Satan took the form of a serpent and tempted Eve to take the fruit which God had expressly forbidden. Eve was gullible - she believed a talking snake - so she ate it and gave it to Adam. All she did was hand him the fruit. No song & dance. No build up. She just handed it to him. Adam was not deceived. He knew what he was doing. At that very moment, they both realized their guilt. From that moment we were all plunged into sin because we are their children. It's like a terminal genetic defect and yet we are each individually responsible for our own sins. Most people claiming to be Christians don't believe Adam & Eve were real people but they were. They were. You and I are their actual physical descendents.

How can this be? The prohibition against marrying close kin didn't come until the Law of Moses, a good 2500 years after creation. Until then, it was common to take a wife from one's own family - starting with sisters. We are their actual descendents and we carry their sin nature. We are born with it and we are willing accomplices to it.

In the Evangelical Christian culture, we know what most of the rules are even if we don't take them very seriously. We also know that the Messiah came in the form of a man - eternal God and finite man in one - and he paid the fair penalty for Adam's sin and our sins too through his crucifiction. The New Testament clearly states that we can enter the Kingdom of God by faith in Jesus. Just as Adam & Eve left the Kingdom by their act of faithlessness (believing a lie), we can re-enter it by rejecting our sinful lifestyle and living a life of faithfulness (personal trust & humble dedication) in God because of what the Messiah, Jesus Christ, did for us. You know the Gospel, I don't have to repeat it here for you, do I? Faith is the step and Messiah is the doorway. It is a conscious act of will that is inspired by God. If we do not renounce sin and leave the old lifstyle behind, our "faith" isn't real.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Our relationship with God the father, God the Messiah (son) and God the Holy Spirit starts with our need to learn from him. Think about it for a moment. If we were born with complete knowledge of God and the universe then we would have nothing to talk to Him about! "Come to me... Learn from me." Christ wants to talk with you and be in personal fellowship with you. Far too many Christians fail to understand this. They look at God as a tool. They pray prayers in order to get what they want. Like the teenager who never speaks to his dad except to ask for money. That's not much of a relationship, it's just a start. Likewise, Jehova God desires a sincere loving friendship with each of us.

When you take a step of real faith, abandoning your former sinful life and take Messiah's hand (so to speak) then he will hold you up. He will teach you. He will draw you closer into fellowship with himself. You will spend the rest of your life learning from him and walking with him and growing in wisdom as you read the scriptures and talk with him. Don't expect him to talk back to you through the ceiling but He will guide you providentially to scriptures and people and places and speak to your heart in ways I can't describe. It's an amazing thing. The Holy Spirit is closer and more intimately involved in a true believer's life than any brother, sister, husband, child or parent could ever be. He knows how rotten you really are deep down and he loves you anyway - because your guilt has been transferred to Jesus who conquered it.

God is Real. Messiah will judge everyone at the last day. It's frightening reality. He is just and perfect but he is also eager to forgive repentant sinners who humbly come to him with a sincerely regretful heart. You have an invitation from God to re-enter the kingdom by faith in Jesus Christ the Messiah and it doesn't matter how bad your former sins are as long as you intend to leave them behind.

How does all this relate to my man's porn addiction? Ladies, God cannot used you in his life until you're an empty vessel, totally yielded to his purpose. If you're still full of your own ideals and expectations of what a good man should be then God can't use you here.

The Christian porn User: How do we know they're really repentant? How can wives have confidence that their porn-addicted pastors and husbands are really in God's kingdom?

Firstly, only God knows the heart. But it's no way out to simply dismiss everyone's sin on that basis. When God shines a light on someone's sin - whatever the sin is - then that means he wants it dealt with. A genuine Christian is someone who is willing to deal with their sin when God asks them to. And what's more, a true Christian is someone on whose sin God often shines a light. If a person claims to be a Christian and yet remains comfortable or indifferent about his obvious sin (lying, gossiping, fornicating etc.) then you should be very suspicious.

Secondly, sex sin is more complicated than it appears. When porn grows deep roots in a mans life over the years, it can take lots of time to get it out. Why? Porn isn't a singular problem. Porn is a teacher of lies. When you believe lies for a long time, it really messes you up! It's like being in a cult. Picking up a magazine or visiting the wrong website are symptoms of a paradigm problem, a wrong world-view. It's like believing the earth is flat. Asking God to miraculously "take away the urge" is like asking for a brain transplant. It doesn't work like that...he needs to learn & believe the truth. That is a matter of education and conviction, not healing.

Remember what Jesus said, "...Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." "LEARN FROM ME". He needs to be God's full-time student, not the dragon's. He has to stop listening to lies and instead fill his mind with the truth.

But the truth is often painful. Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." That is a very frightening thing to anyone but particularly to a man in porn's deceptive grasp. Porn appears to offer endless pleasure and God truth appears to offer only pain. That's a hard sell.

Your job is to quietly live the truth before him and let the Lord provide your strength.
Nehemiah 8:10b "Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
Galatians 5:1 "Walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."
1 Peter 3:1-2 "In the same way, you wives, [honor] your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior."
Proverbs 25:21-22 "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For you will heap burning coals on his head, And the LORD will reward you."
Isaiah 40:31 "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Psalm 56:8 "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?"

What lies does Pornography teach? Lie #1: sex will fulfill all your needs for intimacy. Lie #2: sex will fulfill all your needs for power. Lie #3: sex will fulfill all your needs for respect. Lie #4: imaginary sex doesn't hurt anybody.

God help us to believe the truth instead of lies!

This path I suggest can be a bumpy ride. This is spiritual warfare of a very real nature. Fits of anxiety, times of sudden depression & doubt, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, prayer times that envelope you.... expect these. Stay on track, keep praying, keep learning, keep loving in a 1st Corinthians 13 way. Yield to God and make sure it really is God you're yielding to. Don't participate in his sin. Confess your sins. Go all the way.

Here are some great places you should start your education: Pure Life Ministries, Grace To You

If your're not totally convinced that Adam & Eve were real living breathing people who lived about 6000 years ago at the beginning of the world then do some research here: answersingenesis.org If you won't go all the way with this then you can't expect him to.