Originally posted at: http://prevailingwordministries.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/being-honest-and-open-about-porn-and-masturbation/
by prevailing word ministries
It takes courage to be open about your sexuality. It takes even more courage to be open about porn and masturbation.
Men tend to be more secretive because lust in the heart is a pleasure of this life he wants few people to know about.
The way people perceive him is important. Anything that emits an evil, unsavory scent will put him in a category of the sexually deviant. It hurts to know that somebody knows that you are a pervert.
Sins of the flesh is a pleasure that God forbids. Within the framework of marriage, a man can enjoy sex. This is the boundary that the Lord set to save a man from the underworld of departed sinful spirits. But man loves to deviate in secrecy to have pleasure on the side.
To indulge at your own peril is not good.
In fact, the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”
How does a man become honest and open about porn and masturbation?
In looking at the life of David, when he lusted in his heart for the wife of Uriah the Hittite, named Bathsheba, we can see that secrecy in the heart of David was at play here (see 2 Samuel 11). David was a man after God’s own heart that would do all His will, the Bible tells us. But lust or coveting your neighbor’s wife was in David’s heart.
While we could speculate, such speculation is preponderance. It is more likely than not that David had Secret Sexual Sins evident in his life.
Notice Psalm 32:1-5, A Psalm of David.
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
Selah
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.
Selah
While David never said masturbation. let’s be honest about it.
When men come to church service after a night of porn and masturbation, we are never quick to articulate specifically these sins when we ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. This is a common act of men in sexual sins. We avoid the shame of saying specifically what these sins are because it is shameful. Shameful in the fact that we have stooped low from the normalcy of male sexuality into the depths of perversion.
So we try to cover what we’ve done by using words that mask what we are really asking God to do.
To forgive our porn and masturbation habits.
If we were really honest, we know that after we believe in our hearts that the Lord forgave us, we are quick to return to make preparation to sexually sin again. If we were really honest, we would see that we have developed a pattern of deceiving ourselves, over and over again.
We want the Lord but we want to have the pleasures of this life at the same time.
We men fall into the common patterns of male sexuality. According to Dr. William Struthers, from his book on “Wired For Intimacy,” we see that it is common for a man to be attracted to the opposite sex. But it is sinful to take attraction to the level of lust.
According to Dr. Struthers, “porn hijacks the brain.”
We lust after that image to have sex with something that is just an image. So we act out sexually by ourselves to climax as if we have had sex with her. In the soul and spirit, we’ve made an attempt to become one with that person and we haven’t even touched her.
But according to the Lord Jesus, we have.
Matthew 5:27-30 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
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.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off 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.”
The sole purpose of porn is to fuel the perverted passion of lust in the heart for her. Again, notice that the Lord uses two anatomies of man.
The right eye and the right hand.
We all know that with the eyes, we are stimulated but we also want the penis to be sexually stimulated. So we touch ourselves sexually. I don’t know about you, but not only does this include looking at another woman to lust after her and then use our hands to touch her, I believe that Jesus includes masturbation.
Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus never touched Himself sexually, to masturbate?
Hebrews 4:15 and 2 Corinthians 5:21 is proof of this.
Besides, if Jesus sinned sexually, God would not have been able to place the sins of the whole world upon Him because if you sin just once, in only one area, you are guilty of all sins according to James 2:10.
Again, there is no specific Scripture that prohibits masturbation. In other words, “Thou shalt not masturbate.”
However, there is no Scripture that gives us permission to masturbate.
Just because the Bible is silent in this area, it doesn’t imply permission. And just because the Bible says that where there is no law against masturbation, there is no sin. It doesn’t mean that you have the right to engage. Many proponents of masturbation will argue until they are blue in the face, but the one thing that they will never be able to do is walk away with a clear conscience.
Because if you still have to ask yourself if masturbation is a sin, then just the question alone condemns your heart. Many walk away suppressing the truth in pride and arrogance.
Here is the reason why the answer of “no masturbation” is clear.
God confined sex within the institution of marriage.
Thus, any extracurricular sex is prohibited.
Many man that struggle in the area of porn and masturbation will be trigger quick (like me) to shoot down any attempt to stop masturbation because it is the only pleasure a man enjoys in the privacy of his world of lust. To have that woman without touching her is a pleasure that some men cannot do without.
For a few reasons.
1. No commitment. Just sex.
2. No pregnancy. Just sex.
3. No relationship. Just sex.
4. No STDs. Just sex.
After you’re done (ejaculation), you move on to the next fantasy woman.
Honestly, masturbation is more about you than that image. Gratifying yourself.
It’s only when we Come Clean about our porn and masturbation habits that the power of God can come to help us begin the process of getting clean in His presence.
As I have said, it takes mustering up the inner strength to be courageous about what is happening in us, spirit, soul, and body. As long as we pursue sexual immorality in secrecy, the further it will take us into darker places. We dare to go deeper into darkness because that is the nature of the devil. To take us straight into the depths of his darkness, which only leads us to ultimate darkness. Where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the worm dies not, and the smoke of our torment rises forever.
That’s the result of all sexual sins according to Revelation 21:8.
This is a good deterrent but man believes that the pleasure of fulfilling the lusts of the flesh exceeds the consequences. Man deceives himself into thinking that God overlooks this, and we know that He doesn’t. Otherwise we would not be looking out the window to see if we are going to be judged.
But when we sin, the consequences will manifest. It’s inevitable. It’s an unavoidable reality.
Take the time to seek God and muster up the courage to deal with what is going on in you. The Lord desires you to be free. The prison doors are open. They’ve been open since the resurrection of Jesus. Every man can walk free without being charged. So long as we repent, turn from our wicked ways, seek His face, and walk away from porn and masturbation forever.
Be open and honest about it.
