MY BATTLE WITH PORNOGRAPHY AND MASTURBATION: CHAPTER TWO: THE DEVIL’S BAIT

“I had grown knowing that fornication was a sin and the popular scripture, “flee fornication” was almost like an anthem but here I was staring fornication in the face but too scared to run, too afraid to even walk away but at the same time unsure of what to do. With my friend gone and a lady waiting for me indoors, I had no choice than to push myself back to the room and initiated a conversation. That night was the beginning of my never ending battle with the monster of immorality.”

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1 Peter 5:8
“Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour”.

The devil is never in a hurry to get any man. I am very sure that the devil can easily pass as the most patient man/creator in the earth apart from God. If he were not that patient, it would have been difficult to get angels that were created and loyal to God to change allegiance to Him. It sure didn’t happen overnight. It was the patience of Satan that made him wait for David until he became relaxed and the devil made him sleep with Uriah’s wife (2 Samuel 11:1-4). There is a popular saying that “the patient dog eats the fatest bone” and that’s one of the strategy of the enemy. He can wait for as long as he can just to capture a man and bring him down.

I was already in 200 level when the assault by the devil started. I had been a virgin all these years because my Dad was very strict with us and because I never had the opportunity like other young children or else I doubt if I would have still been a virgin prior to this time. I moved in to stay with another roommate in 200 level. He was a family friend who got admission same year with myself. Charles (not real name) was a perfect description of a lukewarm believer and a chronic womanizer. He would bring in different ladies; short, tall, dark, fair, albino, disabled, slim, chubby etc. to the house always. When this happened, I always had to give them space to do whatever they wanted to do and would return later to listen to detestable stories of the act. On this day, a lady in our neighborhood who was disabled on the leg was passing while we sat outside and he called her to come.

We talked and laughed together with the lady when my friend turned to me and said ” aboki za ka iya jw woje dan Allah (my friend can you go out please )”? I never understood Hausa language so I didn’t understand what he meant. But obviously the lady understood what my friend meant so she continued laughing at my ignorance. My friend still said,

“yahaya, nache’ka bamu wuri yenzu (brother, i said go out now)”

I was still ignorant of what my friend was saying to me and still remained indoors with them. Frustrated, my friend turned to me and said in English,
“Bros, go out now. I’ve been saying that since and you are still here.”
“You should have said that in English now.”

I went out and gave them space to do whatever they intended to do. This had always been my experience since I moved in with Charles. Before now, I had had no struggle with fornication in my mind but with everyday experience of having to leave the room for my friend, I began having a struggle about how it will feel like to experience what my friend experienced every now and then. I had always been a good child who believes that fornication is a big sin against God but here I was with struggle about the rightness and wrongness of what I had always believed was wrong. Doubt is also a tool of the enemy. You can’t truly stand for what is right when you start doubting the rightness of it. The moment doubt starts creeping in, it’s sooner rather than later before you succumb. Always hold on to what is right and never allow the devil bring in doubt. If you don’t ever see pornography or fornication for that matter as wrong, you will always remain a slave to it (2 Timothy 1:13-14).

“But what if I try it someday. Surely, it will not cause any harm.” I quickly rebuked the thought that was running through my mind and reminded myself of who I was.

“You know other people have tried it and surely you are not better than them.”

The thought of exploring what Charles explored everyday made me to put a request to him to find a lady who can be my girlfriend. I had began to love what he has been telling me. This continual pestering of Charles to get me a woman continued for many days until Charles took a step that plunged me in a perpetual struggle. I remember correctly that day. It was a Tuesday and I had come back home very tired from lecture. I regret ever attending that lecture. The lecturer came to advertise his book rather than to teach.

“Whether you like or not, this book is a must buy. Even if you get 100/100 in the examination, without this book you are coming back to write this course next year.”

What a day it was as I had to run around to borrow from anyone I can in order to get the book. The lecturer knowing that the threat was taken serious by all the JJC (Johnny just come) spent only 30 minutes of the 2 hours allocated for the class with the remaining time put into selling the textbook which was not even worth the price it was sold for. After the struggle, blows, pulling at one another’s shirt and doing a marathon shouting competition on each other, I finally got the book, took an angry look at it. “All the lecturers that will be milking children dry, God is watching from Heaven,” I said to my friend as we trekked back home complaining over an issue we had no power to change.

It was with this anger in me that I came home and saw a lady sitting in our room while Charles busied himself with food outside. I hardly answered the lady’s greeting before dashing out to confront my roommate. I had had enough and wasn’t ready to quit the room for him this time again.

“Oboy how far? Hope that babe dey go very soon abi.”

“My friend calm down. Just rest first and I will explain later.”

“What do you want to explain again? The way I am tired now, I am not ready to leave the room for any lady ooo.”

“See guy I will explain better, just chill. If I explain later and you are not comfortable, then she can leave.”

“I have heard you but i really hope the explanation will not tamper with my rest tonight.”

I have always been the type that hates quarrel or argument and my roommate knew it. He also knew that I would rather inconvenience myself and let go rather than take up quarrel so I made up my mind even after talking to allow the lady stay and inconvenience myself tonight again for the sake of peace. After eating what my friend prepared, he took me out.

“I brought that lady for you tonight.”

There was dead silence at the back of the house where we stood and spoke – Charles and I. For a moment, it seemed I was dreaming and needed someone to wake me up. Was Charles really saying he brought a lady for me? But I was a virgin and he had only talked about the idea of bringing a lady for me once (or so I thought).

“Guy, you didn’t hear what I just said? answer me now.” I stood there still speechless. I knew we had talked about him finding a lady for me but certainly, I wasn’t expecting him to do that this night and certainly not without my knowledge. I had started to ask Charles everyday about him finding a lady for me and he was beginning to be tired but I was standing now being told that there was a lady inside for me. I felt like the ground opening and swallowing me up.

“But guy I don’t know what to do. What am I suppose to do?”

“You just go inside and talk to her. That is where you start from.”

“What will I be talking to her about? Help me out now.”

“Just stay there. I am off to where I am going to sleep tonight.”

My friend is the action type and immediately he was done, he left me standing and contemplating what to say. I had grown knowing that fornication was a sin and the popular scripture, “flee fornication” was almost like an anthem but here I was starring fornication in the face but too scared to run, too afraid to even walk away but at the same time unsure of what to do. With my friend gone and a lady waiting for me indoors, I had no choice than to push myself back to the room and initiated a conversation. That night was the beginning of my never ending battle with the monster of immorality.

……..The weeks that followed were tough on me.

I was struggling to get the events that took place a few weeks back off my mind and my roommate on the other hand made it as much hard as possible.
Different ladies came around and most of them slept over. There were two beds in the room and my roommate slept on one while I slept on the other. Any day a lady slept over, it was usually with my roommate and I always struggle to sleep all night because of the devilish imaginations. The devil does not catch a man in a crash program format but takes as much time as possible as long as he’ll get his way. My only respite from the evil thoughts and imaginations was when I was in school and even then, I struggled to concentrate because of the evil things running through my mind.

I gradually began to see nothing wrong with premarital sex and it became even more easier to hold a conversation that centred on fornication. The whole world seemed to speak one language. The language of fornication. My defenses were being weakened everyday because of the things that were the center of my talks with friends. When the devil wants to capture a man, he surrounds that person with the wrong kinds of friends. My best friend in class was Jude (not real name). He was also the son of a preacher like myself and even though one would expect that Jude would be different, he was no different from my roommate.

Jude was a good keyboardist and also a strong member of their fellowship in school. He had invited me and I had attended several church services and campus fellowship with him but his private life was a complete deviation from church life.

“Guy, ladies are really very cheap. Do you know that the lady that just called has been disturbing to come know this new place of mine since?” I was sitting in Jude’s room as he brought up the conversation about ladies once again. This had become a norm and the subject of discussion anytime I visited.

“But why not allow her come over?”

“I don chop her tire abeg. She doesn’t even want to hear that.”

“Bad guy, so you have even added her to the list?”

“Trust me on that now and I have been ignoring her and she won’t even understand.”

“Jude nawaooh. You with different ladies.”

“There is one like that I was smooching with her elder sister. I saw her around our street and made a move and immediately she accepted and that was how we started.”

“How about the elder sister?”

“That one is even more gullible. I went to visit the sister at her place off campus and the elder sister happened to be around that day. I only had to jokingly collect her number and that was how we started.”

“Ogbeni, two sisters again? Take it easy.”

As simple as that was, I knew Jude was telling the truth. I remember I once asked him jokingly but sincerely if he was not using charm on those ladies because it seems too easy for him. He had once told me of dating both daughter and the mother and I was frozen on my seat as anything.

Jude was not just a friend but also a helper and I guess that was why we remained as friends even though that friendship was gradually weakening my spiritual life. He could give me his last card if I ran out of cash in school and waiting for my parents to send something.

The friends that surrounded me in school made me to be gradually isolated from God and made me easily accessible by the devil. This point in my life was the most critical as it was the time the devil was making every effort to get me on his team.

Listen beloved, the success against pornography and fornication is hinged on the kind of friends around you. You can never overcome porn addiction and fornication until you make a decision to change your friends and people around you because you will always resemble your friends (1 Cor 15:33). One of the reasons why Amnon raped the sister Tamar was because of the friends he had (2 Samuel 13:1-14). Imagine if Jonadab had advised Amnon against the thoughts in his mind. Maybe you need to change the friends around you. You may never have fallen into pornography and you may still be a virgin as I was at this point but if you don’t make a critical evaluation and subsequent elimination of wrong friends, you may sooner than later fall into the trap of the devil like I did.

My roommate and Jude were not the only problems I had. As I got admission into the university, the excitement got so high that everyone could pass as a friend. And being surrounded by such people who saw fornication as normal in such an environment, the guilt from the first experience of fornication became weakened and I began to believe that, “this was the university and there was nothing wrong with sexual immorality since everyone was doing it.”

In fact, a friend of mine once remarked to me:
“I am sure God will understand that we are young people and He will always forgive us.”

“You think so?”

“I believe so. I mean how do you stand against premarital sex?”

“Well, I don’t know sha but I agree with you that someone cannot withstand the urge.”

The devil skillfully placed in my life the wrong kinds of people with the wrong kinds of beliefs and mentality. I was trapped in a prison and when the devil won here, it was easier for him to drag me into the prison house of pornography, masturbation and fornication. The university had finally sniffed out the light of God in me. And by the time I got to 2nd semester 200 level, I had made up my mind to also get a girlfriend. That was where the final trap that got me into all the struggle with pornography and masturbation started. Now, I realized that when the devil succeeds in placing friends who are his children in your life, he can kill anything in you, put anything he wants in you and drag you to any place and to any length.

Watch out for Chapter 3 next Sunday: A FALLEN LIFE.

Your brother,
Peniela Eniayo, Akintujoye.
(On behalf of the narrator, Joseph Ogbuh).

© Peniela Akintujoye| hello@lovestraighttalks.com

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