365 kicks in the pants for the Christian man who wants to overcome porn addiction biblically
Eternity will be wonderful, but there is one thing heaven will not contain.
Eternity will be wonderful, but there is one thing heaven will not contain, and that is the call, the possibility, and the privilege of living a supernatural life here and now by faith, before we meet Jesus face to face.
Francis Schaeffer
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.
We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and efficiency for the Gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organization. God’s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God’s method. The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” The world’s salvation comes out of that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character of the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their success.
The glory and efficiency of the Gospel is staked on the men who proclaim it. When God declares that “the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect tow
If you want to stop masturbation as a Christian, get your guidance from the source. Follow these biblical steps to stop masturbating.
When is the last time you heard a really great sermon about masturbation? Never, right? Masturbation is one of those topics that’s off-limits in the pulpit but commonplace in the pews. It’s one of those sins that no one wants to discuss but lots of people want to commit. If you want to learn how to stop masturbation as a Christian, you need to get your guidance another way. So here it is. Here are some biblical steps to take to stop masturbating.
Step 1: Admit Your Sin
Psalm 32:5
Step 2: Forsake Pornography
Matthew 5:28-29
Step 3: Resist the Devil
James 4:7
Step 4: Take Every Thought Captive
2 Corinthians 10:3-6
If the heart be chiefly and directly fixed on God, and the soul engaged to glorify him, some degree of religious affection will be the effect and attendant of it.
If the heart be chiefly and directly fixed on God, and the soul engaged to glorify him, some degree of religious affection will be the effect and attendant of it. But to seek after affection directly and chiefly; to have the heart principally set upon that; is to place it in the room of God and his glory. If it be sought, that others may take notice of it, and admire us for our spirituality and forwardness in religion, it is then damnable pride; if for the sake of feeling the pleasure of being affected, it is then idolatry and self-gratification.
Excerpted from The Life of Rev. David Brainerd, from the diary of David Brainerd, edited by Jonathan Edwards. Public domain.
With evil thoughts that come flashing into our minds, we have to fight them. We are not to harbor them. We are not to entertain them.
We are not to blame for having bad thoughts come into our minds. If we harbor them, then we are to blame. But if the devil comes and darts an evil thought into my mind, and I say, “Lord help me,” sin is not reckoned to me. Who has not had evil thoughts come into his mind, flash into his heart, and been called to fight them!
One old divine says, “You are not to blame for the birds that fly over your head, but if you allow them to come down and make a nest in your hair, then you are to blame. You are to blame if you don’t fight them off.” And so with these evil thoughts that come flashing into our minds; we have to fight them, we are not to harbor them; we are not to entertain them. If I have evil thoughts come into my mind, and evil desires, it is no sign that I have committed the unpardonable sin. If I love these thoughts and harbor them, and think evil of God, and think Jesus Christ a blasphemer, I am responsible for such gross iniquity; but if I charge Him with being the prince of devils, then I am committing the unpardonable sin.
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One way to quit porn is to appreciate that your sin harms others. Your sexual immorality involves more than just you.
Watching pornography isn’t a victimless crime. Each time you look at a woman to lust after her, you sin against four people. One way to quit porn is to appreciate that your sin harms others. Your sexual immorality involves more than just you.
“Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight— that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.”
Psalm 51:4
Psalm 51 is a prayer of repentance. The author is David. He wrote this psalm after Nathan the prophet confronted him about his adultery with Bathsheba, and about his sin in orchestrating events so that Bathsheba’s husband would be killed in battle so that David could have his wife. You read about these events in
“Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
Romans 13:13-14
Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?
Corrie Ten Boom
God will not make you a mighty warrior if he does not intend to try your skill in battle.
It is a tough battle which the Christian is called to fight; not one which carpet knights might win; no easy skirmish which he might gain, who dashed to battle on some sunshiny day, looked at the host, then turned his courser’s rein, and daintily dismounted at the door of his silken tent. It is not a campaign which he shall win, who, but a raw recruit to-day, foolishly imagines that one week of service will insure a crown of glory. It is a life-long war; a contest which will require all our strength, if we are to be triumphant; a battle at which the stoutest heart might quail; a fight from which the bravest would shrink, did he not remember that the Lord is on his side; therefore whom shall he fear? God is the strength of his life: of whom shall he be afraid? This fight is not one of main force, or physical might; if it were, we might the sooner win it; but it is all the more dangerous from the fact that it is a strife of mind, a contest of heart, a struggle of the spirit—ofttimes an agony of the soul.
Do you wonder that the Christian is called to conflict? God nev
To defeat sexual sin, you must understand yourself. Start with the Five Ws and the One H of your sexual temptation.
When journalists want to get to the bottom of a news story, they ask the Five Ws and the One H. They ask about the Who, What, Why, Where, When and How. If you want to conquer sexual temptation, particularly the temptation to look at pornography or to masturbate, you must uncover the Five Ws and the One H of your sexual temptation. To defeat sexual sin, you must understand yourself. And that means discovering your six types of triggers.
Let’s start with the Who of sexual temptation. Who tempts you to commit sexual sin? Who do you lust after? Who lusts after you?
As you read your Bible, you discover that men have been tempted to sin sexually for centuries. Most of them were tempted to sin with a particular woman. Job was tempted to lust after
Overcoming a temptation to sin sexually makes the suffering end at once. But not for long.
“For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”
Hebrews 2:18
For decades I followed the advice of Oscar Wilde, who famously said, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” That advice is foolish, of course. But if you have ever been in the grip of a powerful desire to sin sexually, and if that desire has attacked you for some length of time, you know the level of suffering involved. And you know that one way to make that agony end is to simply give in and commit the sin. The temptation vanishes. The suffering ends.
Oscar Wilde was correct in one aspect—giving in to sexual temptation works. But only for a season. If you are feeling unbelievably horny, for example, and are feeling tempted to masturbate, you likely know that giving in and committing the sin makes the temptation go away immediately. You gain instant relief. You are tempted no longer. But not forever. The problem with m
Let us see to it that the devil will hold a thanksgiving service in hell, when he gets the news of our departure from the field of battle.
Let us not glide through this world and then slip quietly into heaven, without having blown the trumpet loud and long for our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Let us see to it that the devil will hold a thanksgiving service in hell, when he gets the news of our departure from the field of battle.
C. T. Studd
My Christian testimony of how I came to know my sins forgiven because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for me.
How many people does it take to lead somebody to the Lord? You want to find out? Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark, chapter two.
And again he entered into Capernaum, after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. nd straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man&n
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What is the meaning of 1 Thessalonians 4:3? What is the will of God? What is sanctification? What is sexual immorality? Find out.
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3
Part of the reason you are drawn back to your habitual sin is not your fault. If pornography was only available in public, you would be sexually pure.
This post is part three of a three-part series. Pornography is a snare because it is:
Available | Affordable | Anonymous
If you have been struggling with pornography for anywhere close to as long as I did as a Christian man (30 years), the primary cause of your habitual sin is readily explained—you haven’t been caught. Pornography is powerful precisely because it’s private. It’s the sin you do in secret that no one knows about. Not your spouse. Not your kids. Not your work colleagues. Not your brothers in the Lord. Not your church leaders. You are ensnared in porn because it’s anonymous.</
God never tests us beyond our ability to endure . . . but , bestows on us graces that will enable us to endure as we show our acceptance of whatever He sends our way.
Along with this total abandonment must go a complete acceptance of God’s will with equanimity and resignation. No matter what troubles and ills come our way, they are to be willingly and indeed joyously endured since they come from God, and God knows what He is doing. This trust must be unreserved with no thought of reward, but inevitably God will reward the person who so believes and endures with graces and treasures far beyond any sacrifices or offerings he or she has made since He is infinitely good. Also, God never tests us beyond our ability to endure and, as a matter of fact, bestows on us graces that will enable us to endure as we show our acceptance of whatever He sends our way.
Excerpted from The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of a Holy Life, by Brother Lawrence. Public domain.
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Porn’s affordability is partly why you are in the trouble you are in. If it was crazy difficult to get hold of and impossibly expensive to acquire, you would be free.
This post is part two of a three-part series. Pornography is a snare because it is:
Available | Affordable | Anonymous
There was a time when pornography was avoidable because it was unaffordable. Christian men like you and me had an easier time staying sexually pure because every form of pornography on the market, whether the open market or the black market, cost something. This made the battle for purity a lot easier because men never got snared by something they couldn’t afford.
The economics of porn in those days was simple: the harder the porn, the higher the price. So
You may be hooked on porn, but the easy availability of this sin isn’t your fault.
This post is part one of a three-part series. Pornography is a snare because it is:
Available | Affordable | Anonymous
You are living during the worst time in human history as far as sexual temptation is concerned. You face more temptations, of greater strength, in more places, at more times of the day, than any other man has faced in the past. Which means, if you struggle with pornography, part of your struggle is not your fault. Yes, your sexual sin is your responsibility. But the pervasiveness of porn isn’t.
Your challenge as a Christian man is that pornography is Avail
Paul is not concerned about finding sexual sin in the church as much as he is afraid of finding believers who haven’t repented of their sexual sin.
“For I fear lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you such as you do not wish; lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbitings, whisperings, conceits, tumults; lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and lewdness which they have practiced.”
2 Corinthians 12:20-21
Is your challenge pornography? Or is it repentance? Are you struggling against sexual immorality? Or are you struggling against repentance? Is you problem that you can’t quit? Or is it that you won’t quit?
When you read the New Testament letter of 1 Corinthians, you discover that the church at Corinth had all manner of problems. The church members were suing each other in court. Some members were claiming spiritual superiority over others in th
A life free from sufferings and sacrifices our Lord has not promised, and the Apostles did not enjoy.
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.
Matthew 6:19
That the hearty reception of this principle may be connected, by natural consequence, with many and great difficulties in this life—no one, who knows any thing of human nature, as opposed to the nature of Christ’s kingdom, or the Gospel History, can doubt. In this world’s history, great things are not accomplished but by great sacrifices. A life free from sufferings and sacrifices our Lord has not promised, and the Apostles did not enjoy. Such a portion they did not even expect, but were always prepared to live on the remembrance of the “faithful saying–If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him”. It should therefore be no question of ours whether, in literally fulfilling our Saviour’s command, we shall be subjected to many sufferings and privations, or not. The question is–Is it the command of Him, who loved us too well to enjoin any thing but for our good; and whether in his sovereign arrangement, the embracing of it may not
If you want to escape God’s judgment, escape your sexual immorality. Lot escaped the sexually immoral city of Sodom while he had the chance. You should, too.
“Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”
Genesis 19:17
God’s advice for the Christian man who watches pornography can be summed up in one word—escape! God will have mercy on you just as He had mercy on Lot, but only if you obey God, escape the wicked city, don’t look back, and go to live somewhere safe.
Lot was a righteous man who lived with his wife and family in Sodom, a city so wicked that the Bible uses the name of the city as a symbol of wickedness. Its destruction at the hands of the Lord is held up as a warning to sinners of coming judgment (Jude 7). God had mercy on Lot and his family by giving them a chance to leave the city before it was consumed from heaven with fire and brimstone.
Today, if your life
There is one fact under the government of God, worthy of universal notice, and of everlasting remembrance; which is, that the most useful and important things are most easily and certainly obtained by the use of the appropriate means.
There has long been an idea prevalent that promoting religion has something very peculiar in it, not to be judged of by the ordinary rules of cause and effect; in short, that there is no connection of the means with the result, and no tendency in the means to produce the effect. No doctrine is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the church, and nothing more absurd.
Suppose a man were to go and preach this doctrine among farmers, about their sowing grain. Let him tell them that God is a sovereign, and will give them a crop only when it pleases him, and that for them to plow and plant and labor as if they expected to raise a crop is very wrong, and taking the work out of the hands of God, that it interferes with his sovereignty, and is going on in their own strength: and that there is no connection between the means and the result on which they can depend. And now, suppose the farmers should believe such doctrine. Why, they would starve the world to death.
Just s
If you are struggling with pornography, if it has a grip on you that you seem unable to shake, be encouraged. I went porn-free for six months. You can, too.
I looked at pornography as a Christian for 30 years. In all that time, I knew that my sin was wicked, and that God hated it. I wanted to quit. I tried to quit, multiple times, and in multiple ways. And I did achieve sexual purity for a season. But I never lasted for long. That all changed when my 30th anniversary as a Christian arrived. I finally realized how ridiculous it all was, me still struggling with a besetting sin after 30 years for crying out loud. So, I got serious, and made some drastic changes in my life to quit porn.
Today marks my six-month anniversary of not looking at pornography and not doing the physical act that usually follows it. I have learned a few lessons on this journey, so here they are.
What is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 10:13? What does “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man” mean? Take this quiz and find out.
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
In my daily battle against porn, when I ensure that my sin will find me out, it does. And that makes all the difference. Vulnerability leads to victory.
“But if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the LORD; and be sure your sin will find you out.”
Numbers 32:23
Four of the most beautiful words ever written in the English language are: “We Believe in You.” I see these four words each morning when I boot up my computer. They are found in a daily email report that I receive from Covenant Eyes, the company I use to block porn and hold me accountable online.
The Covenant Eyes app, installed on my desktop, laptop and tablet (and smartphone, if I still had one), keeps me accountable by taking screenshots of where I go and what I do on my devices. Covenant Eyes uses artificial intelligence to detect explicit content. When it catches me looking at pornography or nudity, it takes a screenshot and sends it to my accountability partner. The AI catches explicit content on websites, in apps, in downloaded images and videos, and in DVDs. Basically, if porn appears on my screen, Covenant Eyes knows about it, and tells on me. As you can imag
May God save you from any such mock salvation as this.
A man is either under the dominion of sin, or else he is delivered from it. If he is under the dominion of sin, what an awful theory is that which makes him believe he is saved. Could the devil have invented a more damning theory than that? And yet, alas! Alas! He allures millions to destruction through it, who otherwise would take alarm and begin to seek salvation. He says to all the qualms of conscience and the pangs of remorse, “You are all right, you believe this or the other, your faith is orthodox, you are safe,” frequently quoting separated or mutilated texts to back up his lying insinuations, such as “By faith ye are saved;” “he that believeth shall be saved,” “you are complete in Him,” etc.
This latter phrase has come to express, in numbers of instances, the most utter ruin to which the human soul can be brought. “Complete in Christ”–complete without any true repentance, without any offering of the heart, without the slightest change inward or outward “complete in Him,” while living without Him, and having no conscious connection with Him whatever; complete
The Bible warns that you can fall away in unbelief and become severed from your saving union with God through Christ. Heed the warnings. Don’t believe the lie.
“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.'”
Genesis 3:4
If you are a Christian man struggling to conquer your habitual sin of watching pornography, your problem may be that you believe the same lie that Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden. The lie that Eve believed. The lie that she and Adam acted upon. The lie that brought death—physical and spiritual—upon them and all mankind.
Satan whispers this same lie to you whenever you are tempted to look at pornography or masturbate. You know that these sins are wrong, but Satan tells you otherwise.
I eventually got 24 hours of freedom from porn and masturbation. That turned into a week. Then a month. Then multiple months. You can, too.
I looked at pornography for the first time at age 11 and for the last time at age 61. November 2021 is when I got serious about kicking my filthy habit and forsaking my wicked sin. Gaining victory in this area of my life required 10 painful steps. Your results may vary, but if you take these 10 steps you may gain victory as well. Here they are.
A revival is among other things a return to the belief that real faith invariably produces holiness of heart and righteousness of life.
A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to “accept” Christ without forsaking the world. But what saith the Holy Ghost? “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4), and “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (I John 2:15) . This requires no comment, only obedience.
We may also erroneously assume that we can experience justification without transformation. Justification and regeneration are not the same; they may be thought apart in theology but they can never be experienced apart in fact. When God declares a man righteous He instantly sets about to make him righteous. Our error today is that we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians. A revival is among other things a return to the belief that real faith invariably produces holiness of heart and righteousness of life.
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Absolute surrender. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us.
God has created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the flowers, and the trees, and the grass; and are they not all absolutely surrendered to God? Do they not allow God to work in them just what He pleases? When God clothes the lily with its beauty, is it not yielded up, surrendered, given over to God as He works in its beauty? And God’s redeemed children, oh, can you think that God can work His work if there is only half or a part of them surrendered? God cannot do it. God is life, and love, and blessing, and power, and infinite beauty, and God delights to communicate Himself to every child who is prepared to receive Him; but ah! this one lack of absolute surrender is just the thing that hinders God. And now He comes, and as God, He claims it.
You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing, and that pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with i
Pornography is a sin issue. And sin issues require biblical remedies. If you want to learn how to quit porn, learn what the Bible says on the topic. Then obey what you read.
Sexual Sin Requires a Biblical Remedy
2 Peter 1:3
Step 1
Abstain from Sexual Immorality
1 Thessalonians 4:3
Step 2
Make No Provision for the Flesh
Romans 13:14
Step 3
Pluck Out Your Right Eye and Cast it Away
Matthew 5:27-30
Step 4
Flee Sexual Immorality
1 Corinthians 6:18
This is the noose which Satan throws over the head of the poor child of man in order to strangle him.
By the temptation of faith is meant that the evil conscience drives out of a person his confidence in the pardoning grace of God, and leads him to imagine that God is angry and wishes the death of the sinner, or that, in other words, the conscience places Moses upon the judgment-seat, and casts down the Savior of sinners from the throne of grace. This is the strongest, greatest and severest temptation of the devil, that he says: ‘God is the enemy of sinners, you are a sinner, therefore, God is your enemy.’ This is the noose which Satan throws over the head of the poor child of man in order to strangle him.
Martin Luther. Source unknown.
Not every man who consumes pornography becomes a serial killer, of course. But every serial killer consumes pornography.
“For wickedness burns as the fire; it shall devour the briers and thorns, and kindle in the thickets of the forest; they shall mount up like rising smoke.”
Isaiah 9:18
On the day before he died by execution in the electric chair, serial killer Ted Bundy shared his thoughts on pornography. He shared them with James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family. Bundy had spent almost 15 of the preceding years in prison with inmates guilty of similar crimes. He had spent a lot of time thinking about why he was where he was in life. Here’s what he told Dobson:
“I’ve lived in prison for a long time now, and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence. Without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography, deeply consumed by the addiction. The F.B.I.’s own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography.”
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Once you translate your generic sin of sexual immorality into your specific sexual sin, you are on your way to achieving sexual purity.
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.”
Acts 15:28-29
One key to conquering sexual sin is specificity. Once you start describing your sins specifically, rather than seeing them in the abstract, you gain the insight you need to confess them, ask forgiveness for them, and forsake them. A valuable exercise is to take every generic mention of sexual sin and to make it apply to you specifically.
Consider the early church, for example. Jewish converts were troubling Gentile converts by telling them they had to be circumcised and keep the law. So, the church gathered and settled the matter. They proclaimed that Gentile believers in Christ had to obey only four things:
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Let us never despair because of our limited success.
No one can travel so far that he does not make some progress each day. So let us never give up. Then we shall move forward daily in the Lord’s way. And let us never despair because of our limited success. Even though it is so much less than we would like, our labour is not wasted when today is better than yesterday!
John Calvin
Excerpted from Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. Public domain.
A man who looks at pornography habitually is, by definition, living according to the flesh. Unless he forsakes his sin, He will die and be separated from God for all eternity.
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Romans 8:13
Do you treat forgiveness as a pre-paid credit card? Do you sin sexually, repeatedly and habitually because you believe your sins—past, present, future—are all forgiven, no matter what, guaranteed? Do you look at pornography and masturbate, week in, week out, knowing that on every occasion you can always rely on God for His forgiveness because God is obligated to forgive you?
If you look at pornography and masturbate but want to stop, your inability to conquer your sin might just be tied to your misunderstanding of eternal security. If you believe you are “once saved, always saved” and that you can never fall away, you need to read your New Testament. Every writer in the New Testament warns believers about falling away. When commissioning the 12 disciples, Christ warns them five times about falling away.
When you view pornography, you support human traffickers. You support the kind of evil men that Solomon warns you about.
“When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness; who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked; whose ways are crooked, and who are devious in their paths.”
Proverbs 2:10-15
Forty-nine percent of women who have worked as prostitutes report being filmed by their traffickers or customers. This video footage is often streamed or later distributed without their knowledge or consent. This means you have no way of knowing if the women in the porn you watch are willing participants. In many cases, they are not.
When you view pornography, you support human traffickers. You support the kind of men that Solomon warns you about, the men that speak perverse things, the men who walk in the ways of
Perform the positive actions that God commands, and you’ll have a positive day today, free of sexual sin.
If you are a Christian man who has been struggling to overcome pornography or masturbation for some time, you may feel that the only path to victory is a life of self-denial. You may feel that the weight of scripture on this topic is a long list of “Thou shalt nots.” But the opposite is the case, particularly in the New Testament. The path to sexual purity is a list of things you are to do. Victory over sexual sin comes through what you do, not simply what you don’t do. Here are the top-10 actions you are commanded to take to live a life of sexual purity.
From Genesis to Revelation, you discover that people who love the Lord fear the Lord. And those who fear the Lord obey the Lord.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.”
Psalm 111:10
If you want to quit porn, fear God. If you want wisdom, fear God. If you want to discover why you sin sexually, habitually, fear God. If you want to overcome sexual temptation, fear God. If you want to gain victory over your sexual immorality, fear God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
One of the problems in the church today (in the church in North America, at least) is that men don’t fear God anymore. There was a time when people would refer to a devout Christian man as “a God-fearing man.” How quaint. Today, we don’t tremble at God’s word. We don’t shake with fear at His judgments. We don’t cower in His presence. And because we don’t fear God, we don’t obey God. And because we don’t obey God, we lack victory over sexual sin.
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We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world and the spiritual agents are from the very headquarters of evil.
We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world and the spiritual agents are from the very headquarters of evil. Therefore, we must wear the “whole armour of God,” that we may be able to resist evil in its day of power, and that even when we have fought to a standstill, we may still stand our ground.
Corrie Ten Boom
The biblical remedy for porn, masturbation and sexual immorality isn’t complicated. It can be summed up in one word.
“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”
Titus 2:11-12 NIV
Want to know the secret to quitting porn? Quit porn. Want to know the secret to not masturbating? Don’t masturbate. I realize that this sounds like simplistic advice, because it is. The guaranteed way to quit sexual immorality is to quit sexual immorality. That’s what the Bible says.
How do you quit porn? Say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions. How do you quit masturbation? Say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions. That’s the formula, that’s the proven method, that’s the biblical remedy. It’s not complicated.
Celebrate Recovery, Sexaholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs complicate this issue of forsaking sexual sin. <a href="https://www.celebraterecovery.co
If you are serious about quitting pornography, you must avoid the video-sharing sites that arouse you sexually.
“Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
Romans 13:14
Recovering drug addicts don’t carry heroin in their pockets. Recovering alcoholics don’t visit bars. And Christian men who want to quit pornography don’t mindlessly surf video-sharing sites. If you want to conquer your sinful flesh, you must make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts. This means getting off YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, TikTok and other video-sharing sites that host inappropriate videos.
I’m not talking about pornographic video sites. I’m talking about the popular sites that host videos that feature nudity, sexual inuendo, young women in bikinis, racy music videos, undressing, sex scenes from movies and TV shows, pool scenes, shower scenes, and more. Videos don’t have to be pornographic to be off limits. If they fulfil your lusts, they have to go.
If you are serious about quitting pornograp
Let me be employed by You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low by You.
Lord, I am no longer my own, but Yours. Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will. Let me be employed by You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low by You. Let me have all things, let me have nothing, I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You are mine and I am Yours. So be it. Amen.
John Wesley
The secret to resisting sexual temptation is knowing not just the what of escape, but also the when. You must take God’s way of escape when He offers it. You must take your U-turn when you are given the chance.
“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13
Sexual sin is not an act, but a sequence. It begins with a trigger, and ends with an act. If you want to avoid the sinful act at the end of the sequence, you must make a U-turn long before you get there. If you want to take the way of escape that God always offers when you are tempted, you must know when to take it.
This is the key to understanding the promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13—timing. Don’t expect God to offer you a door, or a window, or some other physical means of escape when you are tempted sexually. The way of escape that God provides is a window of opportunity, typically measured in mere minutes, maybe even just seconds. If you want to avoid the sexual sin, you mu
If you want to be set free from the slavery of pornography and masturbation, by all means seek the truth. But make that the end of your search, not the beginning.
“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”
John 8:31-32
Some Christian men think victory over sexual immorality comes through knowledge. “If I just read the right books, if I just attend the best recovery group, if I just work the 12 steps or complete the right NoFap Challenge, I will learn what I have to learn about myself and my childhood trauma, and then I will be free,” they think. Some of these misguided brothers even quote Jesus, who said, “The truth shall make you free.”
But this is not all that Jesus said, is it? You can’t expect to attain sexual purity by believing in or acting upon only a portion of what Jesus teaches. A text taken out of context is simply a pretext—a pretext for believing whatever you want. So, notice the context. Jesus is speaking to Jews who believe in Him. These a
Sexual purity comes when you change what you believe. Or, rather, when you change who you believe.
“And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him.”
John 13:2
Your battle for sexual purity takes place in your mind. You may think that pornographic websites are the enemy, or that immodestly dressed women are the problem. You may even think you are an addict. But if you watch pornography habitually, if you masturbate compulsively, but long to quit, you must first realize that you don’t have a sexual problem—you have a thinking problem.
Your enemy is the devil. And the battleground is your mind. The devil puts thoughts and desires and beliefs into your mind, just as he did with Judas. Judas probably thought that betraying Jesus was his idea. But where did that idea come from in the first place? From the devil. The devil put the thought of betrayal into the heart of Judas.
In the Bible, the heart refers to
Spiritually begins to have real meaning in our lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God.
rivalry between two men to get the leadrship; surreal concept
To be really Bible-believing Christians we need to practice, simultaneously, at each step of the way, two biblical principles.
One principle is that of the purity of the visible church. Scripture commands that we must do more than just talk about the purity of the visible church; we must actually practice it, even when it is costly.
The second principle is that of an observable love among all true Christians. In the flesh we can stress purity without love, or we can stress love without purity; we cannot stress both simultaneously. To do so we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ and to the Holy Spirit. Without that, a stress on purity becomes hard, proud, and legalistic; likewise without it a stress on love becomes sheer compromise.
Spiritually begins to have real meaning in our lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God. We never do this perfectly, but we must look to the living Christ to help us do it truly.<
rivalry between two men to get the leadrship; surreal concept
Where pornography is concerned, I don’t need to understand how Jesus will make me well. I just have to want Him to.
“When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”
John 5:6
I struggled with pornography for 30 years as a Christian man before I finally gave it up. I don’t know why I took so long. I knew that looking at inappropriate images was sin. I knew that lusting at women caused me to commit adultery. But still I struggled to get victory. I was like the man at the Pool of Bethesda, who had an infirmity for 38 years and still hadn’t been cured.
I think my problem was that I couldn’t imagine a life without porn. I had tried for so many years to quit that I had lost perspective on what was even possible. I knew in my heart that pornography was sin. But I also knew in my head that the temptation to view it was strong, that falling to temptation was so easy, and that I had a track record of quitting and then failing. I had resigned myself to probably never gettin
The longer you remain in the world of euphemism and abstraction, the longer you remain in your sin. Biblical victory over sin requires a biblical vocabulary.
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!“
Isaiah 5:20
I began getting victory over the sexual sin in my life when I started calling it what it is. When I stopped using the vocabulary of sexual addiction, when I abandoned the euphemisms of 12-step recovery programs, I gained clarity. I saw my sin the way God sees it. I understood the penalty that awaits me if I don’t repent. And I finally understood the biblical steps I had to take to attain, and maintain, sexual purity—and why.
The closer you draw to God’s Word, the closer you get to understanding His revealed will. Once you start describing your sin the way God describes it, you start thinking in biblical terms about your sanctification. Coming to terms with your sexual immorality requires you to come to terms with what God says on the subject. The longer you remain in the world of euphemi
Jesus teaches that there are people who will be thrown into the Lake of Fire who thought they were saved and eternally secure. Don’t be one of them.
“Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.”
1 John 3:6
There is only one thing worse than being saved but having no assurance, and that is being lost but having assurance. The man who engages in pornography, masturbation and other sexual sins habitually and compulsively and yet thinks he is on his way to glory is the man most to be pitied. He thinks he has eternal security when all he has is a track record of ongoing disobedience that proves he is not a child of God.
This is the clear teaching of 1 John 3:6: “No one who abides in Him [who remains united in fellowship with Him—deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin. No one who habitually sins has seen Him or known Him.” Amplified Bible.
Abiding in Christ is incompatible with h
The Lord Jesus Christ ministers to you in two distinct ways. He reconciles you to God by His death, and He saves you by His life.
There is something which makes Christianity more than a religion, more than an ethic, and more than the idle dream of the sentimental idealist. It is this something which makes it relevant to each one of us right now as a contemporary experience. It is the fact that Christ Himself is the very life content of the Christian faith. It is He who makes it “tick.” “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (I Thessalonians 5:24). The One who calls you is the One who does that to which He calls you. “For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). He is Himself the very dynamic of all His demands.
Christ did not die simply that you might be saved from a bad conscience, or even to remove the stain of past failure, but to “clear the decks” for divine action. You have been told that Christ died to save you. This is gloriously true in a very limited, though vital sense. In Romans 5:10 we read, “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconcile
If your phone causes you to sin by helping you look at porn, trade it in for a model that can’t access the internet. You’ll avoid fire in this life, and fire in the life to come.
“Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared? So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent.”
Proverbs 6:27-29
Alaska Airlines flight 751 from New Orleans to Seattle was at cruise altitude when a passenger’s Samsung Galaxy A21 phone overheated and began sparking. The flight crew used fire extinguishers to quench the flames. The pilot diverted immediately to the nearest airport. And the passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft on slides because the interior of the cabin was hazy from smoke.
Wouldn’t it be handy if your phone caught fire every time you looked at porn on the device? That would be a guaranteed deterrent, wouldn’t it, a sparking, smoldering, overheating hunk of metal and plastic in your hand whenever you viewed pornographic images and videos? But that’s the problem with porn. You can view it freely and anonym
Two men may face the same conditions; one falls, the other stands.
Lonely man walking in the sand looking at the calm sea, surreal minimal seascape
In the last analysis it is not the temptations that meet us on the streets that determine our conduct; it is the heart of the man who faces them. Two men may face the same conditions; one falls, the other stands. The difference is not in the temptation, but in the heart of the man.
Excerpted from The Unsearchable Riches of Christ: Studies in Ephesians by Martin Lloyd-Jones. Public domain.
Lonely man walking in the sand looking at the calm sea, surreal minimal seascape
Do social media platforms cause you to look at women to lust after them (as Jesus forbids)? Then you must delete your accounts.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
Matthew 5:29-30
If Twitter causes you to sin, should you keep scrolling? If Facebook tempts you to sin sexually, should you keep clicking? If Instagram causes you to commit sexual immorality, should you continue swiping? If Tik Tok causes you to commit adultery, should you keep watching? No, nope, never, and negatory. The key to gaining and maintaining victory over sexual temptation is twofold: (1) know your triggers, and (2) avoid your triggers.
Jesus establishes this principle in His Sermon on the Mount. He tells you and me and His other disciples, “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you.” That is, if something you see triggers you to sin sexually, eliminate that trigger in such a way that it can’t trigger you now and it can’t
Jesus commands us to remove all sources of sexual temptation from our lives. And not just for a day. Not just for Lent. But immediately, permanently. Pluck them out, cast them away. Never look back. That’s the path to victory.
“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
Matthew 5:29-30
Do any social media platforms cause you to look at women to lust after them (as Jesus forbids)? Do they cause you to commit adultery in your heart? In short, do any social platforms cause you to sin? Then you must pluck them out and throw them away. This is what Jesus demands of you.
In practical terms, this means deleting your social media accounts. Not pausing them. Not uninstalling the apps from your phone but keeping the accounts active. To pluck out your eye and to cast it away you must delete, cancel, terminate and close all social accounts that cause you to sin. And if you find yourself drawn back to these social platforms even though you no longer have an account, you must block them. Install a porn-blocker on every electronic device you
Short of throwing all of my electronic devices into a dumpster, the only proven way I know of to not go near the online door of pornography is porn-blocking & accountability software. It protects me from the immoral woman. And it protects me from another sexually immoral person I know—me.
“Do not go near the door of her house.”
Proverbs 5:8
The primary problem with pornography is proximity. Porn is easy to view because it’s easy to find. It’s always just a few clicks or swipes away, often free of charge. This wasn’t always the case. When I was a teen, the only way to get your hands on hardcore porn was to meet a man in a dark alley off Times Square or to visit a bookstore in Amsterdam. Today, hardcore pornography is right in your pocket. If you want to conquer your habitual sin of looking at porn, you must solve your proximity problem.
This is the advice that Solomon has for his son. To avoid the immoral woman, says Solomon, “do not go near the door of her house.” That is, to avoid the seductress, the woman whose steps lead you down to death and hell, don’t go near the door of her house. The house of the immoral woman, of course, is where she practices her trade. It’s where you find the bedroom and the bed where she and her clients
I waited 30 years to discover a strong enough motivation to quit porn. Please don’t follow my example.
“And Elijah came to all the people, and said, ‘How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.’”
1 Kings 18:21
If you want to quit pornography and masturbation, discover your Big Why. Find your reason, your motivation, your incentive for quitting sexual immorality once and for all. Just make sure it’s a big enough reason. Without a solid motivation for quitting, you are likely to return again and again to your sexual sin. I speak from experience.
I looked at pornography for the first time in 1971 and for the last time in the winter of 2021. I know the month and I know the year because 2021 marked my 30th anniversary as a Christian. I was converted in the summer of 1991 after a miraculous series of events that proved the reality of God’s working in my life. That July I repented of my sins, trusted Christ as my Savior, and asked God to forgive me based on the sacrifice, burial and resurrecti
God cares about your sexual sin because He cares about you. That’s clearly something worth repeating.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17
If you want to discover what God thinks about adultery and sexual immorality, get out your calculator. Open your New Testament at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter one, verse one, and start reading. Add the number of times the author warns you against adultery, sexual lust, sexual temptation or sexual immorality. When you are finished with Matthew, open the Gospel of Mark and continue your exercise. Do this through every book of the New Testament until you arrive at last at the Book of the Revelation, chapter 22, verse 21, the end of the Bible.
What do you find? You discover that every author in the New Testament warns against sexual sin. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Pe
Man walking on a boardwalk in the fog
“Oh God, here’s my Bible. Here’s my money. Here’s me. Use me, God.”
Excerpted from Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman. Gladys Aylward. Public domain.
Man walking on a boardwalk in the fog
If you call your habitual use of pornography an addiction, you must have your reasons. But are they good reasons? Take this quiz and find out.
“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”
Proverbs 28:13
Last time I checked, “porn addiction” still wasn’t recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the book doctors use to diagnose mental disorders. Which means, if you are a Christian man who calls your habitual use of pornography an addiction, you must have your reasons. But are they good reasons? Are you justified in calling your activity an addiction, and yourself an addict? Take this little quiz and find out.
(Circle all that apply)
If you persist in your use of pornography as a Christian man, expect pain today, and the Lake of Fire eventually. Sexual sin is progressive.
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Revelation 21:8
If you persist in your use of pornography as a Christian man, expect increasing pain, because sexual sin is progressive. It grows more wicked over time. As you continue to indulge your sinful flesh, your flesh requires stronger and ever-more wicked forms of pornography to get the same dopamine buzz. As you head deeper and deeper into your sin, the consequences of your sexual immorality build. Here are 50 repercussions you should expect over time if you are a married Christian man with children, and if you refuse to forsake your habitual use of pornography.
Let us be humbled before God and man, and be excited by our past ignorance of Satan’s devices, to adhere more closely to the written word.
wise man on the to of the book, surreal concept
On the temptation of Christ:
Whether beset with this or any other temptation, let all us learn of our Lord to fight the devil with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Though he had the Spirit without measure, yet he always made use of this. We pray say of it, as David did of Goliath’s sword, “none like this,” none like this. And supposing Satan should be permitted to transform himself into an angel of light, and by false impressions, and delusive applications of misquoted texts, attempt to turn this weapon upon us against ourselves; let us not therefore be prevailed on to let go, but by comparing spiritual things with spiritual, as our Lord did, find out God’s mind and our duty.
Had Christ’s children and ministers only observed this one lesson, how much strange fire would quickly have been extinguished? How much real enthusiasm been easily stopped? How may imaginary revelations have been detected? How many triumphs of Satan and his emissaries been prevented? And how much more would the comforts o
wise man on the to of the book, surreal concept
You have the power to resist the online temptress because you have the knowledge to avoid her.
“Remove your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house.”
Proverbs 5:8
The key to victory over pornography isn’t fight, but flight. Your sexual purity depends not on your moral backbone nor on your strength of character nor on your level of willpower. It depends on your ability to avoid temptation in the first place. To conquer the sin of looking at pornography, you must learn to bypass—not battle—sexual temptation.
This biblical tactic comes from none other than Solomon himself. In Proverbs 5, he warns you about the strange woman, which is to say, the sexually immoral, adulterous, forbidden woman. Her lips drip honey and her mouth is smoother than oil. In other words, the sexually immoral woman is seductive and enticing. She offers you sexual pleasures that appeal to your flesh, are enjoyable in the moment, but are sinful and forbidden. She leads you to your death and destruction.
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To conquer sexual sin, you don’t have to be as strong as Samson. You just have to avoid his weakness.
“And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart”
Judges 16:16-17
If you want to have strength to resist sexual temptation, learn a lesson from Samson, one of the weakest men who ever lived. Samson’s birth was announced by an angel. He was a Nazarite from the womb, separated by God as a judge to deliver his people Israel from the hands of God’s enemies, the Philistines. He was a man of tremendous physical strength who on one occasion killed 1,000 Philistines with nothing but the jaw-bone of an ass. But Samson had a fatal moral weakness.
Despite knowing the Lord and despite experiencing the Lord’s hand in his life, Samson lusted after harlots. One of these prostitutes was Delilah, a Philistine. The lords of the Philistines bribed Delilah with 1,100 pieces of silver to discover the source of Samson’s weakness by uncovering the source of
When you enjoy porn, you make yourself a friend of pornographers and sex traffickers. And with friends like them, who needs enemies?
“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
James 4:4
I don’t suppose you woke up this morning with the express aim of making yourself an enemy of God. You are a Christian, after all. And Christians are supposed to love God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their strength and with all their mind (Luke 10:37). If anyone is an enemy of God, surely it’s not you, right? Wrong.
James tells us that friendship with the world is enmity with God. That is, affection for, fondness of, and love for the world is hostility towards, alienation from and opposition to God. When James refers to “the world,” he doesn’t mean the physical world, such as mountains, lakes and trees. And he doesn’t mean the people of the world. He means the world in a moral sense. He means the spirit that is opposed to God.
Like many believers, I practically preferred, for the first four years of my divine life, the works of uninspired men to the oracles of the living God.
couriose man with lamp going to be wise in a book
I fell into the snare into which so many young believers fall, the reading of religious books in preference to the Scriptures. I read tracts, missionary papers, sermons, and biographies of godly persons. I never had been at any time of my life in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures. When under fifteen years of age, I occasionally read a little of them at school; afterwards God’s precious book was entirely laid aside, so that I never read one single chapter of it till it pleased God to begin a work of grace in my heart.
Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been: God himself has consented to be an author, and I am ignorant about that precious book, which his Holy Spirit has caused to be written through the instrumentality of his servants, and it contains that which I ought to know, the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness; therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation; and in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life.
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couriose man with lamp going to be wise in a book
Watching pornography isn’t an addiction you recover from. Masturbation isn’t a compulsive habit you need treatment for. Both are wicked sins that you are to stop doing. Now. Not eventually.
“Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.”
1 Corinthians 15:34
If you discover that a brother in your congregation has a habit of sneaking out of the house at night and murdering people, should you encourage him to get into a 12-step recovery program so that he can overcome his childhood trauma and gradually wean himself off his bad habit?
What about theft? If you learn that a brother in the Lord has a compulsion to pick pockets on the metro, should you encourage him to attend Celebrate Recovery meetings month after month until he finally gains victory over his addiction?
What about lying? If your Christian colleague repeatedly lies to his boss, lies to you and lies to your bank, should you invite him to join Christian Liars Anonymous and to take their 90-Day Truth Detox as many times as needed until he eventually sto
Never think that sinning sexually even once is OK and nothing to worry about. Block the online false teachers who tell you otherwise. Your soul depends upon it.
“They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children.”
2 Peter 2:13-14
When is the last time you had a conversation with a false teacher about porn and masturbation? More recently than you might think, most likely. If you are one of those Christian men who turns to Quora, Reddit and other online communities for support for your habitual sexual sin, you have likely run into a false teacher or two, and likely without even knowing it.
False teachers have eyes full of adultery, and they entice unstable souls by downplaying the gravity of sexual sin. They never call pornography and masturbation sexual immorality, or wicked, or sinful. They call them compulsive behaviors. They call sexual sin acting out. They call it a struggle. When you have a p
Remember whence you are fallen. Take up the question at once, and deliberately contrast your present state with that in which you walked with God.
1. Manifest formality in religious exercises. A stereotyped, formal way of saying and doing things, that is clearly the result of habit, rather than the outgushing of the religious life. This formality will be emotionless and cold as an iceberg, and will evince a total want of earnestness in the performance of religious duty. In prayer and in religious exercises the backslider in heart will pray or praise, or confess, or give thanks with his lips, so that all can hear him, perhaps, but in such a way that no one can feel him. Such a formality would be impossible where there existed a present, living faith and love, and religious zeal.
2. A lack of interest in God’s Word, is also an evidence of a backslidden heart. Perhaps nothing more conclusively proves that a professor has a backslidden heart, than his losing his interest in the Bible. While the heart is full of love, no book in the world is so precious as the Bible. But when the love is gone, the Bible becomes not only uninteresting but often repulsive. There is no faith to accept its promises, but conviction enough left to dread its threatening. But in
Your job is to spot false teachers before they snatch away your sexual purity and wreck your testimony—and life.
“For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.”
2 Peter 2:18 NKJV
There’s only one thing worse than feeling shame for your sexual sin. Feeling no shame. If you are trying to conquer pornography or masturbation, be careful where you go for advice. If you post a question on Reddit or Quora, for example, watch out for the un-biblical answers you quickly receive from some professing Christians on these and other online forums and discussion boards. Because one of the goals of false teachers is to lure you back to the very sexual sins you are trying to escape.
This is the warning that the apostle Peter has for you when he tells you that false teachers allure through lewdness. Lewdness is a word you don’t he
You have engaged in enough unrestrained sexual immorality and shameless use of pornography. Those are things that the lost like to do. Time’s up for you.
“For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries.”
1 Peter 4:3
God has put a time limit on your use of pornography and masturbation. If you are still watching porn and pleasuring yourself after all these years, you should know that you are well into overtime. The game could end any minute now. You are outstaying your welcome, and trying to outlast God’s patience.
Peter looked at his life as being divided into two periods: life before Christ, and life after Christ. Pre-conversion and post-conversion. Life in the dark, and life in the light. His time before Christ was the period of his life when he did what lost Gentiles desire to do. He walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. But then He met Christ. Or, rather, Christ met him. Peter’s life was differ
The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe. If you believe the truth you are saved; if you believe a lie you are lost.
Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a sort of thing, either a religious exercise of soul, or an inward gracious disposition of heart; something tangible, in fact, which, when you have got, you can look at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God’s favor, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts. And you have been praying for faith, expecting all the while to get something like this, and never having received any such thing, you are insisting upon it that you have no faith.
Now faith, in fact, is not in the least this sort of thing. It is nothing at all tangible. It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is nothing apart from its object. You might as well shut your eyes and look inside to see whether you have sight, as to look inside to discover whether you have faith. You see something, and thus know that you have sight; you believe something, and thus know that you have faith. For, as sight is only seeing, so faith is only believing. And as the only necessary thing about seeing is that y
To arm yourself with the mind of Christ means to be ready to suffer for Him. But there is an awesome payoff.
“Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”
1 Peter 4:1-2
Your primary weapon in your war against sexual sin isn’t filtering software, an accountability partner, a 12-step recovery program, an online forum or a therapist. Your primary weapon is your mind, a mind conformed to the mind of Christ. When you think as Christ thought during His earthly ministry, you stop sinning.
You are to arm yourself with the mind of Christ. That is, you and I are to view sin the way Christ viewed sin. We are to respond to temptation the way Christ responded to it. Christ was tempted in all points as we are, yet He never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). When we arm ourselves with the mind of Christ, we do the same.
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No one bought you in a slave market. No one owns you. No one commands you to sin sexually.
“For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”
Titus 3:3
Do you consider yourself powerless over pornography? Do you look at your masturbation habit and consider it a compulsive behavior that you are unable to manage? Do you, in short, believe that you are a slave to sexual immorality? If you believe these things about yourself, then you believe the first lie of the Celebrate Recovery 12 Steps: “We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Celebrate Recovery bills itself as a “Christ-centered, 12 step recovery program for anyone struggling with hurt, pain or addiction of any kind.” The movement is filled with sincere Christian leaders who mean
What you run from, and what you run towards, has eternal consequences for your soul.
“Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”
Hebrews 12:14-17
If you want to conquer pornography and masturbation, run in the right direction. What you run from, and what you run towards, has eternal consequences for your soul. Those who flee fornication avoid sexual immorality. Those who don’t, don’t. Those who pursue holiness see God. Those who don’t, don’t.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, the writer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, commands you to pursue holiness. The word purs Read more
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If thou dost indeed believe that God is a just Judge, how darest thou live so securely in sin without repentance?
Lastly, this discovers how few there are who do truly know God; for no man knoweth God, but he that loveth him; and how can a man choose but love him, being the sovereign good, if he know him, seeing the nature of God is to enamour with the love of his goodness? And whosoever loveth anything more than God, is not worthy of God; and such is every one who settles the love and rest of his heart upon anything besides God.
If, therefore, thou dost believe that God is almighty, why dost thou fear devils and enemies, and not confidently trust in God, and crave his help in all thy troubles and dangers? If thou believest that God is infinite, how darest thou provoke him to anger?
If thou believest that God is simple, with what heart canst thou dissemble and play the hypocrite? If thou believest that God is the sovereign good, why is not thy heart more settled upon him than on all worldly good? If thou dost indeed believe that God is a just Judge, how darest thou live so securely in sin without repentance?
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Your sinful nature, fueled by pornography, is never satisfied. Left unchecked, it grows more corrupt until it leads to death. Maybe not death in an electric chair, but death all the same.
“That you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.”
Ephesians 4:22
How much do you have in common with Ted Bundy, the sadist, rapist and necrophiliac, and one of the most notorious serial killers in US history? This is not a trick question or an academic exercise. The results may surprise you. Take this quiz and find out. Check all of the following facts from Ted Bundy’s life that match your own experience:
Crucifixion combined state torture with state execution to act as a deterrent. Remember this the next time you are tempted to watch porn or masturbate.
“And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Galatians 5:24
If you are trying to quit pornography and masturbation, don’t be surprised if the process is slow and agonizing. Sexual purity requires your crucifixion, after all. And when you are crucified, you are either tied or nailed to a large wooden beam and then left to hang on the cross until you die. You die from exhaustion, asphyxiation, loss of body fluids or organ failure. This unique form of capital punishment is neither quick nor painless.
Defeating pornography and masturbation requires you to crucify, not your body, but your passions and desires. If you belong to Christ, you are to take your sinful lusts and nail them to a cross until they die. When a wicked thought enters your mind, when you see an image online that stirs up your lust, you are to crucify it, put it to death, execute it. This is your responsibility. God doesn’t do this at
Even those that are freed from Satan’s dominion are not free from his molestation.
Christ has not freed believers, in this world, from the temptations and assaults of Satan: even those that are freed from his dominion are not free from his molestation. It is said indeed, Rom. 16:20. “God shall shortly bruise Satan under your feet:” But mean time he has power to bruise and buffet us by his injections, 2 Cor. 12:7. He now bruiseth Christ’s heel, Gen. 3:10. i. e. bruiseth him in his tempted and afflicted members: Though he cannot kill them, yet he can and doth afflict and fright them, by shooting his fiery darts of temptation among them, Eph. 6:16. It is true, when the saints are got safe into heaven they are out of gunshot; there is perfect freedom from all temptation. A believer may then say, O thou enemy, temptations are come to a perpetual end. I am now arrived there, where none of thy fiery darts can reach me: But this freedom is not yet.
Excerpted from The Method of Grace in the Gospel Redemption</em Read more
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All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.
faithful man praying god diving in the water
Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, once received a compliment from a friend on the impact of the mission. Taylor responded: “It seemed to me that God looked over the whole world to find a man who was weak enough to do His work, and when He at last found me, He said, ‘He is weak enough—he’ll do.’ All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.”
faithful man praying god diving in the water
Watching pornography and masturbating will keep you out of the kingdom of God. Paul put that in writing.
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Galatians 5:19-21
What would you think if a visiting preacher stepped into your pulpit next Sunday and warned you that you are not going to inherit the kingdom of God if you continue to watch porn and masturbate? Would you label him a heretic? Phone your denominational headquarters and demand that the preacher be removed from the ministry? Or would you believe him?
This preacher visits your church and your home every week in the person of the Apostle Paul. When Paul wrote his letter to the churches of Galatia, he penned his wor
What would you do if God made your sexual sin an object lesson about how NOT to live the Christian life?
“Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.”
1 Corinthians 10:6
What would you think if God took your sexual immorality, wrote about it in a book, and had hundreds of millions of people read about you over the centuries? What would you do if God made your sexual sin an object lesson about how not to live the Christian life?
The children of Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness because of their sin of unbelief. And during their wanderings, they strayed from God. “With most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness,” says Paul. What was their sin? Sexual immorality, among other things.
The children of Israel, that generation that escaped slavery in Egypt and was delivered from the hands of their oppressors through mighty signs and wonders from heaven, turned
Would your church kick you out if it discovered your sexual sin? Why not assume that they would? Then act accordingly.
“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.”
1 Corinthians 5:1
If your sexual sin became known to the members of your church, what would happen? Would you be mortified? Probably. Would the congregation be scandalized? Maybe. But would your church do anything about your sin? Probably not.
We live in the age of Christian liberty, where brothers and sisters are reluctant to expose the sins of others in their fellowship. We live, in short, in the Corinthian Age. The church in Corinth had a man in their fellowship who was having sex with his step-mother. This sin was so wicked that even unbelievers viewed it with abhorrence. Gentiles never ap
The way to prevent God’s anger is to be angry with ourselves; and by examining our actions . . . to obtain the favour of the court.
And it will appear highly fitting, if we remember that, at the day of judgment, not only the greatest lines of life, but every branch and circumstance of every action, every word and thought, shall be called to scrutiny and severe judgment; insomuch that it was a great truth which one said, Woe be to the most innocent life, if God should search into it without mixtures of mercy. And therefore we are here to follow St. Paul’s advice, ‘Judge yourselves, and you shall not be judged of the Lord.’ The way to prevent God’s anger is to be angry with ourselves; and by examining our actions, and condemning the criminal, by being assessors in God’s tribunal, at least we shall obtain the favour of the court. As therefore every night we must make our bed the memorial of our grave, so let our evening thoughts be an image of the day of judgment.
Excerpted from Holy Dying by <a href="https://makenoprovision.com/tag/jeremy-taylor/" target="_blank" rel="noref
By this inward sight thou shalt come to see the nobility and dignity that naturally it had in its first creation; and thou shalt also see the wretchedness and the mischief which thou art fallen into by sin.
There is one work more very needful and expedient to travail, in which I esteem also to be the plain highway in our working (as much as may be) to Contemplation: and that is, for a man to enter into himself, to know his own soul and the powers thereof.
By this inward sight thou shalt come to see the nobility and dignity that naturally it had in its first creation; and thou shalt also see the wretchedness and the mischief which thou art fallen into by sin. From this sight will arise a desire with great longing in thine heart to recover again that dignity and nobleness which thou hast lost. Also thou shalt feel a loathing and detestation of thyself, with a great will and desire to destroy and beat down thyself and all things that prevent thee from that dignity and that joy. This is a spiritual work, hard and sharp in the beginning, for those that will go speedily and seriously about it. For it is an exercise in the soul against the ground of all sins, little and great, which ground is nought else but a false mistruste
Don’t expect to live a life of sexual purity with worship alone, or willpower alone. You need both.
“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
Romans 13:14
The cure for habitual sexual sin is Christ and crucifixion. Christ as the primary object of your affection. And your own crucifixion of your flesh. You need both to gain victory over pornography and masturbation: adoration and action, worship and willpower, the Savior and self-denial.
This is what the Apostle Paul means when he says you must “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” You used to walk in lewdness and lust (Romans 13:13). Now you are to walk properly, decently. And that requires both adopting something new and abandoning something old. It means embracing Christ, and forsaking the flesh.
To “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ means to clothe yourself with Him. It’s the same phrase that appears in the Letter to the
You don’t need to read any Bible verses to know why masturbation is sin. If you do it in private because you fear getting caught, then you have your answer.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.”
Ephesians 5:11-12
If you are still trying to decide if masturbation is sin, simply ask yourself this: “Would I mind if my wife/fiancé/girlfriend/parents saw me performing the act?” If I was all alone, doing the deed, and they walked in and saw me, how would I feel? OK? Ashamed? Not bothered a bit? Mortified?
One of the evidences of sin is that people practice it in secret. Burglars break in at night. Couples committing adultery meet in faraway motels. Online fraudsters use fake names. Bank robbers mask their faces. Murderers wear gloves. Same goes for habitual sexual sins. Men who are hooked on pornography watch it in secret. Husbands who visit prostitu
There is simply no way that you or I can masturbate and think that we are denying ourselves.
“Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.'”
Luke 9:23
If you want to discover if masturbation is a sin, simply examine one of the costs of discipleship for following Jesus. Jesus teaches that if you want to be His disciple, you must deny yourself. Since masturbation is a selfish act that satisfies the flesh rather than deny it, anyone who masturbates fails this fundamental requirement of being a disciple of Jesus.
When Jesus commands you and me to deny ourselves, he uses a word that means to disavow, to reject, to abnegate. It is a word that means to refuse to affirm something, to refuse to confess something, or to refuse to identify with someone or something. It means to contradict, to repudiate, to disown. Get the idea? To be a disciple of Jesus, you and I must take our desires and refuse to affirm them. We must take the urge to look at pornography
But because they choose the vile sin of this world, and have more delight in the filth of their flesh than in the fairness of heaven, they lose both the world and heaven.
Illustration of balance minimal concept, scales of justice
In every sinful man and woman that is bound in deadly sin, are three wretchednesses, the which bring them to the death of hell. The first is: Default of spiritual strength. That they are so weak within their heart, that they can neither stand against the temptations of the fiend, nor can they lift their will to yearn for the love of God and follow thereto. The second is: Use of fleshly desires:—for they have no will nor might to stand, they fall into lusts and likings of this world; and because they think them sweet, they dwell in them still, many till their lives’ end, and so they come to the third wretchedness. The third is, Exchanging a lasting good for a passing delight: as who say they give endless joy for a little joy of this life.
If they will turn them and rise to penance, God will ordain their dwelling with angels and with holy men. But because they choose the vile sin of this world, and have more delight in the filth of their flesh than in the fairness of heaven, they lose both the world and heaven. For he that hath not
Illustration of balance minimal concept, scales of justice
Can you get alone and pleasure yourself, believing that what you are doing pleases God? The answer is self-evident.
“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31
The great first principle of walking with the Lord is that no act is innately secular or spiritual. You can serve tables in a diner in a high Christian spirit. And you can preach the gospel in a secular spirit. What matters in the Christian life is not the outward act, but the spirit in which you perform the act. A secular act done to the glory of God is spiritual. A religious act done in a secular spirit is secular.
This great first principle of the Christian life governs every activity you do, from the most mundane to the most sublime. It’s what Paul communicates to the church at Corinth, and to believers everywhere, even to where you are living right now, when he says, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” “Whatever” and “all” are all encompassing. They cover everything you do, whether in public or in private.
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You can’t masturbate with a clear conscience because you can’t masturbate in faith. Since you doubt, don’t.
“But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.”
Romans 14:23
Around 55,000 Christians go online every month and search to discover if masturbation is a sin. They boot up Google and type: “is masturbation a sin” (15,589 searches), “is masturbating a sin” (6,544 searches), “is masturbation a sin according to the bible” (6,494 searches), “what does the bible say about masturbation” (4,774 searches), “is jerking off a sin” (2,400 searches), “is touching yourself a sin” (1,90
Let us compare our lives with that of Jesus Christ, reflecting that he was the Master and that we are the servants; that He was all-powerful, and that we are but weakness; that he was abased and that we are exalted.
detective man following footsteps on the ground
We must imitate Jesus; live as He lived, think as He thought, and be conformed to his image, which is the seal of our sanctification.
What a contrast! Nothingness strives to be something, and the Omnipotent becomes nothing! I will be nothing with Thee, my Lord! I offer Thee the pride and vanity which have possessed me hitherto. Help Thou my will; remove from me occasions of my stumbling; turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity (Psalm cxviii. 37); let me behold nothing but Thee and myself in thy presence, that I may understand what I am and what Thou art.
Jesus Christ was born in a stable; he was obliged to fly into Egypt; thirty years of his life were spent in a workshop; he suffered hunger, thirst, and weariness; he was poor, despised and miserable; he taught the doctrines of Heaven, and no one would listen. The great and the wise persecuted and took him, subjected him to frightful torments, treated him as a slave and put him to death between two malefactors
detective man following footsteps on the ground
When you masturbate, you take something that your wife alone has authority over (your body) and use it for your own selfish pleasure. You steal.
“The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” 1 Corinthians 7:4 NKJV
I know a Christian man who thought that getting married would end his compulsive masturbating. It didn’t. He looked at pornography and masturbated to pornography for the first 20 years of his marriage. Finally, he got so sick of his sin, and of hiding it from his wife, that he confessed all.
He was surprised at his wife’s reaction. “I thought you had lost interest in me, that you no longer found me attractive, and so that was the reason we didn’t make love as often as we used to,” she said. The husband was ashamed, learning that he had not been meeting his wife’s sexual needs. He had thought that his masturbating was a private sin that didn’t hurt his wife. He was wrong.
What this b
Just because the Bible never mentions masturbation doesn’t mean that pleasuring yourself is allowed. Silence is never permission. You must ask in faith.
The Bible doesn’t mention the words masturbation or masturbating. That means pleasuring yourself is OK, right? Not so fast. Just because the Bible doesn’t mention something doesn’t mean it’s allowed. You must dig deeper if you want to discover why masturbation is a sin.
Just consider some other sexual activities that aren’t in the Bible. We’re talking exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, frotteurism, obscene phone calls and sexual sadism. Because the Bible is silent concerning these activities, does that mean they are allowed? Of course, not. Take frotteurism, for instance. Frotteurism is “the act of touching or rubbing one’s genitals up against a non-consenting person in a sexual manner.” The Bible never says anything about frotteurism. But I don’t know any Christians who would argue that frotteurism is OK simply because the Bible doesn’t mention it.
What we’re
You have a marital duty to your wife, and she to you. When you have sexual desires, don’t take matters into your own hands. That’s what your wife is for.
“Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.“ 1 Corinthians 7:3 NKJ
One of the mysteries of marriage is that two become one. This is God’s design, one that He instituted back in the Garden of Eden, at the start of human history, with Adam and Eve: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24.
A husband and wife become one in the act of marriage, that is to say, through sexual intercourse. Before their wedding night, they are two individuals. After their wedding night, they are one flesh. Two complete and separate individuals unite to become one in a permanent, unbreakable, life-long union of God’s design. We see the fruit of this unique union in children. A child is a whole and separate individual created by the union of two others. Two create one.
When a
Is masturbation OK for the Christian man simply because the Bible never mentions it? No. Silence is never permission. Or prohibition. You must ask in faith.
“But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.” Romans 14:23
The Bible doesn’t mention the words masturbation or masturbating. That means pleasuring yourself is OK, right? Not so fast. Just because the Bible doesn’t mention something doesn’t mean it’s allowed. You must dig deeper if you want to discover why masturbation is a sin.
Just consider some other sexual activities that aren’t in the Bible. We’re talking exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, frotteurism, obscene phone calls and sexual sadism. Because the Bible is silent concerning these activities, does that mean they are allowed? Of course, not. Take frotteurism, for instance. Frotteurism is “the act of touching or rubbing one’s genitals up agai
In the beginning it is usual to feel nothing but a kind of darkness about your mind, or as it were, a cloud of unknowing.
This is what you are to do: lift your heart up to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts. Center all your attention and desire on him and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart. Do all in your power to forget everything else, keeping your thoughts and desires free from involvement with any of God’s creatures or their affairs whether in general or in particular. Perhaps this will seem like an irresponsible attitude, but I tell you, let them all be; pay no attention to them.
. . .
And so diligently persevere until you feel joy in it. For in the beginning it is usual to feel nothing but a kind of darkness about your mind, or as it were, a cloud of unknowing. You will seem to know nothing and to feel nothing except a naked intent toward God in the depths of your being. Try as you might, this darkness and this cloud will remain between you and your God. You will feel frustrated, for your mind will be unable to grasp him, and your heart will not relish the
Habitual masturbation to porn is one symptom of a heart hardened towards God, of a mind that no longer likes to retain a knowledge of God.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers.” Romans 1:28-29
When God gives up on an individual, He gives them over to sexual immorality. Habitual sexual sin is one symptom of a heart hardened towards God, of a mind that no longer likes to retain a knowledge of God. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).
If you are a Christian man who habitually masturbates to pornography, and if you desire to quit, reverse-engineer this text to uncover the cause of your bondage—and the remedy. Don’t look to your childhood. Don’t listen to Celebrate Recovery and
The Bible says pornography and masturbation are heart problems for Christian men. Knowing this truth helps you stay sexually pure today.
“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” Matthew 15:19-20
You can’t be tempted by something you don’t desire. Or, to state the case in the positive, you are tempted only by what you desire. I, for example, have no desire to see anyone dead, so I am not tempted to murder. I don’t long for wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, so I am never tempted to buy Powerball lottery tickets. But I do on occasion desire sexual satisfaction from sinful sources, and so I am tempted to look at porn and to masturbate. I wish this wasn’t so, but it is what it is, as they say. I have a heart problem.
In the Bible, the heart refers to the seat of the affections, desires and passions, as well as of wisdom and understanding. Jesus says the heart, my heart, your heart, is where adultery and
There are only two biblical outlets for sexual lust. One is self-control. The other is marriage. Pick one.
“But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 NKJV
The remedy for raging teenage hormones, sexual urges, lustful thoughts and pent up sexual energy is never masturbation. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. Is masturbation a sin in the Bible? Yes.
Paul is writing here to the church at Corinth about sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 7:1-2). He says to the believers there: “Because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.” In other words, to avoid having premarital sex, a man should marry one woman, and a woman should marry one man.
But this naturally raises a question. What are single people to do with their sexual urges? What are widows to do with their