Question:
Hello,
I’ve had a question that has been on my heart. I’m a 24-year-old man who wanted to wait till marriage to lose my virginity. But not too long ago I received oral sex. Afterward, I felt so guilty and feel like I disappointed God. I repented and made a vow to God to not masturbate or watch porn ( 80 days free by the grace of God) or have sex till marriage. My question is can I still consider myself a virgin in my walk or does God see it differently? Sorry for the vulgarity, but if you could please help I would greatly appreciate it. Also, any Scriptures to help with lust would be a blessing.
Thank you and God bless!
Answer:
“Virgin” refers to a person who has had no experience with sex. But you were involved in oral sex. Even though it wasn’t intercourse, it was still a form of sex.
Those who are striving to follow God’s law ought to be virgins when they marry. That is the ideal. Unfortunately, people sin, and some sin sexually. God doesn’t give people their virginity back. That would require zapping your memory so that you no longer recall the experience. But God can and does forgive people of their sin if they turn away from the sin. “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). God doesn’t look at your past but at who you are.
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, each according to his conduct,” declares the Lord GOD. “Repent and turn away from all your transgressions, so that iniquity may not become a stumbling block to you. Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord GOD. “Therefore, repent and live” (Ezekiel 18:30-32)
Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is God releasing you from your responsibility for past actions. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you’ll forget what you’ve done or that the guilty feeling will disappear. In some ways, the guilt serves a purpose to remind you not to get involve in sin again.
However, you are making a mistake in that you are trying to gain God’s forgiveness on your own terms instead of on His terms. You are trying to “purchase” your forgiveness by making vows as if this would somehow impress God. God already told you not to use pornography. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). Thus, all you did was promise to do what you were already required to do. That isn’t impressive.
You also vowed not to masturbate. But God never stated that masturbation was wrong. See Is masturbation considered a sin? If you don’t want to masturbate, that is fine. But please understand that you will still need to ejaculate. God designed the male body to require ejaculations in order to function properly. Hopefully, you are having wet dreams to take care of this need. But please understand that you deciding not to masturbate doesn’t make you a better person or that it will prevent future sexual problems. “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) –in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence” (Colossians 2:20-23). Unfortunately, avoiding ejaculations typically causes a guy’s sexual arousal to rise to the point that he loses self-control.
What God wants from you is not your vows, but your submission to His teachings. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (I John 5:3). It was wrong for you to have your penis out and allow someone to give you oral sex because God said fornication is a sin. Thus, the best thing you can do is change. “Or 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 effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:9-11).