Is masturbation a sin? What sin did Onan commit? Onan is a biblical hero.

Answered by Vasily Yunak, 06/11/2007

3.115. Anya Kiseleva (akisseleva@???.kz) writes: "What does the Bible say about contraception and birth control? I agree with the idea that abortion is murder, but I am concerned about taking the pill and using condoms."

The answer is clear: NOTHING. Although those who wish to deduce something on this matter can find sufficient grounds for their philosophizing. Yes, some church organizations condemn all family planning. Others, on the contrary, recommend it. If you try to find at least a hundred things related to the issue of protection, then, perhaps, you can consider four texts:

- “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” I would especially like to draw attention to the second part. It presupposes a certain limit - fill, and as soon as you fill the earth, the first part is fulfilled and is no longer a requirement. If man did not sin but lived forever, then at some point the earth would be sufficiently populated by people and human reproduction would cease. Does this have anything to do with family planning today? If it does, it is only in the sense that we should not have children if we cannot support them (whether we do not have the space or the means to support their lives).

- “let him lie with you this night, for the mandrakes of your son” (see also). Here, however, the opposite remedy is presented - mandrakes, the fruits of a plant found in Palestine, which promote conception (at least, this is what the ancient Jews believed). All that follows from this is that family planning took place, although at that time people wanted to have more children than now.

- “Onan knew that the seed would not be his, and therefore, when he went in to his brother’s wife, he poured out [semen] on the ground, so as not to give seed to his brother.” Today the name of Onan is called something completely different from what he did. Onan used the most popular method of birth control - interrupted intercourse. And we read that he was punished by God for this. Many base their opposition to contraception precisely on the fact that God punished Onan. But Onan was punished not because he “poured on the ground,” but because he did not want to “give seed to his brother.” The Jews had a law according to which, if someone died childless, then his closest relative had to take his wife for himself, and the first son born to her was considered the son of the deceased and bore his name. This was necessary to continue the family line of the deceased. Onan committed a sin against this law. If this had been a different situation, not related to the continuation of a relative’s lineage, it is unlikely that Onan would have been charged with sin for what he “poured out onto the earth.” So I do not consider this text to be related to contraception other than to contain information about what method of family planning was known in ancient times.

- “Do not deviate from each other, except by agreement, for a while, to exercise in fasting and prayer, and then be together again, so that Satan does not tempt you with your intemperance.” It says that spouses are obliged to be together (have an active sex life) regardless of their desire to have children. Yes, this does not say that fertility should or should not be controlled. But this text denies the asceticism that is observed in some religious organizations in relation to the relationship between spouses.

There is one more text that should be given here. This is “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will punish him: for the temple of God is holy; and this temple is you.” The issue of our health is placed very highly in the Holy Scriptures. Not every method of birth control is equally useful (or harmless). Therefore, when choosing a method of contraception, think about your health. You are responsible before God for yourself and for your children - can you raise them sufficiently wealthy and healthy without harming your health?

Read more on the topic “Sex, erotica and intimacy”:

30 Sep

Is petting, touching without direct sex, fornication? (Stepan) Stepan asks: Is petting, touching without direct sex, fornication? Peace be with you Stepan, Fornication is the satisfaction of sexual desire by a person who is not legally married, the opposite of chastity...

To the earth, so as not to give seed to his brother” (Gen.), for which he deserved death punishment from the Lord.

The term “onanism” is derived from his name, which is mistakenly associated with the phenomenon of masturbation, while Onan, according to the Pentateuch, practiced coitus interruptus.

Despite the fact that the Bible nowhere calls masturbation a sin. , there are opinions of a number of Orthodox fathers that in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor.), by the word “malakia,” the Apostle Paul meant precisely masturbation.

The term "masturbation"

Modern interpreters believe that this passage describes not masturbation, but coitus interruptus, and the sin is a violation of the law, according to which the brother-in-law was supposed to become the father of the child of the widowed daughter-in-law.

However, it was this text that at the beginning of the 18th century became the source of the name “masturbation”, which was introduced into use in 1716 in an anonymous brochure Onania, distributed in London and telling about the “terrible sin of “self-pollution”, entailing impotence, gonorrhea, epilepsy and waste of faculties,” as well as in the work of the Lausanne physician Tissot, published in 1760 L'Onanisme. Tissot was a pioneer in medical research on masturbation, substantiating, based on the then prevailing ideas in medical science, the harm of masturbation. He associated disorders such as impotence, blindness, mental and physical exhaustion with excessive sperm production. Involuntary emissions were also recognized as a disease. It should be noted that although already in those years works were published that spoke of the harmlessness of masturbation, including the work of D. Hunter (1786), the society in which the Puritan culture was accepted was accepted by Tissot’s theory, supported by such famous “rulers of thoughts” like Voltaire and Kant.

see also

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Notes

2. Coogan Michael.. - 1st. - New York, Boston: Twelve. Hachette Book Group, 2010. - P. 110. - ISBN 978-0-446-54525-9.
3. // Sex in the Bible: a new consideration. - Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2006. - P. 48. - ISBN 0-275-98767-1.
4. Church Father Epiphanius of Salamis agrees, citing // Contraception and abortion from the ancient world to the Renaissance. - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. - P. 4. - ISBN 0-674-16875-5.
5. Patton, Michael S. (June 1985). "". Journal of Religion and Health(Springer Netherlands) 24 (2): 133–146. DOI:10.1007/BF01532257. ISSN. “Society's acceptance of masturbation at a professional level only occurred in the 1960s, and at a social level in the 1970s. ...masturbation and masturbation are mistakenly considered synonymous... ...there is no law in the Bible associated with masturbation. ”
6. Kwee, Alex W.; David C. Hoover (2008). "". Journal of Psychology and Theology(Rosemead School of Psychology. Biola University) 36 (4): 258–269. ISSN. “The Bible presents no clear theological ethic on masturbation, leaving many young unmarried Christians with confusion and guilt around their sexuality.”
8. Stolberg M. 2000a. Self-Pollution, Moral Reform, and the Venereal Trade: Notes on the Sources and Historical Context of "Onania" 1716 // Journal of the History of Sexuality. - 2000. - No. 9. P. 37-61.
9. Deryagin G. B., Sidorov P. I., Solovyov A. G. // Russian Psychiatric Journal. 2002. No. 2. P. 76-80.

Excerpt describing Onan

But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew this for a long time, but I forgot that except baseness, deception, envy, intrigue, except ingratitude, the blackest ingratitude, I could expect nothing in this house...
– Do you know or don’t know where this will is? - asked Prince Vasily with an even greater twitching of his cheeks than before.
– Yes, I was stupid, I still believed in people and loved them and sacrificed myself. And only those who are vile and nasty succeed. I know whose intrigue it is.
The princess wanted to get up, but the prince held her hand. The princess had the appearance of a person who had suddenly become disillusioned with the entire human race; she looked angrily at her interlocutor.
“There is still time, my friend.” You remember, Katisha, that all this happened by accident, in a moment of anger, illness, and then forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to correct his mistake, to make his last moments easier by preventing him from committing this injustice, not letting him die in the thoughts that he made those people unhappy...
“Those people who sacrificed everything for him,” the princess picked up, trying to get up again, but the prince did not let her in, “which he never knew how to appreciate.” No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh, “I will remember that in this world one cannot expect a reward, that in this world there is neither honor nor justice.” In this world you have to be cunning and evil.
- Well, voyons, [listen,] calm down; I know your beautiful heart.
- No, I have an evil heart.
“I know your heart,” the prince repeated, “I value your friendship and would like you to have the same opinion of me.” Calm down and parlons raison, [let's talk properly] while there is time - maybe a day, maybe an hour; tell me everything you know about the will, and, most importantly, where it is: you must know. We will now take it and show it to the count. He probably already forgot about it and wants to destroy it. You understand that my only desire is to sacredly fulfill his will; I just came here then. I'm only here to help him and you.
– Now I understand everything. I know whose intrigue it is. “I know,” said the princess.
- That’s not the point, my soul.
- This is your protegee, [favorite,] your dear princess Drubetskaya, Anna Mikhailovna, whom I would not want to have as a maid, this vile, disgusting woman.
– Ne perdons point de temps. [Let's not waste time.]
- Ax, don't talk! Last winter she infiltrated here and said such nasty things, such nasty things to the Count about all of us, especially Sophie - I cannot repeat it - that the Count became ill and did not want to see us for two weeks. At this time, I know that he wrote this vile, vile paper; but I thought that this paper meant nothing.
– Nous y voila, [That’s the point.] why didn’t you tell me anything before?
– In the mosaic briefcase that he keeps under his pillow. “Now I know,” said the princess without answering. “Yes, if there is a sin behind me, a great sin, then it is hatred of this scoundrel,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed. - And why is she rubbing herself in here? But I will tell her everything, everything. The time will come!

While such conversations took place in the reception room and in the princess's rooms, the carriage with Pierre (who was sent for) and with Anna Mikhailovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the courtyard of Count Bezukhy. When the wheels of the carriage sounded softly on the straw spread under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna, turning to her companion with comforting words, was convinced that he was sleeping in the corner of the carriage, and woke him up. Having woken up, Pierre followed Anna Mikhailovna out of the carriage and then only thought about the meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they drove up not to the front entrance, but to the back entrance. While he was getting off the step, two people in bourgeois clothes hurriedly ran away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Pausing, Pierre saw several more similar people in the shadows of the house on both sides. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the footman, nor the coachman, who could not help but see these people, paid no attention to them. Therefore, this is so necessary, Pierre decided to himself and followed Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna walked with hasty steps up the dimly lit narrow stone staircase, calling Pierre, who was lagging behind her, who, although he did not understand why he had to go to the count at all, and even less why he had to go up the back stairs, but , judging by the confidence and haste of Anna Mikhailovna, he decided to himself that this was necessary. Halfway up the stairs, they were almost knocked down by some people with buckets, who, clattering with their boots, ran towards them. These people pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna through, and did not show the slightest surprise at the sight of them.
– Are there half princesses here? – Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them...
“Here,” the footman answered in a bold, loud voice, as if now everything was possible, “the door is on the left, mother.”
“Maybe the count didn’t call me,” Pierre said as he walked out onto the platform, “I would have gone to my place.”
Anna Mikhailovna stopped to catch up with Pierre.
- Ah, mon ami! - she said with the same gesture as in the morning with her son, touching his hand: - croyez, que je souffre autant, que vous, mais soyez homme. [Believe me, I suffer no less than you, but be a man.]
- Right, I'll go? - asked Pierre, looking affectionately through his glasses at Anna Mikhailovna.
- Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu"on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c"est votre pere... peut etre a l"agonie. - She sighed. - Je vous ai tout de suite aime comme mon fils. Fiez vous a moi, Pierre. [Forget, my friend, what was wronged against you. Remember that this is your father... Maybe in agony. I immediately loved you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.]

1 At that time Judah departed from his brothers and settled near an Adullamite whose name was Hirah.
2 And Judah saw there the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in to her.
3 She conceived and gave birth to a son; and he called his name Ir.
4 And she conceived again, and gave birth to a son, and called his name Onan.
5 And she gave birth again to a son [a third] and called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezibah when she gave birth to him.
6 And Judah took a wife for Ira, his firstborn; her name is Tamar.
7 Er, the firstborn of Judah, was disgraceful in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.
8 And Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother’s wife, marry her as a brother-in-law, and raise up seed for your brother.
9 Onan knew that the seed would not be his, and therefore, when he went in to his brother’s wife, he poured out [semen] on the ground, so as not to give seed to his brother.
10 What he did was evil in the sight of the Lord; and He slew him also.
11 And Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law [after the death of his two sons], “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he said [in his mind]: He would not have died like his brothers. Tamar went and lived in her father's house.
12 A long time passed, and the daughter of Shui, the wife of Judah, died. Judah, having been consoled, went to Timna to the shearers of his cattle, himself and Hirah his friend the Adollamite.
13 And they told Tamar, saying, Behold, thy father-in-law is going to Timnah to shear his cattle.
14 And she took off the garment of her widowhood, covered herself with a veil, and covered herself, and sat down at the gate of Aenaim, which is on the road to Timna. For she saw that Shelah had grown up, and she was not given to him as a wife.
15 And Judas saw her and considered her a harlot, because she had covered her face. [And did not recognize her.]
16 He turned to her and said, “I will come in to you.” For he did not know that this was his daughter-in-law. She said: what will you give me if you come in to me?
17 He said, “I will send you a kid from [my] flock.” She said: Will you give me a deposit while you send it?
18 He said, “What pledge can I give you?” She said, “Your seal, and your bandage, and your reed, which is in your hand.” And he gave it to her and went in to her; and she conceived from him.
19 And she rose and went and took off her veil and put on the garment of her widowhood.
20 Now Judah sent a kid by the hand of his friend the Adullamite to take the pledge from the hand of the woman, but he did not find her.
21 And he asked the inhabitants of the place, saying, “Where is the harlot that was in Enaim by the way?” But they said: there was no harlot here.
22 And he returned to Judah and said, “I have not found her; and the inhabitants of that place said, There was no harlot here.
23 Judas said: Let her take it for herself, so that they don’t laugh at us; Behold, I sent this kid, but you did not find her.
24 And about three months passed, and they spake unto Judah, saying, Thy daughter-in-law Tamar has fallen into fornication, and behold, she is with child through fornication. Judas said: Bring her out and let her be burned.
25 But when they took her away, she sent to tell her father-in-law, “I am pregnant by the one whose things these are.” And she said: Find out whose seal this is, and the baldric and the cane.
26 Judah knew and said, “She is more righteous than me, because I did not give her to Shelah my son.” And I didn’t know her anymore.
27 While she was in labor, it turned out that there were twins in her womb.
28 And while she was in labor the hand of [one] appeared; and the midwife took it and tied a red thread on his hand, saying, “This one came out first.”
29 But he returned his hand; and behold, his brother came out. And she said: how did you dissolve your barrier? And his name was called Perez.
30 Then his brother came out with a red thread on his hand. And his name was called Zara.

April 26, 2017

There is a misunderstanding about the issue of sin committed by Onan. The Christian Church, not knowing the Jewish understanding of Tanakhic things, distorted the meaning of the event in which Onan is narrated. The Church believes that Onan's sin is masturbation. It was this interpretation of this biblical event that began to call fornication the sin of Onan. But did Onan really engage in handjobs?

Onan's sin is not masturbation

Of course, to get a more substantial look at this event, one must read more than the passage below, but we will try to see the sin of Onan in this short passage.

1 At that time Judah departed from his brothers and settled near an Adullamite whose name was Hirah.

2 And Judah saw there the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in to her.

3 She conceived and gave birth to a son; and he called his name Ir.

4 And she conceived again, and gave birth to a son, and called his name Onan.

5 And she gave birth again to a son and called his name Shelah. Judah was in Chezibah when she gave birth to him.

6 And Judah took a wife for Ira, his firstborn; her name is Tamar.

7 Er, the firstborn of Judah, was disgraceful in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.

10 What he did was evil in the sight of the Lord; and He slew him also.

11 And Judah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Live as a widow in your father’s house until Shelah my son grows up.” For he said, “Even he, like his brothers, would not have died.” Tamar went and lived in her father's house.

(Gen.38:1-11)

Now let us turn our attention to the central verse, which tells us of the holy duty that Onan had to perform.

8 And Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother’s wife, marry her as a brother-in-law, and raise up seed for your brother.

What should Onan have done? Fulfill the commandment. What commandment? The commandment to restore the seed of the firstborn in your home. In this case, the firstborn in their house was Er, who died without leaving any offspring - the firstborn who would lead the genealogy of Judah.

5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, then the wife of the deceased should not marry a stranger, but her brother-in-law should come to her and take her as his wife and live with her -

6 And the firstborn whom she bears will remain in the name of his brother who died, so that his name will not be blotted out in Israel.

7 If he does not want to take his daughter-in-law, then his daughter-in-law will go to the gate, to the elders, and say: “My brother-in-law refuses to raise the name of his brother in Israel, he does not want to marry me”;

8 Then the elders of his city must call him and persuade him, and if he stands and says, “I don’t want to take her,”

9 [Then] let his daughter-in-law go to him in the sight of the elders, and take his boot off his foot, and spit in his face, and say, “This is what is done to a man who does not build his brother’s house.”

10 And their name in Israel will be called House of the One Who Has Shoes.

(Deut.25:5-10)

One can argue and say, but the Onan event happened before the Law was given to Israel?

Who is Israel anyway? Israel is Jacob. Therefore, Israel as a people are the children of Jacob, the children of Israel.

When Cain killed Abel, the Mosaic Law was still very far away. Why then did God curse Cain? For sin. Why was the world destroyed by the waters of the flood? - for sin. So there was a law. People knew about it, but they violated it and retreated from it. For this they were punished. There is no need to diligently prove this, everyone already understands this perfectly well. Why did Judas talk about prolonging the clan of Ira if there were no such law?

Another question is why God killed him, because the Law did not condemn a person to sin if he refused to take his brother’s wife as his wife.

Let's go back to Onan's sin

If Onan had abandoned his brother's wife, then everything would have been much better in his life. His problem was that he had defamed his brother's wife. How? He took her, slept with her, but did not give her the opportunity to become pregnant. Why?

9 Onan knew that the seed would not be his, and therefore, when he went in to his brother’s wife, he poured it out on the ground, so as not to give seed to his brother.

Let us examine the insidious crime of Onan in this text. Using her for his sexual pleasures, Onan did not want her to become pregnant. Why? Because the child she will give birth to (we are talking about a male child who will be the head of the clan after Ira) will be the head of the clan of Ira, but his. He did not want to restore his brother's seed while using his wife for sexual gratification.

Based on this, Onan’s sin is both the unwillingness to restore the seed to his brother and the desecration of his brother’s wife. If he did not want, from the very first day of their life together, to give seed to continue the line of his brother, it means that he insidiously used Tamar to use her for sexual pleasures.

Let us summarize the sin of Onan. Onan died not because he engaged in masturbation, but because he committed a grave sin against his brother and his wife.

Is it really true that masturbation is not a sin if Onan did it, but didn’t die for it?

Onan did not engage in handjobs. This is how the Christian Church presented it. In fact, everything looks completely different. It is said that Onan "poured out on the ground." Spilling semen on the ground does not mean doing it by fornication. Simply, during ejaculation, he removed the sexual organ from the vagina and poured out the seed on the bed where they were lying. This is identical to the fact that he poured out the seed on the ground, if only for the reason that the beds were made in tents on the ground.

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Question No. 17

Is masturbation a sin?

Member of the JesusChrist.ru forum 18/03/2002

Is masturbation a sin?

Answer from Father Oleg Molenko:

For those who claim that the Bible does not prohibit masturbation, let me remind you that the Bible does not explicitly prohibit injecting heroin into a vein, smoking hashish and nicotine cigarettes, having sexual intercourse with animals, etc. and so on.

The Bible prohibits ALL SINIAL PASSIONS, but does not mention all possible options for the implementation of passions. In other words, the Bible is not a Criminal Code or a set of all sins or prohibited actions. That is why it is insane and absurd to look for literally all sinful prohibitions in it.

Regarding the event with Onan, the context must be read clearly and accurately:

9 Onan knew that the seed would not be his, and therefore, when he went in to his brother’s wife, he poured out [semen] on the ground, so as not to give seed to his brother.
10 What he did was evil in the sight of the Lord; and He slew him also.

Notice that he poured out the seed on the ground BEFORE (when he went in to his brother's wife). So the presence of Tamar has nothing to do with it. We see clearly that the Lord killed him. And this is a clear indication that the sin of masturbation (for it is clear that Onan shed the seed with the help of his hands) leads to bodily (for Onan) and spiritual death (for modern self-fornication) for WHAT HE DID (i.e. for the very fact of masturbation ), and not for not giving seed to his brother's wife. For for Judas’s similar sin God did not punish him with death:

26 Judah found out and said: She is more right than me, because I did not give her to Shelah my son.

For those who believe the word of God and for whom Scripture is the highest authority, the proposed question is resolved easily and quickly. The sin of the biblical Onan, otherwise called masturbation (hand + fornication, i.e. fornication with a hand or hands) is a terrible and ungodly sin, belonging to the category of Sodomite sins, which, in order of severity, go in this order: masturbation, anal-oral fornication with a woman (even with a wife), sodomy, child molestation, corpse sex (necrophilia) and bestiality. All these sins are mortal, since committing them immediately causes spiritual death, depriving a person of the Holy Spirit and placing him in the category of enemies of God. The main mistake in the above opinions of the discussion participants is that they focused their attention on the methods (for example, masturbation) and means (for example, hands or means of a sex shop) of fornication, and not on the passion itself.

God and Scripture prohibit the very passion of fornication and its unnatural satisfaction. Let us remember the antediluvian world. Why did God destroy him with the waters of the flood? In the book of Genesis we find that this was committed for carnal sins, which made man FLESH, not having the Holy Spirit. Weren't there masturbators back then? And who was saved from the flood? 4 married couples = 8 people and not a single fornicator or homosexual. After all, if even looking at the nakedness of Father Noah was subjected to a terrible curse, then what can we say about actions? This was repeated in Sodom and the surrounding cities, where carnal unnatural sins flourished.

Scripture condemns the passion of fornication along with the methods of its implementation. It is enough to quote the words of the Apostle Paul from 1 Corinthians:

1 Cor.6:
9 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wicked people, nor homosexuals,
Here, fornication is represented by 4 main manifestations, listed in ascending order:

1. fornication, i.e. illegal, although natural, copulation with a woman;
2. adultery - violation of fidelity by one of the spouses by copulation with a person of the opposite sex;
3. malakia - handjob and similar artificial means (for example, from a sex shop);
4. homosexuals - same-sex fornication.

1 Cor.6:
13 The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
It is clear that here we are talking about any kind of fornication. Fornication is primarily a lustful passion.

1 Cor.6:
16 Or do you not know that whoever has sex with a harlot becomes one body with her? for it is said: the two will become one flesh.
What can we say about the unnatural union of the masturbator with his own hands?

1 Cor.6:
17 And he who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord.
No comments.

1 Cor.6:
18 Flee fornication; Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the fornicator sins against his own body.
And here is a direct commandment prohibiting all types of fornication, incl. and handjob. Otherwise it would have been said: “Except for masturbation.”

1 Cor.6:
19 Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you, which you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God both in your bodies and in your souls, which are God's.
No comments.

1 Cor.7:
1 And what you wrote to me about is that it is good for a man not to touch a woman.
2 But, in order to avoid fornication, each have his own wife, and each have his own husband.
Here is a direct commandment prohibiting masturbation and other types of fornication except for the natural use of one sex by another in a legal marriage! Note that the commandment applies to each gender.

1 Cor.7:
9 But if they cannot abstain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to become inflamed.
And here is the reason for the marriage of those who cannot remain alone because of fornication. The apostle commands such people to marry for the natural and lawful satisfaction of fornication (excitement) and precisely in order to prevent masturbation and other forms of sexual perversion.

And finally, can you imagine the apostle doing this (and he was unmarried)? So, do not deceive yourself, do not justify this mortal sin, but hasten to repent even for your thoughts and inclinations towards it, otherwise you will not see the Kingdom of God!