Last updated on June 14, 2025
Question:
There’s a cycle of sin in my life that I want to stop. I’ve gone a few days without masturbation, but then I went back to it today. Most of time when I take a shower and use the soap to clean my penis, I start to want to masturbate because of the pleasurable feelings that come from washing my penis. I’m starting to feel like I shouldn’t wash my penis and leave it dirty! This sounds crazy, but I really hate this sin! I’m doing what I hate.
Before I masturbated in the shower, I was praying to God, asking Him for answers and telling Him to speak to me because I wanted Him to tell me if masturbation is sinful or not. I told Him I personally believe it’s sinful and that I felt like the reason why I felt it was sinful is because of what other people thought of me if I were to masturbate. And I also asked Him if I was repenting of masturbation because of the fear of man or because I fear Him. I told Him that I wanted to be honest with Him and tell Him that I feel like I’m repenting of masturbation because of what other people think about it. People will tell me that I am corrupt and wicked for committing this sin, and I believe it because it’s ingrained in my mind.
Answer:
You are asking God to tell you what is right or wrong, but you are ignoring what He said. The Bible is God’s teachings for you and me. “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust” (II Peter 1:2-4). Through the Bible, we are taught everything related to life and godliness. Things related to godliness are the spiritual subjects that bring us closer to being like our Heavenly Father. Things related to life are the matters of how to live properly in this world. God doesn’t tell one person one thing and another person something else. We are all given the Bible, and all of us are expected to learn from it.
Problems arise when we start using other things to determine righteousness. “Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself? Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them” (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18). We all know people who refuse to learn from God. They sin when there is no need because they do not restrain themselves. Such people end up dying early because sin causes harm. However, others take the opposite approach. They add rules for themselves that God never gave. They make their own lives miserable while simultaneously telling themselves that this is what God requires of them. They ruined their lives when there was no need.
We must avoid both extremes. We all sin (Romans 3:23; I John 1:8-2:1), but we battle sin and do not allow it to become a part of our lives. We don’t make up rules that God hasn’t given. The difficult part comes as we learn God’s teachings. We will sometimes make mistakes and need to make corrections.
“Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:16-23).
Paul uses eating meat sacrificed to idols as an example, but the principles he teaches have broader implications. We should not ignore the concerns of others. If someone has problems with eating meat, the simple solution is not to eat meat in that person’s presence. This doesn’t mean you can’t eat meat because someone else objects to it. You just don’t involve that person in your choice. It isn’t worth fighting over the issue.
Notice that Paul said that someone’s objection to eating meat doesn’t make it wrong. Eating meat remains approved by God. But if someone chooses not to eat meat, they are not sinning. However, since not everyone has become fully convinced of this, those individuals are advised not to violate their conscience while they remain uncertain. And others are not to push them to violate their conscience while they further study the matter. In other words, doing something that you aren’t sure is right is a sin because you are not acting from faith in what God said.
On the other side, those who are fully convinced that a matter is acceptable should not assume they are right solely based on their conscience not bothering them. They also should study the matter carefully and examine the objections in case they might be wrong.
In other answers, I went over the passages that deal with masturbation (“Is masturbation sinful or not?“). You seem to be convinced that it is wrong, but that conviction is based on what other people have told you and not because you read something in the Bible that leads you to conclude it is wrong. That is a dangerous position because people do make mistakes. Ask for Scriptures, study them for yourself, and then make your conclusion.
Since you are impulsively masturbating, I have to conclude that you are not ejaculating often enough through wet dreams. Your body needs relief from the pressure of the semen building up, and it gets hard to ignore. It isn’t sinful to ejaculate. What is wrong is to stimulate yourself with thoughts of sin (lust) to trigger an ejaculation (I Thessalonians 4:3-5). By adding rules on yourself that God hasn’t given, you are making yourself miserable, just as Solomon warned.
Response:
I’m going to do a Bible study about masturbation today.