Sexual Addiction

Index:

Intro:
Why Adultery and Sexual Addiction Are on the Rise
God's Sex Education
     (a) God Uses Solomon to Teach Sexual Truths
     (b) God Exposes Solomon's Sexual Addiction
God's Definition of Sexual Addiction
     (a) The Sexual Addict Deceives Himself
     (b) The Sexual Addict Mistreats Himself
     (c) The Sexual Addict Mistreats His Family
        (1-c) Lying and Sneaking Around
          (2-c) Compulsive Self-masturbation
          (3-c) Mental Adultery
          (4-c) Actual Adultery
          (5-c) Alcohol and Drug Abuse
          (6-c) Verbal Abuse
          (7-c) Physical Abuse
          (8-c) Emotional Abuse
          (9-c) Sexual Abuse
          (10-c) Incest
          (11-c) Bitterness and Anger
          (12-c) Unreasonable Perfectionism
          (13-c) Judging Motives
          (14-c) Financial Irresponsibility
          (15-c) Abuse of Authority
God's Formula for Overcoming Sexual Sins
     (a) The Corinthians Were Washed
     (b) The Corinthians Were Sanctified
     (c) The Corinthians Were Justified
A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage
     (a) Materials List
     (b) General Assignment Instructions: For Healing
     the Soul and the Marriage
     (c) Introductory Assignments: Fully Understanding
     Sanctification, Which Leads to Justification
     (d) Main Assignments: Sanctifying the Mind and
     Building an Enduring Emotional Bond
     (e) Overlapping Assignments: Speeding Up the
     Sanctification and Healing Process
     (f) Optional Assignment: Experiencing God's Love
     for the Innocent Mate
     (g) Personal Assignment: Sanctifying the Mind
     Apart From Studying About Marriage
When the Sexual Sinner Refuses Sanctification
     (a) Follow God's Example for Reconciliation
     (b) Some Battles Are Worth Fighting
The Twenty-first Century

When people hear the expression "sexual addiction," many assume it is rare or it doesn't have anything to do with them. Yet the increasing frequency of couples requesting help with both adultery and sexual addiction provides a strong indication that sexual sin will be the number-one marriage problem facing twenty-first-century Christians, both in their own lives and in the lives of people they try to teach.

One purpose of this booklet is to shake awake people who don't realize adultery and sexual addiction are increasing at an alarming rate. Indeed, many unsuspecting Christians are members of churches that contain these same extreme sexual sins and addictions. Even in the Bible belt, Christians and churches are waking up to the fact that they must fight this problem.

This booklet also provides God's tested and tried three-part formula for overcoming adultery and sexual addiction. Unfortunately, as one preacher says, "Most Christians, regardless of how long they've been Christians, don't begin to know how to use the Bible to solve personal problems or how to help others." Christians, whether young or old, whether preachers, elders, or saints, need to know how to deal with these problems. Invariably, if Christians don't know how to deal with these common sexual problems, they do great harm. Many men and women lament over the damage done to them and to their mates by the ignorance of local preachers, elders, and Christians.

Finally, this booklet gives a specific plan for healing the souls and marriages of adulterers and sexual addicts and their families. While mankind's methods of dealing with these devastating sins grind slowly with mixed results, God's formula liberates his followers to be whole and to enjoy all of the great marital blessings God reserves for his people.

Why Adultery and Sexual Addiction Are on the Rise

The mid 1800s to the mid 1900s saw mankind steadily becoming more involved in Victorian morals which attempted to totally deny any sexual pleasure for either men or women. Then in 1948 Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a biologist, rebelled against this trend by writing Sexual Behavior in the Human Male after interviewing 1,400 convicted sex offenders. Later, turning his attention to questioning prostitutes, he wrote Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. Not knowing the source of Kinsey's data, society gleefully accepted his assertions that nearly everyone had succumbed to an affair and that many people had actually engaged in perverted sex including homosexuality and bestiality. The resulting sexual revolution took over the last half of the twentieth century.

In 1954 the first Playboy magazine hit the newsstands and took up the mission of popularizing Kinsey's conclusions that all sexual perversions were actually normal and beneficial. At that time, pornography magazines weren't readily available and a person had to go to a sleazy part of town to get a copy. Everyone still called them "dirty" pictures and didn't try to justify them. Even so, many Baby Boomers grew up with friends whose dads were subscribers. They saw it as "part of being a man" since the long-range effect of using pornography was unknown at that time.

Since then, Playboy has evolved from trying to give the impression that the selected bunny was just like the girl next door to today's readily available copies that contain seemingly legitimate business and literary articles to encourage buying them. In an interview, Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy, portrayed himself as a great sex educator. He compared himself to Jesus Christas a missionarywho was "liberating people from sexual hang-ups. (Alan Combs Show, "Interview with Hugh Hefner," Oct. 2, 1994 as quoted by Laurie Hall, An Affair of the Mind [Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1996], 64, 85.)

Then in the 1970s the modern-day feminist movement began its rise in power and influence. While the feminists openly ridiculed and despised men, they also went after what they thought were the advantages of being born malecorporate jobs and equal sexual opportunities. To them, equal sexual opportunities didn't mean throwing off Victorian hang-ups and enjoying wonderful orgasms in the arms of a cherished husband. Equal sexual opportunities meant the right to frequent casual sexual relationships without penaltywithout marriage or disgrace. They delighted in starting their own magazines with male centerfolds. Being an unwed mother lost its shame, as it became a badge of glory that the feminists wore proudly. As the sexual revolution continued, women gladly became more available than ever as casual sexual partners outside marriage.

George Gilder explains in Men and Marriage how this changing attitude of women toward sexual encounters, not only harmed the women, but also did tremendous damage to men:

As all these influences spurred the sexual revolution on, technique books began telling their readers, "It doesn't matter if you are married, single, or homosexual. Our techniques will give you great sexual delights. Just make sure to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases."

The scare over sexually transmitted diseases, especially AIDS, instead of checking mankind's advancement toward even more frequent and casual sexual conduct, in effect, produced the exact opposite result. The scare lifted promiscuity out of the gutter and placed it prominently into the classrooms to shape and mold children. Originally, sex education in the schools was introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century to combat prostitution, venereal diseases, masturbation, and sexual conduct outside of marriage. However, in the late 1980s, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop completely changed the direction of the sex-education programs with a single statement:

The resulting sex-education materials of the 1990s relied heavily on Kinsey's original research regarding the sexual nature of children. Kinsey's chapters on children in both his Male and Female books result from interviews with homosexuals who had relations with young boys and pedophiles who molested children, including infants. The Kinsey team refused to cooperate with police on apprehending a pedophile who was being sought in regard to a sex murder. Experts today suspect that information from that child murderer is found in Kinsey's child sexuality tables in his books. (Dr. Judith A. Reisman and Edward W. Eichel, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People [Lafayette, LA: Huntington House Publishers, 1990], 53.)

Since child abuse and sexual molestation and experimentation are against the law, no other sex researchers have dared to follow Kinsey's example and do actual research on children. As a result, Kinsey's research on children still stands and is widely used today by the Federal Government and other agencies in designing homosexual-oriented sex education for children in the schools.

As a method for "safe sex," many of the sex-education programs teach self-masturbation and some even promote teaching effective ways of doing it. Since Kinsey's research revolved around sex offenders, his books heavily promote self-masturbation. Self-masturbation plays a key role in the development of compulsive sexual behavior and in all perversions, including homosexuality.

Self-masturbation is different from wet dreams, a method God provides for release of a build-up of sexual tension and semen. Dr. Archibald Hart's survey on sexuality in men and boys indicates that older men have more wet dreams than teenage boys do. The reason for the shift from harmless wet dreams to risky self-masturbation in young males probably stems directly from the schools using Kinsey's research on children in their sex-education programs. (Archibald Hart, Ph.D., The Sexual Man: Masculinity Without Guilt [Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1994], 107-108.)

About the same time as major changes in sex-education in the schools were occurring, rapidly advancing technology began bringing online sex right into homes. In 1990 access was limited to electronic bulletin boards and people with expensive sophisticated computer equipment to display the sexual graphics. Then around 1993 CD-ROM drives became more affordable and the online sex industry experienced new growth. With the introduction of Web browsers in the mid 1990s, silicon pornography was just an easy click away from stripping and slithering to the keystrokes of children, men, women, and even the barely computer literate. While these sites contain plenty of homosexual material, the main candidates for them are heterosexual males who have "money, the right computers and Internet connections, and who are often lonely and alienated." Nearly overnight, online sex exploded into a major influence in the lives of many men, women, and children. (James Warren, "Upside Tackles Steamy Subject of Online Sex," The Tacoma News Tribune [March 29, 1998].)

After half a century of unbridled lust on the part of both men and women as they celebrated the sexual revolution's war against the inhibitions of the Victorians, the mid 1990s saw a new kind of sex manual appear. Psychiatrists became alarmed that unrestrained sexual activity does not liberate as Kinsey promised. Instead, sex (real or fantasized) with anybody, whenever, and however eventually so enslaves the person's mind and body that sexologists coined a new name for its devastation"sexual addiction." Sexual addiction quickly progresses from having "a little harmless fun" to inordinately compulsive thoughts and actions that turn into perversions. The sexual addict, whether male or female, loses the ability to relate to real people on a personal level. The addict eventually becomes consumed by self-gratifying compulsions that harm his self-image, job, health, marriage, children, friendships, and view of reality. The addict may not even be able to drive down the freeway without masturbating and fantasizing.

Then in 1998, "60 Minutes" broadcast a segment about how all the main-stream universities were starting to teach classes on sexuality that were nothing more than porn shows paid for by tax dollars. Most of these classes are openly taught by homosexuals trying to teach others how to be homosexuals and to dignify their lifestyle. Unfortunately, the trend set by the sexual revolution is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if it gets better.

Thus, the twenty-first century begins with people suffering from more severe sexual inhibitions and limitations than they did during the two previous centuries when Queen Victoria refused to see any divorced person in her court and demanded that the legs of tables be covered; and when Sylvanus Stall recommended in his world-renowned Self and Sex Series that husbands and wives sleep in separate bedrooms to control their sexual urges. Not only are sexual problems already frighteningly severe, but because of the current direction of sex-education in the schools and universities and the widespread availability of soft-core pornography on television and hardcore pornography on both the Internet and cable television, sexual immorality of the grossest kind is appearing among Christians. The desperate pleas of many Christians for help with adultery and sexual addiction indicate that sexual sin will be the number-one marriage problem facing twenty-first century Christians.

While the expression "sexual addiction" was coined by modern psychiatrists and is not a Bible word, the concept is found in the Bible. Way ahead of modern times, God was the first to promote sex education for the world. But God left the mechanics of birth control up to mankind's ingenuity while he focused on the most important part in the eyes of most men and womensexual pleasure. God's great love and concern for the sexual happiness of both men and women show in his provisions for sex education. For at each stage of mankind's sexual development, from puberty through the golden years, God provides the necessary information to liberate men and women for total sexual enjoyment.

God gave this knowledge about the sexual relationship to the whole world over three thousand years ago through Solomon. In Solomon's youth, God said, "Behold, I have given you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you" (1 Kings 3:12). Solomon's wisdom was "like the sand that is on the seashore" and "surpassed the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt" and "his fame was known in all the surrounding nations" (1 Kings 4:29-30). Then "men came from all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom," including the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 4:34; 10:1). In this way, God's great practical wisdom, including his sexual truths, spread over the known world.

Some of those sexual truths came from Solomon's proverbs. For example, in Proverbs 7, Solomon addressed the special problems a man faces in his youth at the height of his sexual urges when he begins to notice the female body. In like manner, in Proverbs 5 Solomon cautioned a man about the different, yet equally strong, temptations a man faces as his body slows down through agea time that mankind calls "the midlife crisis." Solomon revealed how an older wife ravishes her husband in a way that a much younger woman can't compete. At each stage of mankind's sexual developmentfrom puberty through the temptation to midlife affairs, God provides the keys for a long life filled with sexual enjoyment.

However, God does not force anyone to reap his great sexual benefitsnot even King Solomon. In his later years, Solomon turned his back on God's wisdom and allowed a lack of sexual control to ruin his own life. Solomon's ruin began as he ignored God's warning not to marry foreign women. Eventually, Solomon "held fast" to seven hundred wives (free women) and princesses (royalty) and three hundred concubines (slaves) "in love" (1 Kings 11:1-8). "Held fast" is the same word translated as "cleave" in Gen. 2:24 where God says, "A man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife." It means "to stick like glue." "Love" is a common word found throughout Proverbs and means "to love sexually or otherwise."

With access to the most desirable women in the known world from peasants to royalty to slaves, Solomon's sexual urges raged out of control. As God had forewarned, these foreign women turned Solomon's heart away from serving God fully as he built temples of idolatry for his wives. This included a temple for the practice of prostitution in the name of the goddess Ashtoreth. Bands of men and women served her with immoral rites. By the time he was old, Solomon presented a picture of sexual, moral, and spiritual depravity. And God was so angry with Solomon that he told him, "I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant."

Interestingly, God uses both Solomon's words of wisdom in his youth and his life of depravity in his middle and later years to teach great sexual truths to benefit mankind. During Solomon's early years of sexual decline, God inspired the beautiful and emotionally captivating Song of Solomon to expose Solomon's sexual folly as a means of teaching his people how to choose a lifelong sexual partner and how to enjoy thrilling sexual lives even into old age. At the time of the Song of Solomon, Solomon had only one hundred and forty of the one thousand wives he would eventually marry (Song of Sol. 6:8-9). The true story reveals that Solomon was already developing warped attitudes toward women and the sexual relationship. Indeed, listening to sexual addicts talk about their attitudes toward women, sex, and marriage that they are struggling to overcome is like listening to Solomon in the Song of Solomon.

The thrilling account takes place over three days as Solomon woos and attempts to marry a young Shulammite maiden he unexpectedly met on an inspection of his vineyards. The drama reveals the inner struggles of the young woman as she agonizes over who to marryrich, powerful King Solomon who heaps sensuous flattery upon her, or the poor Shepherd whom she loves and who loves her, but who can offer her only a life of poverty. Solomon proposes to the young maiden four times and each time he speaks, he eloquently praises her sexual charms. He never sees her as a person with a brain and a personality, or as a person with needs and desires of her own. She is only the most ravishing female body he's ever seen and the sight of her beautiful body stirs up wild and overwhelming sexual urges that cry for release with her.

This same characteristic of Solomon, of a purely physical relationship without a proper emotional foundation, is the common thread that runs through all sexual addiction. Dr. Patrick J. Carnes pioneered the modern study of sexual addiction and wrote the groundbreaking book Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction. He uses such words as "isolation," "abandonment," "loneliness," "cut off from reality," "self-preoccupation," "pain," "anxiety," "lack of emotional balance," "alienation," "anger," "distrust," and "despair" to describe both male and female sexual addicts. The almost total lack of a proper emotional relationship with the spouse is at the core of the sexual addiction. (Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D., Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction [Center City, MN: Hazelden Educational Materials, 1992].)

The most important characteristic that God emphasizes about the sexual relationship is the emotional union between the husband and wife. That mental union is paramount for each to experience supreme sexual pleasure. And as psychiatrists are now discovering, properly cultivating and preserving that mental union helps protect both men and women from degenerating into sexual compulsions, addictions, and perversions. Men and women can protect themselves from sexual addiction by rejecting the Victorian concept that sex is a purely physical act and by understanding the emotional nature of lovemaking for both men and women.

If men and women can learn the difference between sensuous love and true love in their youth as their sexuality is budding, they can avoid a lifetime of sexual misery. However, if they started the road to sexual addiction by the choices they made in their youth, as most sexual addicts do, they can study Solomon's example as adults and find insight and motivation to work free of their compulsions.

Solomon is the perfect man for studying sexual addiction. He enjoyed access to it all! If sexual addiction's promise of supreme pleasure and fulfillment were true, Solomon would have found it with all of his wealth to spend on his addiction. No pornographic movies or magazines or Internet connections for himSolomon heaped his lusts upon the real bodies of the most desirable women of his time from peasants to royalty to slaves. He had for his amusement all the known sexual techniques of his time that his foreign wives brought with them as part of their idolatrous worship. If ever a man could have found true sexual happiness and fulfillment in variety, techniques, and glorification of the body, Solomon was that man.

A study of the Song of Solomon shows a poignant contrast between true love that builds an emotional bond with the lover and liberates both their bodies for a truly rapturous sexual union; and sensuous love that looks only at the physical body and traps its participants in a lifelong compelling search for the perfect combination of bodies. At whatever age a person studies the Song of Solomon, it powerfully teaches how to lay the foundation for true love and sexual satisfaction that lasts a lifetime. Ideally, that foundation should be lain in one's youth. But regardless of a person's age and past sexual history, no one is too old to learn the secret of true love and find supreme sexual pleasure.

While the frequency and destructiveness of overwhelming sexual addiction caught modern psychiatrists by surprise, the New Testament deals with the subject. Over two thousand years ago, God's word for addictive sexual sin was "enslaved." Following is just one example of how the expression "enslaved" is often used with sexual sins:

The Sexual Addict Deceives Himself

Notice the definition of the first characteristic of the sexual addict: "disobedient" "impersuasible, un-compliant, and contumacious." Convincing someone caught up in sexual sins of the foolishness of their actions is almost impossible. I knew a woman who had been raised as a Christian, fallen away to live a promiscuous life where many men had her at the same time, and then had been restored and married. I asked her, "What could someone have said to you when you were in the midst of your affairs to have gotten your attention?"

She thought for a while and finally replied, "Nothing anyone could have said to me would have made me give up my relationships. I knew deep down that the men I was living with only told me they loved me and that I was beautiful to get me to do the things they wanted, but I wanted their attention so badly, I made myself believe their lies." She was impersuasible.

In the garden of Eden, Satan promised Eve that eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make her equal to God. In this way, he slandered God's motives while Eve listened. How difficult would Eve's choice have been if Satan had told her the truththat disobeying God would cause the death of every baby ever born, would get them kicked out of the garden, would force them to work extremely hard for a living, and would bring about great pain in childbirth for all women? But sin seldom reveals its consequences until it's too late. Promising happiness and liberation, sin traps its luckless victims.

Satan craftily made Eve choose between obeying God or him in an unfamiliar area since she didn't know firsthand the results of eating the forbidden fruit. The question to Eve seemed to be, "Should I listen to the serpent or should I obey my Creator who the serpent says is holding me back and mentally oppressing me?" The whole world knows the outcome of Eve's choice.

Yet the same trickery of sexual addiction clouds the thinking of addicts and makes it easy for them to be disobedientimpersuasible. Satan doesn't tell them that eating the forbidden sexual fruit will make them like God. Instead, Satan's favorite expression is, "It's victimless. No one gets hurt. God has all these sexual taboos because God just doesn't want you to have real fun!" But notice the second characteristic of the addicthe is deceived!

While Hugh Hefner claims to be a missionary who is just liberating people sexually, Laurie Hall, whose husband was an active worker and teacher in their congregation who became sexually addicted, calls Hefner "a missionary from hell." Some of the headings in her chapter "Can't Get No Satisfaction" reveal some of the truths pornography doesn't tell its real victims of deceit: "Learning About the Birds and Bees from the Bunny," "Pornography Promotes Promiscuity, the Death Knell of Great Sex," "Porn Makes Him Think He's a Lady's Man," "Porn Shortens Foreplay and Contributes to Premature Ejaculation," "Porn Creates Sexual Isolation," "Porn Stimulates Interest in Perversions," "Porn Encourages Sexual Practices That Destroy the Dignity and Worth of Participants," "Porn Encourages Rape," "Porn Encourages Marital Violence," and "Soft-Core Porn Packs a Hard Wallop." (Laurie Hall, An Affair of the Mind [Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1996], 77-86.)

Laurie Hall's husband Jack told in his own words what the false call to sexual liberation and "real fun" through pornography cost him:

Just like Satan didn't tell Eve what disobeying God would cost her and all of mankind, Hefner and his followers don't tell their victims what the choice they are about to make will cost them and their families.

Even if a person doesn't believe in God and doesn't care about serving God, God's sexual truths still liberate that person to enjoy a happier, better love life than if he ignored God's laws of purity. Sexual immorality causes enormous personal problems for people who become caught up in it aside from the sin factor. The Bible offers a tremendous amount of protection from horrible sexual problems for people who follow God's laws. But just as Eve couldn't foresee the outcome of her decision to eat the forbidden fruit, human limitations often prevent mankind from foreseeing the hideous outcome of turning their backs on God's sexual truths. Thus, God's love becomes evident as he warns men and women of the dangers awaiting them for abuse of his wonderful creationsexual love:

The Sexual Addict Mistreats Himself

That first look at a pornographic magazine or that first time to masturbate with the pictures may seem like a harmless, victimless activity. Yet God warns that the person who becomes enslaved to various lusts and pleasures is deceived! That self-deceit takes place gradually over a period of time until the real victim becomes engulfed and enslaved in the sin.

In Male Sexuality, Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld shows that the harm of pornographic materials such as sensual television shows, movies, and magazines on the man's sexual responses equals the damage Victorian morals do to the sexual natures of both men and women. He claims that soft-core pornographic influence abounds everywhere in unsuspecting places. Just exposure to sexual immorality through the boasting of friends and literature easily inhibits otherwise pure men as much as subtle Victorian concepts inhibit women. ( Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., Male Sexuality [New York, NY: Bantam, 1978].)

Dr. Archibald Hart's book on sexual addiction, The Sexual Man, explains how every perversion he discusses has its roots in masturbation or self-stimulation that eventually becomes compulsive or addictive. Masturbating to orgasm releases and utilizes sexual hormones in such a way that it greatly increases the imprint on the brain of the accompanying activity and defines how the person experiences sexual pleasure.

For example, a casual attitude toward rape often develops when a young man masturbates to pornography and stereotypes women as sex objects instead of real people. A man can even become a stalker because when he masturbates and visualizes the woman of his choice, she never says, "No," and always welcomes his advances. Then when she tells him in real life, "No! Leave me alone!" he doesn't believe her. His masturbation made him lose touch with reality. Fetishes develop through masturbation. As a man fondles women's clothing while masturbating, his mind makes a strong connection between the article and sexual pleasure. Dr. Hart describes one man who could not function with his wife unless she wore black pantiesthe article he masturbated with in his youth. Thus he made love to the black pantiesnot his wife! Pedophiles masturbate to pictures of children. This prepares their minds for moving on to live children. Adultery often begins with visualizing another woman while masturbating. Eventually, some men act out those fantasies after they've programmed their minds through self-masturbation. That first incident of adultery may easily progress into serial adultery. Masturbating to pornography allows husbands to withdraw emotionally from their wives and, eventually, many of them reach a point where they no longer make love to their wives, but must visualize pornographic images to make sexual contact with their wives. Such husbands often prefer this solo sex and essentially have solo sex even if they perform it on their wives. Likewise, masturbating with members of the same sex can easily develop into full-blown homosexuality. (Hart, The Sexual Man, 109-114.)

All these perversions (with the possible exception of some cases of adultery) share the common characteristic of "abandoning the natural function of the opposite sex." While this expression is used to describe homosexual conduct of both men and women in Rom. 1:26-27, it is the common outcome of all these perversions. Basically, homosexuals lose the ability to function in a natural way with members of the opposite sex. Heterosexual sexual addicts also lose the ability to function in a natural way with members of the opposite sex. The only difference between the homosexual and the heterosexual sexual addict is the focus of their lustsmembers of the same sex versus children, panties, pornographic pictures, women as sex objects, etc. It is all "abandoning the natural function of the opposite sex."

Amazingly, some male college students figured this out for themselvesthat masturbating to images in their minds was robbing their bodies of sexual delight with real women. Lynn Sherr of ABC News "20/20"interviewed these students for a program called "Sex With the Unreal Woman." Some of these young men became involved in pornography as early as the second, third, and fourth grades. In a closet they found Playboy and Penthouse magazines. They cut out the pictures and started trading them like trading cards. One student said, "My first sexual experience was, you know, dividing up women."

By junior high, these boys were passing around the magazines at school and using pornography to masturbate by. They experienced their first orgasms this way. One student explained, "When you're about to masturbate, or you're thinking about everything in a sexual context, it takes on a power."

Sherr said, "By using pornography to experience their first sexual pleasure, their bodies are physically conditioned to respond to such images."

Catherine MacKinnon, an anti-pornography activist on the program stated, "The way it works is it gives the man who is consuming it the experience of using a woman. First of all, she is flat, she is inert, she does not talk back to him. She is not real." The women in pornography never say no. MacKinnon continued, "It absolutely does condition him in his body. That is what he experiences as sexually exciting and through orgasmwhich is a powerful reinforceris that which is experienced as ultimately sexually pleasurable."

One student in talking about this effect on him said, "When you're finished in pornography, it goes back up on the shelf, and in real life, there's a person there, even after you ejaculate."

Another student explained how they could not respond sexually to real women, but had to transform them into pornographic images: "I've had to close my eyes (during sex with a real woman) and imagine the woman I'm with. I had to see an image within myself of the person I was with, not actually opening my eyes and looking at that person to finally climax."

The last student summarized the terrible effect of pornography, "A friend has the expression of `masturbating into a woman.' That is sort of like a logical conclusion of pornography or masturbating to pornography. When you're finally with a real person, you're not really with them." (Lynn Sherr, "Sex With the Unreal Woman," ABC News "20/20" Transcript #1305 Jan. 29, 1993, [The American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., 1993], 4-6.)

A subtle form of pornography that enslaves young men, making them lose touch with real women, traps its victims through Saturday-morning cartoons, animated Disney movies, and video games. These cartoon babes of pornography were exposed when a young man told a woman he liked her hair longer and straighter. "You look like Jessica Rabbit," he said approvingly. When she wheeled on him, he confessed he loved cartoon babes, starting as a teen crush on Ms. Pac-man. He liked her really big lips and great makeup. Other men admit to being drawn to the almond-shaped eyes, curves that real women don't have, and come-hither personality. As one man stated, "Animated girls never make ugly faces the way people do in real life. You never catch a cartoon figure at a bad moment."

"Disney heroines are often ridiculously nubile [sexually attractiveWebster], and the male-dominated animation industry has put a lot of subliminal effort into titillating the male audience. . . . The lithe Indian princess, Pocahontas, was described by The Times as `an animated Playboy Playmate.' " Many Web sites feature the cartoon babes. "For most guys, the more cartoonish the better. Perfect features, perfect bodies, no demands." (Maureen Dowd, "Men's Cartoon Fantasies Aren't Drawn from Life," The Tacoma News Tribune [January 12, 1998], A10.)

While Christians might assume that looking at pornography and masturbating to it is rare among Christians, many Christians know it is often commonplaceespecially to soft-core pornography. One Christian woman said her husband, who claimed to be a Christian, had neglected her sexually all their marriage because he preferred pornography. For years she fought the physical and mental pain of unsatisfied sexual desires because of her husband's mental adultery. She became very alarmed when her sons grew into teenagers and her husband began introducing them to pornography as a means of draining off their sexual energies. The thought that her sons might imitate her husband's sins and perpetuate the misery she suffered devastated her. This wife finally developed complicated medical problems that totally drained all her energy and she no longer had the emotional or physical strength to care what her husband did. To say that this is not God's plan for sexual love in marriage is an understatement! The husband's actions were an outrageous sinful violation of 1 Cor. 7:3-5 where God commands the husband to satisfy his wife's God-given sexual desires and of Matt. 5:27-28 where Jesus warns about mental adultery.

As affirmed by the college students, a real flesh and blood wife cannot begin to compete with pornographic images. Masturbating to pornographic material or even visualizing personal fantasies causes a husband to stay locked into immaturity. He fails to grow up mentally because he does not have to learn how to deal with a real person whose opinions may differ from his or who has legitimate needs and desires. Enjoying a wonderful sex life with a real person requires personal growth on the part of both the husband and the wife as they learn how to relate one on one. They must examine and change their attitudes in many realms of their life together; because ultimately, glorious rapture in the arms of a real person requires the joining of both real minds and real bodies.

Pornography and fantasy do not require mental intimacy with a real personthey focus totally on the physicaland artificial physical at that. Thus, the person who uses these artificial techniques may grow up physically and be able to masturbate and ejaculate to sensual images, but he totally sidesteps the real world of learning how to solve problems and live with a real person. He uses these sexual activities as an escape rather than learning how to face and deal with his feelings in a healthy way. As long as he relies on pornography or fantasy, a man stays mentally immature, even if he lives to be ninety-nine years old. His relationship with his wife suffers unspeakable harm as a result.

While masturbating to pornography is generally thought of as a problem for men, feminists promote pornographic magazines aimed at women. Also, many technique books encourage women to masturbate. Women who use pornography or fantasy suffer the same mental immaturity as men and the inability to relate to real flesh and blood men. While sexual love is a blessing from God, it requires both the joining of the minds and the bodies for supreme pleasure for both men and women. True sexual love requires both husbands and wives to grow up mentally. Pornography and fantasy enable both men and women to stay forever immature.

In addition, masturbating to pornography (soft or hardcore) or to fantasies (real or imagined) is adultery of the heart that Jesus warned about:

Not only is mental adultery forbidden by Jesus, but it also destroys the emotional bond between a husband and a wife and robs them of true sexual pleasure with each other. Sexually mature women whose husbands use pornographic or fantasized women to get their sexual thrills feel as sexually violated by an unfaithful husband as do wives whose husbands commit adultery with a flesh and blood woman. A wife usually sees little difference whether the other woman is a paper or mental image or flesh and blood. The husband who commits mental adultery may lack the nerve to actually do what he imagines with real women, but he still has the heart of an adulterer. Without fail, many sexually loving wives feel that pain and rejection.

One husband who worked hard to overcome compulsive involvement in pornography said, "It took me years to understand how sexually violated my actions made my wife feel. I used to think I wasn't hurting my wife or anyone else. Now I see I hurt my wife, my children, and myself."

Laurie Hall tells in An Affair of the Mind how it took her husband Jack years after his addiction came to light to acknowledge how his activities had hurt her and their children. The deceit of the addiction that "No one gets hurt. It's a victimless activity." is so strong, that many addicts remain in denial for years regarding the pain they've inflicted on their mates. It was only after the first-mentioned husband and Laurie Hall's husband finally acknowledged the pain they had given to their families that they began to make great strides in loosening the bonds of their enslavement. Perhaps if both of these husbands had contemplated their wives doing the same activities as they engaged in, it might not have taken years for them to recognize the pain they had caused.

The Sexual Addict Mistreats His Family

As the sexual addict becomes "enslaved" to his compulsive sexual drive, the verse warns that the addict "spends his life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." Throughout the Bible, verses warning about sexual compulsions and sins often list it in a group of other sins that involve mistreatment of others. Sexual addiction is nearly always a part of a cluster of sins that grow in number and intensity as the sin progresses. That is why it is so important to take care of the sin when it is discovered instead of trying to just tolerate it or look the other way. Left to itself, sexual addiction always gets worse, not better. It is not uncommon to also find these sins against others either starting to develop or already full-blown along with the sexual addiction:

Adulterers and sexual addicts are masters at using "weasel words" for legalistic evasion of being caught in a lietelling just a little bit of technical truth to create a completely false impression. Then if they are caught, they harp on the little bit of technical truth to accuse their mate of not remembering correctly or misunderstanding. They also keep at their disposal a ready supply of accusations to hurl at a mate who gets too close to uncovering their secrets, i.e. "You're just jealous." "You're overreacting." "Everyone will think you're crazy if they hear you say that." "You just don't trust me." Etc. Etc.

Innocent mates, who were formerly intelligent and strong Christians, have been reduced to shaking bowls of Jell-O by the skillful verbal manipulation of an adulterous spouse. The adulterer and sexual addict must master this skill to be able to continue in the sin long enough for it to become a compulsive addiction. Anyone who counsels with adulterers or sexual addicts needs to always be mindful of the fact that what he is hearing, may or may not be true.

Nearly all sexual perversions include self-masturbation and begin with it. However, all self-masturbation is not necessarily a sin. Two things make self-masturbation a sin: (1) When self-masturbation is used to drain off one's sexual energies and, thus, deprive the mate of satisfaction of God-given sexual desires (1 Cor. 7:2-5). (2) When self-masturbation is used with or without fantasies to commit mental adultery (Matt. 5:27-28). See the index in Marriage: A Taste of Heaven, Vol. II: God's People Make the Best Lovers for discussions of when masturbation becomes a sin and the powerful role it plays in adultery, sexual addiction, and sexual perversions including homosexuality.

The mental adultery of sexual addicts easily reaches the point where they cannot go anywhere or see any member of the opposite sex without immediately analyzing if that person might be available sexually or what they would like to do if that person was available. Even the sexual addicts' spiritual brothers and sisters are not exempt from their lustful thoughtseven in worship services. Sex and cruising for a likely target of their lust is always on the minds of sexual addictsnearly every minute of the day. Sexual addicts even sexualize the most innocent and average things. Mental adulterers may deceive themselves by thinking , "I'm not so bad because I don't engage in actual sexual intercourse." They may be content to just have an "affair of the mind" through sharing their woes and problems with members of the opposite sex, whom they're not married to, to get their attention and sympathy.

This takeover of the mind makes sexual addiction and numerous adulteries hard to overcome. Indeed, this is where the real war exists. If the sexual sinner just concentrates on quitting the physical behavior of being involved with pornography or committing adultery, but doesn't focus on changing the mind, he or she will never be free of mental adultery. See the indexes in Marriage: A Taste of Heaven, Vol. I and Vol. II for discussions on identifying and recognizing the harm of mental adultery.

Pornography and mental adultery prepare the mind, heart, and conscience for actual episodes of adultery long before the event takes place. At that point, the adulterer, who perhaps years earlier would have thought he or she would never actually commit adultery, may even feel justified and righteous in committing adultery.

Alcohol and drugs are often deliberately used to numb the thinking and as an excuse for doing activities a person wouldn't do when sober. In other words, the adulterer and addict might consciously recognize the danger of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases if they picked up a prostitute, but if they have a few drinks in a bar and then pick up a stranger, they fulfill their wish for illicit sexual contact. However, their consciences don't hold them responsible for the consequences because they were drinking or using drugs. Alcohol and drugs are often sought on an unconscious level as an opportunity to move into deeper sin without accepting personal responsibility.

Adulterers and addicts often blame their mates as a way of dealing with a guilty conscience. Both male and female sexual sinners are often experts at making their mates feel stupid and guilty when their mates question their conduct. Some husbands and wives are so intimidated by the sinful spouse's outbursts of anger and blame, that they cower and drop the subject rather than risk further exposure to the tirades. As a result, the abuser, as a master manipulator, successfully buries the sin with verbal attacks on the mate.

If verbal abuse is allowed to continue long enough, it is usually only a matter of time before physical abuse takes place. In two cases, the physical abuse stopped with the first incident because the wife slapped the husband back and didn't just take it. Yet the verbal abuse in both of these cases grew worse and became a daily assault in one of the marriages. Women's shelters report that physical abuse is often more severe among men who claim to be Christians than among non-Christians. This comes mainly from the husbands' false assumptions about the Bible's teaching on the subjection of women.

Sometimes the abuse literally takes a more silent form than either verbal or physical abuseemotional withdrawal from the wife and the children. Adulterers and sexual addicts often master some type of abuse to manipulate their families into being codependent with their sin (enabling their sin rather than exposing it and expecting reform). Mentally withdrawing to punish the family often goes unrecognized as a form of manipulative abuse simply because of its silent nature. It can take many forms such as pouting, watching hours of TV, not speaking for days, giving "the look" when interaction takes place, and refusing to talk about problems. Emotional abuse follows the same cycle as other forms of abuse: (1) build up of tension, (2) release of tension in the abusive action, and (3) loving respite where everything is wonderfully ok.

Just as the other forms of abuse blame the victim, the emotional abuser blames the spouse and the children for the outpouring of vile behavior. Innocent mates and children live in constant fear of when the next reprisal will hit for some insignificant mistake on their part which will be blown all out of proportion by their abuser who refuses to have anything to do with them.

Pornography, X-rated movies, and even R-rated movies, along with self-masturbation teach the sexual addict to use his wife sexually and cause him to lose the ability to join with her sexually. Instead of making the husband a better lover as pornography tricks him into believing, he becomes totally self-centered and self-gratifying at the expense of his wife. Incapable of giving real pleasure to his wife, or to any woman, anymore; he may even develop a problem with pre-mature ejaculation because of the episodes of self-masturbation and fear of being caught. His wife will be lucky if the sexual abuse stops here. However, the sexual addict may progress to inflicting actual sadistic pain on her for his pleasure. Some addicts even force their wives to engage in sex with others while they watch and may bring other women into their beds, etc.

This is a frequent part of sexual addiction, especially in the later stages of development. Amazingly, a father, who looks proudly and lovingly at his newborn child and who would gladly sacrifice his own life for that child, can one day degenerate into a man who, not only fantasies sexual indecencies with that same child, but actually does them. Both boys and girls bear the emotional scars of a father who deceived himself into believing he was just expressing love and teaching his child how to be loving through sexual molestation.

These sins are nearly always present in adultery and sexual addiction. Sometimes bitterness and anger over disappointment in the marriage makes a person receptive to adultery, pornography, and self-masturbation. Other times, a loving man, who turns to pornography, begins to believe the degradation of women portrayed in pornography. This leaves lots of room in his heart for bitterness and anger to flourish. Whichever comes first, the bitterness or the pornography, these men always have a profound ignorance of the differences between the husband's and the wife's roles and their emotional and sexual natures. Over a period of time, bitterness so warps a person's thinking that he loses all touch with reality.

This amounts to dominion of another person and is an attempt to take over the wife's personality. When the wife masters one area of criticism in an attempt to please her husband, instead of being pleased, the abuser simply moves on to another area in which to reform her. The addict has no acceptance or concept of what it means when God tells him to love his "own" wife as "himself." Since many women unjustly falsely blame themselves for everything that is wrong in the marriage, unreasonable perfectionism often becomes quite severe before the wife recognizes what is happening and refuses to accept undeserved blame. However, by that time her self-image is probably totally destroyed and she is fighting for emotional survival.

This sin is nearly always present and greatly magnifies all other problems. Many times, if one mate judges motives, the other does also. A lot of verbal, physical, and emotional abuse results from assigning evil motives to the mate. However, it is just as wrong to judge a mate's motives for good as it is to judge the motives for evil. Falsely judging the mate's motives for good results in denial and minimizing of the sin, which allows the sin to grow and become even more compulsive.

The apostle Paul says that no one knows the thoughts of another person unless that person tells him his or her thoughts (1 Cor. 2:11). God reserves the right to judge a person's motives either for evil or for good (1 Cor. 4:5). However, God does give humans the right to make judgements based on the deeds or fruits of other humans (Matt. 7:20, Acts 26:20).

This sin often occurs as the sexual addiction progresses. The sexual sin becomes so compulsive and consuming that most of the man's income is spent on his addiction to the neglect of providing the basic necessities for his family. The addict may insist on the best clothes, the best meals, the best entertainment, the best everything for him while his family makes do with what they have or what is given to them by others.

For an addict to rack up debts of thousands of dollars to satisfy his addiction is not unusual. One reformed sexual addict, who was a Christian, confessed that he spent $70,000 on his addiction during the last three years before his wife left him. Many times these debts are hidden from the wife along with the addiction. As the addiction becomes more compulsive, the addict loses his ability to concentrate on his work and may engage in risky behavior that can compromise his job, i.e. telephone sex, leaving work to go to porn movies, etc.

Many men involved in sinful activity take great pride in being the head of the wife, which translates to, "I'm the leader and I get to do whatever I want." However, God did not give the husband any personal rights with his position of leadership. Instead of rights, God assigned the husband responsibilities. Primarily, the husband is to love his wife as himself, denying his personal rights to the point of death, to do what is best for his wife and children.

In contrast to this selflessness, the selfishness of the sexual addict can become so extreme that claiming to be the head of the wife and children would be laughable, if it weren't for the intense pain heaped upon his family. The addict often expects his family to take care of all home duties such as paying bills, yard work, and house and car maintenance with his only contribution being to complain. It is not unusual to find the sexual addict even neglecting planned family times such as special meals, school functions, sports events, holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries because he was busy pleasuring himself in some secret activity. When questioned, the addict easily falls back on his assumed authority with: "You're not submissive." "You don't have a quiet spirit." "You just want to be the boss."

Godly subjection and leadership is a major study with many fine points that require discernment and accountability on the part of both husbands and wives. Marriage: A Taste of Heaven, Vol. I: God's People Appreciate Marriage devotes four chapters to discussing the mechanics of both the husband's and the wife's parts and shows how they balance and support each other. In addition, Challenges in Marriage spends one whole class dealing with false Bible arguments that keep the wife codependent and submissive to sin. God expects wives to say, "No," to ungodly usurped authority.

Women whose husbands claim to be Christians and are sexual addicts have looked at this list of sins and said, "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "Could easily be." "In the past." Yes." Etc. Etc.

Psychiatrists recognize that once sexual sins become addictive, men and women have a hard time overcoming them. However, Paul begins this warning to Titus about enslavement to sin with, "For we also once were foolish ourselves"now they weren't foolish and enslaved. First-century Christians faced these problems and successfully overcame them.

While the pagans of the New Testament did not produce pornography in magazines or in movies or on the Internet, they promoted effective forerunners of modern pornography. "It was the Romans who invented the word `sex.' . . . The Romans made no concealment of their sex-instinct, and representational art and poetry were called in to serve its needs."

For example, "free-thinking" poets sang sensual songs extolling free love at parties and on the streets. The popular Roman poet Propertius sang, "How I love this quite uninhibited She, who walks with gown thrown half back, unabashed by curious and desirous looks, who loiters in her dusty shoes on the pavement of the Via Sacra and does not hang back when you beckon to her. She will never refuse you, nor clean you out of all your fortune." Propertius' song sounds very similar to Hugh Hefner's tunes that he deceives his disciples today withabout how available women are and how much they love the pornographically-created studs.

In addition, the private villas of rich Roman merchants were adorned with sexual paintings and sculptures, which provided "a pleasant seasoning to a jovial banquet." The artists knew the rules: "everything can be shown inside the house, but discretion outside it!" (Richard Lewinsohn, A History of Sexual Customs [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958], 62, 72-73. Used by permission.) An ancient house of prostitution preserved under the mountain of volcanic ash in the ruins of Pompeii presents a vivid example of the graphic pornography available to the people of New Testament times:

The Romans also used the written word to instruct the masses about various sexual techniques:

Not surprisingly, the Romans devoted much of their literary and artistic talents to glorifying their sexuality. Nonetheless, the Corinthians of the New Testament had a special problem with healthy sexual conduct unique to their time. They lived in a seaport city of about four hundred thousand people consisting of Romans, Greeks, Jews, Syrians, Egyptians, sailors, traders, and slaves. Their city boasted a temple of Venus where a thousand consecrated priestesses doubled as prostitutes. Kept at public expense, they were always ready to serve their goddess in immoral indulgences. And this was their religion! Sexual morals mattered very little to any of the heathens, but the Corinthians' reputation was so bad that the expression "to Corinthianize" became a synonym for "vice par excellence in the Roman world." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, II [Grand Rapids: MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939], 710; Henry H. Halley, Halley's Bible Handbook [Minneapolis, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962], 490.)

Yet Paul preached the gospel in Corinth, and many of the wicked people became Christians. Consequently, the Corinthian Christians not only lived among some of the most sexually immoral people in the world, some of them had actually been fornicators, idolaters (worshipers of the goddess of harlotry), adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, revilers (verbal abusers), and swindlers (1 Cor. 6:9-10). They had tasted of the fruits of sexual perversion and the accompanying crime firsthand.

However, having their sins washed away in baptism didn't automatically take away all the sinful inclinations and thoughts of these Christians. To these first-century Christians, Paul wrote some of the most detailed information in the whole Bible about overcoming the effects of sexual immorality in a person's life. By studying how Paul dealt with their problems of extreme sexual immorality and the resulting lack of an ability to truly love others, modern-day Christians can learn how to solve even the grossest of sexual difficulties:

After listing a group of sexually immoral people who had some of the worst problems imaginable with knowing how to love, Paul added that none of these sinners would inherit the kingdom of God. Then Paul reminded the Corinthians, "And such were some of you." What a comforting statement full of great hope! The gospel possesses the power to change fornicators, adulterers, idolatrous temple prostitutes, effeminate men, and homosexuals into loving sincere people who reflect God's own love for mankind.

If the gospel contains the power to solve the most hideous sexual problems of the Corinthians, then the average couple's marriage problems and deficiencies for loving others seem small in comparison. No matter how evil the home a person may have grown up in, the influence of that home can be replaced with the truth. No matter how cold and unloving a person might be before becoming a Christian, that person can learn to be warm and affectionate. No matter how compulsive sexual sins may have become, a person can learn to respond in a healthy and loving manner.

The world should be able to recognize Christians by their ability to love. If the Corinthians could learn to love in spite of the environment they grew up in and continued to live in, along with the personal problems it produced, then anyone can learn to love and solve sexual abnormalities. If a person does not learn how to lovethe fault lies with that personnot God. After telling them of their past lives, Paul then reminded the Corinthians of God's three-part formula they used to solve their sexual problems. By following their example, God's people today can overcome even the grossest of sexual inhibitions and addictions:

The Corinthians Were Washed

First, the Corinthians were washed in the name of the Lord Jesus. In Acts 2:38 when Peter preached the first gospel sermon after Jesus died and ascended back to heaven, he said, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." Before a person can be baptized and have his sins "washed" away, he must repent. Unfortunately, many Christians emphasize the washing or baptism to the point of glossing over the importance of repentance and truly trusting their lives to Jesus' leadership. Consequently, many people, who claim to be Christians, argue with Jesus about his laws that conflict with their opinions. When Jesus says do something, instead of saying, "Yes, Lord," they ask, "Why, Lord?" Instead of showing faith in God's word and wisdom, they demand, "Show me the logic, Lord, before I will obey."

When a person truly repents, he examines his sins and changes his mind about doing them. Thus, he repudiates his former way of life and determines to obey God regardless of the consequences he might suffer on earth from other people. Only then is he ready for baptism. Then baptism washes away those sinseven the sins of the fornicator, the adulterer, the prostitute, the effeminate, and the homosexual. As the person starts life as a Christian, he begins with a clean slate and a clear conscience to correct the mistakes of the past, and to live a life of purity.

However, baptism is just the beginning, the entrance into God's kingdom of love. While a person learns that he is a sinner and needs forgiveness through the cleansing of the blood of Christ before he's baptized, he doesn't know everything he needs to do to live as a Christian. Many subjects take a lifetime of Bible study to fully understand; nonetheless, God expects a new Christian to begin his journey of sanctification to make lasting changes in his thinking and behavior:

The Corinthians Were Sanctified

Sanctification is a very important concept in marriage and for overcoming problems of all kinds including sexual addiction. Sanctification takes the thing sanctified and separates it from the common use of the world. As a result, when used in marriage and for problem solving, sanctification always makes the thing sanctified better than what the common people experience.

Sanctification is used in 1 Thess. 4:4 to admonish Christians to sanctify their sexual lives. God commands his people not only to avoid sexual immorality, but to also possess their own vessels unto sanctification and honor. This verse is discussed fully in Marriage: A Taste of Heaven, Vol. II: God's People Make the Best Lovers, chapter 1 "Sexual Happiness for God's People." Basically, it means Christians are to know how to delight in a better love-life than the Gentiles who know not God. In this case, God's people thrill to better sexual love than the average person enjoys.

Likewise, in 1 Tim. 4:1-5 Paul says Christians are to sanctify their marriages by the word of God and prayer. Rather than forbidding to marry as doctrines of demons promoted, Christians are to go on to have wonderful marriages. This is possible by (1) going to the word of God to learn the truth about marriage and (2) praying to God in an interview-type prayer (which reveals a person before God as he really is) for help in implementing that truth. All sins that invade the home and destroy the harmony between husbands and wives can be overcome with sanctification by following this formula. God doesn't want his people to just tolerate their marriageshe wants them to partake of truly blissful unions. Vol. I: God's People Appreciate Marriage devotes all of chapter 2 to studying the mechanics of sanctifying marriages through this problem-solving formula.

When Paul told the Corinthians they had overcome fornication, adultery, prostitution, effeminacy, homosexuality, drunkenness, and reviling by sanctification, he referred them to a powerful tool for conquering perversions, addictions, and Victorian ignorance. Sanctification holds the key for making lasting changes in a person's life.

A parallel passage to 1 Cor. 6:11 is Tit. 3:5-7 which follows God's definition of sexual addiction in Tit. 3:3 and shows that those Christians overcame their enslavement to "various lusts and pleasures" the same way as the Corinthians. The passage also sheds further light on the process of sanctification as Paul says, "He saved us . . . by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by his grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." "Renewing by the Holy Spirit" parallels "you were sanctified." "Renewing" means "a renewal, renovation, complete change for the better" (Thayer, 38).

After a person has been baptized to wash away his sins, that person is renewed or changed into a better person by putting the words of the Holy Spirit (found in the Bible) into his mind and acting on them. Christians are sanctified (or set apart from the world to live a better life) because their thoughts and actions reflect the wisdom of God as revealed in the Bible by the inspired words of the apostles. The changes become permanent because they take place in the brainfrom the inside out.

Another parallel passage, Rom. 12:2, also shows how Christians are sanctified. Christians are not to be conformed to this world, but are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. "Transformed" is an interesting word that means "to change into another form, to transfigure, transform" (Thayer, 405). This same word was used when Jesus was transfigured on the Mt. of Olives.

The modern word "metamorphosis" comes from the same Greek word. In the English language the word refers to the process whereby the insect larva spins a cocoon around itself and undergoes drastic change and maturation. After a certain period of time the ugly caterpillar emerges as a beautiful butterflya completely transformed insect. Not only does the insect's outer appearance change, but also its function changes. The butterfly has left behind the caterpillar's compulsion to eat plants and destroy foliage. Instead, the butterfly pollinates flowers and makes the world more lovely.

A similar "metamorphosis" happens to the Christian. He is buried in the baptismal waters as a repulsive sinner. Then he rises from the waters pure and clean, though not yet mature and adorned with all the beauty of Christ. As the Christian deliberately studies the word of God and renews or changes his mind, he is set apart from the conduct of the world and is gradually transformed into a beautiful person who glorifies God in his daily life. Even homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, prostitutes, thieves, murderers, revilers, drunkards, etc. can be transformed into pure and holy individuals through baptism and the power of God's word in their lives.

Many times after a mate's promiscuity comes to light, the mate promises, "It will never happen again." The mate may even go forward at worship services to confess sin and ask for prayers. No doubt, the mate is genuinely sorry and determined to never commit the sin again. Unfortunately, often the healing stops at this first step of the "washing" by accessing the blood of Jesus for forgiveness. While forgiveness is essential for one's relationship with God, one's self, and the mate, forgiveness is only the first step. Stopping with forgiveness dooms the person to repeat the sin again. Indeed, this cycle of sinning, repenting and determining never to do it again, only to backslide even deeper into the same sin happens over and over. Yet the person involved in the sin is probably deeply committed to stopping the behavior when he repents.

The problem is not the person's sincerity. Nor is it a problem with the power of Jesus' blood to cover sins. The problem comes from completing only the first step for changing behaviorthe washing. Without the next step of true sanctification, or thorough mental housecleaning that changes and reorganizes the thinking, the sinner stays locked in his former pattern of behavior. The metamorphosis takes place by the "renewing of their minds," "the renewing by the Holy Spirit." Sanctification doesn't require just any renewing of the mind, but it requires renewing by the Holy Spirit through God's words that are preserved in the Bible.

This is why a lot of congregations' counseling programs fail. They seek their renewing from a source other than the Holy Spirit. For example, many congregations purchase some of the popular videos to use in marriage counseling and assume this sanctifies couples with marriage problems. However, an examination of these videos and the accompanying books shows that although they claim to be Bible basedthey are often only lightly Bible based. These materials usually throw out an occasional scripture as a proof text and then proceed to tell story after story supposedly in support of the scripture. Yet they fail miserably to teach word definitions or to focus on the meaning of certain phrases. Likewise, they do not magnify God's wisdom, but use their counseling experiences to validate their own teaching. A person comes away from these study sessions with a lot of new stories floating around in his mind, but very little, if any, increase in Bible knowledge.

Jesus' use of parables shows that anecdotes serve as valuable teaching aids. The harm comes when the stories become the basis of the teaching rather than illustrations of the scriptures. When a person with problems hears a story about how someone solved a similar problem, it may intrigue him. Yet that story is only someone's opinionit has no authority behind it. So it is very easy for the person to reject the opinion of the story.

On the other hand, if when the person became a Christian, he truly repented and determined to obey God's opinions no matter whatthen the scriptures exert powerful influence over his life. The person just needs to conduct his own study or to get someone to teach him. Even if God's will goes against everything the person has believed and practiced all his life, when God says something, that person will work hard at applying God's word to his life. Private sessions and classes have demonstrated that the same person who will reject teaching that comes from a person's experience, will cease arguing and begin to ask questions when confronted with the same principle from the Bible. Renewing by the Holy Spirit renews the mind and brings about permanent changes. But renewing on the basis of man's anecdotes brings about only temporary changes at best.

Looking at the fruit of congregations who have used these shallow videos for years shows congregations rampant with divorces and fallen-away Christians. The pity is that often the marriage problems were solvable and marriages could have been strengthened to become better than ever. But because these videos did not break the cycle of repentance, determination to never sin again, only to backslide deeper into sin; many marriages deteriorated into total emotional exhaustion and despair.

True sanctification is absolutely necessary to make lasting changes in a person's mind that results in permanent changes in his life. A person must focus on God's word and meditate on that word. This is how David overcame his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband. God sent the prophet Nathan to David to convict him of sin. First, Nathan used an anecdote to get David's attention. Then Nathan proceeded to tell David what God said and what God would require of him because of his sin. When confronted, David confessed his sin and Nathan told him God had taken the sin away (2 Sam. 12:1-25).

However, David did not stop with confession of sin, but was sanctified. David spent hours meditating on his sin with Bathsheba. Many of the psalms he wrote reflect his meditation on God's law and the insight he gained (see Psalms 32, 38, and 51). To become truly sanctified, a person must stop and think his way through his past conduct and make plans for his future conduct as David did. A person gets into problems because he followed his sexual impulses rather than examining the situation intelligently. Now he must go back and think his way through his sin and temptations to become sanctified.

Many times when a mate has gone through several cycles of sinning, repenting, pledging not to sin again, only to backslide into deeper sin; the innocent mate loses confidence in the mate's ability to become truly sanctified. The innocent mate often says, "He knows how to say all the right things, but it never lasts." First, the spouse of a sinful mate needs to have confidence in the power of God's word. Paul said that the Corinthians had engaged in and, indeed, been addicted to, some of the most horrible sexual compulsions and perversions imaginable. Yet they had totally overcome their sexual immorality by following God's three-part formula. Just as the Corinthians overcame their deepest problems, so can men and women today free their bodies and minds from gross sexual conduct.

God's word possesses the power to change even the most wretched of lives. But God's word must be applied until the transformation takes place. The degree of enslavement to sin will determine how long the sanctification process needs to continue before real changes can be seen. God's word can be applied through detailed Bible studies about the problem and being a Christian in general along with doing homework that helps the mind focus and meditate on God's will.

Second, the mate can look for "deeds appropriate to repentance" in both the life and the words of the sinner as Paul commanded of the Gentiles who repented in Acts 26:20. This means that not only is the sinful activity given up, but new positive actions replace the sinful conduct. Trying harder to just stop doesn't work in overcoming the problem. The person has to also do differently. For example, 1 Thess. 4:3-5 says a sanctified person not only ceases from sexual immorality, but goes on to use the sexual relationship in a righteous way. It's not enough to say, "I don't commit adultery anymore." A person must also be able to say, "And I find my sexual fulfillment with my mate."

Thus, the sinner needs to correct the physical problems in the marriage. For example, if a mate is not responding sexually to the other because of bitterness, not only is the bitterness given up, but new loving actions replace it. Not only is pornography given up, but those activities are replaced with loving times with the mate. A sexually neglectful wife not only repents of her coldness toward her husband, but she also replaces the old behavior with initiating lovemaking on occasion. Essentially, the person being sanctified repairs the physical breach with the spouse.

One husband had engaged in a long-term affair that resulted in a child. The wife learned about the affair after it had gone on for over ten years. The husband, who claimed to be a Christian, went forward and confessed sin. After learning of the affair, the wife realized why their marriage had not grown emotionally although she had worked hard to make it a success. Since her husband was mentally attached to another woman, it was impossible for the wife to create a true emotional bond with him. She told him now they needed to repair the emotional void between them and make their marriage be what it should be. Her husband said he had done everything he needed to do by asking for forgiveness and if problems still existedthey were her problemsnot his. He concluded, "You just need to learn how to forgive better."

To the contrary, repentance is much more than asking for forgiveness. It is both repudiating the past conduct and then moving forward to embrace righteous behavior. Because that husband was unwilling to repair the damage done to his marriage, that marriage continued to deteriorate. Because the wife fought feelings that came from sin in the home that had not been properly covered by the blood of Jesus, while having all the blame unjustly cast onto her, she wrestled with thoughts of suicide.

God gives the mate the right to insist on full repentance taking place after sexual sin because that sinner is not pleasing to God until he can truthfully say, "I don't commit adultery anymore and I use the sexual relationship to God's glory" (1 Thess. 4:3-4). Anything less does not please God and leaves the marriage in a state of decay. In fact, Paul concludes this discussion about the sanctification of the sexual relationship with "Consequently, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you" (1 Thess. 4:8). Thus, a person who is not willing to both (1) repudiate the sin and (2) embrace righteous living is not rejecting the mate (man) when he refuses to treat the mate right, but a person is rejecting both God and the words God has preserved in the Bible through the Holy Spirit. That person is not sanctified and is not overcoming his or her sin as the Corinthians overcame theirs.

Another husband who committed adultery with several young women repented of his adultery and promised never to do it again. But when his wife told him, "Now I want us to work on our marriage to make our relationship right so you won't be tempted again," he refused. This husband had the Victorian Madonna-prostitute view of a woman and had a problem feeling sexual desires for his wife. Because he was not satisfying his legitimate desires at home, he was very susceptible to affairs. In addition, his wife fought continual sexual frustration because he neglected to satisfy her God-given desires. Because he was unwilling to go all the way in making his adultery right by correcting the problem with his wife that led to his sin in the first place, his wife eventually divorced him for "impenitent" adultery. Although he claimed he had repented, his actions proved otherwise. Repentance involves not only turning one's back on the sinful behavior, but also going forward to embrace righteous behavior. To please God, it's not enough to say, "I don't commit adultery anymore." A person must be able to also say, "And I find my sexual fulfillment with my mate" (1 Thess. 4:3-4).

In addition to a change in behavior, another work appropriate to repentance is fresh insights that show the person is not just parroting what his exhorters say to him, but that the person is drawing his own conclusions based on his own particular conduct. For example, when two different husbands proofread a paragraph used earlier in this booklet, it provoked opposite responses from them. The paragraph was written as a result of working with several wives whose husbands used pornographic material to get their sexual thrills. It accurately described the pain these wives felt from their husbands' mental adultery. Following is the controversial paragraph and the two different responses:

The first proofreader was a mature Christian who was a capable and independent Bible student. He had worked with several couples over the years and had gained some insights into common sexual problems. He was concerned primarily about husbands who fight the temptation to commit adultery because their wives are not available either physically or emotionally. He wrote:

As a result of this proofreader's comments, two phrases were added to clarify that the wives were sexually loving. However, the second proofreader read the same original paragraph as the first reader. The second proofreader had participated in several affairs and used pornography during his marriage. He was in the process of becoming sanctified for his sexual addiction. He was studying with different Christians who were knowledgeable and doing the assignments they gave him. He was also getting professional counseling and going to sexual addiction meetings. He had become involved with a congregation where serious Bible study took place and his whole attitude toward all of God's word was changing. In contrast to the first proofreader, he wrote:

In addition, this second husband objected to the statement, "Without honest feminine praise, many men suffer from poor self-images." He wrote, "This doesn't justify a poor self-image!" Of course, he was right. As a result of his insight into the way men with sexual addiction think and use excuses, the statement was removed. He was not parroting back what someone told him, but was moving forward and sharing his new insights with one of his counselors. Working with others gives God's people insights they would never have on their own because they haven't experienced all of life, both the good and the bad. Sinners have great insights to share when they begin to grow and go through the metamorphosis process, just as David did in writing his psalms.

Thus, a mate can look for fresh insights in the words of the one being sanctified to verify that a real change is taking place. Talking with each other and sharing the changes that are taking place in the mind can help both the husband and the wife. This talking together helps clarify the thinking even more and helps reinforce the newly learned principles on the mind. Likewise, this communication helps repair the damage done to the emotional bond in the marriage. For a truly sanctified marriage and sexual life, the emotional bond must be rebuilt. The innocent mate's listening and talking willingly with the one being sanctified is the best help he or she can give the mate in going through metamorphosis. Likewise, the quiet listening of the one who committed sin is of great help in healing the innocent mate's pain.

Many couples find it beneficial to study individually the lessons in both volumes of Marriage: A Taste of Heaven. Then they discuss the questions together. However, the discussion periods are not to rehash past wrongs or to find fault with the mate. The primary purpose of the joint sessions is to focus on God's word and his will for their future life. By discussing the scriptures together they gain new insights, reinforce God's word on their individual minds, and hear firsthand how the mate is truly changing from the inside out.

One wife was very angry at her husband because of the way he treated her sexually. While she was not a prude, his daily demands for sexual contact offended her because of the way he treated her. He was often verbally abusive to both her and their children. Not only did he alienate her mentally from him during the day, but when he tried to make love, his use of crude and offensive language only intensified her hostility.

After much encouragement, she read Vol. II: God's People Make the Best Lovers. She began to understand that the absence of a true mental union was causing her lack of interest in sexual contact with him and she began to work at resolving their daytime problems. As she began to deal openly with many of the problems that caused her to seethe on the inside, their marriage began to take on a more loving nature. At this point only she was making changes. Then she started leaving the Vol. II laying on a table in their living room. She said, "When I would come home from work, my husband would treat me so nice, I would know he had been reading the book. After several weeks of this, one day I came home from work and he started apologizing to me for everything he'd ever done in our whole marriage. The next day he did the same thing. This went on for a whole week until finally I said, `We can't go back and change the past, but we can change the future. You don't have to apologize to me anymore because I forgive you. Let's just make the future be the best ever.' After that our love life really changed. In fact, it was better than it was on our honeymoon. I never thought it was possible to be this happy!"

A couple of years later, this wife said, "We fought bitterly over his verbal abuse and constant demands for sex many times in the past. But once he realized the verbal abuse was making me not enjoy sex with him because the way he treated me during the day affected how I responded to him at night, his changes were truly permanent. I never thought I would ever be this happy. Two years later, it is still better than our honeymoon!"

Putting God's word into their minds and then acting on that word sanctified both this husband and wife. In addition, they talked with each other and let the other know the change in behavior resulted from a change in thinking. As a result, they reaped permanent changes in their marriage and enjoyed the benefits of a glorious love life.

In summary, when "works appropriate to repentance" take place, the mate should be able to recognize changes in the way the spouse (1) relates sexually as the marriage partner becomes the focus of both giving and receiving pleasure and (2) relates mentally as new insights into the problem are gained and shared. This means that the one being sanctified is overhauling both the physical and the mental unions with the mate. For a truly wonderful and thrilling one-flesh relationship, a husband and a wife must bond both physically and mentally. When this bonding begins to happen, true sanctification of that marriage is taking place.

A wonderful side benefit of taking care of the attitudes and bonding mentally, is what happens to both the husband's and the wife's physical sensations during lovemaking. For thousands of years God has patiently taught in the Bible what experts only now recognizethat the brain dictates all the responses of the physical body, making it the most important sexual organ of all. Take care of the mind and the body automatically takes care of its own physical responses.

For years, most researchers readily agreed that a person's basic underlying attitudes usually cause such sexual problems as frigidity and impotence. However, doctors now attribute to faulty thinking many cases of premature ejaculation and lack of physical sensation during orgasm for both males and females. Certainly, wrong attitudes and emotions inhibit normal physical responses.

This shows why God's people usually achieve a greater degree of success in the love embrace than unbelievers: Godly people devote their whole lives to freeing their minds from bitterness, hatred, jealousy, envy, selfishness, lack of self-worth, lack of self-control, guilt, etc.attitudes that hinder true love and block sexual signals and responses. By freeing the mind of these inhibiting factors, men and women inherit from God the ability to love their mates totallyphysically, mentally, and spiritually.

A simple test proves this true: The hand, while not thought of as a sexual organ, responds sexually to the attitudes and feelings of the mind. Look at your hand. How did it feel the last time you indulged in anger toward your mate and your mate touched your hand? Did your hand automatically squeeze your mate's hand in return or did you fight the urge to jerk it away?

Now remember the last time you thought loving and adoring thoughts about your mate and he or she touched your hand. Did the electrical charge race up your arm, do a leaping somersault to the pit of your stomach only to dance back up along your spine and sparkle out of your eyes to fondly caress your loved one? Or was that a response you experienced only during courtship when your minds truly enjoyed each other's company?

And all that with a body part not designed primarily for love! The sensitive organs of love respond even more dramatically to a mind filled with God's principles of daily living and loving standards. Learning the sexual truths of the Bible not only liberates the mind from sexual sins, but it also unlocks the power of the mind to provide truly fulfilling lovemaking for God's people.

Unfortunately, many preachers, elders, and Christians do a lot of harm by failing to insist that the sinner become sanctified after confessing sexual immorality. Such neglect helps perpetuate the sinner's cycle of repentance, pledge to not sin again, only to backslide into deeper sin. Eventually, the innocent party in such a cycle becomes emotionally worn out, gives up on the mate ever truly changing, and divorces the mate. After a person takes the first step of repudiating the sexual sins, the second step of sanctification is absolutely necessary for a true change of conduct to occur. The Corinthians and the enslaved of Tit. 3:3 required that second step to overcome their extreme sexual problems and modern Christians require the same application of God's word for full healing. Once the sanctification process has been accomplished, the Christian is ready for the third step:

The Corinthians Were Justified

When a person is baptized and set apart from the world to live as a Christian, that is only the beginning. When a baptized person occasionally slips and sins, as that Christian confesses those sins so that Jesus' blood continues to cleanse him (1 John 1:6-10), that is still only the beginning. Likewise, when a Christian confesses his sins before the congregation and asks for forgiveness and their prayers and help, that is still only the beginning. Forgiveness is not the same as being "justified" before God as God expects more from the sinner. God expects the sinner to purge the old way of thinking and acting from his life through sanctification before he can stand justified before God.

Thus, the three-part formula that the Corinthians used to overcome gross sexual sins becomes obvious. (1) They were washed in the blood of Jesus and received forgiveness of all their past sins. They also received access to the blood of Jesus for forgiveness of future slips. (2) They were sanctified or set apart from the world to live their lives according to the wisdom of God through the renewing of the Holy Spirit. As they studied and worked to put on the new man of a loving, pure person, some of them slipped occasionally. When they slipped, they confessed those sins to Christ and asked his help in ridding their lives of the temptations. As they received forgiveness, the Christian began again. The more they substituted God's truth in their minds for their former prejudices, upbringing, and social customs, the less illicit sexual surroundings tempted them to fall back into their former conduct. (3) Once the metamorphosis was complete, they became justified or were rendered righteous before God.

This same principle of justification taking place after sanctification is found in Heb. 12:14. The Hebrew writer emphasizes, "Pursue after peace with all men, and after the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord [emphasis minePRD]." The active verb "pursue" modifies both peace and sanctification. "Pursue" reveals energy and motivation in seeking the goals of peace and sanctification. It is not a half-hearted endeavor that starts with great intentions and then fizzles out. God warns that failure to pursue the goals will prevent a person from "seeing the Lord." Sanctification is a serious and important responsibility since it affects a person's fellowship with God.

The mate of a sinner needs to set the same requirements for acceptance as God doeswashing, sanctification, and then justification. Preachers, elders, and other Christians must also follow God's pattern to truly help the sinner overcome sexual problems. For the mate and spiritual leaders to require less of the sinner is to turn their backs on God's way and to help the sinner stay separated from God. They also do great harm to the sinner by essentially helping to stop the healing process.

Spiritual leaders can help adulterers and sexual addicts overcome their sin by deliberately following-up to make sure that the sanctification process takes place before welcoming the person back into full fellowship with the congregation. One way to do this would be to assign one or two deacons or mature Christians to stay in contact with the sinner and hold him or her accountable for studying and applying the sanctification process. In addition, since the person is not yet justified before God, to allow that person to perform congregational duties, no matter how minor, would be an outrageous mockery of God and his word. By expecting those who confess sin to follow God's three-part formula before recognizing them as being restored, spiritual leaders can exert powerful peer pressure that will bless sexual sinners and their mates.

Sexual sins and shortcomings are usually very deeply rooted in a person since he or she sins against the whole body (1 Cor. 6:18) and; as a result, are a sensitive subject for most people. Yet through this simple formula for accessing the amazing healing power of God's word, even the most hideous of sexual sins can be overcome.

Many institutions try to rehabilitate drunkards, thieves, murderers, homosexuals, fornicators, prostitutes, etc., and for the most part they fail. In fact, man has so failed in dealing with sexual perversions that society now labels many sins as "normal" or an "illness" or "unfixable." However, God is not limited to the education, experiments, and imagination of mankind. Any person who seeks a solution to sexual inhibitions or compulsions, regardless of how gross a course they may have taken, can find a remedy by turning to God's formula and letting God heal the sin in his or her life.

A young wife, whom my husband taught and baptized, began to come to my classes on marriage. Often she stayed after class and talked about some of her personal problems. She said, "When I went to college this boy told me, `If you love me you'll prove it.' I loved him so I proved it and went all the way with him. Then he dropped me. That hurt me so bad, that I slept with any boy who came along. I went from bad to worse until I married my husband."

They had been married for three years. Every time this woman's husband made love to her, all she could do was lie there and cry from the pain. She knew nothing was wrong with her physically, and that the pain came from her guilty feelings over her past. She said, "After I was baptized, I knew my sins were forgiven and were all washed away. Our life is better. I enjoy the sexual relationship more now, but I still have some pain and it isn't like it should be."

This wife failed to achieve a wonderful love life because she refused to be sanctified. She came to the classes regularly and listened. She often said, "That makes sense. I agree with that." But when she went home, she wouldn't study her Bible. She wouldn't look

All linked Scripture is Courtesy Of The Blue Letter Bible.

Adultery and Sexual Addiction
A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage

Patsy Rae Dawson

Adultery and Sexual Addiction
A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage

Patsy Rae Dawson

Why Adultery and Sexual Addiction Are on the Rise

God's Sex Education

God's Definition of Sexual Addiction

The Sexual Addict Deceives Himself

The Sexual Addict Mistreats Himself

The Sexual Addict Mistreats His Family

God's Formula for Overcoming Sexual Sins

The Corinthians Were Washed

The Corinthians Were Sanctified

The Corinthians Were Justified

All linked Scripture is Courtesy Of The Blue Letter Bible.

Adultery and Sexual Addiction A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage

Patsy Rae Dawson

Adultery and Sexual Addiction A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage

Patsy Rae Dawson

Why Adultery and Sexual Addiction Are on the Rise

God's Sex Education

God's Definition of Sexual Addiction

The Sexual Addict Deceives Himself

The Sexual Addict Mistreats Himself

The Sexual Addict Mistreats His Family

God's Formula for Overcoming Sexual Sins

The Corinthians Were Washed

The Corinthians Were Sanctified

The Corinthians Were Justified

Adultery and Sexual Addiction
A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage

Adultery and Sexual Addiction
A Plan for Healing the Soul and the Marriage