The following facts are shocking, but they are true.  50% of Christian men have struggled in the past or are currently battling against pornography.  20% of women currently struggle with pornography.  47% of households in America have been adversely affected in some way by pornography (this number is probably higher in reality).  This is pandemic.  This problem is so widespread that, if you have a computer in your home connected to the Internet, chances are you have already looked at inappropriate material, purposefully or not.  Images are placed on search engines so that innocent words produce polluted results.  Websites place links or ads to sites that are risqué in nature.  If you have never run across pornography on the Internet, you are certainly in the minority.  While these percentages are shocking, it is really the following information that breaks my heart.

            The first time that a child is exposed to pornography on the Internet is usually around 11 years of age.  This is the age that children start to use the Internet as a tool; as that age continues to decrease, so will the age at which children are first exposed to pornography.  Usually, it happens first by accident, and the initial reaction of most children is to close the window or hit the back button.  Even though this initial encounter is typically brief, the child’s life has been forever affected, and, many times, there are more serious results.  Recent studies have shown that children (boys and girls) are becoming addicted to pornography on the Internet by the ages of 12 and 13 years old – before they’ve even entered high school!  How can this be? 

            Explicit material may be looked at any time of the day, in anyplace, by anyone.  Children, who typically pick up on technological advances quicker than their parents, are able to keep their Internet use and online activities a secret.  Husbands – and wives – are able to keep their browsing activities hidden.  We also tend to over look the struggle half of the population is engaged in; we have heard that women are not as visually oriented as men and therefore do not struggle with pornography – this is simply not true!  According to the stats above, women are just as likely to struggle with pornography as men.  This is something that affects everyone, so it is something that should be guarded against at all costs.  We must do something, and we must decide to do something now!

            Even though there is nothing that we can do to stop the spread of filth outside of our homes, we can certainly do our best to keep it from entering.  The first step is to make a covenant with your self that you will never start looking at pornography.  If you struggle with this already, then you must make a covenant with yourself to quit and never start again.

            In Job 31.1, the patriarch states that he made a “covenant with [his] eyes”.  Job, a very intelligent man, realized that sexual temptations are serious and must be guarded against at all costs.  Job couldn’t control others, but he could control his “gaze” (Job 31.1b); Job took charge where he was able and refused to sin against God.

            This word “gaze” is a Hebrew word that means “to know with the mind”.  What Job’s covenant illustrates is the refusal “to know” a woman through the use of his imagination.  While Job may have seen many women throughout the course of his daily life, he halted his mental processes at that point.  We must have the same commitment; anything less will lead to sin.

            Job’s commitment to God is one to be admired and emulated; we must take his mindset as we try to function in this modern world.  Before we do anything else, we must make a covenant with our eyes and our minds that we will not “gaze” on other people.  After we have made a covenant with ourselves, we must make ourselves accountable to that covenant.

             This is where the Covenant Eyes software suite comes into the picture (http://www.covenanteyes.com).  Covenant Eyes does two things to help us all in our fight to remain pure before God.  Firstly, it offers a filter that is constantly updated to keep inappropriate material from ever entering your home.  A great way to keep our children safe from pornography is to prevent their ever seeing it.  This is the goal of the filter.

            However, someone looking for inappropriate material will find ways around any filter in a few weeks.  With all the different, free proxy servers available on the Internet, it is no longer a difficult thing to do.  So, there is an extra level of protection needed.  This is where the second part of Covenant Eyes comes into play.  When their software is installed on your computer, no one can use the Internet without first entering their unique username and password.  Until you “sign in”, all access to the Internet is completely blocked.  After someone has logged on, every place they go and everything they see will be monitored by Covenant Eyes.  This is the power of the software.

            There is no more sneaking around while no one is looking – you will be held accountable, by people of your own choosing, for the covenant that you have made with your eyes.  Every site visited will have a content rating based on key words, server addresses and site names.  Then, every site, every place one goes, will be made available, in list form, to accountability partners. 

            Accountability will help to keep us pure.  If someone else knows exactly what I am looking at, when I looked at it, and for how long I looked at it, then I will be very careful where I go and what I do online.  Whether we realize it or not, God knows and sees all of these things already; Covenant Eyes helps to make that reality tangible.  We can be given strength through the encouragement of others to maintain our purity before God and you will no longer have to guess where your children are going online. 

            Installing this software is not something that must be done, but certainly is something that helps.  If you are interested, I would recommend checking out their website.  There are also discounted rates for signing up in large numbers, so, if you’re interested, let me know.