Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I know many of you listen through the car

radio or through a podcast app on your car speakers with young kids in tow and you're

not always able to see the episode titles. I just want to give you a little heads up that

today's episode is sensitive. Today's question comes from an international listener named

David. Hello, Pastor John. My thoughts keep returning to Proverbs 219. It says none who

go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life. Please, I need a deeper clarification

on this verse because I'm frightened due to a recent experience. I'm a teenage Christian

boy 17 years old. Recently, I was carried away by my lust and foolishly decided to look

for a temporary sexual partner through a hookup site online. I made contact with two women

and they made promises saying that they would give their bodies to me in exchange for money.

I paid them the money online, but they scam me and never showed up. When this happened,

I felt really stupid and angry with myself. I lost about $100. Later, I was able to reflect

and see that what I did was wrong and that I deserved the loss. I'm really grateful

to God because I feel that he allowed the scam to come my way because he was preventing

me from losing my virginity. But I feel scared that I even went this far in the process.

Even in seeking out a process to do, I feel like I have crossed a line I cannot return

from. Pastor John, have I? My answer very simply is I do not know if David has crossed

a line. I don't know whether he's crossed a line that cannot, from which he cannot

return. But I can say to him that having sex with a prostitute or intending to and paying

for it is not beyond God's forgiveness if there is genuine repentance. That is an authentic

repudiation of the ugliness of that sin and a turning to Christ for mercy and for the

power of reformation and for the enjoyment of Christ himself as a superior pleasure to

...