, the Bible says be content with such things as you have. So we should be satisfied with whatever we have, number one, in the first place. But number two, part of the reason why people are not satisfied with what they have is the principle of you have not because you ask not. If you have a need in this area, if there's something that you need, you need to talk to your spouse about that. And some people are just too embarrassed to communicate with their spouse of, hey, I need this gratification in this area and I'm being very delicate, I don't want to be obscene or inappropriate. But I think you get the drift of what I'm saying. You need to find that satisfaction within your marriage. Whether you're the woman or the man that's not satisfied, you need to get satisfied within that relationship. And well, I'm too shy to say anything so I'm just going to go on, it's just easier, isn't it just easier for somebody to just type in something or go visit some CD store somewhere or whatever and just say, well, you know, I don't want to mention anything to him or her. And I'm not saying to be, obviously you have to be delicate when you deal with this kind of a subject with your spouse, but you need to let your spouse know what your needs are and you need to communicate with your spouse and have a relationship where everybody's getting what they need out of that relationship. Because otherwise, Satan could tempt you for your incontinency. And so I don't want to dwell on that because I don't want to cross any lines or anything. And honestly, I'm striving to keep this sermon totally G-rated because the last thing I want to do is corrupt young minds in a culture that's already corrupting so many of us. Okay, but let's talk about the last thing I want to talk about which is prostitution. Go to Ephesians 5. And I'm almost done, don't worry. It's not like we're only halfway into the sermon or anything, it's almost done. But I want to tie, I just want to tie this in, okay, because it does tie in, my friend. Like I said at the beginning of the sermon, human trafficking is where this stuff is coming from, okay. This is the unpleasant reality that a lot of people don't think about or talk about or want to face. Human trafficking is where pornography is coming from. And it ties in perfectly with prostitution because those who produce this stuff are prostitutes. That's what they're doing. They're performing this action for pay. The only difference is it's being videotaped. That's the only difference, okay. Look at Ephesians chapter 5 verse 7. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them, for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. So in Ephesians 5, he says here, don't partake with wickedness. And don't partake with people who have these unfruitful works of darkness and do these shameful things in secret. Do not participate in that. Now turn to Matthew chapter 9. This is the last place we're going to turn. Matthew chapter 9. And I want to say this. By watching pornography, you are supporting human trafficking and the abuse of women. That's what you're doing. You are partaking with them and participating in an industry of human trafficking and abuse of women. Why? Because a big part of human trafficking is pornography and prostitution. Now let me ask you this question biblically. What was Jesus Christ's attitude toward women that are caught up in prostitution? Well let's look at this. And I use that term, I use that term intentionally caught up in it because the vast majority of these women aren't just willingly just going and signing up for this. They're being pressured or forced into it one way or another. I'm not condoning what they're doing, but I'm just telling you they're caught up into it. You know, it's sort of like that commercial when I was a kid where they said, hey, nobody wants to be a junkie when they grow up. Okay, well guess what? The average girl doesn't grow up and say, hey, I want to be a prostitute when I grow up, right? It's not glamorous. Look what Jesus' attitude toward the prostitutes was. Matthew chapter 9 verse 9, and as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom, and he saith unto him, follow me, and he arose and followed him, and it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, why eateth your master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick, but go and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Now there's another scripture. This one doesn't bring up prostitutes, does it? There's another scripture in Matthew 21 verse 31 where it says, whether of them twain did the will of his father, they say unto him, the first, Jesus saith unto them, verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you, for John, meaning John the Baptist, came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not, but the publicans and the harlots believed him, and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. Now people will kind of put these two things together and say, well, if you had the publicans and sinners coming and eating with them, and then over here it talks about the publicans and harlots believing in John the Baptist and believing in Christ, then we could kind of put two and two together and realize that perhaps when it says the sinners, the publicans and sinners, that these are the type of people that it's referring to. But you know what's so funny is when people take this evidence and they make this logical leap or illogical leap into saying, oh, Jesus hung out at whorehouses. I've heard that. I heard that this week. Jesus hung out at brothels. Oh, Jesus went to the bar and hung out at the bar, they said. Who's heard that stuff before? Oh, he went to a bar, yeah. Jesus is at a bar. Jesus would have been at the nightclub. Jesus would have been at the brothel. Hold on a second. Where do you get that from the scripture? Because I'm not seeing it. What I'm seeing is John the Baptist out in the wilderness preaching in the desert and the publicans and harlots coming to hear him. You know what else I'm seeing? I'm seeing Jesus going over to Matthew's house for dinner, sitting down with Matthew and a whole bunch of Matthew's friends which were publicans and sinners, probably harlots also. I think that that's a legitimate comparison to say, hey, publicans and sinners, publicans and harlots. You know, people talked about some of the women that came to Jesus being sinful women. That's probably what it's referring to. But what we see is that the harlots came and dined with Jesus, heard the word of God from Jesus. You don't see Jesus going to the bar and partying with the harlots and sinners, do you? Show me that in the Bible. But you know what? If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd be a wealthy man. Why? Because of the fact that people just get bits and pieces of the Bible from the pulpit. They don't read the Bible on their own. You're not going to get that from reading the Bible. You get that from some preacher getting overzealous. Jesus hung around with the publicans and sinners. He would have been at the bar. He would have been at the brothel. He would have been at the strip club. No he wouldn't have. And there's no evidence of that. These people are coming to him, all right? And of course Jesus is reaching out to them also, you know, wicked type people in a public setting like, you know, the woman at the well. He's at the well. Because guess what? Prostitutes go to the grocery store. They go to, you know, they go to the store. You can, you don't have to go to a bar or a whorehouse to reach sinners, folks. Because guess what? Every prostitute lives somewhere. So if you knock every door, you're going to knock the door of prostitutes. Every tax collector lives somewhere. We don't have to go to the IRS and start preaching to the tax collector. We can, you know, if we knock enough doors, we're going to knock on the doors of the publicans. See what I'm saying? Do you see how people twist the truth and the word of God though to make it seem like Jesus is just hanging around with, you know, these people in, like in their habitat of like where they're sinning. In the, like participating in the sin with the, no, that's not what the Bible teaches. But what I want to show you from this passage, Jesus had compassion on the sinner. So basically, and I realize of course, and you know I realize, that there are reprobates out there. Of course, I get that. Okay, but hold on a second. What would Christ's attitude be toward a prostitute, not talking about reprobates, but just a woman or a teenage girl who's caught up in prostitution, would he have an attitude of compassion toward that woman? Yes, he would. Absolutely, right? Okay, but let me ask you this though. What about when you're supporting that wicked abuse of women and human trafficking by looking at pornography? That's, Christ had compassion, you're doing the opposite, you're doing the exact opposite. You're participating in harming women instead of participating in reaching women with the gospel, which would be by going out soul winning for example. Now let me say this, prostitution is not the glamorous industry that many people think it is through Hollywood. I remember I had a friend, and I kid you not, I met this girl at church, and she said to me, when I was a child, I watched Pretty Woman, the movie Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, and she said, me and my friends all wanted to be prostitutes when we grew up after we watched that movie. I mean can you imagine how wicked? They said, I want to be a prostitute when I grow up, and I guarantee you they weren't alone. Don't you think they were the only little girls in America that thought that when they watched that wicked movie? No, I guarantee you that many people today had that glamorized image, and you know what? I saw that movie when I was a kid, you know, I'll confess to it, I saw the movie, and you know what? I honestly didn't really realize what prostitution was really like until I was an adult, and I was driving to a job that I was doing in Stockton, California, and I saw, it was like I think maybe six in the morning or something, and I saw just these toothless, crack addicted whores walking down the street in Stockton, California, and I was like, that's not Julia Roberts. You know, and I'm not saying that I'm Richard Gere, you know, but that's not Julia Roberts, and I remember looking at that and thinking to myself like, and I remember this was the thought that entered my mind when I was about 18, 19, and I drove into that street in Stockton and saw these toothless crack whores walking down the street at six in the morning, you know, it was light, and they were, I don't know if they just finished, they were just getting off work or whatever, I remember just thinking to myself, that's what people need to see to understand the truth about this subject. They don't need to be shown Pretty Woman, they need to be shown The And Thereof. What is The And Thereof? Now let me just tell you a few things real quick about how bad this industry is, and I think that people just haven't really thought this through. I know I hadn't thought it through until I was an adult, okay, but listen to this. Imagine for a moment, okay, the fact that a prostitute is dealing with a low class element of society in general. Every customer is not just, there's not just a line of 100 Richard Giers, you know, lined up to use their services. I mean, look, by nature, a man who visits a prostitute is immoral, just by very definition, right? A guy who visits a prostitute is sinful, wicked, immoral, I mean, he's participating in something that's wicked. Now here's the thing, just do the math folks, let's say that 99%, okay, and I'm just making this number up just to be a little bit silly and ridiculous. Let's just say 99% are just totally nonviolent nice people that use prostitutes. Now I don't believe that, I'm just telling you, let's just pretend for a minute that 99%, let's enter a fantasy realm where 99% of the men who visit prophecies are just nonviolent nice people, okay. Well then that would mean that, and let's say 1% are violent, sick, weirdos, murderers, abusers, whatever. Well then in the course of her line of work, how long is it really gonna take before she has an experience with one of these violent predators? Stop and think about that. 1 in 100, so how many weeks or months is it gonna take? And that's why if you read up on this, you will find that literally virtually 100% of prostitutes receive beatings and are usually eventually, you know, either diseased or killed as a result of this lifestyle. I mean think about it, there's no such thing basically if you actually read the statistics, it virtually doesn't exist, a prostitute who's never had the living daylights beaten out of her by a stranger, it virtually doesn't exist. How could you, look, and how could you actually imagine, you actually think, you actually think for one second that a prostitute goes out there and is with hundreds of men and nobody's gonna just be a psycho. Nobody's gonna beat the living daylights out of her for absolutely no reason except that he's demon possessed. Okay, how many of these people are demon possessed that are visiting the prostitutes? And how many of them might just get violent and that's why, look, it's just, but people don't think about that, do they, because they're watching Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts. They don't think about the fact that right now prostitutes all over America and all over the world are having the living daylights beaten out of them by pimps and customers on a regular basis. They're being beaten sometimes within inches of their life, threatened, they're drug addicted, they're being abused in so many ways, they're enslaved, they're being trafficked across international borders, they're put in a country where they don't even speak the language and they're just forced to starve or do this. I mean, look, this is a disgusting, ugly, filthy, wicked industry. I don't care how Hollywood would glamorize it or try to polish that apple, that apple is rotten, my friend. And we as God's people should have compassion upon these type of people that are trafficked and abused and caught up in this. Yes, preach them the gospel, yes, win them to Christ, but don't participate in that which is destroying their lives and abusing. I mean, how can you be a feminist? You know, we have all the feminists, ah, you know, we're feminists, then you better be against pornography then. Because this is one of the most abusive to women things because of the human trafficking element and the prostitution element. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much, Lord, for the word of God and for the truths that are found therein, Lord. And Lord, I pray that these words would sink down into our ears and that we would have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them, Lord. Help us not to give in to the lust of the eyes or the lust of the flesh. Help us not to give in to even the gateway drugs, Lord. Help us not to even make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Help us, honestly, to rejoice in the wife of our youth, Lord. And I pray that the teenagers that are here today would not be deceived and have their minds and bodies and lives ruined by the devil, Lord. I pray that they would take heed unto this wisdom. And just be patient and wait until they can enjoy that proper relationship within the bounds of marriage, Lord. Thank you for giving us that wonderful relationship that we have with our spouses, Lord. Help us to enjoy it and not to ruin it, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, we broke the record. How many do we have here this morning? 256. 256. And what was the old record? 248. 248. Very good. So we have 256 in church this morning. Whenever we break our attendance record, we always have ice cream after the service. So stick around for ice cream.