Before I get started, just letting you readers know that I realize not all of you are Christians. In fact, if you are the average person who is not a Christian, especially if you are young and your hormones are still raging, you are no doubt intensely interested in sex—talking about it, watching it, and doing it. Regardless of whether or not you are born again, however, sexual sin—that is, all sin outside of marriage—is very dangerous to indulge in.
It is true that everyone who dabbles in sexual sin is not affected the same way by it. Not all people who sin sexually turn into criminals. Many fornicate, use a little porn, and so on as a rite of passage into adulthood or as living the life of a bachelor or bachelorette. Certainly they masturbate at least occasionally, and in some cases much more often. Eventually a number of these folks get married, drop the other sexual stuff, and live ordinary lives. The average person would say that no harm has been done in such cases, but this is not true. Because God ordained sex to be enjoyed only between one man and one woman in marriage, this other sexual activity, even if it did not lead to anything darker, is still sin against a holy God. Porn, by the way, is not as harmless as it seems. This is true even in cases where the users do not get addicted. Why?
Despite regulations for websites, some porn performers are trafficked into what they are doing. Many of them are not, but this does not mean that what goes on in the porn industry is not dangerous. It is. A lot of the stuff a person sees in a video is heavily edited, some of it is faked, and the performers often have low self-esteem. Porn producers are looking to make money and if it means exploiting the uncontrolled sex drives of others then so be it. There are people who have done porn videos that have committed suicide later on because they could not live with the shame they felt over it.
But you see, the sex drive is hardwired by God into every human being. It is an integral part of who we are. Although children may sometimes experience such desires, they do not understand what it is and what it’s about. When puberty is reached the sex drive ramps up. People at this stage of life need to be told the truth about sex, including what is and is not proper and what its purposes are. This does not guarantee that they will not rebel and start having sex before they’re married or even before they’re fully grown, but knowledge and discipline help. They need to be made to understand that the restrictions God put on the use of sex are not limitations meant to keep us away from pleasure, but guard rails to keep us clear of the many dangers inherent in the misuse of sex.
Exposure to inappropriate sex can lead to many problems. Women get pregnant with unwanted babies, at least some of which are executed via abortion. Others are raised by a single parent or adopted out. Some people contract STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases). Although medicines are available to treat these diseases, who in their right mind would want to contract one? And although medicinal technology has greatly advanced in the area of HIV, this is still a formidably dangerous and incurable disease. These are only two of the myriad possible bad outcomes of sex outside of marriage.
The misuse of sex warps the mind. There are those who become crossdressers. Some people start practicing homosexuality or bisexuality. Then there is the issue of transgenderism. While that issue goes beyond sex itself, sex is a component of it as what we do sexually goes with our gender. Persons can become addicted to masturbation, or may seek gratification through the use of sex dolls. Some become swingers, indulging in orgies, having “open marriages,” and so on.
Some people become addicted to pornography. This is bad because it teaches them to objectify people, to view them as objects of sexual gratification rather than as human beings. Repeated use of porn also desensitizes the conscience. It requires more and more graphic porn to achieve the same effect. Eventually such individuals begin seeking out actual sexual experiences, and the results can be disappointing at best, devastating at worst.
There are those who descend even further into sexual sin, becoming criminally deviant. Some people discover child porn. Not only do they consume it, some even begin to produce it. There are those who become rapists, or start indulging in incest if they have the chance. They may start having sex with animals, with corpses, or with children. You may think that can never happen to you, but consider this:
Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
This verse tells us basically that we do not know everything that is in our hearts. Who is to say that under the wrong circumstances, things can be brought out of you that you never even suspected were there, including criminal sexual deviance? In the Scriptures, one dramatic example of a person being deceived by his own heart was Peter, one of Jesus Christ’s top disciples.
Peter was brash, passionate, and sometimes too quick to speak. When the Lord foretold His coming death, Peter boldly proclaimed that he would never deny Him. Jesus calmly, matter-of-factly told Peter that he would deny Him three times. I have no doubt that Peter believed every word he said when he proclaimed that he would never deny the Lord. Yet when Christ was taken, Peter did in fact deny Him three times. Jesus, being God, knew what was in Peter’s heart already. Peter himself did not. So before you say you would never rape a woman, molest a child, et cetera, remember, you do not know what is lurking in the depths of your heart. Who knows what using porn or indulging in illicit sex might lead you to?
Those who have never committed a sexual offense—and those who have but haven’t been caught—have no idea what convicted sex offenders have to deal with. Jail and prison are dangerous for them unless they are segregated from the rest of the jail population or, in prison, are sent to majority sex offender camps. Even there they are not completely safe. In a regular prison population, convicted sex offenders are often beaten, robbed, extorted, and raped, and sometimes murdered. Staff members sometimes let it happen. The sex offender “treatment” inside is a joke, and mandated sex offender treatment once an SO gets out of prison is more about making money and drilling it into you that “you will always be a sex offender” than it is about rehabilitation. And then there is the sex offender registry.
The registry is a hassle, as are the various laws restricting where someone can live or work. As hard as it is for an ordinary convicted felon to get a job and obtain housing, it is even more challenging for a convicted sex offender to do so. If you slip up on the rules, including keeping required information up to date, you will be jailed or even sent back to prison. People have heard the stereotypes about SO’s so often that they think all of them are unredeemable monsters. Even a number of churches either don’t want them as members or, if they do accept them, subject them to restrictions that will never be removed, thereby denying the power of Jesus Christ to redeem some people. Sometimes church members are also troublesome, spreading gossip about SO’s and ostracizing them. And although the chances of vigilante violence are remote, they are not zero. Folks on the registry have been attacked, their property vandalized, and some have even been murdered by maniacal sex offender haters. And the information about people on the registry, including their home addresses, is publicly available—anyone can see it. Anyone. Folks talk about getting past your past, but if you are convicted of a sex crime it’s like law enforcement and society work in tandem to keep it in your face. They want it to be an undying shame.
But suppose it has already happened, that you have crossed the rubicon and been caught and convicted of a sex crime. You realize that participating in various illicit sexual activities, from porn watching to intercourse, have brought you so low, but you cannot undo the crime(s) you have committed. Or even if you have not committed a sex crime, you have come to realize that you are addicted to one or more forms of ungodly sex. What can you do now?
Sexual deviance often requires professional help. However, counselors are also mandated reporters so if you admit to other crimes you have not been caught for, they have to report this to the authorities lest they face prosecution themselves. We are not going to tell you to lie to anyone. How much you disclose is up to you. Even if you do not need professional counseling, you still need some sort of help. It is a very rare individual that overcomes sex addiction on their own. There are programs that help people overcome sexual addiction, overcome pornography, and so on. A good Christ-centered program is Celebrate Recovery, where many kinds of issues are dealt with. Covenant Eyes is a popular program geared toward helping people overcome pornography addiction. There are other programs out there as well. Regardless, victory requires accountability and determination. If you are lost, the best thing for you is to get saved. You can receive counseling even as a lost person, but due to certain factors, spiritual help can best be administered once you become a Christian; i.e., once you are born again.
Spiritual help may involve deliverance. Yes, Christians can have demons. This is a topic we deal with in the teachings in our Remnant Bible Academy, and you can contact this ministry for more information about Christian demonization and deliverance as well. Demonized or not, people coming out of sexual addiction have soul wounds—emotional scars and injuries—that contribute to their addiction. These need healing, and there is no better healer than the Holy Spirit. Believers who have come out of sexual addiction and/or other sexual deviance themselves have especially good insight into these issues and can be of great help.
A problem those who have been into sexual sin struggle with is wondering if God can forgive them for what they have done. Religiosity and legalism among Christians does not help. However, the Scripture itself is plain that God can and does forgive those whom He saves:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Psalm 103:12: As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
There is no power greater than God’s power. No matter what you have done, who you have done it to, and how often you have done it, God can not only forgive and save you, He can also work in you to help you overcome any and all sexual sin. But you have to let God work in you. You have to be willing to let sexual sin go. The fact that you have gotten saved shows that God sees you have the desire to live differently. But because sexual sin involves part of who we are at the core of our being it easily becomes deeply rooted and has particularly intense and detrimental effects on people:
1 Corinthians 6:18: Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
While we are rejuvenated spiritually when saved, our fleshly nature is still hanging around, looking for any opportunity to manifest itself. We must walk in the Spirit of God in order to keep from sinning, and that of course includes sexual sin:
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Romans 7:24-25, 13:14: O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin…But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
Galatians 5:16: I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Sexual sin is a very dangerous thing to dabble in. You can overcome it, especially if you are saved and thus are open to God’s help. It is best not to go down the road of lust but if you have, you can stop. If you have been convicted of a sex crime and are thus now a convicted sex offender, your past doesn’t have to be your identity. Lost or saved, you can build a new future for yourself. It is, however, best to be saved, and to find Christians who will help you grow in the Lord and not hold your past against you. You can contact this ministry if you want to know how to be born again. Stand in your new identity. Pray for those you have sinned against. Be a light in this dark world, a beacon of hope to those struggling with sexual sin.
Comments
or explore Turning Point Blogs