“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28).
Last week Hugh Hefner died. I have watched in amazement as people of all walks of life have been talking about how amazing this man was and wishing him well in the afterlife and so on and so forth.
I have been impacted by Hugh. I’m a guy. I’ve seen a Playboy magazine or two in my day. The average age a young boy sees his first pornographic image is 8 years old. That is a legacy that Hugh has left. This breaks my heart.
Men and boys cannot get those images out of their heads. Once these images are burned into our brains they are there on a permanent basis. Men are visual in nature. Once we see these images, our imaginations begin to run wild.
What happens as a man dive headlong into this cesspool of images, a transformation begins in his brain. He begins to see women differently. Rather than viewing women as God’s creation of beauty and as an actual human being, we see them as a commodity. This destroys relationships.
- Pornography is one of the biggest destroyers of marriages in our country.
- Pornography is the number one reason human trafficking happens.
- Pornography is one of the biggest causes of affairs.
- Pornography sets an unrealistic expectation in a marriage bedroom.
These are just a few of the horrible things that porn causes. The thing that is even more disturbing is the number of people who are calling this man amazing, kind and a living legend. He was a depraved lost man who exploited and objectified women.
We should NOT be celebrating him. We should not be celebrating the fact that he helped promote one of the most sinister activities in all of human history. We should be mindful of how wicked the world is and how quickly we can get snared by this toilet water. It might quench a few thirsts, but it will make you sick and could eventually “kill” you. We need to be mindful of how sticky the web of sin can be, and we need to run from sin as if it’s a deadly disease because that’s exactly what it is.
That we are celebrating this man is a massive glowing neon sign that our world is depraved to the core and is in desperate need of redemption.