HOW DID YOU GET OUT OF PORN AND MASTURBATION?
Hi Ernest, your blog articles have helped me a lot. Please
don't stop writing. Often we criticize men of God when they fail and
keep mum when they do well. I think it is a disservice to the Body of Christ.
I'm learning to appreciate the people God is using to build me. But that's not
why I am writing. I have a personal question, drawn from one of your
confessions, and I know you won’t mind answering it. This is the question:
How did you get out of porn and masturbation? I know you’ve written a whole book
on this (Lust and the City), but, can you give me a crash course?
Hi there. Thanks for the kind words. A crash course? Haha!
Okay, here goes, but ensure you also grab a copy of Lust and the City at
Keswick Bookshop and get more content. I was stuck in the rut of porn and
masturbation for a long time. I was born again, serving in Church and even
leading Bible studies but I was living a double life. I know there are born
again Christians out there who want to get out of the same rut but are too
afraid to talk to someone about it. How did I get out? I think a more important
question is “How did I get in?” You cannot fight an enemy you do not
understand. And part of understanding the addiction of porn and masturbation is
knowing its anatomy. Plain and blatantly, porn and masturbation is a lust
problem. The reason I was struggling is because I was lustful. You must realise
this: that an unbeliever who is lustful is in that state, primarily, because
they are not redeemed. A believer who is lustful is in that state because
they are not renewed. Being redeemed is to b converted to Christ. Being renewed
is to be conformed to Christ. I was redeemed but my mind was not renewed by
truth. And so I was deceived.
DECEPTION
Before porn and masturbation was an issue, my major tussle
with the Holy Spirit was my movies and series in my laptop. They had sex scenes
and half naked women but I saw no need to be so strict about them because after
all, I was doing pretty well with my spiritual disciplines. Today, it looks
like this: Watching Scandal but reading my Bible. Following Game of Thrones but praying every day. Going to catch Deadpool but leading a Bible Study. Indulging
in Empire but remembering to fast. Making out
with my girlfriend but condemning homosexuality. I didn’t get why other
Christians were so uptight on these issues. I was doing both and I was okay.
The important thing is balance, right? I told myself that I wasn’t like those
weak Christians who watched one episode and struggled. I was strong, I said to
myself. Little did I know that the smooth tentacles of deception were sucking
me into sin.
1st Corinthians
10:12 says “Be careful if you
think you are standing lest you fall.”
I thought I was standing not realising that my arrogant
pride was fuelling the deception. The queer thing about being deceived is that
you never feel deceived; but that’s part of the deception process. Deception
aligns with sin which often resonates with our hedonistic emotions; so you may
feel in love with your girlfriend but that feeling does not stop fornication
from being a sin. In the same way, one may feel hungry but that does not make
stealing food justified. Beloved, you know you are deceived when you find
yourself asking how close to sin’s border you can get instead of asking how
close to righteousness you can get. When you find yourself justifying the
sinful yet you still insist that you are walking with God, be warned. And as I
delved deeper into my sin, my entertainment grew more lewd, my boundaries with
other girls grew more blurry, my relationship with my godly girlfriend grew
more tense.
C.S. Lewis once said that sin is the suspicion that God is
not good. Lewis is right. This is how sin thrives. Eve was deceived because for
a brief moment she was made to believe that God was not good; that He was
hindering her from the best. And in our deception, God's ways seem repulsive,
outdated, impractical and burdensome and so we violently and passionately go
against what he commanded. Beloved, each time we fail to heed God's commands it
is because we had already accepted in our minds that God's plan is not good or
God himself is not good. And if that deception is rife, Beloved, we have bigger
problems than the consequences of sexual sin. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 13:5 that is it possible
in that rifeness of thought that we are not born again in the first place. In
that verse we are asked to test ourselves and see if we are genuinely in the
faith. And that is the ultimate deception, Beloved; to think of oneself
regenerate while still being dead in one’s sins and transgressions. To stand
before Christ on Judgement Day with a beaming proud face only to be told, “I never knew you.”(Mathew
7:21-23). Beloved, are you deceived? Or in simpler terms, are you fighting
God’s word?
DISASTER
My slow fade towards pornography began. I got addicted to
masturbation and my walk with God suffered. My mind was filled with filthy
thoughts and I saw every woman as an object to satisfy my lust. One was never
enough. I was severely tempted to sleep with some of them but the grace of God
held me back always. I kept saying that this was the last time I would fall
into sin but i found myself back at it. I tried to stop and I couldn’t. The
struggle raged for months. I was trapped. The worst part of it was that I was
in a relationship; the guilt was consuming me like cancer! I kept saying I was
in control but deep down I knew I was the puppet. I kept quiet about my
struggle and it felt like my bones within me wasted away. I did not want people
to think “Ernest, the great guy from Church who quotes scripture was a
hypocrite!” When a follower of Christ struggles with sexual sin, there is a
depressing feeling of hopelessness that follows. In my struggle, I never
imagined that the day of victory would come. I would cry every time and say to
God that I'm sorry and that this was the last time but I would fall back,
chronically. It is unfortunate that when it comes to sexual sin our lives are
often reactive than proactive. Truth is the antidote against deception and it
helps us make proactive choices. But when truth is rejected, the disease takes
a toll and we realise we are in a disaster only when the consequences set in.
My consequences did set it. It was at this point of disaster that I saw that
God was good and my heart was evil. It was at this point when I not only
understood with my mind but also with my heart that the plans he has for me are
good. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For
I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD; plans to prosper you and
not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.”
DELIVERANCE
Masturbation and porn were not joy-givers; they were joy
killers despite their momentary pleasure. They left me empty, unspiritual and
useless in the faith. Since I realized I had been deceived I began to read the
truth of God’s word. God's word had a character similar to me. She was a woman
but she possibly had a sexual conundrum as well. He name was not given. The writer only
identifies her as “the woman at the well.” In John chapter 4, Jesus meets a
woman at a well. The woman has had five husbands and the man she is living with
is not even her husband. She has been in and out relationships and she has no
soul satisfaction. She offers Jesus literal water from the well. Jesus does a
counter offer; he proposes to give her living water that will quench the thirst
for her soul. Jesus answered, "Everyone
who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water
I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in
him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John
4:13-14. Like the woman at the well, all our souls are craving for that living
water. That living water is a relationship with God. It gives us acceptance,
identity, security and purpose. Beloved, the most fulfilment comes from the
fount of living water. Lust is a craving for sin and for deliverance to take
place you must smell the living water and have a craving for freedom and
righteousness. It hit me hard that the core reason I was struggling was because
I had a misplaced joy. God was not my delight. He was my Saviour but he was not
my delight. Watching a TV series seemed to thrill me more than meditating on a
few Psalms. Catching the latest movie thrilled me more than sharing the Gospel.
I had lost my first love. If I could retrace my delight, I could get my
deliverance. All other earthly delights demanded me to serve them but God was
the only delight who served me by dying in my place on Calvary. I fell in love
with my Creator again and I took the first step in delighting in him; I obeyed
his word in Proverbs 28:13 that says “Whoever
conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces
them finds mercy.” (NIV). I
confessed my sin to God and to a group of believers.
Delight in God: Confess to God
When we don’t confess our sins to God, our souls decay. We
ought to stop blaming the person who sent us the porn link. We ought to stop
blaming all who we think are guilty and take up responsibility for our sin.
Psalm 32:3-5 says “When I kept
silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and
night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of
summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my
iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” And you
forgave the guilt of my sin.”(NIV)
Delight in God: Confess to people
Next, confess to people. But people ask, “Must I confess to
someone? Can’t I just confess to God?” I know sexual sin is shameful, Beloved. But it is also darkness and it needs to be exposed to light for it to be defeated. Beloved, this particular sin needs to be
confessed to God's people because it thrives in secrecy and lack of accountability.
We must confess to fellow believers and overcome the fear of judgement because
that is the place where the Lord has placed our healing. See what James 5:16
says “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another,
that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails
much.” (NIV). I found healing and restoration in the Body of Christ. I was too guilty to pray; the prayers of the brethren restored me. Too
many of us are hell-bent on the bad stories and ignore the countless good
stories of confession. God is not changing his mind about James 5:16, Beloved.
Confess and you will find healing. True believers with God’s love abound in the
Body of Christ.
Confessing your struggle is like flicking the switch in a
dark room. The darkness not only scatters but you also see how messed up the
room really is. In silence, you can deceive yourself that the problem is not
that big, especially when the world makes fun of pornography and jokes about
lewd matters. When you expose your darkness, God has a way of showing you how
dangerous the path you're treading on is. This is necessary because a believer
who remains quiet in their sinful addiction can be taken over by it until they
have no control. It takes a step of humility to admit that you are failing.
It’s not the overwhelming addiction that keeps us tied down; it is our pride to
admit the problem. If we don’t confess, the clutches of lustful addictions,
especially pornography and masturbation can weigh down the follower of Christ
to the point of depression. Once we confess, the Lord will awaken our desire for our
spiritual disciplines. You enjoy doing them because you relate with God as
opposed to ticking them for having done them religiously.
Delight in God: Gouge out your eye
Jesus said in Mark 9:47 that if your eye causes you to sin,
gouge it out. Divorce the source of lust. It has many facets- ending a
relationship, changing your friends, deactivating social media accounts, etc.
What is the eye that causes you to sin? Jesus says to gouge it out. For me, my
sinful eye was popular TV series. When I was delivered, I have never returned
because no matter how innocent those TV series seemed, there were always laced
with subtle sexual scenes that fanned the flames of
lust. Here is where the real test of following Christ comes in, Beloved-
counting the cost. And it asks us this: Is Christ so great a delight that we
can do away with our entertainment? Is Christ so great a delight that we can do
away with our boyfriend? Is Christ so great a delight that we can do away with our
Instagram? Or is our entertainment, boyfriend, girlfriend, social media that
draws us to sin greater a delight than the one who bore our sins? Don’t be
fooled by your disciplines, like I was. Many Christians are practising their
disciplines but are not getting delivered from these lustful entanglements.
Why? Because despite reading the word, praying and fellowshipping with other
believers, they are also keeping bad company and watching lustful media that is
not “necessarily pornographic” politically-correctly speaking. God’s rule in
eternity is a Kingdom, not a democracy; political-correctness for many believers
today is simply sin dipped in chocolate. The core is still sin. People say “Ernest,
you’re being too extreme; it’s never that serious.” And I ask them, “How
extreme and serious was Jesus Christ when he bled on a Roman cross for me?” He died
for me; I shall live for Him.
I pray that helped, Beloved. Though much more can still be said on
this. On another note: you are welcome to come for our relationship event,
BOY MEETS GIRL VOLUME 4 this Sunday the 10th of April, 2016.