Exiting the Highway to Porn

Brother in Christ, do you ever feel there’s a switch in your brain that gets turned on, and once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself back in the gutter of pornography? Does porn feel inevitable? Sister in Christ, do you experience triggers, such as suggestive posts on social media, that lead you onto a highway to porn with only one exit: “Give In to Temptation”?

Many people fall into the belief that once desire has been awakened, the only way to silence that nagging voice is to give it what it wants. They believe the porn interstate has one way off, and that’s to give in.

But before you reach “Giving In,” you’ve flown past earlier exits that don’t involve sinning. The sooner you get off this highway, the stronger you’ll become next time you make a wrong turn back onto it.

Use Strategic Speed Bumps to Slow Down

While many people feel they “fall into” porn, there were dozens of decision points along the way that led to that destination. Slowing down is critical to seeing those earlier exit ramps. To do this, we need to place speed bumps on the highway to porn.

Speed bumps include anything that makes pornography difficult to access. If porn is right in your pocket on your phone, you’re flying down the highway at 150 mph. No wonder you missed all the other exits! Speed bumps force you to slow down. These may include filters and accountability software on all internet-enabled devices, removing all social media, or perhaps getting rid of a smart phone altogether. It sounds painful to limit your access to many good things, but I hear testimony after testimony of the peace and freedom many people experience when they couldn’t look at porn due to lack of access.

Before you reach “Giving In,” you’ve flown past earlier exits that don’t involve sinning. The sooner you get off this highway, the stronger you’ll become next time you make a wrong turn back onto it.

The reason these measures are speed bumps and not brick walls is because there’s ultimately no guaranteed way to restrict access to someone who truly wants to find pornography. People will go to great lengths and spend incredible amounts of time and money just to get their next fix. Where there is a will, there typically is a way.

But the fatal flaw I hear from so many is that because speed bumps don’t guarantee success, they don’t even try them. This is a lie from the depths of hell. Any distance you can create between yourself and access to sin is to your advantage. It gives time for the Holy Spirit to work in your heart and turn you from sin. Putting speed bumps up also shows you’re sober minded about what’s at stake in the battle against sin. Scripture explicitly commands us not to make any provision for the flesh (Rom. 13:14). Your willingness to limit your access to porn shows you take sin seriously.

Earlier Exits Off the Highway to Porn

Believe it or not, this highway is chock-full of exits that don’t involve sinning. Once you slow down, you’ll see they’re everywhere! What are some of these earlier exits?

• Switch locations. Pornography prefers privacy. An obvious exit is to leave your private room and find a place with other people. If you’re the only person at home, go for a walk or study at the library. For those who work remotely, take your work to a café, remove all curtains and blinds from your home office, and maybe take the door off.

• Reach out for help. Don’t expect one person to be everything you need when it comes to reinforcements. As soon as tempting thoughts enter your mind, out yourself. Text six friends and then systematically call each one until one of them picks up. Fight the lie that says you’re annoying them. The sooner you bring those tempting thoughts into the light, the less power they have over you. James wasn’t lying when he promised, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

• Access truth. The most obvious decision here is to open your Bible and flood your mind with truth (Phil. 4:8). But there’s a plethora of creative ways to do this if you’re hesitant to pick up your Bible in those moments. Always have an audio Bible on-hand and fill your airwaves with God’s precious promises. Turn on Christian music or listen to a sermon or Christian podcast. Perhaps you have “Fighter Verses” in your wallet or posted on your wall—these are specific verses you’ve found particularly strategic when you’re tempted to sin.

• Reach up to God. According to Hebrews 4:16, we’re called to enter God’s throne room of grace in time of need to receive mercy and find grace to help. You know temptation to look at porn is not just any old “time of need,” this is DEFCON 1—imminent nuclear war! You also know your resources to fight this temptation are limited and ineffective on their own. You need divine help. Grace is not only God’s gift of forgiveness, it’s also his power that he freely gives you in Christ to battle temptation. But you need to come to him for it. You need to get on your knees and pray for his help. Pray to God for eyes to see him in his glory, so the “things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” Ask God to make you sober-minded to the devastating consequences of pornography. Ask him to meet you in your trials that so often underlie the temptation to escape them.

Brother, sister, you can always get off the highway to porn, even when you feel you’ve gone too far.

• Find someone to serve. Pornography is the epitome of selfishness. It’s exploiting someone else for your own pleasure. A powerful weapon against selfishness is to proactively find ways to serve. Serving others is much more fulfilling and doesn’t leave you with guilt and shame. Looking at pornography in the morning can ruin your whole day, sometimes your whole week. But serving someone else in the morning can brighten your day and become the highlight of your week. This doesn’t have to be extravagant. It can be as simple and powerful as praying for people in need, calling a friend who struggles with loneliness, or doing the leftover dishes in the sink.

Brother, sister, you can always get off the highway to porn, even when you feel you’ve gone too far. Remember, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13). As you grow in sanctification, you may still find yourself back on that highway—but the early exit signs will become much clearer. The more you take those early exits, you’ll find yourself less frequently on the highway at all, instead opting for the scenic route of God’s glory, beauty, and grace.