The Practice of Truth in the Sexual Life

It is probable that there is more falsehood among believers in the sexual life than in any other domain.

This is so, particularly, because every sex sin is a manifestation of falsehood.

Take fornication, for example. Fornication is the act of two unmarried people pretending that they are married, whereas they are not married to each other.

Then, adultery is the falsehood of two married people pretending that they are not married to their actual partners but are married to each other. Masturbation is the falsehood of a person who is not having a sexual relationship pretending that he is having one and, thereby, trying to have pleasure that he ought to have in sexual union without the sexual union. Petting is the sin of trying to enjoy the fruit of sexual union without actual union. It is the self-deception of saying, “I will have all the pleasure that I can have, but I will not go the whole way. I will not have committed adultery or fornication. I will not be running the risk of any pregnancy or any venereal disease.” Of course, this is self-deception because there can be no petting without lust or immorality in thought. The Lord Jesus says, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).

What of lustful thoughts? This is the self-deception of experiencing in the mind that which should be entered into in the body. It is adultery or fornication in the soul; for the mind is part of the soul. Such thoughts tarnish the entire being and make the person guilty before God. They break his fellowship with God and destroy his capacity for spiritual receptibility as well as for spiritual labour. The Bible warns, “Do not desire her beauty in your heart” (Proverbs 6:25). To desire the beauty of anyone who is not your wife is to sin.

What of sexual or emotional attachment to someone who is not your husband or wife? Are you attached to the person because the person’s physical appearance pleases you? You may be doing the Lord’s work together, but are you doing it solely because of the Lord or partly because of the pleasure you find in the company of each other? There may be no sexual acts. There may be no kissing and no caressing; but are your emotions not wrapped up with each other? Are you prepared to break the relationship at any moment that you find that it is getting out of hand?

It will be good to face the following questions squarely and examine your heart; so that you may not continue to deceive yourself:

1. Are you committing adultery or fornication in act with anyone?

   If you are, you can be sure that, unless you repent, you will go to hell. The Bible says, “But as for the cowardly…fornicators…their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). You must stop the sin at once. You must also stop the relationship completely. Do not deceive yourself that you can continue to be friends together and not fall back into the same sin. If you are involved in the Lord’s work together, it is best to stop working together. If you continue to work together, you are most likely going to commit the same sin again. There are very few people who have fallen into a sexual sin and yet met together where there was opportunity for sex and did not go back like dogs to their vomit. It is better to allow the work of the Lord to suffer and you save your souls, than to try to serve and to perish on the last day. It is also true that your joint service for the Lord, while occasionally committing fornication, is an abomination to Him. Your service can neither bless Him nor advance His Kingdom. As for you, you will receive absolutely no reward for it. If you continue to sin, you will be in the lake of fire on that day. Will the Lord reward those who carried out Christian service and yet perished because of sin? Certainly not! There will be no rewards or crowns for those who will be in hell, regardless of how hard they laboured for the Lord before they fell into sin or how hard they worked for Him and suffered for Him while living in sin, even if it was on very few occasions.

   Someone may wonder if I am not being too hard. To such a one I say, the Lord’s own recommendations are: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right-hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29-30). The Lord recommended radical surgery for every sin of immorality. Only fools

   can act differently. Do not be such a fool. If you have once committed immorality with anyone, do not visit him alone. Do not write any love letters to him. Have no contacts with him. He is the instrument of your eternal destruction. He will cause you to perish. At any cost, save your soul.

1. Are you carrying out any kissing, caressing, petting with anyone? Stop it at once. All that is written above applies to you. Save your soul. You may start with kissing and end up in the sexual act! Besides, lustful kissing is already adultery or fornication in the heart and the Lord looks at the heart. You are a spiritual adulterer or fornicator and, unless you stop it at once, you will perish. God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows that will he also reap. You will reap the fruits of your impure passions and, how bitter and how eternally agonising they will be on that day!

2. Are you masturbating? This is the sin of self-abuse. You may hide it from everyone else, but does God not see you while you are committing the sin? You will also perish if you do not stop it. Many masturbators tell me that they have tried in vain to stop their sin. The truth is that that is a false excuse to continue in sin. You can stop it and you must stop it if you are to see the Kingdom of God on that day.

3. Are you carrying out a relationship with a person of the opposite sex of which you would be ashamed if the films taken of it were put on the screens? If you are, you must stop it. The cameras of God are busy all the time and all your life will appear on the screen for all to see on that day, except that which was confessed and forsaken. Be prepared for that day. All the truth will come to light.

4. Are you carrying out a relationship with your partner in which when you are relating to her sexually you have to imagine that it is with another person that you are having the relationship, in order to find fulfilment? If that is so, you are an abomination. This is the epitome of falsehood. It is lying at its highest. To spend an entire married life in adultery is to seal your damnation. Stop it at once. If you cannot find fulfilment while having a sexual relationship with your partner, it is better not to have any sexual relationship at all, and maintain your salvation than to have it, commit adultery in the course of it, and become a sure candidate for the lake of fire.

5. Do you commit fornication or adultery with anyone in your thoughts? The person or the persons may be far away but your mind has become a brothel for unceasing sexual sin. You may commit it with one person or with many. The number does not matter. The only thing that matters is that you are a hypocrite. You are practising sin in your soul, even though you may not be carrying it out in your body. The Bible says that the soul that sins will perish. Yours will perish unless you repent at once and stop every such sin once and for all. It must be a radical and harsh stop, for there is no tender way to stop sin. Can a man part with a viper amicably? Certainly not! Each seeks the life of the other. Either one or the other ought to die.

6. Have you written a letter or letters to someone whose contents you would not want people to read? If that is so, your letters are immoral. They are deceitful. There is no truth in them. Stop writing such letters. Do you have a name by which you call someone that you feel no one should ever know because of the intimacy involved? That, too, is falsehood. Stop it.

7. Do you embrace anyone much longer in private than you would do in public? That, too, is a lie. Stop it.

8. Do you sit closer to someone of the opposite sex, who is not your wife, in private than you would in the presence of others? That, too, is a lie. Stop it.

9. Do you give gifts to someone of the opposite sex that you would not want your husband, wife, friend or spiritual leader to know about? If that is the case, all such gifts are sinful. God is not a part of them; for He can never be a part of anything that is hidden.

10. Do you pay visits to someone, the frequency of which you would like to hide? That is indicative of sin, for all that is of truth comes to the light.

11. Do you have to create an additional reason for visiting someone of the opposite sex than the true reason? If that is the case, there is something wrong with the relationship. It should be stopped.

12. Do you give the impression to someone of the opposite sex that she is close to you and loved by you, whereas you are only enduring the person’s presence? This is a lie. The truth should be spoken.

13. Do you give the impression to someone of the opposite sex that she is your preference, whereas in your heart you prefer someone else? That is lying. Tell the truth to all. The Lord never hid the fact that He loved John in a way that He did not love the other disciples. He did not hide the fact that John was special to Him. The Lord did not hide from Martha the fact that Mary had chosen the better portion and that it could not be taken from her. The politics of trying to let everyone think that he is the preferred one is the product of a distorted heart. It must be stopped and restitution carried out.

14. Do you give gifts to a member of the opposite sex with the intention of drawing her to yourself for marriage, while pretending that you are just being kind to her as a sister in the Lord? This is falsehood.

15. Do you decide to get closer to a member of the opposite sex in order to better investigate the possibilities of her becoming your wife and to make an impact on her, while pretending that you are discipling her or just teaching her to drive or to do something new? This, too, is falsehood. It should be repented of and forsaken.

16. Is there anything about your past life that you have hidden from your partner so that she is living in ignorance about who you are and what you have done?

17. Did you pretend to be a virgin on your marriage day when in fact you were not? This, too, must be repented of, confessed and restitution carried out.

If a person is not practising falsehood in any area of his relationship with the opposite sex, then he has come a long way in the School of Truth. That is what God expects of all who name the name of His Holy and Exalted Son. That is what He expects of you. Unless you are true in these areas, or unless you bring truth into all these areas of your sexual life, you have decided to continue in falsehood, and what then can the Judge do except to pass the sentence?