Growing up as a kid, you hear things that made you think.
Statements like “go play with yourself” had that sexual overtone that everyone knew what it’s about. However, after a while, you find yourself doing masturbation more often than you realize. Until it becomes second nature. The muscle memory and the false pleasure of having sex with someone that isn’t there became more than just “playing with yourself.”
It turned from pleasure habit into a bondage that is no different than nicotine, cocaine, or alcohol dependency.
It’s addictive. Voyeurism, exhibitionism, and other obsessive forms of sexual immorality is not that far off. That’s because with self sexual foreplay, people that are not in control will engage anywhere.
The false pros of masturbation is no relationship with another person. No STDs. No pregnancies.
You schedule your day around it.
In 1 John 2:15-17, John, the beloved apostle of the Lamb said, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust thereof, but he that does the will of the Father abides forever.”
Lust is the law in the flesh of fallen man (male and female).
The law of lust is what’s behind masturbation.
The law of sin and death (see Romans 8:1-2) demands that lust be fulfilled, but we all know that lust is never fulfilled. It remains dissatisfied forever. Anything that is not ordained by the Lord is of the devil. The devil’s desires will always remain insatiable. Hence, the fallen state of man, these desires, unless put to death, will remain insatiable.
The corruption of flesh demands satisfaction.
The flesh demands to recharge to re-satisfy itself.
In the normal concept of sex, the reset to do it all over again is to be tempered or self controlled.
Lust is never controlled. It must be put to death.
In the last 6 years, masturbation was the most difficult thing to break. After 33 years from 1975 to 2008, a week wouldn’t go by unless I engaged in masturbation. At first, it seemed normal and innocent. Afterwards, I was hooked and developed a list of reasons to keep doing what I wanted to do. Even after marriage, I found myself engaging.
Lust after women “enhanced” this pursuit of sexual satisfaction. But satisfaction was never achieved. Even with introducing pornography in 1998, the satisfaction was never achieved.
Little did I realized that not only was I breaking God’s command about the sanctity of marriage according to Genesis 2:24, far worse, I idolized my desire to have self or solo sex.
It became my god.
The Lord God said to Moses in Exodus 20:3-6,
“You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image —any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
To put it as bluntly as allowed, getting off was worshipped.
At this altar of sexual immorality, I paid homage to the god of lust. The second god or idol was my sexual organ. What kept me worshipping at this altar was the dopamine. The drug of fulfillment and satisfaction.
This infatuation of getting this drug in my blood stream had me coming back for more and more every time.
All it took to get me started was touching myself sexually. Or a combination of things. Lusting after the flesh. The sexual objectification of a woman’s anatomy. At the end of the day, there’s no question what was going to happen. From 2008 to 2011, the grace of God enabled me to completely abstain from masturbation.
It was a great 3.5 years of learning how to control myself.
Dr. Mark Lasser really taught the lesson on self control. He asked the greatest question I’ve ever heard.
Can you do without sex with your wife and masturbation?
The answer is yes.
Hence, the definition of addiction recovery.
“To control, manage, or stop using a particular substance, thing, or activity.”
There are many advocates that encourage masturbation as a healthy sexual practice. This would fall under the category of “control or manage.”
However, if it is being worshipped, it must stop because God has no rivals. If God is enthroned on your heart, there can be no other gods.
In reading many books that reason with making seemingly viable excuses to continue masturbation, many men will accept these arguments and stand their ground when they are challenged.
Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
James 1:14-15 says, “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full- grown, brings forth death.”
So the end is always death. What kind of death? Death in your relationship with the Lord. Broken fellowship with God.
It seems right to justify sin but it always end in death. You are tempted, you fall into temptation, you yield to temptation. The desire has conceived (egg – sperm unites). Sin is birthed. Death is the result.
In Matthew 26:41, Jesus said, “Watch and pray, lest you fall into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.”
Even with watching and praying, lust was lurking within me that I feared greatly.
The urge to touch myself sexually got stronger and stronger.
Mind you, I was praying. I had an accountability partner. I was teaching the men how to overcome.
Then the moment of truth came. After a setback at an event, discouragement zapped me so bad that I fell into the trap of touching myself sexually.
From 2011 to early spring of 2014, I found myself back into “playing with myself.”
To even try to deflect how I got back into masturbation or to attempt to minimize the fall is the worst thing in the world you could do. That’s because to falsely justify sexual immorality is a deception not worth going to hell over. Even to count how many times I masturbated to give a minimal number to minimize the blow is folly.
I also found out that you can’t preach effectively to sinners if you are in sin yourself. You are disqualified.
Since returning to the streets to preach, the reason that kept me from preaching in the streets was directly tied to sexual immorality running rampant in my life. There is no anointing in sin. God never anoints what He never appoints. Sin and holiness can never mingle. God’s temple cannot be full of idols. Jesus and satan can never have communion, fellowship, or unity. Darkness cannot co-mingle with light.
Ineffective living always leads to ineffective preaching. If you cannot live to obey the commands of Jesus, you can’t win a soul to Jesus. The crucified life demands denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following the Lord. Many desire to follow the Lord, but they never deny themselves (see Mark 8:34).
You deliberately cheat or defraud yourself from achieving a false pleasure to gain the highest pleasure.
Pleasing God.
You can’t talk about taking up your cross unless you deny yourself.
In other words, you stop playing with yourself.
Most ministers are ineffective because of the refusal to deny themselves.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
Jesus said this in Matthew 5:28-30, “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.”
This is not a stretch of revelation but you and I both know that the Lord covered masturbation because it takes an eye to lust and the hand to play. There is no question about it and to fool ourselves into thinking that the Lord wasn’t talking about self sex is foolishness and deliberate deception.
As Mike Cleveland of Setting Captives Free said, this is “radical amputation.”
If you refuse to cut off anything that is leading you to masturbate, notice what Jesus said….
“…for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
Will a person go to hell over masturbation?
Are you willing to let masturbation rule you like a god? And are you willing to risk it?
Remember what Revelation 21:8 says.
Remember also Hebrews 12:4.
“You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.”
And NO. I am not telling you that you need to butcher yourself to stop sinning.
What is it that you are willing to do to stop sinning?
How far will you go?
Are you willing to pull out the TV?
Are you willing to give up your mobile device you use to spy out flesh to masturbate off of?
Are you willing to give up your passcode to your computer to an accountability partner and or your wife?
Are you willing to get off of FB or all social media?
Are you willing to walk across the street when a hot looking woman is within your periphery?
Are you willing to look in another direction when she is trying to get your attention at the magazine stand?
Are you willing to change channels if you keep your TV?
Are you willing to get up out of bed, pray and seek God when you are sexually aroused at night?
Are you willing to call your accountability partner to get prayer in your hour of temptation?
Are you willing to pick up the phone when your accountability partner calls on you to check up on you?
Are you willing to stop being evasive when asked the tough questions?
So let’s sum this up.
1. Lust must be destroyed. In fact, lust was destroyed on the cross of Christ according to 1 John 3:8.
But is lust destroyed in you? Colossians 3:5 is the answer.
2. God has no rivals. Exodus 20-3-6.
3. Excuses seems right but frivolous justification always lead to death. Proverbs 14:12, James 1:14-15.
4. Watch and pray. Matthew 26:41.
5. Discipline yourself. 1 Corinthians 9:27.
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