Someone may have already counseled you to flee the scene when sexual temptation strikes — close the computer, put away your phone, leave the house, take a walk. It’s good advice. And it’s made better when we don’t just flee from sin, but flee to something. What if we took a walk and deliberately looked for something, anything, God has made? That’s what God does for Job.

Conquering sexual sin, especially the sin of indulging in pornography, takes more than internet filters and accountability reports. Good tools are priceless, even indispensable. Accountability software proved invaluable in my own battle for purity. We need good tools, just as a soldier needs good weapons. But tools and weapons are inadequate on their own.

And we know they’re inadequate, because our sexual sin isn’t something somewhere out on the internet, waiting for us to fall into its trap. “Out of the heart,” Jesus says, “come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15:19–20). Pornography, as wicked and murderous as it is, isn’t ultimately to blame for our failures. Illicitness around us taps into illicitness inside us. The whole vile industry would suffocate without our own iniquity.

The sobering reality about pornography is that our sin emerges not in front of us, but from within us. The images and videos awaken and encourage the suicidal hungers already there. That means we can download any software, apply any filter, discard any device or screen, and still not break free. We need something bigger and more powerful than software.

More than anything, we need God — his saving power, through the cross, to forgive and cancel our sin (Colossians 2:13–14), his renewing Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17), his grace and wisdom (1 Corinthians 10:13), his people to fight with us weekly, daily, hourly if necessary (Hebrews 3:13). While acknowledging this, though, many of us may have missed a mountain of help, an ocean of strength, a river of perspective and guidance, a field of superior pleasure, a forgotten well of purity. We may have misplaced an old and proven book on how to be free.

The Lost Book

God himself opens that book for us when he confronts Job and leads him to repentance. The suffering Job experienced was not a judgment against his sin (Job 1:8), but Job did sin by contending with God (Job 31:35), arguing with God over how he had been treated (Job 13:3). Every sin, especially sexual sin, can be defined as contending with God. Different sins contend differently, but all challenge the wisdom, power, and worth of the Almighty. To indulge in temptation is to defy God, to disregard his commands, to dare him to judge our sin. To sin is to say that God did not mean what he said, and that he won’t do what he promised.

So, if you were Job’s friend, and listened to him argue with God, how might you lead him to confession, repentance, and renewed purity? God does something surprising (which is also surprisingly relevant thousands of years later).

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