Fire to Fight Against Lust
Yesterday I preached a message, “Sex, Soul Ties, and Pornography.” It was inspired from teaching sex-ed to boys at my children’s home and to others as well, and discovering that not one boy had ever received teaching on the subject matter I covered (premarital sex, porn, masturbation, etc). Most kids are exposed to those subjects beginning in 5th or 6th grade by the media, by friends, and by school, but are never trained in how to deal with them healthily. The world preaches, “Do what you want,” “Follow your heart,” and “Learn for yourself.” And so youth today are doing just that, and so they are falling into sin and traps that could have been avoided if someone would just speak about these matters with them.
While preaching yesterday I could tell a number of people were jaded as they were listening. They knew what I was preaching was truth, but because they had been mired in their addictions and failed battles for so long, they just felt defeated and hopeless. Different people came up to me yesterday confessing just that, with some of them saying they felt some fire or emotion about it for the first time in a long while, but still felt hopeless for the most part with their struggles.
Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” One of Satan’s strategies is to defile our hearts and our eyes to the point where we can’t see God and we can’t see hope. As people fall into the death spiral of pornography, sex, and lust, they become less and less able to see or feel God. Numbness begins to creep in. They will put up a little fight and experience victory for a period of time, but once they sin again the hopelessness returns even stronger. The question begins to enter their mind, “Is this really worth fighting against?”
In my sermon I talk about two clear instructions the Bible gives regarding sexual immorality: Flee (in the physical) and resist (in the spiritual). The Bible is clear in James 4:7, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” In my Christian walk I’ve witnessed many men and women trying to manage their struggles with lust and I haven’t seen a single one of such people ever overcome. It’s only those who have really resisted that I see and know are walking in true purity and freedom.
Those that have resisted have taken strong steps to resist. Some of them went on an extended fast. Most of them got a committed accountability partner to share with, challenge, and pray with. All of them got into the Word of God (John 8:32, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”). When they were tempted at night they would get out of bed and go into another room to pray. When they knew of certain situations where they might be tempted (extended times alone, certain time of the day, certain places) they strategized ways to keep themselves safe and pure and took the necessary steps (resist!). What was crucial in the process was that they were experiencing God more and more with each day of resistance, tasting how good God is and in doing so experiencing less and less of of an appetite for lust. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see the Lord is good, blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.” Psalm 63:3 says, “Because your love is better than life my lips will glorify you.” It’s far better to take a path of firm resistance and fight hard for a period of time and then experience freedom for a lifetime than it is to just manage an addiction and be affected by it all your life. Resist!
In the sermon I also shared about how generational curses can affect how prone we can be to temptations of lust. While we are all born in sin and there is no one perfect, depending on our parents and grandparents we can be more prone to certain sins. This can clearly be seen by substance abuse issues, anger issues, abuse, financial problems, and other sins/struggles… and also with lust. So for a person who from a very young age struggled with heavy lust issues or different sexual orientations, this can feel very unfair. We can’t blame God for this just as we can’t blame God for pain and suffering in this world… these things came because of sin and the consequences of sin. Instead, we can thank God for sending Jesus to redeem us of our sins and rescue us from the filth we have gotten ourselves into. None of the orphans at the children’s home I serve at deserve the life that has been given to them. None of them deserved the rejection and abandonment. But I’ve learned that sympathizing with them and focusing on their past only encourages anger, despair, and hopelessness within them. Instead I’ve learned that I have to point them to hope, to God’s love, and to God’s power to change their lives. I have to tell them, “The buck stops here. You’re going to overcome. You’re going to be successful. Your children are going to be blessed.” The same goes for those struggling with lust. If God can’t redeem any soul regardless of the background, then the Gospel is worthless. It was God’s grace that changed a murderer Saul into the apostle Paul. It was God’s grace that changed an uneducated fisherman Cephas who denied Christ three times into the apostle Peter who established the first church after Jesus’ resurrection. So many people want to say, “I was born this way and I’ll always be this way” because they either love their lifestyle or they feel hopeless to fight against it. The truth is that if they want to change, God is able. He makes all things new!
The world wants you to think, “This is all about me and only me.” The truth is that just as the sins of our parents and grandparents affected us, so do our lives affect our children and whoever else put under our care. So the question is: Are you going to be the one to make a stand and stop this generational curse, both for your life and for others, or are you going to leave this to someone better? Be the better person! We need to take those feelings of “It’s unfair I have to struggle more because of the sin of my parents” and translate them into feelings of, “This stops with me. By the grace of God I will resist and the devil will flee. My children will not be cursed, instead they will be blessed. I will share with them my past struggles and victories and train them in the way that is right. They will not have to endure the same trials and heavy temptations that I have. They will walk in full freedom.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 – Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!
God wants us looking to Him and looking forward, not dwelling on the past. The more we can set our mind on Him and also on our future children, the greater fire we will have for purity and for victory. Don’t look back. Don’t resurrect your old sinful nature. Be the new creation God has made you to be (2Corinthians 5:17)!
Here is the video of the sermon I preached yesterday, please share it with others…
Here is a link to the sermon download on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sex-soul-ties-and-pornography/id349467485?i=251878036&mt=2. It can also be found here (preached on 2/9/14): http://www.newphiladelphiachurch.com/wp/media/sermons/.
