What is the fatal flaw among the natural law proponents? The natural law proponents have greatly underestimated the power of sin in the unbeliever apart from some form of the influence of the Christian Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith VI.2 states that in the Fall man “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.” Without the influence of the Christian Faith in society, man will be exposed for what he truly is—a hater of Christ and opposed to God and his law.

When I was a child, my family would visit my grandparents who lived on a farm.  They had no bathrooms, so we all had the grand experience of using a real outhouse. My mother persuaded my grandfather to build a small bathroom in his house, and he did.  However, even with the bathroom in the house, he still preferred to go to that antiquated outhouse. Old habits are hard to break.
In reading an article recently about the topic of natural law, it reminded me of my grandfather’s outhouse.  Both outhouses and natural law have been useful in their own day, but now they have become nothing but a blight on our landscape. Yet, people still go back to them as if they were given by God as the standard for all ages.
What is natural law? Basically, it is the belief that man by nature (natural), as being created in the image of God, knows right and wrong (law); and this knowledge is inherent in all men apart from any knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. We may need the Bible to teach us about such things such as redemption in Christ and the Lord’s Supper, but most truths, especially those distinguishing good and evil, men know instinctively. This natural law, apart from God’s law, is sufficient for directing and regulating culture, especially the civil government in creating and maintaining a peaceful society.
The official line of most American seminaries today is that the Bible was given for the church, but natural law is sufficient to inform us of the laws that should govern our society.  One of the biblical passages supporting this view is Romans 2: 14-15, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.” It should be noted that this verse appears in the context of man’s accountability to God and not man’s ability to rule over man. Men may know right and wrong as creatures made in the image of God, but they suppress it (Rom. 1:18-19). Men do not legislate what they stifle in unrighteousness.
Another phrase used by the general populace which demonstrates this view of natural law is the idea of “common sense.”  It has long been considered common sense that a man should marry a woman rather than another man, and that sex (or gender) is determined at birth and cannot be changed. “What’s wrong with people today, are they going crazy!” I hear this all the time. The problem however, as we all should know by now, is that common sense without the Bible is neither common nor sensible.
Also, this view of natural law complements the idea of the church-state separation in the United States.  Church-State separation is biblical, but religion can never be separated from the State. So, we are told that the Bible is for regulating the church, and natural law is for regulating everything outside of the church. We hear from them that to impose biblical law on secular society is a form of religious tyranny in a pluralistic nation, and if implemented, could only become second to the Holocaust in horrific disasters.
American pluralism (polytheism), is a sacred cow in most evangelical churches. The idea of a Christian nation is anathema among religious pluralists, even though we are still living off the capital of America as a Christian nation.   However, I believe that this capital has just run out.
Just as the old outhouse on my grandfather’s farm is not viable anymore, so the parallel concept of natural law, which may have been useful in the past, is not viable anymore either.
Natural law was useful and accepted without debate in Christian cultures of the past, whether in Calvin’s Geneva, Queen Anne’s England, or Eisenhower’s America. The culture was based on biblical law, so men were free to sing the praises of natural law without objection. Natural law stood tall and strong and was viewed in awe like the great tower of Babel. Christians and non-Christians alike sang the hymns of praise to this great wonder, especially as the age of science dawned in the West. Mathematical equations were independent of the Bible (except they really were not because predictability assumes a sovereign God who orders the universe). Enter Isaac Newton, but we do not have enough time for him in this article.
However, people in their own pride forgot that the great tower of natural law had to have a foundation, or it would collapse quickly. All towers do.  Man in his pride forgot that with the removal of a distinctly Christian culture based on the Bible as the foundation of a nation, this new secular tower would fall to the ground into pieces like the chandelier in a great cathedral after an earthquake. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).
What is the fatal flaw among the natural law proponents? The natural law proponents have greatly underestimated the power of sin in the unbeliever apart from some form of the influence of the Christian Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith VI.2 states that in the Fall man “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.” Without the influence of the Christian Faith in society, man will be exposed for what he truly is—a hater of Christ and opposed to God and his law. How some theologians who have been trained as Calvinists, can promote hope in natural law in the present decadent society, is beyond me. However, they have done so in the past, and we see the results today in our land.
Sinful man will not be restrained apart from the threat of the penalties included in biblical law (the second use of the law), but rather he will be released to revel in debauchery and licentiousness.  Without the fear of God’s law in civil society, there is no bottom to the depth of shamelessness that that will befall man. Today, there seems to be little resistance to drag queens reading to children in public libraries.  Young people are being groomed as potential sex-partners.  Teenagers are being surgically mutilated in esteemed hospitals in the name of transgenderism. Popular evangelical singers are hosting gay weddings.
Reprobates and Christians cannot live in peace with one another because they are at war.  Both are today quickly becoming “epistemologically self-conscious,” and the war is getting out of control. Christians have been asleep. We did not see what was coming.  American Christians currently are in a self-esteem stupor while our nation drifts toward something worse than Sodom, and while the people are being pacified with bread and circuses.
Not everyone reading this is presently mandated to attend gay celebrations at work.  Not everyone must take an oath to uphold CRT. Not everyone is required to pledge allegiance to the rainbow flag. Not everyone has lost their income because of their commitment to the teaching of the Word of God.  However, you should realize that they may be coming for you and your children next.
Lastly, we must also understand that where men hate God’s Law, they only bring judgment upon themselves.  “All those who hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36).
America is in a crisis today.  The evangelical church is in shambles. In addition to expository sermons, preachers need to supplement their preaching by adding a few sermons on the issues of the day like Neo-Marxism, CRT, and inflation. I would not say this unless I had done it myself. Our culture is in decline and the pulpit is still holding onto the sacredness of the natural law, and a faulty view of the separation of Church and State.  Instead of sending our people out the door each week to be more than conquers, I am afraid we are sending them out to be doormats for Jesus.
Apart from a Reformation inside the church, the sins of America will probably grow exponentially over the next few years. Expect nothing but an increase in sex outside of marriage, homelessness, depression, drug abuse, and tyranny by civil magistrates. God may soon judge our nation in a more dramatic fashion in real time and space.  Older Christians such as I may escape, but may God have mercy on our children and grandchildren.
God save us not only from our real enemies who are outside of Christ, but also from our brothers and sisters inside the church who are bewildered, and who like my grandfather, still go to the outhouse, when something much better is available.  Natural law worked in ages past, but today we must preach the crown rights of Jesus Christ over all of life.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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The unified God has united believers to himself, the church ought now walk worthy of its calling by pursuing a full-orbed unity. This unity does not require uniformity, but it presumes a diversity of opinions, personalities, social roles, and people groups. Because diversity naturally produces friction, the church ought to give particular attention to humble and patient purity, love, wisdom, and spiritual warfare in its pursuit of unity. This is the sort of walk worthy of the calling of the one God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit.

The first half of Ephesians lays out God’s plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1:10). Paul’s doctrine of unity can be summarized in the shape of a capital “I” (in a font with bars across top and bottom). The top horizontal bar represents the unity God has with himself, among the persons of the Trinity. The vertical bar represents the unity between God and his people, brought about by grace through faith. The bottom horizontal bar represents the unity among God’s people that ought to result.
Having followed Paul’s argument in Ephesians 1-3 in the previous post, let’s now walk through Paul’s application of the doctrine of unity within the life of the church.
Diversity Shouldn’t Divide the Church
Paul transitions to application with the urging to walk in a manner worthy of the calling described in the first three chapters (Eph 4:1). And what exactly is a manner of life worthy of the call to unity, in light of God’s plan to unite all things in Christ? It requires humble, gentle, and patient forbearance toward fellow church members (Eph 4:2). Such character arises only from an eager commitment to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:3).
Paul roots the unity of the church, explicitly, to the unity of the Trinity (Eph 4:4-6), which includes a victorious Christ ascending to take his throne while dishing out good gifts to his people. Psalm 68, quoted in Eph 4:8, likens the ascension of the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem to the arrival of God’s glory-cloud on Sinai. And Paul capitalizes on the image to explain how Jesus, the true ark, has entered heaven, the true sanctuary. This king cares enough about the unity of his body that he provides the church with leaders tasked with equipping members to serve one another—all so the community can grow together to maturity, according to the image of Jesus himself (Eph 4:9-14). That theological truth plays out in real life as people speak the truth to one another with love and build up one another in love (Eph 4:15-16).
In short, Eph 4:1-16 teaches that every church member is not required to be the same thing, do the same thing, or think the same thing. It assumes that there are differences among people, requiring patience and loving speech toward one another. In other words, diversity shouldn’t divide the church. But sadly, it often does, so the rest of the letter tells us what to do about that. We must give attention to four key areas, each marked with a renewed exhortation to walk (or, in the last case, to stand — Eph 4:17, 5:1, 5:15, 6:10-13).
Four Areas With Potential for Divisive Behaviors
The first area that requires attention in pursuit of unity is purity (Eph 4:17-32). However, notice that the chief problem of impurity is that it makes people like those who are alienated from—not unified with—God (Eph 4:18). The opposite of building up others in love is to serve oneself in sensuality and greed (Eph 4:19). This is not how you learned Christ! (Eph 4:20). A pure life according to the truth in Jesus requires each church member to do three things with their divisive behaviors:

Put off the old self, with its divisive and selfish desires (Eph 4:22).
Get a new way of thinking about how the calling to unity ought to drive your behavior (Eph 4:23).
Put on the new self, which is like God—fully unified with himself and with his body (Eph 4:24).

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Written by Jonathan D. Holmes and Deepak Reju |
Monday, December 6, 2021
Limiting open access and anonymity starves the appetite of our sinful nature. But this takes time. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Addictions start early, are cultivated for years, and become ingrained as personal choices begin to rewrite our embodied existence. The longer the addiction has been cultivated, the longer it will take to get rid of it. Ingrained patterns take time to unwind. So be patient. Take a long-term view of starving the appetites of your friend’s sinful nature.

AN ADDICT’S FOUR FOES
Our problem is that we walk in unbelief. We fail to believe that God cares or that he desires to enter into our struggles with the sins of lust, pornography, and sexual temptation. —John Freeman, Hide or Seek
Those entrenched in porn tend to live suffocatingly small lives, constantly looking for their next fix. Those who begin to find freedom begin inhabiting a larger, more colorful existence. —Matt Fradd, The Porn Myth
Manuel is sitting in his room, all alone, at 10:32 p.m. The door is shut, and his phone and laptop are on his desk directly across from him. He could go to bed, but he’s feeling the pressure of fierce temptations. He feels aroused. His thoughts have been on an attractive woman he saw at the gym this afternoon. There is a war raging in his heart, and he wants to make a godly choice. His flesh pitches him lies, all of which attempt to justify his sin: “Just one more time, and then you’ll stop.” “You deserve it.”
What will lead Manuel to act out? Four ingredients enable a fall—access, anonymity, appetite, and atheism.1 Remove any one of these four As, and you make acting out much less likely.
In our effort to rescue prisoners of pornography, we’re getting to know the enemy. These four As are formidable foes. The goal of this chapter is to understand them and figure out how to disrupt them so their power is broken. What does a discipler need to know to help his struggling friend?
In the age of the Internet, access to an online world is available virtually everywhere. That creates a huge problem for porn addicts because the Internet is littered with sexually explicit material of every description. Thus, open access is dangerous for any struggler’s soul. Though the Internet can be used for great good, it also causes extraordinary harm.
A common strategy for fighting porn addiction is to restrict strugglers’ access. We take away their freedom in order to protect them from themselves. Their pride makes them think, “I can handle this,” but they are wrong. Until they grow in maturity in Christ, the desires of their flesh are too strong, and their self-control is too weak.
You Need to Be Radical
Our approach to limiting access is shaped by Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (vv. 27–30)
He reminds us of the seventh commandment: do not commit adultery. But he takes the command one step further. He’s not just talking about the physical act of adultery. Christ expands the definition—if a person looks at another with lustful intent in his heart, it is as if he too has committed adultery. An addict doesn’t need to touch a woman to commit sin. He merely needs to look at her lustfully—and he does that every time he looks at porn.
Jesus goes on: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. . . . If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away” (Matt. 5:29–30). He’s using exaggeration for effect. The point is not that a sinner should actually do physical harm to herself but that she should understand how serious sexual sin is. Christ uses graphic imagery to say, “Be radical. Don’t take a soft approach to fighting sexual sin. Brutally cut it out of your life.”
Pause and think for a moment. As a discipler, start with your own approach to sin. Are you radical in cutting it out of your life? Think about your last bout with sin—what did you do? If you are not ruthless with your own sin, how do you expect others to follow suit?
On their own, addicts typically aren’t radical in cutting off their sin. That’s the case with Preston. He looks at porn because he’s held on to access points, and he’s grown too comfortable with his sin to cut it out. Rationalizations, excuses, and a love for his sin encourage him to hold on. Preston often thinks, “This will be the last time,” or he lets himself off the hook by saying, “Everyone’s doing it, not just me.” He yearns for the naked photos and spends a lot of his time scheming how and when to look at them again.
Christ said to be radical. When you talk to an addict, do you plead and exhort him to take a more radical approach? We often say to strugglers, “Be brutal in cutting off access points.” Get the person you are discipling to measure her last few months against Jesus’s words. Has she taken drastic measures, or has she made excuses, delayed making adjustments, or continued to hide? Has she tolerated her sin, coddled it, maybe even welcomed it, and, in so doing, continued to give it a chance to ruin her life?
Many porn strugglers don’t like losing access to the Internet, and so they fight against restrictions. You’ve heard the complaints: “How do I live without the Internet? I need it to do my job. . . . I’ve got to check my email. . . . I need it to connect with my friends. . . . I must have it for X, Y, and Z.” Our response? There are consequences for sexual sin. The person should have thought about these consequences before he or she acted out. What is better—for your friend to lose an eye or hand but walk toward heaven or for her to run toward hell? If she chooses to indulge her sin, to ignore God’s commands, to disobey and shake her fist at God, then her rebellion and foolishness will lead to death.2 If she wants to grow in holiness, it will require sacrifice.
Fighting sin is serious business. Don’t let your friend indulge her sin. What drastic steps can she take today to cut off her access to pornography? If she confesses looking at porn the previous week, your conversation should revolve around her access point and how to cut it out. Show zero tolerance for her sexual sin. Graciously and lovingly exhort your friend to get rid of access points!
Strategies for Closing Off Access Points
Here are some practical steps to consider as you help an addict to get rid of his access points.

Ask the porn addict about every e-device he owns.
Encourage him to get a software monitoring program, such as Covenant Eyes, and to put it on all his devices.
Get rid of standard web browsers and rely on a browser that is carefully monitored.
Get rid of the applications store. If he needs to download a new app onto a tablet or phone, provide him with access only temporarily.
Use special restrictions to cut out the web browser and app store, set time limits, and so on. Make sure the restrictions code is known only to an accountability partner. If the addict knows it, he will remove the restrictions in a moment of weak- ness and act out.
Get rid of all apps that have an embedded browser.

What’s the principle behind these six points? We’re removing control from the addict and giving it to others because the addict can’t steward the freedom of open access.
The nuclear option is to get rid of televisions, tablets, phones, and laptops for a period of time. In our Internet age, that’s hard to do, but it is viable, especially if the Internet is available in safe settings, such as a workplace that monitors its own computers.
If an addict does need access for some legitimate reason, such as to download an application for work, then the addict should notify his accountability when an access point is opened and follow up when the access point is closed. If the accountability doesn’t hear back soon, he should get in touch with the addict directly. Maturity is demonstrated when the addict takes initiative on these matters and is open and honest about what’s going on.
ANONYMITY
Because of his guilt and shame, a struggler typically hides his pornography use. He may sit in a bedroom by himself or in an office with the door closed. If he is around others, he may orient his screen so that no one can see what he is doing. It’s rare for strugglers to view porn in coffee shops or in the middle of open areas where people are going back and forth. Rather, they pursue isolation and anonymity.
Solomon writes, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (Prov. 18:1). The one who deliberately isolates himself is focused on his own desires. As he feeds his sexual urges, his selfishness grows, and his corrupt desires become the centerpiece of his life. His selfishness separates him from community and, even worse, makes him unfriendly to those who should matter the most.
Pornography pulls an addict away from the very thing he or she needs—God’s wisdom available through God’s people. The one who isolates himself because of his desires “breaks out” against wisdom. The sound judgment that leads him down safe paths is abandoned or, even worse, mocked. He ignores or discards the wisdom that is available from a few choice godly friends or in his local church com- munity. In this way, isolation can kill a person’s soul.
Isolation allows addicts like Manuel and Preston to keep a safe distance from accountability relationships and community. And, in some cases, a consequence of isolation is that the addict remains unknown to others. We can’t press into Manuel and Preston’s lives if they hide, avoid accountability, put up protective walls, and refuse to be vulnerable about their sin struggles.
Why does a struggler act in this way? Sin likes to hide, and sexual sin in particular has a field day when it is kept secretive and hidden. It prefers darkness, which, in the Bible, is associated with an immoral, sinful life apart from God. The apostle John warns us, “If we claim to have fellowship with him [God] and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth” (1 John 1:6 NIV). We are hypocrites if we claim to love God and, at the same time, coddle sexual sin.
One of the antidotes to sexual sin is to yank it into the light. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all (see 1 John 1:5). As a struggler steps into his light, he repents (see Mark 1:15), confesses (see Prov. 28:13; 1 John 1:9), and exposes his sexual sin (see Eph. 5:11–14).
Strategize to get rid of anonymity in an addict’s life. For example, an addict will watch pornography and masturbate late at night, alone in a room, with the door closed. That’s what Preston does. He isolates himself so that he can sin. Lily, a graduate student, studies for long days and nights at home by herself, where no one will know if she chooses to view porn.

If Preston and Lily are not talking to anyone about their sin, the first step is for them to open up and get others involved in their lives. They need to take a step out of darkness and toward godly relationships.
Since Preston struggles late at night, we ask him to give his laptop to his roommate at 9 p.m., to hang out in more trafficked parts of his living situation, such as the living room, and not to shut his door until he’s ready to go to sleep.
We also ask Preston to always keep his office door open. When he’s overwhelmed, he’s not allowed to shut the door and plunge into porn. He should turn his desk so the screen is visible to employees who walk by his office.
We ask Lily to study in public places, such as the local library or coffee shop. Long periods of study alone at home often lead her to act out.
We encourage Lily to tell her friends to hold her accountable to not be home alone for extended periods of time.

APPETITE
Men and women have passions, desires, and motivations that drive what they think and do (see Gal. 5:16–17). We all have cravings or appetites. Sex. Coffee. Good food. Fun. Comfort. Power. Success. You name it, someone wants it. But imagine a desire that takes over a person’s life and becomes a ruling desire. That’s what your addicted friend is fighting—a desire that he or she has fed, nursed, and cultivated until it’s grown big and strong. We saw this in detail in the last chapter.
You could think of this desire as a dragon: a tall, ugly, scaly, fire- breathing, beady-eyed beast generated by a struggler’s sinful nature. Whenever a struggler looks at pornography, he throws the beast a thick, juicy steak. He is making provisions for the sinful nature, satisfying its desires (see Rom. 13:14). The more he feeds it, the more it grows, and grows, and grows. It always wants more. It’s never satisfied. Eventually, it takes over.
To fight the dragon is to ally with the Holy Spirit in the war with the sin nature. The apostle Paul proclaims, “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17). The dragon’s power is destroyed when the struggler starves her sinful nature’s desires and puts them to death. Some days, those desires get the best of a struggler, and the dragon wins as she gives in to temptation.
Adelynn felt that way most days. She’d been losing her battle with a porn addiction for over a year. There were dozens of moments every week in which she felt as though her selfish cravings for porn had overtaken her life. Other days, she found victory as she walked in the power of the Spirit who dwelled in her. A year later, with a lot of help, prayer, adjustments to her life, and brutal honesty with God and friends, she saw tangible changes in her addiction.
Although we teach addicts how to handle temptation and how to restrict access, it’s the desires that rage within them that are the ultimate problem. As a discipler, are you focused only on fighting off temptations, or are you also working to curb the struggler’s corrupt desires? Are you paying attention to the war within? Practically speaking, you can’t focus only on eliminating access and anonymity. You should talk to an addict not just about his external circumstances but also about his appetites. Ask him,

What do you love and hate right now?
How is selfishness or pride ruling your heart?
What do your actions show you that you want?
Lust energizes, but that’s not the only thing that causes you to act out. What else motivates you?
Are you angry at God?

Dig deep into his heart to expose the corrupt desires that have taken root there. As you pull out the roots, you expose what motivates him to seek out porn.
Our chief strategy as disciplers is to grow holy appetites in a sinner. Holy appetites expel unholy desires. As the addict grows in greater love for Christ, his affections drive out the weaker sexual desires.
That means we want to spend a significant portion of our time with sexual strugglers talking about Christ. We demonstrate that Christ really is the addict’s hope by thinking about who he is and what he done for us. As much as we can, we marinate them in gospel truth. Because we come to know Christ through his Word, we spend time in the Word with the people we are discipling. And we make sure that strugglers are engaging the common means of grace (God’s Word, prayer, fellowship with believers, consistent attendance at church, participation in the Lord’s Supper).
Is most of your time focused on dealing with the addict’s sin, or are you actively cultivating the addict’s love for Christ? Do you point the addict to the common means of grace to grow her relationship with Christ? There is no better way to help a porn addict than to repeatedly set her eyes on the cross.
ATHEISM
Every believer wrestles with momentary atheism—she has occasions when she gives herself over to her unbelief. When Adelynn looks at porn, she chooses her sin over God. In that moment, she is embracing sin’s lies, rebelling against God, and disbelieving the promises of the gospel. Viewing pornography is Adelynn’s functional way of denying the existence of an all-loving God who has provided for her every need. It reveals her doubt regarding God’s character— in terms of not just his love but also his mercy, goodness, and sovereignty over her life. In the moment that she acts out and looks at porn, she is declaring, “I believe the promises of my sin will satisfy me” and “I doubt the promises of God right now.”
The struggler’s momentary atheism leads to dangerous spiritual consequences. It’s unlikely an addict will say, “I’m don’t believe God’s character or promises right now.” He won’t be that blunt. Rather, you’ll witness firsthand the consequences of the atheism and porn struggles—a lack of assurance, a hard heart, and self-deceit. We’ve highlighted them for you below so you can look for them.
Lack of Assurance
Each time Adelynn views pornography, unbelief acts like a swarm of termites, eating away at the foundation of her faith. Questions plague her: “How can I profess to be a believer and doubt like this? How can I call myself a Christian and continue to look at porn and masturbate?” When Adelynn doubts, the apostle James tells us she’s like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind” and is “double-minded . . . unstable in all [her] ways” (James 1:6, 8). This double-mindedness leaves her feeling unstable, even somewhat crazy. Doubt undermines her assurance as a believer. This doubt may be accompanied by a lack of engagement with the common means of grace. If an addict is not reading the Word (see Ps. 1:2), not pursuing regular fellowship with other believers or regularly attending church (see Heb. 10:25), not partaking in communion (see 1 Cor. 11:23–31), or not finding ways to love and serve others (see Mark 12:31; Gal. 5:13–14), her heart will grow cold to the Lord.
A Hard Heart
To embrace sin is to turn your back on the living God in unbelief. If tolerated and coddled, unbelief leads to a hardened heart. The author of Hebrews warns Christians, “Take care, brothers and sisters, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day . . . that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:12–13).
Imagine taking a hammer and slamming it down on a solid rock. It cracks a little, but the rock holds together. A hard heart is in a very dangerous place spiritually. What would it take to soften a hard heart (rather than chisel it!) and see it more open to Christ and the gospel?
As we see from Hebrews, a possible antidote to a hard heart is twofold. We have a personal responsibility to fight our unbelief: “take care . . . lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart” (v. 12). There is also help in daily fellowship with other believers: “exhort one another every day” (v. 13). These show us how to soften a heart, but they are also the preventative measures for slowing down the hardening of a Christian’s heart.
Self-Deceit
Self-deceit starts early as the addict drifts away from God and the gospel. It doesn’t happen by itself. Long before an addict acts out, self-deceit conspires with his desires (and sometimes his fears). A guy sees a girl in skimpy clothes on a hot spring day and begins to imagine the possibilities. He wants her. He wants sex. He wants to be affirmed. He buys into the lie: Jesus is not enough right now. As his heart rages and his body gets aroused, he can ignore his conscience and actively convince himself of anything. This is the sin before the sin. Self-deceit sets him on the well-worn pathway to acting out.
In a moment of self-deceit, the struggler doesn’t want to see the truth or believe it. He doesn’t want to believe that Christ is sufficient.
He wants pornography to satisfy him. Like the Pharisees who didn’t want to believe Jesus was the Son of God, lest their Pharisaical house crumble (see John 12:19), so also an addict doesn’t believe Christ is enough, lest he be forced to give up his sin. Sexual sin makes him feel good quickly, so he wants to believe it provides the relational satisfaction that he craves.3 Is it any surprise that the devil wants us to question the One who is all-sufficient? The worst lies are the ones about the all-sufficient Christ.
This is the slippery path of a porn addiction—unbelief and rebel- lion lead to self-deceit, hardened hearts, and forsaking the Lord (see 1 Tim. 4:1). Practically speaking, you should encourage your struggling friend to take personal responsibility for fighting his doubts. As addictions get worse, believers can give up and give in.
But also take time to exhort your friend—to speak a gracious and loving but firm word. Ask him,

Are you wrestling with doubts about God’s character? If so, explain.
Can you share some of your thoughts and feelings about God? (It may be embarrassing, especially if you’ve been critical of God in your thinking. But I encourage you to be honest.)
Have you wrestled with any other kinds of doubts? If so, can you share them?
Would you say your heart is hard or soft toward the gospel? What softens your heart?
By its very nature, self-deceit is hard to recognize in yourself. So, let’s consider: What do you get from your pornography habit? In what ways does your sin satisfy you? What are the promises of sin that you are believing? In contrast, are there promises of God that give you hope?

You may think, “I’m not going to make much of a difference.” Who knows? Your words may be the very lifeline your friend needs to end his turning away from God and to persevere in his faith!
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The first two As (access and anonymity) deal with external temptations; the second two As (appetite and atheism) reveal the battle in the heart. When fighting sexual sin, we start with restricting access and anonymity. We take a radical approach to cutting off access points and getting rid of opportunities for anonymity.
Limiting open access and anonymity starves the appetite of our sinful nature. But this takes time. Change doesn’t happen overnight. Addictions start early, are cultivated for years, and become ingrained as personal choices begin to rewrite our embodied existence. The longer the addiction has been cultivated, the longer it will take to get rid of it. Ingrained patterns take time to unwind. So be patient. Take a long-term view of starving the appetites of your friend’s sinful nature.
But keep in mind that restricting access and anonymity alone is not an adequate strategy. An addict can cut off access to porn but still wrestle with fleshly desires that rage inside his heart and doubts that fill his mind. At best, when you restrict access, you put a fortified wall around a sin-crazed heart. When an addict develops good habits for fighting external temptations and achieves significant victory over them, the battle often shifts inward. Satan puts more pressure on the struggler’s inner life—his appetites and atheism. The war in the heart becomes more fierce.
Consequently, our strategy shifts. Though we start by taking steps to limit access and anonymity, we then move to focusing on the internal war, in which the appetites of the heart are involved. As disciplers, we spend more time working through an addict’s desires, motivations, and doubts than focusing on limiting access, as important as that is. At the same time, since issues with accessing porn and fighting off temptation consistently come up, we expect them to be a normal part of our conversations.
In this fight, it’s a mistake to take a narrow view of a struggler and become far too focused on her sin. Faith is the wind in a sinner’s sails. Without it, there is no true forward progress. Help her to fight unbelief, root out self-deceit, and grow in her affections for Christ.
Hold out to her the riches of our glorious Savior. After all, what better way to help a porn addict than to repeatedly set her eyes on the cross?
Chapter 3 of the recently released book, Rescue Plan, by Jonathan D. Holmes and Deepak Reju. Used with permission.