Generations ago, before video games and other electronic gadgetry became so commonplace, free time after school for boys my age meant playing outside—often until dark—games of hide-and-seek, riding bikes, exploring, climbing trees, and building forts. When we came home for dinner, hand-washing was a must. A boy who tried to fool his way to the dinner table without washing his hands would have to pass the ultimate gatekeeper—his mother saying, “Show me your hands!”
Times have changed. One writer says that nowadays when encouraged by their parents to play outside, the children say, “We don’t need to! We have the Discovery Channel!” Our electronic age has brought the outside world inside. Sadly, it has also introduced into many homes a new kind of dirt—pornography—aimed not only at boys but at their fathers and grandfathers.
The numbers are frightening:
- 12% of the websites on the Internet are pornographic.
- Every second, 28,258 Internet viewers are looking at pornography.
- 40 million Americans are regular visitors to porn sites.
- 1 in 3 porn viewers are women.
- 70% of men age 18-24 visit porn sites in a typical month.
- 2.5 billion E-mails every day are pornographic … that’s 8% of all e-mails.
- 35% of all Internet downloads are pornographic.
- Utah has the nation’s highest online porn subscription rate per thousand home broadband users.
- There are 116,000 searches for “child pornography” every day.
- The average age at which a child first sees pornography: 11.
- 20% of men and 13% of women admit to watching pornography at work.
- The least popular day for watching pornography online: Thanksgiving. The most popular day: Sunday.
(Sources can be found here: http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/the-stats-on-internet-porn/)
Those who use tobacco are given away by the odor about them. Not so with pornography. The user can show up for work or church—even wearing his Sunday best—and none will be the wiser. But for those who are spiritually sensitive, there is a way to detect this problem—looking into the eyes.
Jesus said, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22). “Touching” pornography with our eyes extinguishes the light in them, replacing it with a hollow darkness. Reflecting on the sinful decisions that eventually ruined his life, King David said, “As for the light of mine eyes, it is also gone from me” (Psalms 38:10). For those who choose to feast their eyes on pornographic images, it will surely be as commentator Paul Harvey once said, “These days many young eyes are prematurely old from countless compromises with conscience” (President James E. Faust, “The Light in Their Eyes,” Oct. 2005 general conference).
The change in one’s eyes is not figurative. It is a literal change, discernible to those who are spiritually observant. This was confirmed to me by a man who had served as a stake president, regional representative, and mission president. One day he was at an airport, awaiting the arrival of Elder Spencer W. Kimball. After the flight arrived, they were walking out of the airport, and Elder Kimball suddenly said, “President, let’s sit down a moment and visit.”
They were outside in the bright sun, and the stake president had his sunglasses on. Elder Kimball looked at him and said, very seriously, “President, please remove your sunglasses. I want to see your eyes.” The eyes of that man were a literal window into his soul. To the Lord’s seer, they would certainly reveal the things that those eyes had “touched.”
Unlike the dirt of my boyhood, pornography leaves no visible clues on the hands. One can secretly immerse himself in it and then come to dinner—or church—or the temple—without revealing what they’ve been handling because the “handling” was done with the eyes. When the prophet Alma counseled, “Come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things” (Alma 5:57), surely he meant not only what we touch with our hands but with our eyes as well.
I pray that we may come to the table of the Lord with the confidence that comes from pure choices—not needing to turn our heads in shame when the Lord says, “Your hands are clean, but let me look into your eyes.”
PS: Watch great message here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWQ5dPeixdw
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