Last updated on September 26, 2020
Question:
Hello Minister,
I am presently 16 years old. I want to tell you how it all got started. When I was in sixth grade I came to know about sex and pornography by a friend. I always got excited about all these things. One day I saw my dad watching porn and that made me want to watch porn by however I could. When I watched porn I was filled with the desire to have sex.
A year later I had joined swimming classes where I had met a boy who forced me to have gay sex with him. I freely gave in without realizing what I was doing. I then obsessed with the thought that I have to have sex with a girl, and so I miserably tried to have it with a female cousin. I made her life miserable. My uncle came to know about it. He was going to put me behind the bars, but he didn’t. He has now cut all ties with me and feels ashamed to call me his nephew.
I thought I would repent of my sins, but I am always filled with the desire to watch porn and lust after all the girls on whom I set my eyes on. I have not shared this with anyone. I need your help. I also feel sad to ask the society for help in some issues because I feel I and my mom have been rejected after she got separated from my dad because he stole all her hard-earned money. I feel ashamed to call him my dad. I always cry every day that all my friends receive fatherly love, but I feel I have forgotten what a father’s love is.
Answer:
I need to ask: What is more important to you? Chasing after the desires of your body or obtaining something greater through serving God? Right now it appears that the only focus you have is your next ejaculation, which is leading you to misery.
Do I understand correctly that you have been seeking out sex with girls in an attempt to prove to yourself that you are not homosexual? If so, it doesn’t work because it doesn’t prove anything. Homosexuality is a sin. “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Romans 1:26-27). But sins are things people choose to do. You chose to have sex with that boy, but you can now choose not to engage in homosexual activities anymore. It doesn’t require more sins to prove your commitment. All it requires is that you keep your pants on.
Fornication, having sex outside of marriage, is also wrong. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). Sex only belongs in marriage, regardless of what the world thinks.
If you understand that, then longing for sex outside of marriage is just as wrong. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:21-23). When you strongly desire something, it becomes too easy to give in to it when the opportunity arises. Therefore lusting for any sin is wrong. That then makes pornography wrong too. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5).
Changing is hard work, but if you aren’t interested in changing, I can’t help you. But if you want to put the effort into overcoming your sins, then it is doable. “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (I Corinthians 10:13).
Question:
Hi minister,
I want to change myself. I have realized what all this can lead me to. But I have one question: God said that those who repent of their sins He is faithful and just and will forgive them, but won’t my uncle forgive me. That is what is hurting me the most.
Answer:
Jesus said, “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4). But the disciples found this hard to even imagine doing. “And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith’” (Luke 17:5). Therefore, I’m not surprised that your uncle has difficulty forgiving a nephew who tried to force himself on his daughter. There was a violation of trust that hurts deeply.
You can’t change your uncle directly, but you can change yourself. Perhaps as he sees evidence that you have sincerely changed that he might trust you. “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (II Corinthians 7:10-11). Right now you are no longer pursuing his daughter, but you haven’t exhibited much change in your attitude toward sex outside of marriage. You still chase after girls. People can see you looking lustfully at girls. And pornography is still teaching you to see other people as sex objects. When you change then how people react to you will also change — not immediately, but it will shift.