Closing entry points for sexual addictions

It is an incredible privilege to host the Holy Spirit’s presence in our bodies after we give our lives to Jesus and are baptised into Christ. The promise is that we become new creations. Unfortunately, this is not always the case when it comes to certain addictions. Sometimes, our sexual appetites become pure over time, but what happens when we still have unhealthy sexual compulsions that we are not able to bring under control? Thank God there is no shame or condemnation in Christ, Jesus will save us from our sexual addictions through the power of the Holy Spirit. The key lies in understanding how our addictions first started and the entry points we need to close for good, so we can move forward and heal.

(简体中文 > 关闭性瘾的入口 | 繁體中文 > 關閉性癮的入口)

 

1 Corinthians 6:19 NKJV  Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 

Patterns of sexual addictions

Sexual addiction does not just include addiction to pornography, but also compulsions to engage in masturbation, sexual fantasies, promiscuous behaviour, explicit internet chats, paid sexual services, voyeurism, exhibitionism, inappropriate touching, sexualised social behaviour, crude jokes and so on. 

These compulsions can feel so overwhelming that we cannot overcome them through sheer willpower, prayer, or Bible reading. One can go through cycles of victory and defeat, but never feel fully free. It just takes the “right” circumstances for the compulsive lusts to be triggered and re-activated. It can be a very real battle.

Perhaps we believed that once we became Christians, such lusts would stop but they haven’t. So some Christians give up and give in to their compulsions and live in shame, believing that these addictions are “just who they are” – but we need to remember that all things are possible with Christ, including victory over sexual addictions!

Matthew 19:26 NKJV  But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Any compulsive sin that enslaves and controls us is a hint that it is not the Holy Spirit who is in charge over this area of our lives and there is still another spiritual power dominating us. After all, the fruit of the Holy Spirit includes self-control and being overcome by our sexual additions shows that this is an area that is yet to be fully submitted to Him. Fighting sexual addiction takes some level of spiritual discernment to identify the invisible root causes and close the entry points for good. It is a spiritual battle as much as it is a journey of healing.

Romans 6:16 NKJV  Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 

Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 

The description in 2 Peter 2:13-19 provides insight into the struggles of a person who is in bondage to sexual addictions: 

• Has eyes full of adultery (verse 14) e.g. compulsively undresses people with their eyes, stares inappropriately at people 
• Cannot cease one’s perversions (verse 14)
• Is covetous (verse 14) e.g. covets sex with strangers and even family members, covets sexual highs, covets another person’s spouse
• Lives a cursed life (verse 14) ie. doesn’t experience the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which includes love, joy, and peace
• Is deceived and deceives others (verse 13)
• Entices others ie. unstable souls to join in (verse 14)
• Lures others through lust and lewdness (verse 18)
• Is a slave to their sexual addictions (verse 19)

2 Peter 2:13-14,18-19 NKJV  and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

The idolatry of sexual immorality

Thank God for healthy sexual appetites!

When our appetites stray outside the marriage bed, however, we will defile our bodies spiritually. At the council in Jerusalem, the apostle Peter proclaimed that we should “abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality.” Sexual immorality pollutes our body, soul and spirit. This is why victims of sexual abuse can wash themselves physically many times but still feel dirty. It is because sex is very much a spiritual experience, not just a physical one. (See Sex is a spiritual union.) 

Hebrews 13:4 NKJV  Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Acts 15:19-20 NKJV   Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.

The root word for “sexual immorality” in the Bible is porneuó (Greek), which has the same meaning as idol worship. Porneuó is also the same root for “pornography” and refers to a person who:

• prostitutes one’s body to the lust of another
• gives oneself to unlawful sexual intercourse; to commit fornication
• is given to idolatry, to worship idols

The apostle Paul listed fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness as idolatry. In 1 Corinthians 10, he linked idolatry to demons and not to God. This is why we find numerous warnings against temple and cult prostitutes in the Bible (Genesis 38:21-22, Deuteronomy 23:17-18, 1 Kings 14:24, Hosea 4:14, and Job 36:14.) One will notice that demonic worship usually involves ungodly sex acts in pagan and Satanic rituals.

Colossians 3:5-6 NKJV   Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,

1 Corinthians 10:19-20 NKJV  What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. 

Ungodly sexual unions and sexual defilement opens the door to unclean spirits. King Solomon, who had seen God twice and was given supreme wisdom, was eventually led to worship demonic gods through his numerous pagan wives (1 Kings 11:7-10). If sex was just physical, Solomon would not have been perverted into such idolatry. When the Israelites were lured into sexual immorality with the women of Moab, they eventually become joined in spirit to Baal of Peor, a fertility demon (Numbers 25:1-5) 

Sexual immorality is not limited to physical acts only but includes what we entertain with our thoughts and our eyes.

Jesus has warned us that “if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.” Whatever we see enters our minds and is stored in our brains. Watching pornography, for instance, perverts our minds and puts us in agreement with the spiritual powers of sexual immorality involved with the production and the prostitution in full display. We “sin against our bodies” by participating in such idolatry, even if we are not physically engaged. In ancient times, people would have gone to temples to watch cult prostitutes in pagan temples perform sex acts to their gods. Porn is not much different, only that it is performed and presented under different circumstances. Sex is spiritual and unclean spirits use immoral sex to defile as many human beings as possible.

Matthew 6:22-23 NKJV  “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 

Matthew 5:27-28 NKJV  “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

1 Corinthians 6:18 NKJV  Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

Just as the Holy Spirit leads and compels us to do godly and pure things, evil spirits compel us to do ungodly and defiling things. They can so overpower a person’s will so that he or she carries out their wicked desires. To be delivered from spirits of sexual perversion, we need to identify their entry points and close them for good. Some of these doors were even opened before we were born by our forefathers. To break these cycles of sexual addiction, human effort alone is not enough. We need the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:14 NKJV  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God

Entry points of sexual addictions

1. Childhood rejection, shame and pain

A lack of connection to love and affection at home can lead to brokenness where people look for some form of deep connection elsewhere. Jesus taught that sexual immorality begins in the heart. When a heart is wounded and vulnerable, evil spirits will attach many lies to a person to seek out immoral sexual connections.

• “I need something stimulating to fill the big gaping hole I feel inside me, even if it is only a temporary distraction  / high.”
• “I feel so much restlessness inside me that I can’t express. This helps me release some of that internal stress and unhappiness.”
• “I can’t believe that marriage can be whole and happy, because of my own parents’ broken marriage and infidelity. It is just like father, like son.”

Matthew 15:19-20 NKJV  For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

Testimony 1: Man healed from father wounds that led to sexual perversion

Through words of knowledge, the Holy Spirit revealed some sexual perversions that a ministry staff member had done as well as the deep rejection that he felt from his own earthly father, who he described as “evil, cruel, authoritarian and controlling”. When he was little, he had watched in horror as his father hit his elder brother so badly that the boy’s nose bled and beat his older sister until the wooden stick broke. The Holy Spirit led a prayer minister to ask him, “What is your love language?” The man replied that it was “touch”. The Lord tenderly ministered to him, to show him that he had turned to extreme expressions of perverted sexual “pleasure” in order to compensate for the cruel beatings he experienced at home. His sexual perversions represented the touch he craved for. As he forgave his father and repented for his sexual perversions, his prayer minister proceeded to cast out spirits related to the trauma, abuse, and sexual perversion from him. After deliverance, he lost his compulsions for sexual sin. Praise God.

2. Molestation and sexual abuse

Molestation and sexual abuse can cause people to significantly change the ways they see the world and themselves

• “I am damaged so I might as well live this sort of perverted life because no one good and decent will ever want me.”
• “I will take back control of my life by being sexually deviant, so at least I am in control.”
• “I am not capable of enjoying normal sexual relations so I will settle for this instead.”

Testimony 2: Lady leaves affair after being healed from incestuous defilement

A distraught single lady was in an affair with a married man. In her head, she knew that she was destroying herself and the man’s family, but she couldn’t find the strength to cut the affair off, no matter how much she prayed. The Holy Spirit revealed the word of knowledge, “sexual abuse at home,” to an prayer minister. She then confessed that her now deceased older brother used to pretend to shower her in that bathroom and then proceed to molest her. She felt defiled and dirty, and she hated him. After she was encouraged to forgive her brother, she consented and also repented of her hatred. At this point, she saw a vision of Jesus coming to cleanse her. She felt so restored and clean that she never wanted to go back to the adulterous affair again.

Testimony 3: A church leader freed from compulsion to masturbate after forgiving father for molestation

A church leader privately struggled with uncontrollable urges to masturbate since childhood. During prayer, the Holy Spirit showed her that the entry point was when her father molested her at the age of five years old. She remembered feeling something unclean “enter” her and how things changed afterward, where she was filled with fear and compulsions to sexual things even at such a young innocent age. After she prayed to forgive her father for molesting her and cast out a spirit of sexual perversion and incest, she felt the Holy Spirit fill her with joy and the urge to masturbate stopped for good. 

3. Witchcraft, idol worship in the family bloodline

Idol worship and witchcraft almost always lead to sexual immorality and perversion. We see that the prophet Hosea warned that by asking counsel from “stocks” (wooden idols) and staves (divining rods), people open themselves to a “spirit of harlotry” and  to sexual immorality in their own families. 

Hosea 4:12-13 NKJV  My people ask counsel from their wooden idols, And their staff informs them. For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray, And they have played the harlot against their God. They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops, And burn incense on the hills, Under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, Because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters commit harlotry, And your brides commit adultery.

Testimony 4: Man healed from voyeurism tied to ancestral witchcraft rituals 

A teacher could not help himself but stare at his female students’ chest area. He eventually received a complaint. He was a good and caring teacher who wanted to do the right thing, but there was something that kept drawing him into sexual perversion. The Holy Spirit revealed that some of his ancestors were witches who would go into the forest naked to do witchcraft rituals in honour of the moon. The covenants they made with those spirits brought perversion into their future generations. As he repented for what his forefathers did, he had much better self-control.

4. Sexual immorality in the family

The Bible reminds us that a bad tree will bear bad fruit. Hence, if a father is involved in sexual perversion, his offspring will be born with similar tendencies. We see that king David’s adultery with Bathsheba opened the door to sexual perversion in his sons. Amnon, his first son, raped his half-sister, Tamar. Absalom, his third son, slept with his father’s concubines publicly. Solomon took 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Matthew 7:18 NKJV   A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 

Testimony 5: Man healed from sex dreams after renouncing father’s infidelity 

A devoted missionary would regularly dream of a woman visiting him in his dreams at night to have sex with him. He did not welcome such dreams but felt helpless to stop them, no matter how much he prayed and repented before God. He finally got free after going for inner healing and deliverance. The prayer minister explained to him that because his father had two wives and several mistresses, there was a spirit of sexual perversion that had passed down to him. After renouncing his father’s infidelity and sexual immorality and commanding the spirit to leave him, the unwelcome sexually defiling dreams stopped.

5. Early exposure to perversion, even from the womb  

Early exposure to sexual perversion disrupts the natural development of healthy sexuality for children at a very formative age. This has repercussions later in life.

Testimony 6: Woman healed from sexual immorality after confessing family’s sexual perversion 

A woman whose uncle and auntie made her and her brother watch them have sex when they were small children began experimenting with her own brother early and later, committed incest with him, even though she knew it was wrong. She felt a lot of shame in confessing this and felt “dirty” and defiled. Because of this, she often fell into unhealthy sexual relationships with men. Once she confessed and repented before God, she felt a huge relief from her shoulders and could see herself without shame. Eventually, she felt she could get married to a ‘decent’ man, which she did.

6. Sexual defilement of the land

Sexual immorality defiles the land (Leviticus 18:20,22-25). A spirit of prostitution (harlotry / whoredom) can form a territorial stronghold and its people will be subjected to sexual perversion, generations after generation. An example is Sodom and Gomorrah, where even the young men wanted to have sex with the visiting angels. Later on, Lot’s daughters committed incest with their father. All this is from the influence of the Canaanite spirits worshipped in the land that they grew up in.

1 Kings 14:24 NKJV  And there were also perverted persons in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

Genesis 19:4-5 NKJV  Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.”

Testimony 7: Student experienced spirit molest her while studying in Australia 

A student studying in Australia would regularly feel the presence of a ‘male’ spirit that would visit her bedroom at night and touch her sexually. This never happened when she was back in her home country. It only occurred in the new place she was in. Each time, she had to command it to leave in Jesus’ name.

Leviticus 18:20,22-25 NKJV  Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, to defile yourself with her. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants.

Steps to overcoming sexual addiction

Just like the Prodigal father who embraced his repentant son who had squandered his father’s money on prostitutes (Luke 15:30), we have a good Heavenly Father who welcomes us back from all the sexual defilement we have been in. God has no interest in condemning us, He wants to save and redeem us! We see this same grace when Jesus released the woman who was caught in adultery. She was publicly humiliated and brought before Jesus to be stoned to death by Law, but He graciously told her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

Romans 2:4 NKJV  Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

John 8:7-11 NKJV  7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.  When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, Lord.”  And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

True repentance involves a complete turning away from our past and a cleansing of our conscience and our desires by the Holy Spirit. This requires us to crucify our flesh and follow the Holy Spirit’s daily guidance and protection. When we choose to submit fully to the Lord and glorify Him both in our body and spirit, the evil spirits that used to compel us into sexual sin will have to flee. We find that our mind will become clearer and peace will fill our soul. When demons try to tempt us again, they will no longer have the power to manipulate our physical urges. We will find that our battles are no longer the same as before because now, we have regained the power to say no! 

Galatians 5:24-25 NKJV  And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:20 NKJV  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

James 4:7 NKJV  Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Overcoming sexual addiction requires us to be fully willing to:

1. Hate the sin that defiles us spiritually and grieves the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30,5:2-3)
2. Invite the Holy Spirit to reveal the entry points for the sexual addictions in our lives
3. Confess and repent of our sexual sins 
4. Confess all the times we were under the influence of alcohol, drugs or any forms of substances and lost control of our own bodies 
5. Confess the sexual sins and idolatry of our forefathers that gave unclean spirits legal rights to perpetuate sexual perversion in our generation
6. Repent of idolising any sexually perverted, sexually dominating, or polygamous celebrity or “hero” (this creates an ungodly yoke that opens us up to their spiritual influence)
7. Forgive everyone who did not show us the love and comfort we needed at a tender young age, leaving us to crave emotional connection in unhealthy ways
8. Forgive everyone who introduced us to sexual perversion at a young age
9. Forgive everyone who molested or sexually abused us and repent of hating or cursing them
10. Forgive ourselves for participating in sexually immoral activity (Most times, we are first lured into sexual perversion in childhood by other people and/or fall into it out of curiosity – we should not continue to blame ourselves for this)
11. Repent for ever prostituting our bodies, if relevant
12. Repent of abortion, or encouraging abortion, if relevant
13. Cut spiritual ties with all previous sex partners as well as people with unhealthy influences on us (it is best to try to name them all)
14. Renounce any oaths with a sexual partner outside of marriage to be theirs “forever” or to give them our bodies, for example
15. Cast out all unclean spirits related to what we have confessed, repented of and renounced, and command them to go to the abyss, never to come back, in Jesus’ name
16. Ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us from all spiritual defilement 
17. Destroy all fetishes, sexually explicit photos, videos, and objects in our possession
18. Delete all apps and subscriptions to sexual content
19. Remove any sexualised tattoos from our bodies (some evil spirits use this as a legal right to enter and stay in our bodies)
20. Delete all sexual explicit music and playlists
21. Cut off contact with people who lure us into sexual sin
22. Be part of a Spirit-led community of people who love God and love people

Ephesians 4:30,5:2-3 NKJV  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; 

Our ever faithful God has promised to make us into new creations and give us a future and a hope. All we need to do is to repent, turn and trust Him. He will turn our shame into a double portion of honour!

Jeremiah 29:11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Isaiah 61:7 NKJV  Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; Everlasting joy shall be theirs.

May this sharing be a blessing to you as you seek to love the Lord with all your heart and turn from sexual addictions for good.