Last updated on September 24, 2020
Question:
My girlfriend and I just had sex without using a condom but knowing each other’s status. The problem is we are not ready yet to have a child, so we used the withdrawal method every time we had sex but three days after her menstrual cycle. All I want to know is if it possible for her to get pregnant if I didn’t ejaculate in her because I withdrew before the time.
Please help.
Answer:
What you and your girlfriend have been doing is breaking God’s law against having sex when you are not married. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). You’ve been trying to sin without facing the consequences of those sins. You are correct that you are not ready to have a child because you are not married, but the truth is that you are also not ready for sex for the same reason.
Every time a couple engages in sex, there is a risk of pregnancy. You can change the odds, but you can’t completely eliminate the possibility. To understand the odds: if 100 married couples were regularly having sex, doing nothing to prevent pregnancy, then in one year 85 out of the 100 will find themselves expecting a child by the end of the year. What you did is called the withdrawal method. It is an attempt to prevent pregnancy by withdrawing the penis before ejaculating. 100 couples who practice the withdrawal method for a whole year will find that 19 of them will be expecting a child. 19 is a good deal less than 85 but isn’t close to zero.
The use of condoms has about the same odds for pregnancy as the withdrawal method; however, it also greatly reduces the odds of spreading diseases, though again it doesn’t completely eliminate diseases.
The reason withdrawal doesn’t eliminate pregnancies is because you can have sperm present in your pre-ejaculate fluid. That is the fluid that drips out of your penis when you are aroused. It only takes a sperm reaching the egg at the proper time to cause a pregnancy.
Another reason it doesn’t work is that guys don’t always get the timing right and some semen goes into the vagina before they manage to get their penis out.
Yet another reason is that couples aren’t always careful after the ejaculation occurs. Many coddle after sex but that places the penis near the vagina and it is still dripping fluid.
Trying to time sex based on a girl’s period doesn’t always work because the length of a girl’s menstrual cycle can vary. Women release an egg two weeks before the start of their next period. That means you have to guess when she will have her next period — when she last had a period doesn’t matter. On top of that, your sperm can survive up to six days inside a woman. Thus having sex two to three weeks before her next period has a higher probability of resulting in pregnancy.
Question:
Thanks for the word of advice. What I did was wrong from the start because I know that sex before marriage is a sin. It is not like we did not know the rule, we did; it just happened. I will repent for my sin because I just broke the rule that is writen in the Bible. I so hope that she is not pregnant because we want to finish our studies.
Thank you for responding.
Answer:
I’m glad you accepted my scolding so well. It is good that you are determined to change for the better. But I would like to point out that it didn’t “just happened.” I will grant you that it wasn’t your initial intention, I know you weren’t thinking about morality while it was going on, nor is it what you wanted to have happened now that you look back on it, but what occurred wasn’t an accident.
Solomon points out the problem when he asked, “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27). You can show a hot coal all the affection you want. You can cuddle it and dote on it and it will still burn you. Your kindness to it doesn’t change its nature. How often do you hear someone say, “But I love her!” Solomon’s point is that your feelings toward a girl won’t change the fact that both of you have built-in desires and capabilities for sex. Trigger them and they follow the instincts built into you.
Solomon also asked, “Can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be seared?” (Proverbs 6:28). Using the same example of hot coal, if you walk on it, it will burn you. You can apologize and say you didn’t mean to step on it, but you’ll still be hurt because your intentions don’t change what it is. Thus, the excuse, “But I didn’t mean for it to go this far!” becomes an empty one because your intentions don’t change your body’s drive.
That is why Solomon concludes, “So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent” (Proverbs 6:29). Though he is talking directly about adultery, the same point is true about fornication. When you start stirring up sexual feelings, you are never innocent when things go further than you wanted. This is also why Paul said, “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (I Corinthians 7:1). By that, he means touching a woman in a sexual way.
You can’t simply focus on keeping your penis out of her vagina. That is too late. Too many sins have already taken place. You have to consider all things that lead up to sex and not just the final event.
“Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:13). Lust is thinking about doing something that is wrong and justifying that it would be all right at least in this case. Lewdness refers to shameless behavior, particularly in regard to sex. It is behavior that is involved in pure self-enjoyment or behavior characteristic of an animal. So things like foreplay or behavior that arouses your sexual desire would be lewd. The reason lewdness and lust are forbidden is that they lead up to sex. You don’t start something that you can’t morally finish.
So if you are determined to follow God in the future, make sure you follow Him all the way.
Question:
Mr Hamilton,
Thank you once more, sir, for the wonderful messages. I now know that doing things that are bad especially that you know without being certain is acting foolishly. Your words are very heavy, sir. I’m even scared. They touched my heart. I really don’t know what got into me. The thing is that we took the time to see each other, and we are living far apart from each other. It was the first time we had sex, and we love each other badly. Can God forgive a man who already knew what he was doing was wrong?
Answer:
God can and does forgive anyone who turns from sin and is willing to admit he was wrong. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9). It isn’t how bad your sins were, or whether you knew you should not have done them or not. What God is looking for is a sincere change in a person’s heart. Often when people sin on purpose, they leave no room for changing their minds about their sins. But if a person really changes, then God really forgives. “‘But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?’ says the Lord GOD, ‘and not that he should turn from his ways and live?’” (Ezekiel 18:21-23).
What got into was the desire for sex. Many guys just don’t realize how strong that desire is until Satan uses it to trap them in sin.