You may be called to ministry, but if you are among the 64 million a day viewing pornography, then you’re not ready to serve … and satan knows it. It’s both his stronghold and his distraction from your spiritual journey toward Kingdom purpose. For those not addicted, you’re saying right now, “Wow! That’s a bit harsh.” For those that are, once the defenses go down, you know it’s true.

Some 2016 statistics from the most popular hardcore porn website today, Pornhub:

–In 2016 alone, Pornhub got 23 BILLION visits. That’s 729 people a second, or 64 million viewers a day — nearly equal to the population of the United Kingdom

–Last year alone, 91,980,225,000 videos were watched on Pornhub. That’s 12.5 videos for every person on the planet.

–*4,599,000,000 hours of porn were watched on Pornhub in 2016 alone. That is equivalent to 5,246 centuries in time!

–The most popular search term in the whole site was “step mom” for the second year in a row — incest-themed porn.

Who Uses Porn:

–Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites 72% male — 28% female

–Christians who said pornography is a major problem 47%

–70% of women keep their cyber activities secret and favor “chat rooms” 2X more than men

–1 of 3 visitors to all adult websites are women.

These stats are not at all exhaustive. I did not share the stats on early exposure to pornography, which experts have determined is now between the ages of 9 and 11. I give you stats not to scare you, but to inform you. Today’s culture tries as many ways as it possibly can to normalize pornography. Even the word porn is changing in meaning thru context as we see on Pinterest when, for example, one wants to view beautiful gardens, one searches for “garden porn;” for model cars “car porn” — normalizing or casualizing the word porn.

Don’t let today’s culture distract you from the truth! The enemy would love for you to become distracted, derailed, and debilitated by the stronghold of pornography. I Peter 5:8 says, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” A footnote in one of my bibles reads, “Our enemy desires to consume us, but we find strength to resist him when we are dependent upon God for His strength.” A great word because we can’t do it on our own. WE NEED GOD!

If you find yourself in the prison of pornography, fighting for your life, cry out to God! I John 4:4 says, “Greater is HE that is in you than he that is in the world.” Porn has a way of “hijacking” the brain. Instead of forming a deep connection to a person, your brain ends up “bonding” to a pornographic experience. Seek help today!

Take The First Step: You are NOT alone!

Local Church: Pastors/Staff and sometimes a counselor on staff

Counselors/Therapist: Ask specifically for those trained in sex addiction/porn

Celebrate Recovery: Sex/Porn Addiction Group

SAA Meetings: Sex Addicts Anonymous

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Written by Susan Goss, MEd, MS, LPC,LMFT

Co-Founder The Joshua Center

Founder/Director Tangible Truth Ministries