A 12 Letter Dirty Word: Masturbation

This article is from a single Christian males perspective, however the principles are the same for both men and women, married or not.

This is a subject that no one wants to talk about. Mainly because most of us are guilty of it and continue to be or have been guilty of it in the past.

We will cover four things that have to be established on this subject and we will cover them one at a time.
1. Is masturbation a sin?
By the Word of God yes it is.

2. How bad is it?
We know there are no degrees to sin. It's like a woman saying I am a little bit pregnant. She either is or she isn't. If she is that baby is going to grow. That may be a bad metaphor but if you let sin go, it will grow, and it will give birth to death not life.

3. How wide spread is it?

4. How do we stop, repent and turn away from it?

Is masturbation a sin and if so how bad is it? The first clue should be why would God convict you of it if it weren't sin? Why after masturbating do you feel guilty and empty?

1st Corinthians chapter six verse eighteen:
"Shun immorality and all sexual looseness [flee from impurity in thought, word or deed]. Any other sin which a man commits is one outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body." Amplified Version

Matthew chapter five verse twenty eight:
Jesus said "But I say to you that everyone who so much as looks at a woman with evil desire (lust) for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Guys I don't care what woman or women you are thinking about when you masturbate, if they are married or not or just made up. The fact is your thoughts are impure and the deed is too. God's Word commands us to shun and flee from these thoughts, not dwell on and use them. You may say that nice and toned down term it's just 'self-sex'. God says you are in adultery and fornication. It is sin.

1st Corinthians chapter six verses nineteen and twenty:
"Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary) of the Holy Spirit Who lives within you, whom you have received [as a gift] from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body."

Matthew chapter twelve verse thirty five:
"The good man from his inner good treasure flings forth good things, and the evil man out of his inner evil storehouse flings forth evil things."

James chapter one verses thirteen thru fifteen.
"Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] evil and He Himself tempts no one. But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death."

That evil passion to masturbate is yours and yours alone it is an evil desire in your heart. If you are born again and you being the very temple of Almighty God, decide to drag Him through it. In all your fantasies and thoughts you bring God along, is it any wonder He is grieved? It is sin.

Sex was a gift from God for a married couple to give of themselves to each other. Masturbation is selfishness pure and simple. It is sin.

You a man are having sex with you a man, what's that called; I don't care what you are thinking of. You, a man, are performing a physical act with you a man. It is sin.

Romans chapter twelve verse one:
"I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship."

When you masturbate you do none of these, you do just the opposite. It is  sin.

How bad is it? It is a grievous sin and it will grow and bring forth death.

How wide spread is it? Jesus said the last days would be as the days of Noah and Sodom. Luke 17:26-29

Some of these statistics are as much as twelve years old and some have to do with pornography. Men you know what you do when you look at porn. In a 1994 survey of 600 Christian men. Of the married men who responded 61% said they masturbated, with 82% saying they did it at least once a week. 96% of single men under the age of 20 admitted to a masturbation habit. Only 23% gave "enjoyment" as a reason for doing it. The rest said "from habit," "because of their sex drive," "they were addicted to it," or from "lack of an outlet for sex" as the reason they engaged in masturbation.

In his book, "Men's Secret Wars", Patrick Means reveals a confidential survey of evangelical pastors and church lay leaders. 64% of these Christian leaders confirm that they are struggling with sexual addiction or sexual compulsion including, but not limited to use of pornography, compulsive masturbation, or secret sexual activity.

A study of university networks by Palisades Systems found searches for child pornography at 230 colleges nationwide. The research revealed that 42% of all searches on the file-to-file sharing systems involved child or adult pornography. The study also found that 73% of movie searches were for pornography, 24% of image searches were for child pornography, and only 3% of the searches did not involve pornography or copyrighted materials.

In December of 2000, the National Coalition to Protect Children and Families surveyed 5 Christian Campuses to see how the next generation of believers was doing with sexual purity:

48% of males admitted to current porn use
68% of males said they intentionally viewed a sexually explicit site at the school
(From MSNBC Survey 2000: 60% of all website visits are sexual in nature.)

At 13.3 billion dollars, the 2006 revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide sex industry sales for 2006 are reported to be 97 billion dollars.

To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software), reported sales of only 44.8 billion dollars in 2006. (Internet Filter Review) Just one more identifier if you are still wondering if we are in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The number one search term used at search engine sited is the word "sex". Users searched for "sex" more than any other terms such as "games," travel," "music," "jokes," "cars," "weather," "health," and "jobs" combined. The study also found that "pornography/porno" was the fourth-most searched for subject. (Alexa Research)

When I was a kid I would try to sneak a look at playboy magazines. Now we have it piped into our homes by cable, by dish, by the Internet. We can even download it on our phones. We don't have to look on the street as in the days of Sodom; it's in our homes and it's in the church.

How widespread is masturbation? It is rampant everywhere, in the church and in the world and all the sin, the porn, child porn, prostitution that blossoms from it.

Do you think that the girls that are in the porn industry enjoy it?

"Most girls who enter the porn industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again." (Luke Ford, quoted by CBS News)

Now think about this.
Hollywood currently releases 11,000 adult movies per year - more that 20 times the mainstream movie production, films that you can view at you local cinema. (LA Times Magazine, 2002) In an average porn movie there are between 5 and 20 girls that's between 55,000 and 220,000 girls as young as they can get them to be used and scared this way a year. These are just the legal ones not counting the one made with minors or children. That is just in the U.S.

God is going to hold you personally responsible for your sin of masturbation if you do not repent. But you are every bit as guilty of sin as those girls that got lured in to doing a movie. You are every bit as guilty as the producers of that movie that lured them into it. Why? You gave them your money to buy them. You helped make those producers rich, rich enough to lure those young girls with the money or a quick fix; you gave them the money every time you rented a movie. Are you so foolish and I am talking to Christian men, are you so foolish that you think God is going to punish those producers, send them to hell and just let you slid on by when you supported it. Just because you wanted to masturbate? Just so you could get your selfish, ungodly two-minute high.

The average time a porn movie is watched in a hotel room is 12 minutes. (Time.com 3-29-05)

1st Corinthians chapter six verse nine:
"Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality."

Masturbation is sexual immorality. Jesus said that sexual immorality will take you to Hell. The fruit of it is that it has help build a multi
billion-dollar industry that has helped to destroy millions of lives. Keep practicing this sin and stand before Jesus with any excuse you wish. Gods Word says the sexual immoral will not enter in but will be cast into the lake of fire.

How do we stop, repent and turn from it?
God has delivered me from pot, cocaine, crystal, acid, speed and alcohol. With each of these came a battle. Of all of these and some of these drugs I did for decades. The sin of masturbation was the biggest battle. But if you say that God can't deliver you for any reason, it's too strong or that's the way I'm made, if you give any reason stating that God can't deliver you of this sin you have:
1: - Just called Almighty God a liar.
2: - Just proved you don't want to be delivered.

1st Corinthians chapter ten verse thirteen:
"For no temptation (no trail regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold of you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trail has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be temped and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of
resistance and power to endure, but with temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently."

Jesus took all our sin indeed the sin of the whole world upon the cross. He came to set us free that we might live a holy and pleasing life toward God. Those who are set free by the Son of God are free indeed. God is faithful and He can be trusted, He will let no temptation come to you that is beyond your ability to resist and endure.

1st Thessalonians chapter four verses three and four:
"FOR THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD, that you should be consecrated (separated and set apart for pure and holy living): that you should abstain and shrink from ALL sexual vice, that each one of you should know how to possess (control, manage) his own body in consecration (purity, separated from things profane) and honor."

It is God's will that you live a life free from sexual sin. A life of pureness and holiness in thought and deed. He would not require this of you if He knew you could not do it. He does not call you to build a house without giving you the tools, skill and materials to do it.

You still have to do the labor and it can be hard work. The question is, are you willing to do what it takes?

You first have to come to realize how deadly serious this sin is. It was easy for me to say I know I was a drunk and a drug addict. God said no drunkards shall inherit the Kingdom of God. When something has that much control over you, you know it.

I first had to realize it was a sin not a disease. That would mean that I was in danger of going to hell because I was sick. I did not catch drunkenness like I would catch the flu.

It was because of my actions and lack of actions, choices I made that led me to depend on alcohol and drugs to deal with my life and myself.

It is the same with masturbation. Yes God gave you a sex drive. Yes God made women attractive. Yes God gave most men a desire to have that one companion to be intimate with in all areas of life and not just sexually. That is why God gave us marriage.

Paul wrote that he wished that all men were like he himself (single/ unmarried). But this was a gift from God for him to fulfill his calling
that the Lord had placed upon is life. 1st Corinthians 7: 7-9. Most men and I believe most women do not have that gift. At the same time God clearly states that we are not to walk in any sexual sin. Sex is a gift that is not to be opened until you are married, sex is a gift that He gave to bless a husband and wife not us singles. Yes, God gave me a sex drive and I thank God He did, but it is not my master, Jesus is.

Here is part of the key, is Jesus your Lord? Are you subject to His will and not to your own?

When I went to God seeking deliverance from drinking it never happened.  I could not understand why. I begged God but alcohol was my master. I sought Christ to get a problem out of my life. I did not give up my life to get Christ's life. It was I that lived not Christ Jesus that lived in me.

When I finally realized that masturbating was every bit as damming as being a drug addict, and had just as much control of me, and was just as destructive to me and those around me, just as grievous to my Lord and Savior who died for me that I could be free, it was then that I saw what I had to do. I had to go; I had to die, so Jesus could have that area of my life and live through that area of my life.

When I started to seek God just to know Him more, just to draw closer to Him, and know and love the One who made me, He began to show me why I drank and took drugs. God is a loving Father and He wants to remove anything that separates Him from His children. He started to show me the roots of the problem were as I had always focused on the fruit of the tree. He then helped me pull up the roots and the tree died.

It is the same with masturbation don't go seeking God just to get rid of the problem. Don't seek God just to get something from Him, seek Him to get to know Him. He knows it is a serious problem and He wants you free of it more than you do. If you are truly born again from above, you are a part of His body. He wants to impart His life in you. He may show you a lot of roots you will have to pull. There may be some things you may have to repent of that you never tied into the question of 'why does this urge to sin win in
me?'

There is a major difference between the sin of being a drunk or a drug addict and the sin of masturbation. I did not have a God given desire to get drunk and puke all over. I learned that all on my own. I do have a God given desire to find the woman God has for me and get married. Masturbation is the abuse of that gift. I'm already cheating on my wife and I'm not even married yet. If like Paul I had the gift to be single I would not have that desire at all. Many people say they have that 'gift' but are trying to stamp out the desire when God wanted them to have a wife and they live a lonely miserable life or they secretly sin.

Yes it is a God given desire but His will was never for it to be your master. Here is what I did. First I made a decision to give God all of my life. I thought I had but I had just given Him bits and pieces before I realized what I was doing and grew tired of the 'piece game'. And here is what you must do, you must totally surrender, give it up, and abandon yourself to God. Jesus said, "If a man puts his hand to the plow and looks back he is no longer fit to be my disciple." The more I really got to know Jesus and His character, the more I became determined to let nothing come between us. God and His will became the primary focus of my life. And now it is the only focus of my life.

If I am to marry, that will be great, if I am to remain single, then that will be great too. I asked God to take the desire away. He didn't but I would have been perfectly content if He did.

Let me just put in here that I learned not to care what people think about me. The whisperers, why does he not get married and do this or that? I am not going to stand and give an account to those people I will to Jesus Christ.

I also realized that this sin would take me to Hell. When you deliberately sin you deliberately reject Christ. We do not know the day or the hour or the second of the rapture. Ask yourself what you want to be doing when Jesus returns for His bride without spot or wrinkle. Laying there masturbating was not on my list.

I determined to fight it. It is an abuse of a God given gift. It is abnormal sex. Not only is it grievous to God but you are also teaching
yourself abnormal sexual behavior.

It will be a battle, you have trained yourself to get your quick fix every bit as much as drug addict needs a shot or a snort or a hit of his drug. Your flesh will want it. Remember, Gods Word says to walk after the Spirit not the flesh. When the thought or desire first enters your mind the battle is on. If you had an enemy that was trying to kill you and you hear the sound of a bullet entering the chamber of his gun you don't stand in an open field and decide what to do, YOU MOVE, you react, you get to some cover and you get ready to fire back. Someone once said "you can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can stop it from making a nest in your hair." You can't stop the thought from entering your mind but you don't have to dwell on it, MOVE. Take every thought captive to Christ get you mind on God and what He's called you to do. Get under the cover of the Almighty. The flesh may say to you 'I want it, I want it', again and again. And it can be strong, it may the first time you really ever battled your flesh before, if it is consider it a revelation, now you understand a little better all those scriptures about fighting the flesh, so fight it.

As I said, especially at first, it can be a real battle but it is a real man, a grown up man, a man of God who is in control of his flesh, one who does not let his flesh control and dictate to him. A real man fights, it is trying to kill you, and sin does not show mercy. You are commanded by God to treat it the same way. I don't care if it attacks you so powerfully that at three in the morning you get up and wax your car to get your mind off it, if that still doesn't work buy a bigger car, buy a fleet if you have to but you can not give in.

Quite watching movies and TV. shows with sexual content, any sexual content, quit the books, the magazines.

Romans chapter twelve verse two:
"Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the (entire) renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]."

Your friends might give you grief and say it's only a PG or R rated movie even 15 year olds go to them. Yaw, they do and look at the fruit. |

Your mind is a container; God gives you the power to renew it. If you keep putting trash in it, it is a trash container and all you are doing is giving your enemy more bullets to fire at you. Put Godly things in and it will become a Godly container. Get back to basics. Read Gods Word and fellowship with those that are serious about serving the Lord and not hiding their own sin, confess your sins one to another, bring it to the light, it's the devil who works in the dark. Pray and ask for God to reveal His will for your life and I mean every part of it. Then do it. Jesus said, "Where I am my servant shall be." Not the other way around. Gods has a plan for you He thought up before you were born, get to it. If you want God to reveal more of His will to you, you first have to do what He has already revealed. Why would He show you more of His plan when you have not obeyed what you already know?

Remember its Heaven and Hell serious. Staying in and repeating a known sin is your choice and you are choosing it over God. God will give you the victory but you have to fight the battle.

As you do these things and anything else the Lord may show you the attacks become less fierce and farther apart. But always be prepared. You have to as Paul said "die daily" and Romans chapter six verse eleven and twelve. "Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. Let no sin therefore rule as king in your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies, to make you yield to its cravings and be subject to its lusts and evil passions."

I have also been asked to write an article on dating and courtship because the next question I usually get from single men is how do I find a wife? If they have read the Word they usually quote 1st Corinthians 7:27 emphasizing the "seek not a wife" part with a pained look on their face.

Dating and courtship is a whole different study and I will write more on this later. But in brief I will share this since masturbating is sin and it's good to know what is not. The gift of sex is for married couples, that they may express in the physical the love God gave them, for each other to be shared between them alone.

First if anyone can find anywhere in the Word of God that dating as we understand it today is scriptural I would like to see it. It is not. That does not mean you can't meet and get to know members of the opposite sex. But the Word is clear that you treat them as sisters.

"Treat older women like mothers and younger women like sisters, in all purity." 1st Timothy 5:2.

Read the in all purity part again. You don't decide you like her and drive off to Lookout point even if she wants to. Trust me you don't want the girl that is willing to break her vow before God and you are doing the same. In fact if you really love and respect her you would never put her in a place where there could be even a hint of sexual immorality. The devil is a liar and the accuser of the Saints he does not care that nothing has happened between you and her. He will slander her and you if you give him the chance. A Godly husband protects his wife; a Godly man protects his sister. He does not take his sister out and then make out with her.

Meeting the lady and getting married is a gift from God every bit as being single such as Paul's gift. When it is time to receive that gift (and God knows when it is time) let Him bring the lady across your path that He has for you. You trust Almighty God with your eternal salvation but you can't trust Him to bring you a mate? God says He will give you the desire of your heart. He can say that because He is the one who gave you the desire in the first place. When it is time, and fortunately for you and her that will be when you are mature enough to take headship for one of His daughters and when it is His will, for God wants godly families, you can pray and He will answer.

But first I would pray that the Lord would reveal to you what it is to be a godly husband and to put you through the refining fire so that you are ready to take that position. The Word states that when you get married you "shall have trouble in the flesh". It is wise and I state this again IT IS WISE to take care of as much of these trouble as you can before you are married. Then I would pray that the Lord would bring her to you. Don't go seeking, looking to see if this or that girl has enough check marks on your perfect wife list. Pray and trust, let God answer your prayer. All good gifts come from above and God loves you and her. Let Him bring you that gift and her let him bring you. The fruit of meeting her should increase your service for God not distract you from it for two are better than one when it is God's will. When you two meet trust God to let you both know it, and you can pray singly and together as to whether you are meant to be more than just brother and sister. Remember God is Love. Don't try to manufacture it on your own. That is counterfeit, emotional, conditional love and that is why most, over 50% of Christian marriages end in divorce within 5 years. Take the time to let God fill you with His love for her and fill her with His love for you. If she is the one, God will do this whether you are together or apart. When you come to the point where you know it is God's will to marry her and she hears the same from the Lord, then you are ready to make that commitment, that life long covenant together.

A lot of people will say "that is crazy' and that 'our society does not work this way'. 'You are saying God is a matchmaker'. To that I say yea and amen. Societies change but the Lord thy God does not. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He made the first match and marriage in the beginning and He still does for those who know Him and seek His will.

"And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us. And if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask, we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him." 1st John 5:14-15.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions about this article.

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible.