Last updated on July 28, 2021
Question:
I’m a male teenager about to turn 20 yrs old. I live with my lovely Christian family. I’ve been fighting the demon of fornication for years. I have been rejecting the proposals of women to spend time in the bedroom alone with them to avoid sleeping with them, but now I feel like I can’t resist. These hormones have just multiplied to the point that my body desires sex even more. I was baptized, but I’m scared if I will lose my self-control and go beyond the line. I am afraid I won’t be forgiven or able to be reborn because I believe the only way one can detach a previous life of sexual sin is through baptism where he starts a new clean life with God yet admitting he isn’t perfect before God and that happens only once, right?
My biggest concern is: I was planning to have sex before marriage but I also don’t want to lose it all within just a few minutes in bed with a woman, so I want to know if God will forgive me or not.
Answer:
” “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).
One day every one of us will face the decision of God as we stand before His judgment seat. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (II Corinthians 5:10). God is willing to forgive sins, but He requires that a person repents of those sins. Repentance means to both change your behavior and change your attitude about sin.
You are planning to commit fornication and you wonder if you can be forgiven after you have sex with a woman you are not married to. The problem is that there is no repentance in what you describe. If another woman pulled you into bed you would be just as willing because you haven’t changed your mind. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2).
Baptism is based on your personal faith (Mark 16:16) and repentance from sins (Acts 2:38). It doesn’t mean a Christian never sins, but that he is committed to living for God for the rest of his life. When sin does happen, a Christian doesn’t wallow in it, but picks himself back up, confesses that he has failed God and himself, and then returns to the battle (I John 1:5-2:1). Just because God is willing to forgive sin, it is not a free ticket to continue sinning. Without repentance of sin, it would be an exercise in futility.
Response:
Thanks a lot, Mr. Hamilton,
I now know what to do, so I rest my case.