The hot steam of a deadline breathes down your neck. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and you are alone in your office completing a last-minute project. As you viciously beat away at the keyboard, you pause and turn to the Internet as a resource. While browsing the Web, you notice an ad: “Free Porn.” You look at the popup appalled, yet intrigued.

In the isolated dark office, sin disguises itself as “free” — free of cost, free of accountability, and free of consequences. Don’t believe the lie. Deconstructing the phrase “Free Porn” may save your marriage and ultimately your relationship with Christ. Here is a truth we desperately need today: There is no such thing as free porn.

Free Porn Is False Advertisement

Satan, the world, and the flesh combine to make a perverse, yet persuasive marketing firm. Satan is the source and father of lies (John 8:44). The world is under his control (1 John 5:19), and the flesh swindles us to believe God may be mocked while our hearts deceive us as well (Galatians 6:7–8; Jeremiah 17:9). It is clear then that spiritual warfare has much to do with battling the lies of this unholy trinity. It should not surprise us that Satan, the world, and our own flesh feed us lies to enhance the temptation of sin.

A wise Puritan said, “Satan presents the bait and hides the hook.” He is a crafty enemy that presents immediate pleasure, yet hides catastrophic consequences. There are few lies greater today than the myth that porn is free.

There is always great cost in viewing porn. It is never free. It always costs money. It will always demand we surrender integrity. It will always force the corruption of Christ-centered character. Many men have paid for so-called “free porn” with salty tears, broken marriages, and hours of counseling. Many women have paid for so-called “free porn” with vicious memories, broken bodies, and shattered souls.

God frees us by giving us the truth (John 8:32). The simple truth is that porn always costs us dearly, and it is never a victimless crime. Peer-reviewed research suggests that porn is highly addictive, negatively affects our behavior, and functionally operates as a destructive drug.

Porn has also been proven to ruin marriages, stress relationships, and decrease the desire for true intimacy with monogamous mates. In other words, porn kills relationships and diminishes our very being.

Porn also leaves a trail of tears and scarred victims. Many in the porn industry have testified of disease, drugs, violence, rape, and even sexual trafficking plaguing the business.

And above all, porn dishonors God. It perverts the sacred creation of God and exchanges it with lust, selfishness, and greed. What God created for good, porn perverts for evil. It takes his good gift of sex and devalues it. Porn makes sex about deviant pleasure, cheap romance, and gross satisfaction.

God intends sex to be so much more. God created sex for the purpose of cultivating intimacy between a man and his wife, and to be the means by which the blessing of children arrive. It is no coincidence, then, that both children and marriage are now devalued in today’s porn-ified culture.

Freedom in Jesus

Porn is sinful, and the saying about sin is still true: It will cost you more than you can pay and make you stay longer than you can stay. Sin is not controllable or stagnant. Sin is decadent. First you are walking in sin, then you are standing in sin, and before you know it you are sitting in it (Psalm 1:1–2). The same is true with porn. You think you can quit whenever you want. But you can’t. Porn is increasingly addictive, readily available, and like any other addiction more is needed the longer the practice continues. For many, porn has evolved from a curious click into a crippling addiction.

Here is the good news: There is freedom from “free porn” in Christ Jesus. The false security, enslaving escape, and luring lust of porn will only leave you empty. But in the good news of redemption in Christ, we find concrete security, promised perseverance, and true water that quenches the soul.

In Christ, we find the intimacy we truly desire as reconciled children to an almighty Father. In Christ, we find the free offer of grace that comes without any strings attached or any webs that deceitfully entangle us into bondage.

May Jesus truly set you free with the true freedom that exposes the lie of free porn.