The Morality of Masturbation The Limits of Logic

It is hard to resist the powerfully persuasive logic that says God gave us sex for marital union and that, like prostitution or bestiality, solitary sex must therefore be a perversion of God’s gift. But is this God’s logic? I dare not steer my life while intoxicated by my supposed cleverness.

I have a deep distrust of human logic – be it the product of my intellect, or anyone else’s. Human attempts to fit together pieces of biblical revelation caused the greatest theologians and devout Jewish leaders to arrange the murder of their Messiah. Logic inspired Saul to conclude he was serving God by torturing Christians in the hope they would blaspheme the Son of God. We earlier mentioned that human logic might conclude that lust is morally harmless. The biggest limitation of human reasoning is that we have at our disposal only a tiny fraction of the facts. Our understanding of human sexuality and of God’s purposes renders human attempts to see things God’s way like trying to see the picture in a million piece jigsaw when we have only a dozen pieces.

We saw in the previous webpage how, when railing against masturbation, a respected Bible commentator’s attempt at logic fell to the ground because it was founded on human medical knowledge, which, like most things human, time revealed to be inaccurate. Many of my own thoughts will fall if solitary sex does not program our sexual response to the extent that I believe it does, or if it turns out that God puts sexual self-stimulation in a totally different category to anything else to do with sex. To illustrate the limitations of human reasoning, let’s see the implications of applying it to an indisputable perversion: lesbianism. The Old Testament gets no closer to mentioning sexual relations between women than this: Leviticus 18:22 Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

Everyone to whom the Old Covenant applied knew that when the Bible said anything about men, the statement often – but not always – applied with equal force to women. Who would be so stupid as to think that the Tenth Commandment – “you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” – means a woman is free to covet her neighbor’s husband? In many Old Testament contexts, “man” simply means human. This is obvious from the very beginning of the Bible:

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

“Man” here applies with equal force to male and female. Nevertheless, the context sometimes indicates that the word is applied solely to males. So logic says, look at the context. And logic also says female sexuality and psychology are not entirely identical to that of males, and lesbianism involves different sexual acts to male homosexuality, so different rules might possibly apply. So let’s examine the context:

Leviticus 18:22 Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. (23) Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.

Oh dear! In the very next verse, when referring to bestiality, it is deemed necessary to specifically mention women. Logic would suggest that the omission of reference to women when forbidding same gender sex must have been very deliberate. The obvious conclusion is that it was omitted because lesbianism is deemed by God to be morally neutral. Even though I could argue against this on the basis of the apparently random way Old Testament laws sometimes specifically mention women and sometimes not, it is hard to resist the force of the logic that says lesbianism must be allowed by God. In other words, human reasoning – even when applied to the very Word of God – could cause someone to wander so far off track that they end up condoning perversion.

Christianity is not the product of human reasoning. It is the revelation of the most powerful Intellect in the universe – the God who made our brain cells. Christianity is not a vain attempt to use tiny human brains to guess the mind of Almighty God. True Christianity is about connecting to the God of the universe, the Designer of our bodies, the Creator of sex, and letting him reveal his ways, which are infinitely superior to our own, and letting him rule in our lives in the perfection of his love and wisdom.

I do not want to be so arrogant as to shatter the divine silence in Scripture by sounding off as if my presumptions were the Word of the Holy One to the entire body of Christ. Instead, I urge all Christians who imagine they have divine approval to indulge in any form of auto-eroticism to get down on their knees and seek the face of God about this.

At times, Scripture gives us examples to help us grasp a divine principle and leaves it to us to connect the dots. For an obvious example, consider Exodus 23:4:

If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him.

Scripture says nothing about an enemy’s horse or sheep or finding his stolen computer. What if his house is on fire? What if he is sick and his crop needs harvesting? God obviously expects us to use our brains and extrapolate general principles from Scripture’s specific examples. Anyone having the attitude of avoiding only those things Scripture specifically names as forbidden, does not have a heart for God. The Bible tells us to meditate upon Scripture and to discuss it with each other (Scriptures). Clearly, God expects us to think things through as we prayerfully pursue the mind of God.

There could be a flaw in the logic that concludes that Do-It-Yourself sex is a perversion. If so, I’ve failed to find it. If, after examining the behaviors Scripture specifically names as sexual sins, I’ve somewhere slipped in my attempt to join the dots, I’m blind to my error.

I can by no means trust my finite intellect. Nevertheless, everything God does is perfectly rational and consistent. I would therefore need to be particularly cautious about any “guidance” that seems contrary to rational thought. This is especially so when on one side looms the danger of sexual perversion and on the other is merely the possibility of missing a little pleasure (and even the possibility of pleasure is doubtful, since solo-sex seems to aggravate one’s frustration and the carrot of satisfaction it dangles before our eyes is largely an illusion). Add to this the fact that our natural tendency is to try to convince ourselves that self-indulgence is acceptable. Furthermore, if solo-sex is sin, the Evil One has a vested interest in deceiving us and he is not beyond giving supernatural “proof” to try to convince us that sin has divine approval. One would therefore need exceptionally clear guidance to go against rational thought and be certain that a decision in favour of Do-It-Yourself sex is not being influenced by our own cravings or by the cunning of the Enemy of our souls.

Hearing from God on this matter can be very challenging. Permit me to share a personal experience to illustrate the difficulty. It shows me in a less than favorable light, but your well-being is more important than my reputation. The story takes several twists, so please don’t at some point presume you know where it is heading.

A Peculiar Experience

I met a wonderful, highly committed, unmarried woman engaged in Christian ministry. The moment our friendship began, my apparently as-good-as-dead sex drive suddenly sprang to life. To my immense surprise, that beast of a libido that had fooled me into thinking it was dead had only been sleeping. Now, alarmingly, it seemed madder than ever at having been awoken and it was bearing its teeth threateningly. Every night my sex drive was on the prowl, making it difficult for me to get to sleep and when I finally did, I would wake again long before morning, so aroused as to challenge my self-control to the limits. I steadfastly refused to relieve myself. The torment was agonizing and the lack of sleep frustrating, but didn’t Jesus endure sheer agony to win our purity? Didn’t he declare that we must take up our own cross and follow him? Didn’t he say the easy way leads to destruction? Is there a way to become a champion without regularly pounding the pain barrier? Has anyone been hailed a hero by continually giving in? It is the person determined to endure the pain of resisting temptation who has finished with sin (compare 1 Peter 4:1). That is the one who is destined for glory.

One night I awoke not only highly aroused but with the strong conviction that God wanted me to masturbate right then. I would have dismissed the feeling immediately had the issue been adultery or anything similarly contrary to an emphatic word of Scripture. The Perfect One never contradicts himself by going against what he has put in black and white in his unchanging Word. The Almighty has no qualms, however, in finding holes in my logic and contradicting my imperfect understanding of his written Word. Nevertheless, I recoiled at the thought of obeying this feeling.

It would be physically messy and I had no desire to step off a cliff that could send me falling into a habit. But God owns me. The body I live in is his body. He has the right to dictate to me what to do and I am committed to obeying him. What if this isn’t God? I wondered. And yet the feeling that it really was from God was so strong that I knew I was grasping at straws, trying to worm out of what seemed the very real conviction of God. I’m so tired and aroused. How can I think sensibly? Why not wait until morning when I can check in the clear light of day my certainty that this really is God? I felt guilty about taking that option; horrified that by delaying I could be resisting the Spirit of God. Nevertheless, I decided not to masturbate and to check it out with God later, when I would be more able to think clearly. I awoke the next morning, deeply disturbed by the feeling that by resisting that leading I might have let down the One who means everything to me.

I immediately phoned my friend, and explained my quandary. Under normal circumstances I trusted her ability to hear from God more than my own ability and in this case it would be much easier for her to be clear-headed because she wasn’t subjected to the raging storm within me. So I decided to submit to whatever she believed to be the will of God after she had spent the day praying about it.

I staggered to work, still feeling shaken and somewhat defeated over the thought that maybe by not masturbating I had resisted God’s command. I prayed often throughout the day that the decision my friend arrived at would be from God. As the day progressed, my revulsion against sexual self-gratification mellowed until I began to feel warmly about the idea. I was becoming increasingly certain that when my friend phoned that evening, she would say that God wanted me to masturbate and that I would then enjoy beautiful sexual feelings for which I would praise God.

It turned out that she had reached the opposite conclusion. Additionally, despite it being completely contrary to the tone of what I had shared with her that morning, she also had a strong feeling that I had that morning been masturbating while phoning her. Presumably she thought God had revealed it to her. This misconception was most disturbing. Since she was so horribly off the mark with that, how could I trust her spiritual discernment to get the other part right, especially as her perception of God’s will for me was the exact opposite of my own? To further add to my bewilderment, she got it so wrong that she terminated our friendship under the ludicrous illusion that I would somehow sexually corrupt her.

Nevertheless, I had been praying that God guide her and so I decided to accept her sense of God’s leading. This entire situation was clouded by incredible confusion but I finally felt peace about continuing to resist my burning desire to masturbate.

The startling thing is that I immediately broke through to a new level of sexual contentment. Ever since, I’ve had almost no temptation to masturbate and have been more content sexually than I’ve ever known since before my teens. I look back astounded at how close I came to missing this significant breakthrough. Had I landed the other way in trying to discern the Lord’s will, the outcome would have been very different. Never have I experienced anything that initially seemed so genuinely to be of God that subsequently proved to be a devilish trick.

Many will say I should have immediately recognized as being from the enemy what I thought might have been from God because “masturbation is sin.” Such an uncompromising view would certainly have protected me. It’s an enticing argument for me to produce a dogmatic “masturbation is sin” webpage. Although there are Bible clues pointing in that direction, however, I shrink from implying any human attempt to connect the dots on this subject has the seal of divine infallibility. We know from earlier what an appalling mess Clarke made of it, even though he surely impressed some of his contemporaries and was obviously godly, scholarly and devoted to the Bible. It would take a good measure of delusion to suppose that any of us are incapable of similar slips. Scripture does not spell out the sinfulness of self-stimulation with the clarity that it does most other sexual sins (and even with those sins, individuals and churches keen to condone sexual sin can patch together a case capable of fooling someone more keen to sin than to find truth). This leaves us dependent upon our ability to discern the Spirit of God; an ability that I have in an embarrassingly small measure.

To illustrate our dependence upon divine revelation, let’s return to what we learnt earlier about lesbianism. Godly people in Old Testament times would have believed that lesbianism is sin, but they could not have reached this conclusion solely from the letter of the law. Some would have truly heard from God on the matter. Others would have reached the right conclusion by accident. They might, for instance, have believed a superstition that lesbianism makes one mentally unstable and concluded that anything having that result must be sinful. Left to themselves, these people might, under different circumstances – such as living in a society in which lesbianism is rife – have concluded that lesbianism has God’s approval. For any of his children in moral danger, however, our Lord would have intervened by speaking to their consciences or by some other means. Nevertheless, their own desires and the persuasive assertions of deceived people around them could easily have drowned out God’s voice in the hearts of some individuals.

Besides the satanic assault I’ve just mentioned, I have also received e-mails that were initially flattering and persuasive from someone claiming to be a Spirit-filled Christian. Eventually he confided that he had received revelation from “God” that I am sexually repressed and that I should engage in sexual activities that are outside of God’s plans for me. There was great evil lurking beneath this seemingly Christian and loving guise. We certainly have to contend with powerfully deceptive forces. Scripture reveals Satan to be the deceiver who masquerades as an angel of light. More terrifying still is that we can want sin so much that we want to be deceived. Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. 1 Corinthians 4:4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me

Slipping Through the Moral Maze

Although singles have no legitimate person or thing on which to focus the sexual feelings that self-stimulation arouses, marrieds clearly have such a person.

Suppose a woman is abandoned by her husband. She wants her marriage to continue but the separation could turn out to be permanent, and if the woman were to make advances to this man he would shun any sexual involvement with her. Were she to force herself upon him sexually, it would be so much against what he wants that it would be akin to rape. For this woman to masturbate, imagining herself relating sexually with her estranged husband who wants never again to have anything to do with her sexually, it might be argued that her thoughts would have similarities to mental rape. Suppose, however, a married couple are temporarily separated. Perhaps one is nursing a sick relative interstate for a few weeks. If, with each other’s full knowledge and approval, they engaged in solitary sex, lovingly limiting themselves to ways that their partner could equal, and fantasizing solely about their partner, most of our grave concerns about masturbation would be avoided.

It would not be mental adultery, nor sex on the sly, nor would it be degrading sex to a self-focused, mechanical, loveless act. In their minds their sexual feelings would be focused on the one person that they can legitimately have such feelings for. And since they know each other’s capabilities and lovingly chose their masturbatory techniques accordingly, they are not so likely to cultivate cravings for stimulation the partner is unable to match. If done shortly before the couple are reunited, we might question whether masturbation would diminish the marital passion they feel when reunited. If the timeframe were suitably long, however, it might be argued that mentally focusing on their absent partner when pleasuring themselves helps maintain their longing for, and love for, each other and that this maintenance of the marriage bond would lower their temptation to be unfaithful.

Since I have never married, accusations of hypocrisy don’t touch me when I wonder whether even in solo-sex marrieds have privileges that are denied singles. Nevertheless, there is a grave danger in trying to reduce morality to any analysis like the above. Suppose we were trying to determine why God declares stealing to be wrong. If we miss the critical fact that it is simply wrong to take anything that does not belong to you, we could easily conclude that all moral objections to theft are covered if one steals from someone so rich that he literally would never know it is missing, and if the taker then gives it to someone who is in desperate need. Similarly, God knows – and I don’t – whether I have missed something critical that renders all solitary sex sinful. Certainly, we know that there is more to morality than one’s thought life. If, for example, a man wants to shoot dead his wife, he cannot make himself innocent by deciding to think loving thoughts towards her as he pulls the trigger.

For a married couple to manually stimulate each other to a deliberate climax outside of intercourse bypasses even more possible objections. It is not solitary, and it is done to one’s partner, not oneself, as an expression of marital love that could possibly bond the couple deeper to each other. Ultimately, my opinion of such lovemaking counts for nothing. Such decisions belong to the Lord, and each couple should seek their Lord for his answer.

Toward an Answer

As is obvious from my confessions about my difficulty in hearing from God, I am not some great man of God. I’m stumbling around like most Christians. I can’t make great moral pronouncements. All I can do is suggest points that you might consider praying about.

When smokers quit their habit, they taste and smell things differently. Their previously jaded senses become more like God intended them to be. Likewise, when one breaks the habit of masturbation, one’s spiritual senses and perception of morality are likely to change. (Mine certainly did.) One is more likely to view sex through divinely sharpened spiritual senses.

Somehow, we need to break free from the way our own cravings can distort our ability to hear from God on a matter. Obviously, prayer is critical. There is also another help.

You have heard of fasting from food to draw closer to God and hear from him. Fasting from sex is similarly scriptural. Paul instructed that marrieds not cease marital relations “except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer” (1 Corinthians 7:5). At Mount Sinai, the Lord told the Israelites to prepare for his appearance by abstaining from sexual relations. (Other examples.)

I suggest you fast from masturbation and from all avoidable sources of non-marital sexual stimulation until any bondage to the habit is broken.

What chance have we of hearing the Spirit’s whispers about masturbation when our bodies are crying out for masturbation and our minds are screaming that we cannot survive without it? It is surely disrespectful to the Holy Sprit to not do what we can to quieten the incessant nagging of our bodies so that we can in stillness listen for anything he might have to say. It will probably take many weeks to get to that position of stillness, but the required time will be a very small portion of your entire life, and just how important to you is it that you don’t unknowingly fall into perversion? If you find yourself so enslaved to Do-It-Yourself sex that you can’t fast from it for a month, then that in itself suggests that you have a problem. You were created and redeemed to be master of your body.

While fasting from masturbation you might try a prayer something like this:

As millions mourn the degradation of the environment – your beautiful creation – give me your heart that I might mourn the degradation of your precious gift of sex, the spoiling of which ruins not the area where we live, but our very selves; not just creation in general, but humanity itself, the crown of your creation.

My heart breaks that instead of you being showered with thanks and honor for your exquisite gift to humanity, you reel in pain as millions throughout history and throughout this globe have used the extravagance of your kindness to ruin their lives and the lives of their victims. Open my eyes to my own abuse of your holy gift.

I cringe to think of how many times I’ve lusted or tried to incite lust in others, all the time hypocritically hiding my shame behind the illusion that others seem to have made an even bigger mess of your gift. Have I a distorted view of sex because I have let legalism, the world or my own desires shout down the gentle whispers of your Spirit? Have I in selfish frustration almost cursed you because the sexual cravings I’ve foolishly inflamed could not find immediate gratification? Have I perverted your love gift into an occasion for selfishness? Shine your light in every dark corner of my life so that I might repent of everything I should repent of, and delight in everything I should delight in.

What matters is not what this webpage says, or the world says, or my conscience says; all that matters is what you say. At times you deem best, bring to my remembrance examples of occasions when my use of sex has pleased you, so that I might pursue such behavior, and show me instances when my use of sex have grieved you, so that my eyes might be opened and avoid repeating my sin.

I long to honor you for the holy gift of sex you have entrusted to me. Show me how.

You trusted me with your gift and I’ve abused your trust. I can give you nothing that you haven’t first given me, so my gifts to you are only shadows. Nevertheless, as my love-offering to you, I hand back to you your gift of sex, knowing that unlike the way I have treated you, you will never abuse my trust, knowing that your love compels you to do with my gift to you only that for which I will be eternally thankful. Use my sexuality in the way you see fit. Even if that means I will never for the rest of my life experience sexual pleasure, I know you will use my sexuality in a far superior way than I ever managed and that I will rejoice for eternity in the love and wisdom of your choice for me.

Encouragement

This webpage is devoted to a discussion of the morality of masturbation, not about how to break the habit. Nevertheless, it would be irresponsible of me to leave you floundering. Elsewhere, I have written extensively about how to find victory over the lusts that wage war on our souls. That’s the purpose of several of the links at the end of this page.

None of us need grovel in defeat. Until you find the victory that is yours in Christ, however, you need and deserve encouragement. I know what condemnation and despair sexual addiction can induce, so I would like you to see this matter in its spiritual perspective.

Regardless of the conclusions of plain logic, we are not real perverts like gays, bisexuals and harlots. Or are we? Every respectable, Bible-believing Christian regularly teeters on the edge of Pharisee-like blindness to his/her own sin. What makes it disturbing to think of ourselves as being no less corrupt than other perverts is that Pharisees need someone to look down on. Their self-worth hinges not on what Christ has done for them, but on maintaining a distorted view of reality. When in delighted scorn we eye the sins of others, our own sins fade so dangerously out of focus that we barely see them. This is the intoxication of people who trust in their own righteousness rather than in Christ’s righteousness. It is then that the words of Jesus can become frighteningly applicable: “ . . . prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31).

Like the great apostle Paul seeing himself as the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) – the lowest of the low; the worst of the worst – it is those who humble themselves who will be exalted (Matthew 23:12). Imagine, after having striven to near total exhaustion to reach our full potential, thinking we have almost arrived, and then suddenly learning we have barely begun the journey. This is what it is like to see ourselves as we truly are. The discovery is so devastating as to make us want to give up in utter despair. And yet there is a thrilling side to this truth. The fact that we have so far to go means that ahead of us are possibilities far more glorious than we ever dreamed of. We are a fallen race. Spiritually, we each entered this world with hideous birth defects. Trying to overcome our spiritual defects is like someone born with severe physical deformities heroically battling to overcome all the handicaps. Although on one level the attempt might look pathetic, people have won for themselves worldly fame and honor by battling physical handicaps to live close to normal lives. Likewise, we each have the potential to win eternal honor and acclaim by battling our spiritual handicaps.

To attempt, with God’s help, to struggle against the tide of worldly pressure and fleshly inadequacies to restore your sexuality to its divinely intended purity is such a noble task that the mere attempt brings you glory. It is like Scott’s Antarctic attempt. He neither achieved his goal of being the first person to the South Pole, nor completed the return journey, nor even survived, and yet his trek has been hailed as one on the greatest ever epics of human exploration and endurance. He failed and yet he persisted with a goal so challenging that the mere attempt made him a hero.

It is not unusual for an explorer trekking through new territory to stumble. It might be an unpleasant hindrance, but what matters is not his falls but whether he keeps pressing on. It’s his determination to keep forging deeper into virgin territory that makes him a hero, and his falls cannot detract from it. In fact, even if his progress seems abysmal, the more setbacks he suffers, the more impressed people are when he keeps trying.

If ordinary, self-centered people have this attitude towards those who have the tenacity to keep trying despite enormous failures, imagine how much more impressed God is when you keep trying. More than anyone in the universe, the God of infinite knowledge understands just how tough you find it. Moreover, love sees a person in the best possible light, and God loves you infinitely more than anyone else is capable of.

Micah 7:8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.

Proverbs 24:16 for though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again . . .

Despite the deceptive impression many Christians give each other, you are not alone in your struggle. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder how many of those Christians not currently battling some besetting sin, are in that position not because they are holy but because they have given up the battle and allowed themselves to be blinded to their need to change. Whether it be the sin of prayerlessness, lack of faith, or whatever, we all face new challenges that are usually overcome only after many failures. My suspicion is that millions of Christians have at some point in their Christian lives found themselves hopelessly addicted to solitary sex.

So as you battle the powerful addiction of solitary sex, you are in excellent company. Most Christians kept secret the fact that their mountain of failed attempts rose so high that they felt that breaking the habit was impossible. Most remained in bondage far longer than necessary because they felt too much shame, not only to admit their problem to someone else, but even to admit it to God. Instead of viewing their Savior as eager to forgive and to help and encourage, they mistakenly imagined him as pointing the accusing finger. Christ didn’t suffer and die for your forgiveness, to now turn around and condemn. Divine patience only runs thin with those who give up trying to break free. Those who keep trying, make God proud.

Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be honored and satisfied. We are saved by faith. Tragically, some people cannot find salvation because they are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of their sin that they cannot seem to muster the faith to believe God is big enough to forgive them. After finding salvation, we never go beyond the need to keep believing that God is big enough to forgive our sin. It would be hypocritical to seek forgiveness without genuinely wanting to stop sinning. We were born again to be winners, not losers. Christ died to make us holy. As often as we truly want to give up our sin, however, God will truly forgive us. For us to doubt God’s eagerness to forgive is to insult our Savior. We must avoid two dangers:

1. Giving up trying to find the victory Christ died to give us.

2. Giving up believing in the magnitude of Christ’s forgiveness.

Whether we try to abuse God’s grace or refuse God’s grace, the consequences are equally grim.

Our Lord’s anger does indeed burn against those who are sinning and are unconcerned about it – regardless of whether they are consciously and willingly breaking God’s heart or whether, like the Pharisees, they are living in denial of their sin. With those who are broken-hearted over their sin, however, our Savior is not only not angry, he is ever so close to them. The Lord is more excited about a single sinner who wants to stop sinning than over ninety-nine righteous. He is far more delighted with the tax collector who is overwhelmed by his sinfulness, than over the Pharisee with his long list of moral achievements. The Almighty declares blessings upon those who mourn and who are conscious of their spiritual poverty. (Related Scriptures) The Amplified Bible puts Psalm 34:18 this way:

The Lord is close to those who are of a broken heart, and saves those such as are crushed with sorrow for sin . . . In our intimacy with God we should be like little children who are so aware of their father’s tender love that whenever they fall they instinctively look to their Daddy for love and understanding. Maybe you can only imagine a mother engendering such love and trust. No problem. God is like the perfect mother as well as the perfect father (the biblical basis for this statement is expounded in a link at the end of this page). No matter how tragic is your perception of a parent, however, don’t let it ruin your life by spoiling your understanding of God’s compassion. He is the God of infinite comfort. He believes in you. He forgives and forgives and forgives because he loves and loves and loves. Your Savior is delighted every time you run to him for forgiveness or consolation or strength or even when you treat him as someone on whom to vent your frustration.

Picture the best father you can ever imagine; the person with the biggest, softest heart on the planet. He is utterly devoted to his little boy and yet someone has been whispering lies to the child, saying that unless the boy is perfect and never falls over, his father will hate him and treat him cruelly. Imagine how devastated this loving father would feel if, when his darling boy falls and hurts himself, the child shrinks in fear from his father, refusing to be comforted because he imagines that when he most needs a father’s love his father turns into a beast of a man.

The enemy of our souls continually whispers malicious lies about our God. Whenever we fall we need divine comfort and encouragement more than ever. Don’t break God’s heart by shrinking from him in fear or hiding from him in shame; treating him like some heartless beast; imagining that in his hand is a whip to beat us, when it is actually the world’s softest handkerchief to dry our tears. Whenever you fall, run into the welcoming, outstretched arms of the Lord who is devoted to you. Not only will he console you, he will inspire you to victory.

Finale

Unless reserving oneself for marriage includes all sexual stimulation, it is shallow. The whole concept of saving oneself for marriage, however, is inadequate. We should seek purity, not for our sake, nor for a future partner’s sake, but for the Lord’s sake. Anything else is secondary. Our past might be regrettable. It might haunt us, making our current fight for purity so much harder. But what matters most is that from now on we be pure for Jesus. So is masturbation for the sexually deprived or the sexually depraved? I commenced this web series only because it was meant to be one of the tiniest webpages I have ever written. To my surprise, it seemed to take on a life of its own and has ended up not only growing in length but seeming more anti-masturbation than I had wanted. I am not some moral authority. I neither created sex nor do I own your body. But I know the Lord delights in breaking addictions and that when taken to the Lord, prolonged battles with self-control promote spiritual growth.

I also know that if you masturbate, there is a good chance you can still have an excellent relationship with God. The Lord tolerated me masturbating thousands of times without any obvious impact on my walk with him. This truth has two edges; one deeply reassuring, the other terrifying. Regardless of our awareness of sin in our lives, we are each continually dependent upon the enormity of God’s grace that drives him to restrain his wrath and extend his period of tolerance of things within us that turn his stomach. God loves you so much that he will go to astounding lengths to overlook your shortcomings. The terrifying aspect is that the Lord also tolerated, in a famous evangelist, sexual fantasies, pornography and the use of prostitutes (I don’t know if this involved actual intercourse – it probably didn’t, which helped him justify his sin).

I wonder how many of us have hypocritically despised such men, while we have been dangerously ignorant of how we ourselves are testing the Lord’s patience to the same extreme. Our holy Lord tolerated this man’s sin so much that for years he was used of God to sweep more souls into the kingdom and minister to more Christians in a single day than most of us will achieve in a lifetime. But the Lord had the last word. This man was reduced to devastating worldwide shame, and even that was the mercy of God because it forced him to confront his sin this side of eternal judgment. God’s tolerance is intended to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4), not to the abuse of God’s grace.

One’s personal battle with masturbation can be won, and the spoils of war available to the victor are significant. The biggest battlefield is fantasy and what one lets in through the eye. Control that, and the stranglehold of masturbation will significantly weaken. Masturbating while thinking of, or looking at sexual things, is like combining sugar and chocolate. People who crave commercial chocolate do not usually find the bitter taste of sugarless chocolate particularly nice. Neither would they find eating spoonfuls of sugar very enticing. When the ingredients are separated, they are easier to resist. Likewise, if you refuse to combine solitary sex with wrong thoughts and sights, solitary sex will be much easier to control. Those who promote solo-sex remind me of 2 Peter 2:19:

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves . . . for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. Christ died that we might rule. He was bound to the cross to set us free from everything that keeps people bound. Romans 6:19 . . . Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 1 Peter 2:16 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. In Christ you were born to be free. Live a joy-filled life consistent with the purity and mastery over self that is yours in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; (4) that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, (5) not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; (7)For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. (8) Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

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