Chapter 9 – Chastity
Chapter 10 – Obtaining Joy and Satisfaction
Chapter 11 – Fashion  and Modesty
Chapter 12 – Rebellion
Chapter 13 – Church Meetings
Chapter 14 – Hypocrisy (Sunday-only Mormons)
Chapter 15 – The Sabbath
Chapter 16 – PornographyChapter_9.htmlChapter_10.htmlChapter_10.htmlChapter_11.htmlChapter_12.htmlChapter_13.htmlChapter_14.htmlChapter_14.htmlChapter_15.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6shapeimage_2_link_7shapeimage_2_link_8shapeimage_2_link_9
Chapter 17 – The Media 
Chapter 18 – The Word of Wisdom 
Chapter 19 – Responsibility
Chapter 20 – School and Learning 
Chapter 21 – Friends and Peer Pressure
Chapter 22 – Stewardship
Chapter 23 – Idolatry
Chapter 24 – Consecration
PDF VersionChapter_17.htmlChapter_18.htmlChapter_19.htmlChapter_20.htmlChapter_21.htmlChapter_21.htmlChapter_22.htmlChapter_23.htmlChapter_24.htmlhttp://scriptorium-blogorium.freehostia.com/pdf_version.htmshapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2shapeimage_3_link_3shapeimage_3_link_4shapeimage_3_link_5shapeimage_3_link_6shapeimage_3_link_7shapeimage_3_link_8shapeimage_3_link_9
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Understanding Isaiah
Chapter 2 – Leaders and Role Models
Chapter 3 – Gangs
Chapter 4 – Fasting
Chapter 5 – Victims of bullying
Chapter 6 – Bullying
Chapter 7 – HomosexualitY
Chapter 8 – DatingPreface.htmlIntroduction.htmlChapter_1.htmlChapter_2.htmlChapter_3.htmlChapter_4.htmlChapter_5.htmlChapter_6.htmlChapter_7.htmlChapter_8.htmlshapeimage_4_link_0shapeimage_4_link_1shapeimage_4_link_2shapeimage_4_link_3shapeimage_4_link_4shapeimage_4_link_5shapeimage_4_link_6shapeimage_4_link_7shapeimage_4_link_8shapeimage_4_link_9
 

The Temptation to Think That Pornography Can’t Hurt You


. . .they trust in vanity,

and speak lies;

they conceive mischief,

and bring forth iniquity.

5 They hatch cockatrice’ eggs,

and weave the spider’s web:

he that eateth of their eggs dieth,

and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

6 Their webs shall not become garments,

neither shall they cover themselves with their works:

(Isaiah 59:4-6)


     [T]hey trust in vanity, and speak lies - One of the harmful things about pornography is that it sends false messages about what physical intimacy and love should be.  It degrades those who are portrayed in it, and it degrades those who view it.  It gives people wrong ideas about what they can expect from marriage, and when reality demonstrates differently, they become very frustrated.  Dr. Victor B. Cline said:


. . .the big problem with pornography is that it presents sex out of context. It presents sex in an untrue manner and creates an image that sex exists as an entity all by itself. This, of course, is not the way real life usually is. I do a lot of marriage counseling. I’ve seen people go into marriage on the basis of great physical attraction and hardly anything else. Such a marriage cannot survive. There has to be more. I’ve seen it happen many times; these marriages eventually break up. Pornography is counterfeit sex. It’s sex without affection and tenderness and dedication; and most of all, for Latter-day Saints, pornography is without an understanding of the purpose of sex and how it relates to the eternal scheme of things. . . Women are presented as things to be exploited and used rather than as people.  Love is presented as a physical thing and nothing more.1


     Pornography isn’t just pictures though, it can also be words.  While men are tempted by pornographic pictures, women are tempted by the written words in so-called “steamy romance novels”, which are nothing more than pornographic thoughts.  A woman I’ll call Andrea told me that after she was married she found those kind of romance novels had been just as full of lies about what sex is as pornographic pictures and movies are.  She said, “I’m certain those books I had read made me expect the wrong things.  And because I had these certain expectations built up, when it didn’t happen, I was disappointed.  It is a horrible thing to be disappointed after your new eternal companion has just given you his all.  I was just focused on the excitement part, so I had no appreciation for the beautiful and tender part of it.”  She told me she thought not knowing what to expect would have been preferable to building false expectations and having them be proved false.  “When your expectations are proven false, it is far too easy to blame your spouse for it and get mad at them, even when they did their best to please you!  They are innocent!  How messed up is that!?”

Okay, what about the rest of the scripture?  Time to refresh our memory about what it says. 


5 They hatch cockatrice’ eggs,

and weave the spider’s web:

he that eateth of their eggs dieth,

and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

6 Their webs shall not become garments,

neither shall they cover themselves with their works:

(Isaiah 59:5-6)


     What is it talking about?  What is all this about cockatrice eggs, vipers, spiders, and spider webs?  How do they relate to pornography  What is a cockatrice, anyway?  I looked it up and it said: “a legendary serpent with a deadly glance hatched by a reptile from a cock’s egg”2  I guess the fact that cocks (male chickens) don’t lay eggs is what makes this serpent legendary.  *Ahem*  Well, you may have thought that it was difficult analyzing bits of Isaiah like we’re in English class, but now we’re going to have to think logically about mythical creatures here.

     But now that we know about what a cockatrice is, it seems that in these verses Isaiah has two different analogies going on at the same time and he mixes them up, probably in some Hebraic poetical way, but for our purposes, we just need to be able to pick out which lines go with which analogy, so we’re going to have to be organized and make two lists. 


hatching cockatrice eggs

he that eateth of their eggs dieth,

and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.


weaving the spider’s web

Their webs shall not become garments,

neither shall they cover themselves with their works


     They hatch cockatrice’ eggs - When I was thinking about this scripture I asked myself the question “How are the makers of pornography like the people who “hatch cockatrice’ eggs”?  (Time to think logically about the mythical cockatrice.) 

     First, people who hatch cockatrice eggs have to get the eggs from somewhere.  They had to get them from a rooster, which is the wrong source for getting eggs.  In the same way, the makers of pornography have to get their ideas from somewhere.  They get them from the wrong source - the devil.

     Second, the process of hatching an egg is long, about 21 days of keeping it warm at a certain temperature, turning it at least 5 times a day, and other picky little things that require careful attention, so it is evident that you must absolutely want to hatch an egg to go through it all.  I’m sure making pornography takes time and work, and frankly, I don’t even want to think about it, so I’ll simply say that it seems to me that just as there is nothing accidental about an egg getting hatched, there is also nothing accidental about pornography.

     Third, just like a cockatrice egg doesn’t look like a cockatrice, the beginnings of pornography don’t look like pornography.  What are the beginnings of pornography?  Movies and TV shows containing immorality.  Swimsuit issues of sport magazines.  Immodestly dressed girls and women.  Slightly racy novels.

     [H]e that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper - So a cockatrice egg, even if it looks like a nourishing hen’s egg, would be deadly to eat.  And if the egg is allowed to hatch, out comes a serpent that can kill you if it looks at you.  How does that compare with the majority of movies that come out these days?  Their messages about immorality are just like cockatrice eggs.  They try to convince you that something imaginary is real, that something false is true, and that something evil is good, and if you swallow their message, your spirit starts to die.  (“he that eateth of their eggs dieth”) If you go on the way you began, the cockatrice eggs of movie immorality hatch into full-fledged pornography, which poisons your spirit if it looks at you.  (“and that [egg] which is crushed breaketh out into a viper”)  This isn’t like Medusa, where you get turned to stone if you look at it directly, but are unharmed if you look at it through a mirror.  No, no, this is a serpent with a deadly glance; if it sees you, you are dead.  That means you can’t be anywhere around it.  I saw a sign on the back of a truck once that said, “If you can read this, you are too close.”  Well, with pornography, if it can see you, you are too close.

     Their webs shall not become garments - Have you ever walked into a spider web and gotten it on your face and your arms?  I have.  Yuck, it feels gross.  Not only that, but it sticks to you, so it is hard to get off.  Clothes (or “garments”) are easy to put on and take off, but a spider web is sticky, so it is hard to get rid of it.  Just like it is hard to get rid of a spider web that has gotten on you, it is very hard to get pornographic images and ideas out of your head once they’re in there.  And the more you experience it, the stickier it is.  It never becomes any easier to get rid of it.

     Andrea told me it was very hard for her to rid her mind of the sex scenes in those books she had read.  She also said something very interesting.  She said that it was particularly hard for her to put down a book once she started reading, and finding a sex scene in it made her feel like she had just been trapped.  Like a fly in a spider web.  Her conscience would protest if she read that pornographic part and her curiosity would protest if she skipped it or stopped reading the book.

     They. . .weave the spider’s web - Pornography on the World Wide Web is a classic example of a woven web of wickedness. 


The Temptation to Think That No One Will Find Out That You View Pornography


Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion,

and the LORD will discover their secret parts.

(Isaiah 3:17)


Boy’s version:

Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the sons of Zion,

and the Lord will discover their secret parts.


     This scripture probably seems confusing to you, because it seems like it says that the Lord will force people to strip naked.  (Ouch!  That sentence hurt to write!)  But this is so uncharacteristic of the Lord, that it is actually a tip-off that it is symbolic of a spiritual truth.  What about us do we always try to cover up, besides our bodies?  Our sins!  The sin of looking at pornography is one people particularly try to hide.  This scripture tells us that the Lord will reveal our sins for all to see in the most embarrassing manner if we aren’t willing to confess them and forsake them. 


Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,

yea, thy shame shall be seen:

I will take vengeance,

and I will not meet thee as a man.

(Isaiah 47:3)


     There’s a footnote in this verse just before “I will not meet thee as a man” which says it is like saying “I will not negotiate or compromise in this matter.”  So, that verse could be rendered “Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not compromise in this matter.”

     In a spiritual sense, being uncovered means that all one’s failings and weaknesses and sins and hypocrisies are on display for everyone to see and it becomes general knowledge.  In that sense, every one of us is naked to God, because He knows everything about us, good and bad.  He doesn’t like to see the bad stuff.  He’d rather that we use Christ’s Atonement in our lives and repent of our sins so that he can forget about them, because they will then be covered with a “robe of righteousness”.  Consider the following scriptures, in direct contrast to the ones above:


I will greatly rejoice in the LORD,

my soul shall be joyful in my God;

     for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,

     he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,

     as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,

     and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

(Isaiah 61:10)


The Temptation To Think That There Is No Way You Can Be Clean Again


     If you’ve become involved in pornography, it is scary to think about confessing to the bishop.  You wonder what he’ll think of you.  You don’t want him to think badly of you, so you try and conquer it yourself.  But it is easy to get mired in it again if you don’t have the bishop’s help.  If you fail, Satan uses that to discourage you from trying to repent in the future by whispering to you that you’re lost forever, that you’ll never be clean again, that no one would love you if they knew what you were doing, and that you might as well keep doing it.  Isaiah’s answer is this:


Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:

     though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

     though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

   (Isaiah 1:18)


     Out of curiosity, I looked up “scarlet” on dictionary.com, and among other things, it said, “A strong to vivid red or reddish orange. . . .Flagrantly immoral or unchaste”3 and further, “This dye was obtained by the Egyptians from the shell-fish Carthamus tinctorius; and by the Hebrews from the Coccus ilicis, an insect which infests oak trees, called kermes by the Arabians. This colour was early known (Gen. 38:28). . . .“Sins as scarlet". . . i.e., as scarlet robes "glaring and habitual." Scarlet and crimson were the firmest of dyes, and thus not easily washed out.”4  As for what crimson is, dictionary.com said:  “deep to vivid purplish red to vivid red.”5   Isaiah is promising us that although our sins may be of the flagrantly immoral or unchaste variety, which are not easily removed, yet they can be removed.  Completely.  To the point that there is no sign that they were ever there.  Clean conscience.  Peace of mind.  Virtuous thoughts.  As pure as the day you were baptized.  If you yearn for those feelings again, don’t delay.  Your bishop represents the Lord as His Arms outstretched toward you in love and mercy.  Remember how the father of the prodigal son met him when he came back.

     During the repentance process, the Atonement of Christ will cleanse you from your sins, and as you become more pure, God’s grace will fortify you with strength. 


Awake, awake;

put on thy strength, O Zion;

put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city:

for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. 

(Isaiah 52:1)


     The Atonement of Christ awakes us from our sleep of spiritual death.  It allows us to put on strength, so that we have the power to resist the temptations we previously gave in to, so that we no longer allow “the uncircumcised and the unclean” images and thoughts to stay if they come to us, but instead we cast them out and fill our minds with clean thoughts.

     I want to tell you about a strange experiment that I did one day.  I had thought of an interesting food idea.  I cut up peppers, onions, and crushed some garlic and mixed it all together in a bowl.  There was about a cup of it.  Then, I ate it.  Whew!  It was pretty hot!  In particular, the raw garlic nearly seared my tongue out of my mouth.  I knew I had done temporary damage to my taste buds when I drank some water to try to cool my mouth, and the water tasted hot and spicy.  Yowch!  My sinuses were watering like crazy.  As I blew my nose, I reflected that this make a fabulous object lesson of how pornography affects us:

     Just like the garlic and onions deadened my taste buds, pornography deadens our sense of right and wrong.  Water is supposed to be refreshing, but after the onions and garlic, it only stung.  In the same way, after pornography, the refreshing doctrines of the gospel only seem to sting when they should refresh.

     When we look at pornography, we think we can hide it from people.  I thought I could hide my onion-garlic breath from my husband.  How wrong I was.  Devon could tell what I had eaten the moment I came close.  In the same way, the people who are closest to us – our family and righteous friends – can tell when there is something really smelly on our conscience, like pornography. 

     Just like it took a while for my onion-garlic smell to leave, it takes a while for us to fully repent of those really smelly sins.  What if I had gotten discouraged about the length of time it took for the smell to go away?  What if I had decided, “Well, maybe that’s just what my body normally smells like.”  What if I had decided I liked the taste of raw onions and garlic so much I wanted to eat more?  In the same way, Satan wants us to get too discouraged to repent.  He wants us to think that we can’t or shouldn’t try to be anything better.  He wants us to develop a taste for pornography and become so addicted to it that we think of it as a natural part of our character. 

     My husband didn’t withhold his love from me just because I had terrible garlic-onion breath.  Of course, he told me I was pretty stinky, but he was very patient with me.  We both knew that the way I smelled would eventually get back to normal, as long as I didn’t eat more garlic and onions.  In the same way, our family and friends won’t withhold love from us.  They are patient with us throughout the repentance process, knowing that sooner or later the reek of our sins will be gone, through the Atonement of Christ, and our spirits will someday “smell” normal. 


The Temptation To Think That There’s Nothing We Can Do About Pornography


     I know you’ve just seen this scripture, but it is also instructs us what we can do in our communities to fight pornography.


Awake, awake;

put on thy strength, O Zion;

put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city:

for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. 

(Isaiah 52:1)


     Isaiah speaks of “Jerusalem, the holy city”.  This suggests that it is possible for an entire city to become committed to remaining holy and pure.  A holy city would not allow in “the uncircumcised and unclean” images on billboards or in magazines or on TV.

     We need to awake from the sleep of apathy, and put on the strength of Christ to avoid pornography.  We need to protest strongly the presence of pornography in our communities.  If you were able to help your city catch the vision of what it would be like to have a “holy city”, so that it would become determined to cast out all the unclean things, then you could help fulfill this particular prophecy of Isaiah’s.   


     So what have we learned from Isaiah about pornography?

  1. 1)Pornography spreads lies about the nature of love and what is required for a relationship

  2. 2)Pornography is spiritually deadly.

  3. 3)Pornography is gross and sticks to you just like a cobweb when you run into it, and is hard to get rid of.

  4. 4)Nakedness is shameful, (and so is having faults and weaknesses exposed to the public.)

  5. 5)The Lord covers our sins with the Atonement of Christ when we repent, giving us a robe of righteousness.

  6. 6)The Lord lifts up a standard against all enemies of righteousness (particularly pornography).

  7. 7)We can repent.

  8. 8)We must awake and put on strength to resist temptation.


Notes

1 “A Conversation on Things of the Spirit, Pornography, and Certain Kinds of Movies, Books, and Magazines,” New Era, May 1971, 8.

2 Webster’s School Dictionary, s.v. “cockatrice.”

3 scarlet. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition . Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scarlet (accessed: May 04, 2007).

4 scarlet. Dictionary.com. Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary .http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scarlet (accessed: May 04, 2007).

5 crimson. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition . Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/crimson (accessed: May 04, 2007).


 Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Understanding Isaiah
 Chapter 2 – Leaders and Role Models 
 Chapter 3 – Gangs
Chapter 4 – Fasting 
Chapter 5 – Victims of bullying
 Chapter 6 – Bullying 
Chapter 7 – HomosexualitY
Chapter 8 – DatingPreface.htmlIntroduction.htmlChapter_1.htmlChapter_2.htmlChapter_3.htmlChapter_4.htmlChapter_5.htmlChapter_6.htmlChapter_7.htmlChapter_8.htmlshapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1shapeimage_6_link_2shapeimage_6_link_3shapeimage_6_link_4shapeimage_6_link_5shapeimage_6_link_6shapeimage_6_link_7shapeimage_6_link_8shapeimage_6_link_9
 Chapter 9 – Chastity
 Chapter 10 – Obtaining Joy and Satisfaction
 Chapter 11 – Fashion  and Modesty
  Chapter 12 – Rebellion 
Chapter 13 – Church Meetings
Chapter 14 – Hypocrisy (Sunday-only Mormons)
 Chapter 15 – The SabbathChapter_9.htmlChapter_10.htmlChapter_10.htmlChapter_11.htmlChapter_12.htmlChapter_13.htmlChapter_14.htmlChapter_14.htmlChapter_15.htmlshapeimage_7_link_0shapeimage_7_link_1shapeimage_7_link_2shapeimage_7_link_3shapeimage_7_link_4shapeimage_7_link_5shapeimage_7_link_6shapeimage_7_link_7shapeimage_7_link_8
 Chapter 16 – Pornography 
 Chapter 17 – The Media
 Chapter 18 – The Word of Wisdom 
 Chapter 19 – Responsibility
 Chapter 20 – School and Learning 
 Chapter 21 – Friends and Peer Pressure
Chapter 22 – Stewardship
Chapter 23 – Idolatry
Chapter 24 – ConsecrationChapter_17.htmlChapter_18.htmlChapter_19.htmlChapter_20.htmlChapter_21.htmlChapter_22.htmlChapter_23.htmlChapter_24.htmlshapeimage_8_link_0shapeimage_8_link_1shapeimage_8_link_2shapeimage_8_link_3shapeimage_8_link_4shapeimage_8_link_5shapeimage_8_link_6shapeimage_8_link_7shapeimage_8_link_8