Will I get to heaven if I continue to struggle against porn?
Question:
Good morning,
I am writing to tell you I have been struggling watching porn and to masturbate for a long time now. I have a wife, but I still do those types of things. I've tried to get away from it all, but I keep going back to all my old ways. I am baptized. I know what God wants and doesn't but I still commit that sin. My question to you is: Will God keep forgiving me for this sin I commit over and over again? My wife has tried to help me with what I'm going through, but can't seem to fight, but this time I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me through the right path in this world. I want to know if I can still be saved and be accepted into the kingdom of heaven?
Answer:
To reach heaven, a person has to give up sinning. Watching pornography is an aspect of the sin of lust. "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). While you are sorry that you are involved in pornography, you have done very little personally to stop it. You are disgusted by this sin. The pleasure is more important to you.
Perhaps you are hoping someone else will make you stop. You mentioned your wife trying to help. No one can make you not sin. You have to decide to stop and work at it. "The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:20). Even if you asked me to keep you away from porn, it would not work. No matter what I did, you would find a way around it because you haven't fully decided to stop. I know this because in your question you are assuming that you will be looking at porn the rest of your life.
Now when a person decides to stop, he might have a struggle for a while. His weakness might get the better of him once in a while, but his attitude is that he isn't going to let anything, including setbacks get in his way of changing. "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). "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter" (II Corinthians 7:10-11). Therefore, throw yourself eagerly into the fight and do all you can to get it out of your life.
As an example, I know a young man who struggled with pornography. He finally had enough of it. He realized that his weak point was his computer, so he stopped using his computer for entertainment. He keeps it in a closet. It comes out when he needs to write a paper or check his email, then it goes right back into the closet. If he is bored, he gets out and does something productive. In this way, he broke the habit of pornography in his life. "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell" (Matthew 5:29-30). Sometimes you need to get a bit radical from the world's perspective.
