(Part 2/4) Read part 1 here

Many may not realize just how sleazy and dark the world of adult porn is. However, every man who has ever visited an adult arcade knows that the video booth of an arcade is dimly lit and permeated with the stench of bleached urine. The actual video booth is large enough for a man to either stand, or sit on a chair, or bench which is usually attached to the wall across from the video viewing television. There is a coin drop box, and a dial that allows the patron to select his movie from the menu of films. The floor inside the booth is often sticky, and not from squished Gummy Bears, and depending on the city or county regulations, the individual viewing booths are either open or they have privacy doors that self-lock. Privacy booths with locking doors have a definite advantage to the patron, as it allows them to become sexual interactive with the film they are viewing without the fear of being arrested by under cover law enforcement officers that often patrol arcades. Most privacy booths will have softball-sized holes cut out through the plywood wall separating each booth, allowing the individuals in adjoining booths to have consenting physical contact with one another. These waist high holes are appropriately named “the glory hole,â€? and the activity taking place between the men in the booths connected with a “glory holeâ€? is nothing less than homosexual (Romans 1:27; Geneis 19:4â€"5), and will be judged according to His word.

These places are dimly lit because sin needs it’s darkness to flourish and grow. The adult arcade industry has been well thought out. Its overall design is sexually alluring, as it offers no moral barriers to the men who frequent these places. When I think back to my days of involvement with adult arcades, it would be difficult not to give full credit to Satan. And the adult arcade and porn industry is alive and well. It is definitely thriving, because Satan’s ruling power continues to reign and have an evil influence over earthly dominions (25).

A television report stated that the porn industry is earning well over six billion dollars a year. That is a mega-type business. Another not-too-surprising fact is that most of the increase in profits has come from the internet. In the last ten to twelve years, the internet has afforded Satan the greatest opportunity to saturate every household connected to the internet/web with porn, smut, and filth. And Satan continues to hold his options open by keeping neighborhood adult arcades around.

When it comes to knowing about the evil power of personal destruction that porn has over mankind, I am, reluctantly, an expert.

Thanks to my curiosity, I have experienced first hand the effect that sexual sin holds over a soul, once Satan is allowed to enter into the heart and attach this smut to a life. I have experienced the destructive force of pornography. I have experienced the negative force that porn has as it rips away all spiritual joy and peace. Even after a person repents and returns to God, his life will never be the same, because once sexual sin lays its hands on a life it will continue to tempt and torment that person for the rest of his life. Like drug addicts and alcoholics, believers delivered from the deadly stranglehold of pornography will need to live the remainder of their lives one day at a time.

The worry I had when going to adult arcades was the chance that someone would recognize me as they drove by. Most arcades are located on busy streets in downtown areas. Because I didn’t want to be seen committing my dirty little sin, I’d conceal my face by wearing a hat and turning up the collar on my shirt or jacket. While I was confident that I was never recognized by those who knew me, all of this clandestine behavior was in vain when it came to God. I may have been able to fool just about everyone around me, but God saw through me. God can’t be fooled, and He definitely wasn’t impressed with my successful efforts to deceive others. I discovered quite early in my association with sexual sin that distance had its freedoms. It was easier for me to frequent arcades that were out of the area where I lived in order to reduce my risk of being recognized. I eventually convinced myself that if others didn’t see me, maybe God couldn’t see me either. Didn’t Adam and Eve try to hide (26) in the garden? Like Adam and Eve, I forgot that God was omnipresent. There was no way I could hide from Him what I was doing.
I wouldn’t be the first man who tried to hide my sin from God. Adam tried to hide from God, and so did Cain after he killed Abel. Then there was David, who tried to hide his adultery with Bathsheba by committing other more egregious sins. Satan would like each of us to believe that we can deceive God just as easily as we deceive our fellow man. Too often when we live a life of lies, we are often led to believe the lies we tell.

Never once did I come to the point where I really believed that I was able to hide my transgressions from God. In fact, as a Bible scholar of some sorts deep down I knew that because God lived within my heart He was part and parcel of everything I thought or did. Everywhere my journey took me, He was there. This theology that I believe caused me so much personal grief and anguish from 1974 to 1987. Even in my darkest days as a prodigal I could never totally escape the truth that each time I entered an adult arcade video booth the Lord was with me. Deep down within me I knew that my sin was causing Him to grieve (27). Even though I was successfully hiding my sin from others, knowing that the Holy Spirit was grieved each time I sinned ignited an emotional firestorm inside, setting my flesh on a collision course with my spirit. I was cognizant of the need to get my miserable self up and out of the slop of the smut and porn in which I was mired. However, the nature of the beast that I had freely invited into my life twelve years earlier was proving to be a force to be reckoned with. Each time I succumbed to sin’s temptation, it grew more out of control. I’d bow before the Father and repent following each indiscretion, then I’d find myself falling back into the same sin, time after time. With each indiscretion I’d became more and more frustrated with myself.

It was apparent that I had gotten involved with a ruthless and relentless lover that wasn’t about to let go. Not only were my morals being deeply divided, but also the division was causing me to become more and more emotionally depressed. I needed help, but

I didn’t dare take my secret public fearing that I might sully my image before man. While I didn’t care about the image I held up before the host of witnesses in heaven, I did care about my earthly image.

After more than twelve years of backsliding, personal pride as well as lust was leading me down a path toward personal destruction. Many believers don’t realize just how damaging personal pride can be. We’ve been called to live a holy life, and pride has no place in a holy life. Not only was I guilty of committing sexual sins of the mind and heart, I was guilty of the sin of pride. In my case, the demon of pride was reinforcing his master’s death-grip on my life. There was never a doubt in my heart and mind that Jesus had come to give me life, however, on the other side of the coin was Satan who came to steal my joy and kill my peace within. With each failure to escape sin’s hold, personal hopelessness, frustration and depression moved me closer and closer to Satan’s plan to destroy me and put me in the grave.

With each sexual indiscretion came more empty repentant confessions. In fact, my confessions were like a warm, watered-down soda that has lost its fizz. Each time I returned to the flesh and porn I negated any progress I had thought I made. I don’t even know how many times I tried to convince myself that I could pray and God would forgive me, but it was a lot. After all, Jesus did say to forgive seventy times seven, which was interpreted by me to mean that forgiveness is without end. But how many times would God continue to forgive me for willfully sinning against Him? The one thing I knew each time I sinned and repented was that I could never completely return to God while I left the door to sexual sin open. Confession without a change of direction is of no value to God or to the believer.

It was becoming clearer with each transgression that my repeated acts of repentance were simply making a mockery of God’s promise to forgive me. And I knew quite well what the Scripture taught about our attempts to mock God28. I had reached the point in my backsliding where I’d try to use repentance as a way to guarantee my spot in heaven should I die. This is why, when I finally realized what I was doing, I stopped repenting, which was probably sometime in 1986. God had finally convicted me of the insincerity of my repentance and that He would not be mocked. So I quit offering empty prayers of repentance after each sinful act. The realization that my prayers of repentance meant absolutely nothing unless my heart was going to change direction finally hit home. I was merely wasting His time, and mine.

When I let go of all hope for repentance and forgiveness through prayer, Satan had finally brought down the lines of communication between God and me. Satan had won yet another crucial battle and, unfortunately, for me, this battle would prove to be a major defeat for me. I finally listened to the voice of demonic reasoning as it said, “What is the use anyway, you always return to the same sin.â€? He’d go on to tell me that, “God isn’t listening to you. You’re nothing more than a sinner, mocking God, and He won’t be mocked.â€? So it finally happenedâ€"the sin in my life had brought me to the point of spiritually giving up on God’s ability to deliver me. What I didn’t know at that time, and wouldn’t find out for at least another year, was that once again Satan had lied to me. The truth is, God never gives up on His children. He never, ever gave up on me.
…Part 3 of this four part series in issue 37.

25 Eph 6:10 In conclusion, be strong in the Lord [be empowered through your
union with Him]; draw your strength from Him [that strength which His boundless might provides].
Eph 6:11 Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil.

Eph 6:12 For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.

26 Ge 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he
was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Ge 3:9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?� Ge 3:10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.�

27 Eph 4:30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed
for the day of redemption. (NIV)

This series is taken from Rev. Zimmer's book Prodigal Daze. Buy the book here.

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