Sexual sin is unique among human transgressions—not merely one sin among many, but a category of offense that Scripture addresses with particular urgency and specific commands. The wisdom of Proverbs warns that the path of sexual immorality leads to Sheol; Paul commands believers to flee rather than stand and fight; and the Puritans understood that in this battle, victory belongs not to the bold negotiator but to the swift fugitive. This study examines the destructive nature of sexual sin according to Scripture and Reformed theology, offering both the sobering warnings the Word demands and the genuine hope the Gospel provides.
Part One: The biblical texts speak with unmistakable clarity
Proverbs 5-7: The path to Sheol
The Book of Proverbs devotes extraordinary attention to sexual temptation, presenting it through the figure of the “strange woman” (zur in Hebrew)—the adulteress whose beauty masks death itself.
Proverbs 5:5 declares: “Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol.” The Hebrew word tamak (take hold) depicts Sheol as her permanent destination, grasped “as if invading it with a high hand, grasping it as her home,” writes Charles Bridges. Matthew Henry observed: “Those that are entangled in this sin should be reminded that there is but a step between them and hell.”
The imagery intensifies in Proverbs 7:22-23: “All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.” Three animals—the ox, the stag, the bird—all ignorant of their impending destruction. The phrase “it will cost him his life” translates literally as “it is for his soul.” Henry comments: “He goes to the slaughter (for houses of uncleanness are slaughter-houses to precious souls); a dart will presently strike through his liver… It is his life, his precious life, that is thus irrecoverably thrown away.”
Proverbs 7:27 concludes the warning: “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” John Gill explains: “Her house, though richly decked and furnished, and called a house of pleasure, is the way to hell; and her chambers are the stair-case that goes down to the chambers of death and everlasting darkness.”
George Lawson, commended by Spurgeon, captures the dread: “There is not even this small interval between the steps of the strange woman and hell. They already take hold of it.”
1 Corinthians 6:15-20: The unique nature of sexual sin
Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 6 establishes that sexual sin occupies a singular category. The command in verse 18 is striking: “Flee from sexual immorality.” The Greek pheugete (from which we derive “fugitive”) means to escape, to seek safety by flight. Adam Clarke notes: “Some sins, or solicitations to sin, may be reasoned with; in the above cases, if you parley you are undone; reason not, but FLY!”
Barnes’ Notes explains the uniqueness: “There are some sins which a man can resist; some about which he can reason without danger of pollution. But this is a sin where a man is safe only when he flies; free from pollution only when he refuses to entertain a thought of it; secure when he seeks a victory by flight, and a conquest by retreat.”
Paul then makes an extraordinary claim: “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” Sexual sin creates a perverted “one-flesh union” (verse 16), uniting the person to another in ways that violate God’s design. The body is not merely the instrument of sin—it is itself joined to another in the act.
The theological grounding is profound: “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” John Gill writes: “The Holy Spirit, in regeneration and sanctification, when he begins the good work of grace on a man, takes possession of his whole person, soul and body, and dwells therein as in his temple… Men have not power over their bodies to abuse them at pleasure by fornication.”
Romans 1:18-32: The progression of degradation
Romans 1 reveals a terrifying pattern: when humanity suppresses the truth about God, God responds with judicial abandonment. The phrase “God gave them up” (paredōken) appears three times—in verses 24, 26, and 28—each representing a deeper level of degradation.
The progression unfolds systematically:
- Verses 21-23: Suppressed truth → futile thinking → darkened hearts → idolatry
- Verses 24-25: God gives them over to impurity, dishonoring their bodies
- Verses 26-27: God gives them over to dishonorable passions, specifically homosexuality
- Verses 28-32: God gives them over to a debased mind and total moral corruption
Verse 27 states that those engaged in homosexual practice are “receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” The penalty is intrinsic to the sin—the degradation, the spiritual blindness, the psychological damage are natural consequences of departure from God’s created order.
John Piper summarizes: “The sexual disordering of the human race, especially homosexuality (but not only homosexuality) is a judgment of God for our exchanging the truth of God for a lie.” The deepest problem is not the sexual disorder itself but the prior exchange of Creator for creature.
Other key passages demand attention
Matthew 5:27-30 deepens the seventh commandment to include internal desire: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The radical imagery—plucking out eyes, cutting off hands—emphasizes that hell is preferable to harboring lust.
Hebrews 13:4 warns with divine certainty: “God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Divine judgment is certain regardless of human tolerance.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 states explicitly that sanctification requires abstaining from sexual immorality. Paul adds: “The Lord is an avenger in all these things.”
James 1:14-15 reveals the biology of sin: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” Sin is a living organism that matures to kill—the time to stop it is at conception.
Part Two: Puritan voices thunder across centuries
John Owen on mortifying sin
John Owen’s treatise The Mortification of Sin (1656) remains the definitive Protestant work on killing indwelling sin. His foundational command echoes through the ages:
“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
Owen understood sin’s relentless nature: “Sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures… When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times.”
On unmortified sin’s consequences, Owen warned: “Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things:— [1.] It will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigour. [2.] It will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace.”
His teaching on sin’s progressive nature is critical: “Men may come to that, that sin may not be heard speaking a scandalous word in their hearts… but yet every rise of lust, might it have its course, would come to the height of villainy: it is like the grave that is never satisfied.”
Perhaps Owen’s most urgent counsel concerns “parleying” with temptation—negotiating, reasoning, entertaining:
“When we suffer a temptation to enter into us, then we ‘enter into temptation.’ Whilst it knocks at the door we are at liberty; but when any temptation comes in and parleys with the heart, reasons with the mind, entices and allures the affections, be it a long or a short time… we ‘enter into temptation.’”
“Entertain no parley, no dispute with it, if thou wouldst not enter into it.”
Owen’s counsel on the first motions of sin provides vital strategy: “It is in the motion of a soul tempted to sin, as in the motion of a stone falling from the brow of a hill—it is easily stopped at first, but when once it is set in motion ‘it acquires strength by descending.’ Therefore it is the greatest wisdom to observe the first motions of the heart—to check and stop sin there.”
His remedy is Christ alone: “Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt die a conqueror; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet.”
Thomas Watson on the seventh commandment
Thomas Watson’s exposition of the Ten Commandments contains searing teaching on sexual sin:
“The thing forbidden in the commandment is infecting ourselves with bodily pollution and uncleanness. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The fountain of this sin is lust. Since the fall, holy love has degenerated to lust. Lust is the fever of the soul.”
Watson identifies the sin’s reach: “There is a twofold adultery. [1] Mental. ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.’ As a man may die of an inward bleeding, so he may be damned for the inward boilings of lust, if it be not mortified.”
On the consequences he writes with stark clarity:
“‘And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.’ Prov 5:11. It brings into a consumption. Uncleanness turns the body into a hospital, it wastes the radical moisture, rots the skull, and eats the beauty of the face.”
“Adultery, without repentance, damns the soul. ‘Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, shall enter into the kingdom of God.’ 1 Cor 6:9. The fire of lust brings to the fire of hell.”
“The harlot’s breast keeps from Abraham’s bosom. Momentaneum est quod delectat, æternum quod cruciat [The delight lasts a moment, the torment an eternity]. Who for a cup of pleasure would drink a sea of wrath?”
Watson’s practical counsel: “Come not into the company of a whorish woman; avoid her house, as a seaman does a rock. ‘Come not nigh the door of her house.’ Prov 5:8. He who would not have the plague, must not come near infected houses; every whore-house has the plague in it.”
Thomas Brooks on Satan’s devices
Thomas Brooks exposed how Satan uses sexual sin as a snare:
“Sin gives Satan a power over us, and an advantage to accuse us and to lay claim to us, as those who wear his badge; it is of a very bewitching nature; it bewitches the soul, where it is upon the throne, that the soul cannot leave it, though it perish eternally by it.”
His critical remedy: “Make immediate resistance against Satan’s first motions. It is safe to resist, it is dangerous to dispute. Eve disputes, and falls in paradise; Job resists, and conquers upon the ash-heap.”
“He who will play with Satan’s bait, will quickly be taken with Satan’s hook! The promise of conquest is given to resisting, not to disputing: ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’”
Brooks warned against underestimating “small” sins: “There is great danger, yes, many times most danger—in the smallest sins. If the serpent sneaks in his head, he will draw in his whole body after him. Greater sins do sooner startle the soul, and awaken and rouse up the soul to repentance, than lesser sins do.”
William Gurnall’s prayer against lust
From The Christian in Complete Armour, Gurnall offers this model prayer:
“Lord, I am hunted with such a temptation, dogged with such a lust, either thou must pardon it, or I am damned; mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it; take me into the bosom of thy love, for Christ’s sake; castle me in the arms of thy everlasting strength, it is in thy power to save me from, or give me up into, the hands of my enemy. I have no confidence in myself or any other: into thy hands I commit my cause, my life, and rely on thee.”
His counsel on mortifying the dearest lust is devastating:
“Soul, take thy lust, thy only lust, which is the child of thy dearest love, thy Isaac, the sin which has caused the most joy and laughter, from which thou hast promised thyself the greatest return of pleasure or profit; as ever thou lookest to see my face with comfort, lay hands on it and offer it up: pour out the blood of it before me; run the sacrificing knife of mortification into the very heart of it.”
Part Three: Modern Reformed voices continue the call
John Piper’s ANTHEM strategy
John Piper has developed practical counsel for fighting sexual temptation through his ANTHEM strategy:
A — AVOID temptation. “Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness” (2 Timothy 2:22). “Make no provision for the flesh” (Romans 13:14).
N — Say NO within five seconds. “Say it with the authority of Jesus Christ. ‘In the name of Jesus, NO!’ You don’t have much more than five seconds. Give it more unopposed time than that, and it will lodge itself with such force as to be almost immovable. As John Owen said, ‘Be killing sin or it will be killing you.’ Strike fast and strike hard.”
T — TURN the mind toward Christ. “Saying ‘no’ will not suffice. You must move from defense to offense. Fight fire with fire. Attack the promises of sin with the promises of Christ. The Bible calls lusts ‘deceitful desires’ (Ephesians 4:22). They lie. They promise more than they can deliver.”
H — HOLD a beautiful vision of Jesus. “Hold a beautiful vision of Jesus in your mind until it triumphs over the other sensual vision.” Visualize Christ’s crucifixion: “If I willingly hold this image in my mind, I’m taking a spear and thrusting it into the side of Jesus.”
E — ENJOY a superior satisfaction in Christ. “One reason lust reigns in so many is that Christ has so little appeal. If you have little taste for Jesus, competing pleasures will triumph.” Pray Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.”
M — MOVE into useful activity. “Lust grows fast in the garden of leisure. Get up and do something… And do it for Jesus’s sake.”
Piper identifies the deepest problem: “One of the main reasons the world and the church are awash in lust and pornography is that our lives are intellectually and emotionally disconnected from infinite, soul-staggering grandeur for which we were made… The deepest cure is to be intellectually and emotionally staggered by the infinite, everlasting, unchanging supremacy of Christ in all things.”
Paul Washer’s confrontation
Paul Washer frames sexual immorality primarily as lovelessness:
“Sexual impurity is one of the greatest demonstrations of lovelessness, of self-love, of self-idolatry; and of lovelessness to God, and of lovelessness to those around us.”
On pornography specifically: “I take pleasure from this person, I give no pleasure in return.”
Washer refuses excuses: “You say, ‘Oh, I’m weak.’ Just stop it! Stop saying that! ‘Oh, I’m just weak.’ That’s no excuse! And I will not let you make it an excuse. You’re not weak, you’re selfish.”
John MacArthur on unique destructiveness
MacArthur observes: “There is in this physical sin something so deep and compelling in a person… that it holds people in its grasp in ways that other sins do not seem to do.”
The statistics are sobering: “At least 9 out of 10 or more church discipline situations, maybe 99 out of 100… are related to sexual infidelity.”
His counsel to the fallen is both stern and hopeful: “How could you defile yourself? God will forgive you. That’s right. He will forgive you. He always does. But it will harm you. You’ll pay a tremendous price. And it will control you.”
R.C. Sproul’s theological framework
Ligonier Ministries identifies six reasons to flee sexual immorality:
- Wrong perception of liberty — Misunderstanding Christian freedom
- Unwarranted lordship — Letting desires control us
- Confusion regarding the body’s purpose — The body is for the Lord
- Unique destructiveness — “Sexual sins are not easily wiped away from our memories”
- Holy temples — Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit
- Purchased property — “A high ransom price has been paid for our redemption”
Sproul offers hope: “Sexual immorality, no matter the form it takes, is not the unforgivable sin. There is grace and mercy for all who turn to Christ.”
Part Four: Understanding specific forms of sexual sin
Pornography rewires the brain
Pornography presents a unique danger in the digital age. Research shows that 64% of Christian men view pornography at least monthly; 89% of Christian college men watch it at least occasionally.
Neuroscientist William Struthers explains the bondage: “Looking at pornography triggers neurological, chemical, and hormonal events that leave a mark on the brain. Frequent use hardens the neural pathways and molds the brain so that it craves porn.”
The biological mechanisms are devastating:
- Mirror neurons cause the viewer to mimic and bond to what is viewed
- Dopamine surges with novel sexual stimuli, creating addiction to novelty itself
- Oxytocin and vasopressin (bonding hormones) cause unnatural attachment to images rather than persons
- Teen brains at peak dopamine production are especially vulnerable
Piper warns: “New brain research suggests pornography is as strong as addiction to cocaine and heroin because of its unique combination of stimulant and opiate. Pornography lays down real physiological paths in the brain. All sexual experience tends to migrate to these paths.”
But the news is not all grim. Piper insists: “The horrific news from brain research about the enslaving power of pornography is not the last word. God has the last word. The Holy Spirit has the greatest power. We are not mere victims of our eyes and our brains.”
Same-sex attraction and the call to holiness
Romans 1 identifies homosexual practice as evidence of God’s judicial abandonment—yet within this very framework, the Gospel offers hope. Christopher Yuan, who lived openly as a gay man before his conversion, offers the crucial insight:
“The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality—that’s not the ultimate goal. The opposite of homosexuality is holiness. As a matter of fact, the opposite of every sin is holiness!”
“My true identity is not gay, ex-gay, or even straight. My true identity is in Jesus Christ alone.”
Sam Allberry, who experiences same-sex attraction, models faithful celibacy: “Same-sex attraction is part of what I feel; it is not who I am. Who you are in Christ is who you truly are.”
The pastoral approach must be neither affirming nor abandoning. As Rosaria Butterfield emphasizes: “Too often, Christians who struggle with SSA have been made to feel like the church’s outcasts. But we know that people who struggle in God’s way—mortifying sinful desires, drinking deeply of the means of grace, being faithful members of a Bible-believing church, repenting of sin—are actually heroes of the faith.”
Gender dysphoria and created reality
Genesis 1:27 establishes: “Male and female he created them.” Gender is not a social construct but a created reality—the gift of a wise Creator who assigns biological sex for human flourishing and His glory.
Reformed theologian James Anderson writes: “Gender dysphoria and other forms of gender confusion are but one manifestation of that sexual brokenness… We should distinguish between a cultural response (to the transgender movement) and a pastoral response (to individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria).”
The pastoral response requires recognizing that individuals did not consciously choose their gender distress—but they can choose how to respond. As with all disordered desires, these require mortification, not affirmation. The goal is not to crush the struggling person but to point them to Christ, who alone can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart.
One anonymous testimony captures the distinction between temptation and action: “When I experience gender dysphoria, I recognize that this pain or discomfort is coming from my fallen nature, but I don’t feel guilt about it because I didn’t choose to be this way. When I experience cross-gender longing I repent of having these sinful desires in my heart. And then if I act on those longings by reading transgender stories or fantasizing about living as a woman, I repent on my knees of those intentional sins.”
Part Five: The path of destruction proceeds by stages
Spiritual death comes gradually
Sexual sin hardens the conscience progressively. One pastor confessed: “I was in a six-month affair, at the same time preaching and counseling against adultery, and telling myself that God didn’t care because the church was growing.”
Research demonstrates that any pornography use correlates with declining religious commitment, decreased prayer and church attendance, and increasing religious doubts. The sin creates a spiral: guilt leads to avoidance of God, which leads to deeper sin, which leads to deeper guilt.
Owen warned: “The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart.” When sin no longer tastes bitter, the soul is in grave danger.
Relational destruction radiates outward
When ministers fall, the consequences multiply: his ministry is gone; his humiliation is severe; those who believed in him feel betrayed; his wife is made to feel a terrible failure; other ministers are tainted by association; his future ministry is severely limited; atheists gain ammunition.
Studies show that married couples with one spouse viewing pornography are two to three times more likely to divorce in the first two years.
Neurological bondage deepens with use
The brain develops tolerance, requiring more extreme stimulation to achieve the same response. Users escalate to more taboo content—a phenomenon called “arousal addiction.” The result can be anhedonia—the inability to experience satisfaction from everyday activities.
Yet recovery is possible. When individuals reduce or eliminate pornography consumption, the brain begins to recover. Piper reminds: “You know—yes, you know—you would have power in that moment to not look at the pornography as Jesus stood there. You are not enslaved. The well-beaten neural paths in your brain would not win. They are not God.”
Eternal consequences await the impenitent
Scripture’s warning passages are unmistakable:
- “The sexually immoral… will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
- “God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4)
- “Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure… has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Ephesians 5:5)
The Reformed understanding of these passages is that persistent, unrepentant practice of sexual sin is evidence that a person does not belong to Christ. The evidence of true faith is not perfection but ongoing repentance and battle. The question is not whether believers struggle but whether they fight.
Part Six: Why Scripture commands flight, not fight
The uniqueness of the “flee” command
Scripture’s instruction regarding sexual sin is distinctive. While believers are told to “resist the devil” (James 4:7), to “put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11), and to “fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:12), when it comes to sexual immorality the command is singular: flee.
The Greek word pheugete indicates immediate and decisive dissociation—become a fugitive from sexual sins. As one commentator notes: “There is a consistent counsel from the Word of God when it comes to sex sins—‘flee.’ Don’t think about it. Don’t go for counseling about it. Don’t debate it. Don’t even fight it. Flee it.”
Joseph provides the paradigm
Genesis 39:12 records: “He left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.”
Joseph did not reason with Potiphar’s wife. He did not explain his theological position. He did not stay in the room to prove his strength. He ran. When she grabbed him, he fled so quickly that he left his garment in her hands.
Negotiation fails with sexual temptation
Owen’s warning about “parleying” with temptation applies particularly to sexual sin. When we begin to reason with temptation—“Is this really so bad?” “I can handle this.” “Just once won’t hurt.”—we have already entered into temptation.
The Puritans understood that strength in this battle is demonstrated not by standing close to the fire but by staying far from it. Thomas Manton counseled: “Be watchful; take heed not to play about the temptation, nor put yourselves upon occasions of sin, for then we lie open to the devil, and give him an advantage against us.”
Practical applications for fleeing today
Fleeing takes concrete forms:
- Getting rid of smartphones that cause stumbling
- Staying off social media that tempts to lust
- Never meeting alone with someone of the opposite sex
- Installing accountability software
- Removing internet access if necessary
- Carbon copying spouse on emails to opposite sex
- Letting someone know when traveling alone
Watson’s counsel remains relevant: “Not to beware of the occasion of sin, and yet pray, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ is, as if one should put his finger into the candle, and yet pray that it may not be burnt.”
Part Seven: The path of true repentance leads to restoration
David demonstrates the possibility of forgiveness
Psalm 51, written after David’s adultery and murder, stands as Scripture’s most renowned expression of repentance. The psalm was recited by Sir Thomas More and Lady Jane Grey when on the scaffold. Missionary William Carey requested it be the text of his funeral sermon.
David’s sin was not minor—adultery, deception, murder—yet he could pray: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1)
The key is David’s understanding: “Against you, you only, have I sinned” (verse 4). All sin, at its root, is a disregard for the holiness of God.
David’s request to be “washed” uses the Hebrew kābas—the work of a fuller who makes cloth completely new by treading, kneading, and beating in cold water. David believed such cleansing was possible even for his sin.
“Such were some of you”
1 Corinthians 6:11 provides extraordinary hope: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Paul had just listed grievous sins—sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, theft, drunkenness. Then comes the glorious past tense: “such WERE some of you.” The Corinthian church included former fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals—washed, sanctified, and justified.
Godly sorrow differs from worldly sorrow
2 Corinthians 7:10 distinguishes two types of grief: “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
MacArthur explains: “The sorrow of true repentance is sorrow for offense against a holy God, not simply regret over the personal consequences of our sin. Sorrow over being found out or over suffering hardship or discipline because of our sin is not godly sorrow, and has nothing to do with repentance.”
Peter wept bitterly over his denial of Christ—and was restored. Judas felt remorse over his betrayal—and hanged himself. The difference was the object of their sorrow.
Testimonies of deliverance
Augustine was enslaved to sexual bondage before his conversion. He confessed: “For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity. By these links, as it were, forged together—which is why I called it ‘a chain’—a hard bondage held me in slavery.”
His infamous prayer was: “Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!”
Yet in a garden in Milan, hearing a child’s voice saying “Take up and read,” he opened Scripture to Romans 13:13-14 and wrote: “In an instant, my heart was flooded with light and I was filled with faith and love for God. I no longer desired a wife or any earthly pleasure.”
Rosaria Butterfield, a tenured professor of English and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University, lived as a lesbian activist for nearly a decade. A pastor named Ken Smith befriended her and shared the gospel repeatedly over years. She testifies: “I realized I had been persecuting Jesus. So I committed my life to Christ.” She is now a pastor’s wife and homeschool mother.
Her insight on repentance: “Repentance is not just some conversion exercise; it is the posture of a Christian. Repentance is our daily fruit, our hourly washing, our minute-by-minute wake-up call.”
Christopher Yuan lived as an openly gay man, became a drug dealer, was diagnosed with HIV in prison. Finding a Gideon’s Bible in a trash can, he was converted. He testifies: “A decision had to be made: either abandon God and His word by letting sexual attractions dictate not only who I was but also how I lived, or abandon pursuing a monogamous same-sex relationship by freeing myself, not allowing my desires to control who I am, living as a follower of Jesus Christ. My decision was clear and obvious. I followed Jesus.”
Part Eight: Encouragement for those in the fight
Temptation is not sin
Hebrews 4:15 states: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
This is crucial: the fact that Christ was tempted yet remained sinless proves that being tempted is not a sin. The experience of temptation—feeling the pull toward sin—is not itself sinful. Christ experienced this pull and remained sinless.
C.S. Lewis observed: “No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. That is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is… Christ, because He was the only Man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only Man who knows to the full what temptation means.”
Christ sympathizes with you
Jesus does not stand far off in condemnation. He draws near in compassion. The same Christ who said “Go and sin no more” first said “Neither do I condemn you.” He knows the full force of temptation—and He offers mercy to those who come to Him.
Struggling is evidence of life
The very fact that you grieve over your sin, that you hate it, that you keep fighting, that you keep returning to Christ—this itself is evidence of spiritual life. An unregenerate person does not grieve over sin or hate it. The dead do not fight.
Piper addresses a man with a long history of sexual sin: “I hope the fact that I don’t know will sound to you both sobering and hopeful. Sobering, because it is possible to sin oneself into a condition of being unable to repent. But hopeful, because in Christ Jesus, the worst of sins will be forgiven if there is authentic repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.”
The question is not whether Esau could have been forgiven—God’s grace is infinite—but that he had sinned himself into a condition where he no longer wanted forgiveness, where he could not “welcome” grace “as more precious than his bowl of Cheerios.”
If you are reading this and grieving, you have not crossed that line.
Conviction differs from condemnation
Conviction (from the Holy Spirit) is specific, leads to Christ, offers hope and a path forward, and produces godly sorrow leading to repentance.
Condemnation (from Satan) is vague, drives away from Christ, offers no solution, and produces worldly sorrow leading to despair.
Revelation 12:10 calls Satan “the accuser of our brothers… who accuses them day and night before our God.” His goal is to keep you shackled to guilt—never truly free, never fully assured. The whisper that says “You’ve gone too far. God is done with you” comes from the pit, not from heaven.
Romans 8:1 answers the accusation: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
There is a way of escape
1 Corinthians 10:13 promises: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
Your temptation is not unique. God is faithful. There is always a way of escape—often it is simply to flee.
The fight continues until glory
Christopher Yuan asks: “Is the Christian’s goal, while here on earth, the eradication of trials and temptations?” His answer: No. The presence of temptation does not indicate lack of transformation. The manifestation of God’s grace is evident precisely when a believer says no to the flesh and yes to Christ.
The fight continues until glory. Sanctification is progressive. We fall and get up. We sin and repent. We fight and fight again. As Philippians 1:6 promises: “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Conclusion: Both warning and hope stand firm
This study has examined the destructive nature of sexual sin according to Scripture and Reformed theology. The warnings are stark—and they must not be softened. Proverbs says the path leads to Sheol. Paul says the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom. Hebrews says God will judge. The Puritans thundered that the fire of lust brings to the fire of hell.
But the Gospel provides genuine hope. David committed adultery and murder—yet was restored. Augustine was enslaved to lust for years—yet was freed. The Corinthians were fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals—yet were washed, sanctified, and justified.
The blood of Christ is sufficient for all sin. 1 John 1:9 promises: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
To those who struggle: your struggle is evidence of life. The dead do not fight. Press on. Fall and get up. Sin and repent. Fight and fight again. The God who began a good work in you will complete it.
Piper’s words serve as both testimony and invitation:
“I have Christ. I have the Holy Spirit. I have the blood of the cross of the Son of God. I have the hope of glory. I have the entire word of God. I have the promises of grace. I am not helpless. God, get that lie out of my life.”
As Owen urged: set faith at work on Christ for the killing of your sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and you will die a conqueror—through the good providence of God, you will live to see your lust dead at your feet.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:35, 37)
MY STORY OF RELIGIOUS OCD 