The Viet Cong were a wise and ruthless adversary. Their guerrilla warfare tactics will continue to be studied by those teaching combat for years to come.
One of their more brutal but effective plans was to set thousands of explosive mines for their enemies. Explosives designed not to kill but to maim. The legacy of US Viet Nam War Veterans who lost legs and arms in the aftermath of these diabolical devices is evidence of their effectiveness.
The philosophy behind this kind of warfare was that killing a man only took one soldier out of the fight while wounding him would take at least one more and possibly several with them. It takes two men to carry a stretcher and at least one more to stop the bleeding after an encounter with a land mine. This was a highly effective plan not only for reducing the number of combatants on the field but also for devastating the morale of the surviving soldiers. This devilish wisdom comes from the darkness.
Our enemy Satan is in the business of training his minions to maim their enemies. The hidden forces he uses against us are no less grotesque and no less effective.
Pornography has been one such trap. Many good men of our time have tripped these perilous wires and not only left the field in agony, but have taken many more with them.
Satan’s subtly in these matters has been beneath us. He delicately buries these anti-personnel mechanisms beyond our line of sight. He minimizes their dangers by changing their names.
Lethal sins are redefined into less-lethal terms. The “Adultery” and “Fornication” we commit when we partake in pornography have been changed into words like “struggle” and “issue.” While the morale of the whole church is eroded by confessing with our mouths and believing with our hearts they are “every man’s struggle,” the casualties mount.
Quickly retreating from the field into our support and accountability groups to talk about how many times we “slipped up” this month or even this week we have left our flank exposed and the enemy has rushed in like a flood.
While men of God are meeting and confessing our “issues” and talking about our “struggles,” and thanking God for letting us off again, I ask, who is at home to protect our wives and children?
We are safe inside locked doors in our support groups and protective software while our weaker ones are being ravaged on our doorsteps.
I am not saying pornography is not a real threat. It has been crippling to the efforts of the Kingdom in many ways. What I’m saying is that while we are losing good men and others are helping them, we are not keeping the watch. While we are tending our wounds and our wounded, wolves are creeping into our churches unawares.
Few like to hear about this and fewer still want to talk about it, but there are those in our midst who come to our churches because they see an opportunity to gratify their sexual desires with our children. They are pedophiles and they are patiently waiting for the right time.
When the time comes, most of them will try to prey on our daughters but a significant number will seek out our sons. “Certainly not,” you say. But it is so. My heart was sickened when I read a new statistic. Few of us would be surprised to learn drug and alcohol use was the most common factor in cases of child sexual abuse. But I’m sure you would be surprised to learn the second most common factor for those who have become victims of these heinous crimes is their membership in a “very conservative Christian church.”
Those who are molested are deeply affected throughout their entire lives in ways they often never discuss. According to all we know, more than one third of our wives were most likely preyed upon as children and have carried into the marriage bed debilitating scares they are ashamed to speak of even to their husbands.
I know this may all be disturbing news to you, it is to me. But since I started talking to people about it and working to encourage parents to help prevent it and not to perpetuate the pain of it by reacting ignorantly to it, I have learned it is worse than reported. There is so very much to say on this issue and few who are saying it.
Let this be a call to arms. May God help us detest our ungodly sexual desires and not see them as the mere understandable results of the fallen condition and soothe our consciences calling these deeds normal for all men. These equivocations do not become us as warriors.
Let us retake the field and keep a renewed watch over the sins that so easily beset us. If we can do this, we can better defend our homes and our churches.
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