Pornography lies. “Porn is fun.” “It’s no big deal.” “Everyone does it.” “No one will find out.” “It’s not like you are actually having sex.” “No one is hurt by it.” But the biggest lie pornography tells us is that it will satisfy our hearts. Porn, like many other enslaving sins, promises to satisfy both temporary delights and deep desires. One of the deepest desires God gave us is the desire for peace: Peace in our souls, peace with others, and most of all, peace with himself. No matter what porn promises, it does not and cannot satisfy that desire. The gospel, however, leads to true peace and provides the path toward true pleasure. Parents, help your children by unveiling the lies of porn and pointing them to the truths of the gospel.

Porn Can’t Give Us the Peace We Were Created For

When God initiated the Levitical Priesthood, he gave the priests a blessing to pray over his people, “May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace” (Num 6:24–26). God wants to bless his people with peace.

Peace with Others

God explicitly mentions peace with others in the first line of the blessing. God’s protection was offered to a people who were well acquainted with war and violence. They had escaped from brutal, murderous slavery, been rescued from a pursuing army, and were preparing to take the promised land through military conquest. God’s people were longing for a place and time of peace.

Porn disrupts God’s desire for us to live at peace with others. Contrary to the lie that porn is a “victimless crime,” is the reality that relationships and lives are infected and destroyed by porn. Victims line both sides of the road porn travels. Many of the “actors” who are portrayed in porn are victims of human trafficking, and even those who are wholly there by choice will face devastating consequences in life. Children of porn users face a myriad of consequences. Our relationships with friends are infected by our porn use, even when they do not know we are using porn. Porn influences our view of people in general and tends to objectify them in our minds. And, of course, porn destroys peace between husband and wife.[1]

Peace in Our Souls

The blessing of peace within our souls is less explicit in Numbers 6 but is vivid in other passages of Scripture. Philippians 4:4–9 highlights God’s desire for us to have peace in our souls. Verse seven describes this peace as unfathomable, beyond our understanding, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” This unfathomable peace is rooted, first and foremost, in the presence of God. Right before we are encouraged not to worry, we are reminded, “The Lord is near” (v. 5).

Building on God’s presence, God encourages us to bring all our concerns to him. We are encouraged to pray, presenting all our requests to God (v. 6). Our requests are to be mingled with gratitude (v. 6). In all circumstances, we can find reasons to be thankful and express those to God as well. Porn turns us inward. Porn feeds and feeds on discontentment and dissatisfaction. Prayer and praise direct our attention outward and upward, filling our hearts with contentment, satisfaction, and gratitude.

In addition to praying, we are to focus our minds on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, morally excellent, and worthy of praise (v. 8). Clearly, pornography does not fit any of these categories. We readily recognize porn is not morally excellent, honorable, or pure, but we must also note that porn is untrue. Porn does not comport with the reality of God’s design for sex. The depictions of sexuality created in most porn are also not real to human experience. And as we already described, porn is untrue in that it lies to us.

Philippians 4:4–9 continues to aid our pursuit of peace, teaching us we are to live out sacrificial love and service, “Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the god of peace will be with you” (v. 9, emphasis added). Pursuing peace requires action. The Philippians lived with Paul. They heard him teach, and they watched him live. He tells them to live out both. Porn is selfish. Sacrificial service is selfless.

The passage ends where it began: the presence of God. Knowing God and walking with God involves remembering his presence, talking with him, meditating on his goodness, good works, and good gifts, and living out his Word.

Peace With God

Foundational to the peace in our souls is peace with God. You cannot live out a faith you do not have. I mentioned earlier that Numbers 6:24–26 explicitly points us to the blessing of peace with God. The central stanza in the threefold blessing is, “May the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you” (v. 25). The grace of God is only necessary because of sin. His grace is only poured out on sinners who recognize their need and humbly cry out for it. His grace is only available because of the blood that was shed by his Son, Jesus, on the cross. When we humble ourselves, confess our sins to God, and cry out for his mercy and grace, believing in our hearts that Jesus rose from the dead, then we can have the face of God shine on us! Any sinner who enters the presence of God without his grace cannot survive. It is only through the gospel that we can have peace with God. Without peace with God, we cannot have peace in our own souls.

It is only in the gospel that this deep desire for peace will ever be satisfied. It is also only through living out the gospel that we find true delight in the good gifts God has given.

Porn Can’t Give Us True Pleasure

Even porn’s promise to fulfill our temporary delights is a lie. People pursue pornography to satisfy a variety of desires; they want to feel loved, feel desired, they want to feel powerful, they want to ease stress or frustration, relieve boredom, alleviate loneliness, grow sexual knowledge, satisfy curiosity or sexual cravings, and many more.[2] Porn does not bring peace, and the pleasure it gives is passing and full of poison. People come in for counseling over porn use because it leaves them feeling terrible. Sure, there is a quick surge of pleasure from porn, but it fades fast and is replaced by deep shame and regret. The truth of the gospel fulfills our greatest needs and deepest desires, and it extends to our pleasures as well. When we walk according to the gospel, it satisfies our deep desire for peace and leads us to delight in God’s good gifts. Porn twists and contaminates God’s blessing of sex, but the solution is not to discard the gift but to enjoy it as the Giver designed.

Tell Your Kids the Truth

If you are a parent, you have a vital role to play in steering your children away from pornography and toward satisfaction in Christ. You need to include discussions of pornography in your conversations about sex but also at other times. You read that correctly: CONVERSATIONS! The idea of “The Talk” is an unhelpful construct for parents to adopt with sex and pornography. One talk does not typically address everything that is needed to know about sex or pornography. Many times, children feel blindsided by “The Talk.” They do not know how to respond and may not be able to think of all the questions they have on the topic. The way many of “The Talks” are conducted actually silences future conversations about sexuality because they inadvertently communicate to children that sex is a shameful thing that should not be talked about except in that one encounter. This is a dangerous message that drives many children to find out about sex through other means, usually friends or the internet, neither of which are helpful and usually very harmful.

Conversations about sex and pornography should begin early in life and progress in age-appropriate ways for the rest of life (when you are a grandparent, you will get to help your kids walk this path with their own children!). What is age-appropriate is unique to you and your child based on maturity, educational context, and other forms of exposure. One key principle is that parents should strive to be the first ones to introduce the concept of sex to their children. This demonstrates to your children that you are safe, reliable sources of information about sexuality.

If your kids are in a schooling situation where conversations about sex are more likely at an early age, then you should begin discussing it earlier than parents of children who are less likely to be introduced to sexual conversations until later. When I say early, I mean early. Conversations that contribute to our children’s defense against pornography begin almost as soon as they can talk. Conversations about their bodies, privacy, modesty, and images to turn away from all play a part in preparing them to deal with the predatory practices of the porn industry later in life.[3]

Don’t Forget Your Daughters

A common myth about pornography is that it is a male problem, not something females deal with. That myth has left many girls wrestling with pornography in shame and silence. The myth tells them they must be more twisted than their peers. It tells them there is no help for them, that no one will understand. A study published in 2024 of women between 18 and 34 found that 60 percent of women their age reported using pornography, and 69 percent of them began using it in childhood or adolescence.[4] While statistics still show a gap between porn use by men and women, the overwhelming majority of women are using porn on a regular basis.[5] Porn is not a man problem, it is a HUMAN problem.

Conclusion

Porn is insidious. The porn industry is predatory. Our hearts and the hearts of our children need protecting. The lies porn tells are easy to believe, so we must combat them with the more powerful truth of the gospel. Let us shine the light of the gospel brightly and give our hearts what they were created to have: peace with God, peace with others, and peace in our souls.

 

[1] Jenny Solomon, Reclaim Your Marriage: Grace for Wives Who Have Been Hurt by Pornography (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2022); Curtis Solomon, Redeem Your Marriage: Hope for Husbands Who Have Hurt through Pornography (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2022).

[2] Brad Hambrick, “19 Possible Motive-Triggers for Pornography,” Brad Hambrick (blog), October 28, 2016, https://bradhambrick.com/19-possible-motive-triggers-for-pornography/; Keith Rose, “Why People Watch Porn: 11 Reasons It’s Appealing,” Covenant Eyes (blog), December 10, 2021, https://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/why-people-watch-porn/.

[3] Justin S. Holcomb and Lindsey A. Holcomb, God Made All of Me: A Book to Help Children Protect Their Bodies (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2015); Kristen Jenson, Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr.: A Simple Plan to Protect Young Minds (Kennewick, WA: Glen Cove Press, 2017).

[4] Julie Fraumeni-McBride and Brian J. Willoughby, “Women’s Pornography Use Patterns and Sexuality Education in U.S. Public Schools,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 53, no. 9 (October 2024): 3437–49.

[5] Ingrid Solano, Nicholas R. Eaton, and K. Daniel O’Leary, “Pornography Consumption, Modality and Function in a Large Internet Sample,” Journal of Sex Research 57, no. 1 (January 2020): 92–103.