Now the last one we’ll put down is: people form destructive reactions in their soul. When people are hurt, they usually try to defend or protect themselves in some way - they don’t want to be hurt again. So it’s quite common when people have been involved in sexual sin, that there’s a reaction or a wall built in the heart, to stop themselves being hurt again.
Typical issues in people to be aware of are these:
1) Inner vows; or inward vows. I’ll give an example in a moment. It’s a vow the person makes in themselves, out of hurt and anger. For example, “I’ll never trust a man again.” “I’ll never trust a woman again.” If you make an inward vow in your heart – “I’ll never trust a man again”, your heart will believe that. You know what your heart will say? I agree, let’s not trust a man. You may forget you said it, but years later, you get married and he’s a wonderful man. What if just a great man came into your life? But you know what your heart is saying? Don’t trust him. You can never trust a man.
So, no matter how good he is, you’ll still never trust him; and the relationship will begin to fail, because a stronghold of distrust is in there. The inner vow - I have prayed for people who’ve made inner vows never to carry a male child, and then miscarried every male child. When people get hurt, and they make inner vows to protect themselves, these are like strongholds in the heart, that stop their lives being productive.
2) Bitter judgement. You’ve been hurt by a couple of men, or hurt by a couple of women, and you’ll never trust a man again. You’ll never trust men - they’ll always let you down. Never trust women - they’ll always control you. These kinds of bitter judgements then defile all future relationships. A very common one is a death wish - I just wish I was dead. People covered in shame about what they’ve done, and what they’ve allowed to happen to them, just say: “I wish I was dead”. These are reactions in the soul that you have to address when you’re ministering to people.
So, you start to notice now, every sin you commit is outside your body; but sexual sin is inside the body. Now we see there’s: issues of sin; there’s the issue of demons; ungodly soul ties; the pictures imprinted in the mind and the body; the hurts in the heart; and the reactions in the heart. What a mess! No wonder God says, or warns us about it. It’s not because it’s evil, it’s a good gift. It’s just it needs to be kept in God’s guidelines, for it to be a wonderful gift.
In the next session, we’ll look at some of the examples of sexual sin, particularly pornography, and then what I’ll do is how to get people free – what to do.
[Second Session]
We see in the last session how God has given us an amazing gift, and He wants us to learn how to steward and manage that gift, so it’s a blessing and not a cause of pain.
One of the big things related to sexual sin, is that it thrives in darkness and secrecy. Because of the shame that seems to come with it, it remains covered and concealed; and whatever’s concealed, is a place of darkness thriving.
I believe in today’s culture, this is becoming an increasing problem. Particularly the internet has opened up all kinds of ways of people accessing sexual perversion. People can be connected into a whole realm of perversion and you wouldn’t know. Even simple exposures can have a huge issue in the person’s life.
We prayed for one young pastor’s son, and he’d been involved in internet pornography for about two years. The pastor was really upset, because he said: we’ve got a computer in the open, and we’ve done everything we can to keep them from it, but we cannot understand how this happened. He kept all the boundaries up in the home over this issue of pornography. His son went to a friend’s place, and they were open about it - the father let the kids watch stuff on the computer; and that one exposure - he became addicted. He’s just a teenage boy, who’s got drawn into this thing.
The word pornography comes from two words put together - the word “porno” - “prostitute”; and the word “graphic”, or “to write”. So the writings of prostitutes were the original form of pornography - that’s where it originally came from. You’ll find behind pornography is a spirit of prostitution, a spirit of perversion, and usually idolatry, self-idolatry. Prostitution – because many of those are involved are selling themselves, or receiving money in order to do these things. That’s one aspect of it. Spirit of perversion – it totally perverts the image of God.
A woman is also created in the image of God, but Pornography totally destroys that image - treats the person as an object or a thing, rather than as a person. Men particularly, are vulnerable to pornography: 1) because they’re very stirred or stimulated by what they see; and 2) often because of rejection, and fears of real relationship. It’s often driven by a desire for comfort, or a desire for control.
Pornography alters the chemistry in the brain - it releases serotonin and dopamine, and that creates pathways in the brain. Pornography is progressively addictive. It’s like a drug in the person’s life – they need more and more and more, in order to get the same feelings. It results in soul-ties being formed to images. A person in pornography is actually locked in to the images, locked in on the websites, like attached to them.