Is Masturbation Wrong?

I don’t disagree with anything the author wrote with regards to lust or porn. But I would say the article failed to answer the title. Perhaps the separation of MO from lust is uncommon, but personally I know it’s possible (not saying I achieve that consistently), and pastors I’ve talked to have always presented it as “if you can’t keep from M, at least do it without lust”.
As the quote from C.S. Lewis pointed out, M is inherently self-centered as opposed to other-centered, but even that didn’t address M as purely the physical act. I’m not trying to argue that it’s ok, but for me personally if I can avoid lust I’m not going to beat myself up for an occasional MO lapse.

 

We just had a thread on this same subject recently. Might want to review the discussion there. I'm not sure there is much more to add.

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/is-masturbation-wrong.307913/

 

I read the posted thread and I’m more confused than ever about the biblical aspects. I have so many questions regarding this but who can answer them for me except the Holy Spirit. I can’t talk to anyone about it. Is it possible to focus your mind on Jesus in the commission of committing a sin? Does the feeling of guilt come from the Holy Spirit or satan? I also read the comment that marriage is available to anyone who needs it to control their lust, this is just not true. And even if it was, would it be right to use a woman for this purpose? And then there are the following verse:
“And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Colossians 3:17.

I walk in the Spirit with constant communion and conversation with Jesus and yet I continue in satisfying my lust and feeling guilty about it. I found this site and decided to open up.
I talk to Jesus and He says that it is not against Him and it serves a purpose in my service to him. Yet, I feel it condemns my service in the view of the church. I cannot overcome anything that the Holy Spirit does not give me the power to do; and I have been given the power to overcome many things, but not this.
Maybe someone can help me to see something I am missing because I long to be pure to serve and I do not want to end up dying and realizing that my whole relationship with Jesus was a lie because what he tells me was different than what he tells other Christians.

 

Philippians 2:12-13 says "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose." It's hard to get the balance of what God does and what we must do but we can't just sit back and wait for God to do something nor do we rely on our own strength. You have work to do but if you fail that doesn't mean God has abandoned you

 

I am 57 yo and it has been a lifetime of work. I have never accomplished anything because I have put my mind to it. But no one can understand my experience but me and God. I was just wondering if my experience is unique. Only someone with a similair experience would understand how much work I have put into my relationship with God, but thank you for the response.

 

I have had the same thoughts. As I said, it's tough to get the balance between what God does for us and what we must do and theologians have been debating it for years and this thought has encouraged me. I'm a bit obsessed with the sovereignty of God and since there's so much to it if I focus on that my mind doesn't wander as much

 

Why can't you talk to anyone about this? You certainly can here!

Condemnation is never from the Spirit. Conviction always is. What is the Spirit convicting you about?

Lust is wrapped up in pride and selfishness. It is missing the mark. Some single men have found a way to MO without lust, and they feel no conviction to stop. That is between them and the Spirit. Lust is what we seek to avoid and P is the poison that keeps us enslaved.

In turning to lust, we are hoping to find some kind of fulfillment for something that we believe God cannot or will not satisfy. We go outside of his provision when we do this. Lust cannot ever actually satisfy, so we remain trapped und unfulfilled. Only by refusing to give in to lust, no matter how we fell, can we break free. It is very hard. God is patient while we struggle. His love endures forever.

If the Spirit of Christ tells you MO is not against him, then follow what he says in the freedom he has provided to you! If that same spirit tells you that lust is not against him, then this is a false spirit and not the true one. God will never tempt you or lead you into sin. There is only one Spirit, and he unites all of us together in the same undying life.

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts. It is a tough topic!

 

When I was 14 I told my Dad that I masterbated. It was a pretty hard experience. I was pretty embarassed, it was hard to get the words out. And his response was that he thought it was a natural thing. He's a believer and I have a lot of respect for him, but I think I disagree with him. I think I disagreed with him pretty early on.

I appreciate its not an easy one, but I thought i'd share my thoughts for what its worth. Here are a few -

1. I think I have almost always felt guilt following masterbation, or the next morning. I'd say 99 times out of 100.
2. I'd say M almost always leads towards fantasy, and so lust. I don't mean you can't do it without lustful thoughts, but I mean its tendency, its direction, is to push your mind in this direction. Which I suppose is connected to my next point.
3. Sex is made for marriage, the penis is made for sex. That is its functional purpose. It is the only purpose acknowledged by scripture for our sexual organs. Even if M is not accompanied by fantasy, it seems a use of sexual organs outside of their design. And the use outside of their design seems to lead to all kinds of problems (perhaps further evidence that it is not what God wants): the problems being 1) sexual dysfunction, 2) a tendency to lust, 3) some kind of guilt or shame.

Anyhow those are my 2 cents. Keen to hear anyone's thoughts on this.

 

The book "Sexual Detox" by Tim Challies says a similar thing. I don't think he mentions that the penis is built for sex and it's also for urine but you'd be right that sex is made for two people rather than one

 

Maybe the use of the penis for urination is not mentioned in the bible, but I would assume that this is not a sin. It is difficult to imagine that Jesus did not use his penis for urination. So, this is my thoughts on this. It is not a very convincing argument.

 

Jesus did not speak much on lust or sex when he was here. Paul talked about it more. It has always been my impression that the thorn that Paul talked about in his side was likely that he was a homosexual and attracted to men and experienced the lust associated with that, and probably gave into temptation at times and masturbated. This might be a stretch but it makes sense from a psychological perspective given his writings, and it feels similiar to what I feel (except my lust is towards women). It would also explain why he would not feel comfortable saying what it was and explain why he had no interest in marriage.

Jesus was more focused on hypocrisy. This is my concern. Because of the church's attitude towards masturbation, I feel it is assumed that when you are focused on Jesus you can abstain from this. One church that I was attending required a purity pledge in order to volunteer at the church. I attempted to honor it but failed. I left that church. I want to stop but, like Paul, perhaps God is continuing to say "my grace is sufficient". A way to keep me humble so that I do not consider myself to be too holy of my own power? I know that my conversations with Jesus may be contaminated with my mind, but the Holy Spirit can be very clear and forceful when addressing other issues that I am expected to be obedient to.
Thanks for allowing me to discuss these things that are not generally considered appropriate topics of conversation.

 

For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.’
Mark 7:21‭-‬23
‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Matthew 5:27‭-‬28
For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others – and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.’
Matthew 19:12
That was just a quick browse but he talked about all sin and where sin comes from

 

I have had no shortage of guilt inducing talk regarding PMO in my life and it has not been very helpful, but thank you for continuing to add to this approach. Did you bother to read the rest of my post or just rush to find fault with the first sentence?

 

I did but it was mostly personal experience. I've had my own experience and that has shown that lust and masturbation are insatiable and you'll always want a bigger hit.
You're assumption about Paul is just that, an assumption. It could have been a sexual temptation, could have been the constant people criticizing him and what many people think is that it was a medical problem. The great thing about him not revealing what the thorn was is that you can use what he got from it to your own thorn. You might have a problem with masturbation for your whole life but that doesn't mean you should just give in and let it consume you or that it isn't sinful but the grace of God is still sufficient for your struggle and you can be forgiven but still fight it

 

If you want to stop, then keep fighting. God's grace is indeed sufficient for you. You may fight until your dying day. That is all right. None of us will exit this life with everything 100% mastered and figured out!

 

Hey Neil, mate I appreciate this is a sensitive one. I wasn't trying, and I don't think Eddie was either, to add to feelings of guilt or shame. I suppose the reason I wrote about my thoughts on masterbation is because you said you were wondering if anyone could help you to see something you were missing. And as you said, we have all been, and all will continue to be wrong about stuff, even stuff that we have thought was from God. My feelings and thoughts, as I said, are that masterbation is wrong. So I wouldn't want you to wrestle with this from the wrong angle believing something that I think is not true. But of course, if you aren't convinced by my reasons then that's fair enough. I could be wrong too. Those were just my 2 cents, as I said.

Umm, yes good point Eddie about urinating! ha, I wasn't really thinking about this at the time. But perhaps I should have said it seems the clear stated purpose of the male sexual organ as far as it relates to sexuality, is for partnered sex!

To Neil - is there a reason you find the idea of original design unconvincing? I was trying to think of some illustrations of what I mean, I hope these aren't too crude. Its kind of like, should we take drugs? Ah feels good but not really how the body was meant to be used, leads to harmful results. Should we eat stacks of junk food? Ah, not really what we are made for, and has harmful results. Should we sit around and do nothing all day? Nah, man was made for some work, the absence of it leads to some bad results. So the question then, to repeat it in the context of these illustrations, is: what was the purpose for male sexual organs (relating to their sexuality)? And it seems to be that the bible makes clear that we are to use our sexual organs for sex in a relationship. And when we try to do otherwise, or use our sexuality beyond this, we know that it can lead to some pretty harmful results (as above, lust and sexual dysfunction are 2 examples), . This has been my and many people's experience with masterbation, I believe.

Anyhow brother, those are my thoughts, love to you man, praying for you in your journey.

 

Neil also want to say, I'm really sorry to hear that you have felt judged re PMO or found diaologue around it guilt-inducing. Its a hard topic and I can well believe that the church gets it wrong sometimes and is unhelpful. Sounds really tough in your case. I pray you can find peace and healing from guilt and shame within the loving arms of God - arms big enough for all of us in all our weakness and guilt. Bless you mate

 

Thanks for all the responses. I have not been on here in a few days. I think the repression had a powerful transformation into anger the other day and I had to deal with and work through that without going back to drugs also. I finally calmed down enough to go to the gym and work it out. I have not really been tempted to PMO since I joined the group but this morning I am starting to feel it again. This is when I usually do not bother to resisit because when I do it just builds up in my mind, and then my body, until I eventually give in anyway. If I just do it, it goes away, and I don't have to think about it anymore for awhile. I do not experience what other people describe about never being satisfied or always needing a bigger hit. So anyway, I logged on to share where I am rather than ..., and the desire has not reached my body yet, that is when I begin to feel it as a physical need to release and it becomes nearly impossible not to release it.

Hope everyone is doing well. I am here willing to try a different way to deal with this. Secular approaches to not feel guilty about it do not work for me either and I suppose what Lyarthetruth said about guilt is probably true. If it was an attack from the devil I would recognize it and fight it, but the temptation doesn't feel like an attack from the devil either but a temptation of the flesh and a psychological issue. When I was angry the other day and tempted to use drugs to deal with that, it was obviously an attack of the devil because it was coming from everywhere.

Anyway, just some more thoughts. I am trying to let my mind be open to what people have to say and not be so defensive, so I think I am on a better path to understanding this. Thanks for all the input and support.