{"id":3778,"date":"2019-03-28T15:35:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T15:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=3778"},"modified":"2024-12-03T20:40:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T02:40:30","slug":"how-can-i-stay-out-of-fornication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-i-stay-out-of-fornication\/","title":{"rendered":"How can I stay out of fornication?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>Evening sir,<\/p>\n<p>I need spiritual deliverance.<\/p>\n<p>I am a married man, but before my marriage, I was lost in fornication. I even dragged my fiancee into it. We realized later that it was not good and confess our sins. However, I couldn&#8217;t get control over my sexual desire, to the extent that I masturbated sometimes. After we got married, I still found myself cheating on my wife. Then I decided that it was enough and gave my life to Christ.<\/p>\n<p>But one day I was having a stronger sexual urge. I called my wife because she was not around to tell her that I want her, but she could not come because she was far from me. The urge was serious. I asked God for strength and help but in the end, I still fell into fornication.<\/p>\n<p>I feel so bad. I want it to stop. I am even ashamed of going back to Christ, but I seriously don&#8217;t want this to happen to me again. Please, I seriously need help. What can I do?<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age<\/em>&#8221; (Titus 2:11-12).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just to make sure we are talking about the same things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fornication is when two people who are not married to each other have sex.<\/li>\n<li>Adultery is when two people commit fornication, and at least one of them is married to a different person.<\/li>\n<li>Masturbation is when a person relieves his sexual desire through self-stimulation. Masturbation is not a form of fornication since another person is not involved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What I am uncertain about is whether you said you committed adultery while traveling without your wife or whether you are confusing terms and saying you masturbated to relieve yourself. It makes a difference because God never called masturbation a sin. See: <a href=\"https:\/\/growingupboys.info\/is-masturbation-considered-a-sin\/\">Is masturbation considered a sin?<\/a>\u00a0In contrast, adultery is a sin. &#8220;<em>Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and <strong>adulterers <\/strong>God will judge<\/em>&#8221; (Hebrews 13:4).<\/p>\n<p>During a marriage, each partner makes himself available for the sexual needs of the other. &#8220;<em>But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does<\/em>; and likewise<em> also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does<\/em>&#8221; (I Corinthians 7:2-4). Masturbating instead of having sex with your wife is avoiding your duty to fulfill her needs. However, if you are traveling for an extended period, relieving yourself may be necessary if you are unable to have wet dreams. While not ideal, it is better than committing adultery. This is why Paul states that being apart from your marriage partner must be by mutual consent. &#8220;<em>Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of command<\/em>&#8221; (I Corinthians 7:5-6).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Evening sir, I need spiritual deliverance. I am a married man, but before my marriage, I was lost in fornication. I even dragged my fiancee into it. We realized later that it was not good and confess our sins. However, I couldn&#8217;t get control over my sexual desire, to the extent that I masturbated&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[66,1572,171,185],"class_list":["post-3778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-adultery","tag-fornication","tag-masturbation","tag-temptation"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12707,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-remarry-if-they-divorced-for-more-reasons-than-just-fornication\/","url_meta":{"origin":3778,"position":0},"title":"Can a person remarry if they divorced for more reasons than just fornication?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Can this person remarry?\u00a0 Her husband committed adultery, was addicted to drugs and became violent.\u00a0 She said the last straw was when he tried to catch their porch on fire and threatened to divorce her and take the kids.\u00a0 She said because of this threat, the adultery, and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2640,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-divorce-only-acknowledged-when-it-is-done-for-fornication\/","url_meta":{"origin":3778,"position":1},"title":"Is divorce only acknowledged when it is done for fornication?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What do you think about this situation: Bob divorces Mary not for fornication (she gets fat, or ugly, or burns the cornbread). Bob and Mary have three children and she has always been a housewife with limited education. She begs Bob not to leave her, He leaves her and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9942,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-i-had-sex-with-someone-does-that-mean-we-cant-get-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":3778,"position":2},"title":"If I had sex with someone, does that mean we can&#8217;t get married?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am a born-again Christian with a history of having multiple sexual partners (main chick and side-chicks). I got saved and gave my life to Christ, though I still could not control my sexual desires; hence, I continued to practice fornication. I repented and changed but ended up having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20229,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/since-i-had-sex-with-my-girlfriend-does-this-mean-i-am-married-to-her\/","url_meta":{"origin":3778,"position":3},"title":"Since I had sex with my girlfriend, does this mean I am married to her?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello brother. Thank you for the good web site and for the questions and answers that you have posted. I have a question and a problem that I want you to help me to solve. I have been dating a girl for three years. She has been really close\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43038,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-talk-to-family-members-who-are-committing-fornication\/","url_meta":{"origin":3778,"position":4},"title":"How do I talk to family members who are committing fornication?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question regarding two people getting married. Someone in my family was once married and got divorced. In Matthew 5:31-32 it says that one can't divorce her husband or his wife except for sexual immorality. This family member did not divorce her husband for sexual immorality but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7238,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-getting-a-girl-pregnant-and-promising-to-marry-her-later-make-us-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":3778,"position":5},"title":"Does getting a girl pregnant and promising to marry her later make us married?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I was baptized in the Catholic Church. I had a girlfriend, with whom I had dry-humped. Two weeks before having sexual intercourse, I told her that I was thinking about break up with her because I didn't feel we should be together. After a week of sexual intercourse,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}