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BP58

We are all born with a constellation of biological genetics within us that helps determine our vulnerability to diseases, our physical appearance, and even our temperament. Although humans are all unique, we all share approximately 99.9% of our DNA with other humans around us! Less than one tenth of a percent of our genetic makeup determines our individuality.

Those who advance the theory of evolution often refer to a theoretical common ancestor that all humans share. I’m not certain if evolutionists identify this common ancestor as the great ape or if they go further back and say that men and women descended from a trilobite or even from inorganic matter like carbon dioxide. I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I believe that a complex being like you descended from a rock or methane gas. Ha.

Common sense alone tells us that more complex things do not descend from less complex things.

The absolute truth of God’s word also tells us that we share common ancestors. Their names are Adam and Eve. It is through their spiritual DNA that we bear the divine image (good news) as well as the fallen nature (bad news).

Last week we looked at how all humans are born fallen and have inherited the disease of a sin nature through the genetics of our first parents. What a discouraging ending to the story for us bipeds who in the beginning were created to be perfect and in an intimate relationship with the eternal Triune God.

Jeremiah 17:9 says, The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Beyond cure. Those are strong words. We are impossibly deceitful. There is no changing our evil nature. What wretched creatures we are!

Freud would assert that our selfish and primitive Id is firmly in charge of the tripartite self that is an extension of our biological body. The only guardrails that prevent any of us from going to prison tomorrow for murder or theft or rape are the two weaker parts of the self. There is the ego that is loosely rooted in reality and responsibility that flows out of the Id (here we have the superior flowing out of the inferior once again) and the purported moral voice of the superego that we internalize from our parents and the culture around us.

Scripture, on the other hand, tells us we have a conscience on board that is hard-wired in us by the holy God. It is the remaining vestige of His original designing Presence that was stamped onto our physical and spiritual DNA. It appears that we have within us Robert Louis Stevenson’s Mr./Ms. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll, the former being the sinful, depraved self and the latter being the conscience that desires to do good.

Notably absent within the human heart after the Tragic Fall is the personal Presence of God. Rebellion and sin left us alone in the universe.

So, we are impossibly deceitful, there is no cure for us, and we have been separated from the only One who can heal us. The prognosis for humanity sounds bleak. It doesn’t seem that trying to be good (Dr. Jekyll) or merely going to counseling to attain self-actualization or to discover and grow our true self is going to help that much. Something else is needed.

The fallen man and woman (you and I) are missing the most critical part of our being, namely, the perfect self who was created by God back in the early chapters of Genesis. Accordingly, we now need a new creation within us (2 Corinthians 5:17) since the original good creation disobeyed God, was corrupted by sin, and subsequently lost the intimate, abiding friendship we had with our Creator.

Basically, we blew up the bridge between us and the loving Father. Maybe better said, God had to close the bridge because He could no longer allow us to approach Him, the holy God, with our unholy fallen nature. A sacrifice had to be paid that humankind was totally unable to pay before a restoration could occur.

The Fallen Self (Id, earthly nature, old man or woman, the unspiritual self that is sold as a slave to sin) wants what it wants when it wants it with what it wants on top of it. Sure, the Fallen Self may slap on a coat of whitewash to look good on the outside. But on the inside, we are mostly Id with a dash of conscience.

That conscience within us will grow stronger as we move toward God and weaker as we move away from Him, but what we need is the new birth. That’s when God creates a new man/woman within us. Now Hyde is in trouble.

Before the new creation, conscience (Jekyll alone) was no match for Hyde. But the new creation is not some weak psychological superego that flows out of our sinful self but is implanted within us by the God of all beginnings. Now, the Holy Spirit lives within our new self to empower us to love and obey God.

Miraculously, a new creation is offered to us when we respond to God’s invitation to recreate us in a manner reminiscent of the original garden where the self was perfect and the relationship with the Creator was intimate. Now the battle is on, and a great adventure begins within the human psyche. Earlier, when only the flesh was in charge, there was no battle at all.

As Galatians 5 says, The sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want ~ v. 17.

Romans 7 reads, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. . . . I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature [Hyde, Id]. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. . . . When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being [the new self] I delight in God’s law; but I see another law [Hyde, Id, old self] at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind [the new creation] and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

Both Galatians and Romans describe the inner conflict between the old man who only knows how to use, abuse, and consume, and the new man who houses within him the Spirit of God who lives to love, serve, glorify the Father and the Son, and disobey Satan and the fallen self. It is a battle that some men fight hourly, or even by the minute in the deepest trenches of temptation.

The amazing truth is that after men become new creations, they now have a fighting chance against lust. Victory is attainable!

How can a man fight the battle of lust, among others? To be specific, the battle I am referring to is against the gateway drug of pornography–and all the other drugs that often follow such as chat rooms, phone sex, sexting—as well as against sexual fantasies within the mind and sex with a real person outside of marriage whether that be prostitutes or sex buddies.

Even sexual relations with an unmarried partner is outside God’s standard because it involves intimacy without the ultimate covenant to remain committed to that person for a lifetime. God is all about promises and covenants, not maybes and ifs. Yes, Jesus is a God of commitments.

As I committed to doing last week, in today’s blog I will briefly mention a few weapons a man can employ in the battle against sexual immorality. Many of these weapons are probably common knowledge but hopefully will still serve as helpful reminders.

#1 If you are married, remember that if you feel rejected, disrespected, or undervalued by your wife, you are hard-wired (in your spiteful Fallen Self) to act out either indirectly or directly, passively or actively. Whenever you are hurt by or angry with your wife, your deceitful heart will seek payback by fleeing from her or avoiding her and seeking out something or someone else.

You might turn away from her to work, athletics, hunting, fishing, gambling, video games, your kids, food, alcohol, etc. You name it—almost anything can be pressed into service as an instrument of revenge. Often, men will turn to another woman to find a replacement object who will admire them or to achieve come-uppance. In short, you will be more vulnerable to sexual sin—possibly even with another man–when you feel rejected or wounded by your wife, girlfriend, mother, or the female gender in general.

#2 Almost more than women (my personal opinion), men are afflicted by selfishness. Just be aware of that tendency. We are quick to feed our appetites—whatever they are hungry for—even if we must run roughshod over the needs of others. We lust quickly and forget that Jesus made us to be servants and protectors not consumers who think primarily of our own desires.

#3 Remember the acronym SHALT. You will be more vulnerable to sexual sin when you feel Shamed, Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. If allowed to persist, any of these states can serve as a doorway to sexual immorality.

#4 You also will be more vulnerable to sexual sin following a major accomplishment. After a life victory where you are the hero–athletically, vocationally, relationally or even for the good of God’s kingdom—you might believe that you deserve some type of reward. You are capable of engaging in monumental rationalizing to justify it.

Here is where sinful desire is allowed in the back door, and where the enemy slips in and whispers to you, You have worked so hard and been so good for so long! You deserve a break today. Just this once, reward yourself with that special something that will make you feel amazingly good. No one will get hurt and no one will know. Just do it.

I can only wonder how often pastors or other Christian leaders have fallen whether it be secretly or publicly at vulnerable moments such as these. No wonder God’s word warns us men that when we feel strong, we must be careful to avoid a fall. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall ~ 1 Corinthians 10:12.

#5 Practice the 5-second rule. Whenever temptation enters the periphery of your imagination, remember that you have around five seconds to flee before the summoning of your passions becomes irresistible. Maybe not always, but most times. Think of Joseph here. He did not linger with Potiphar’s wife contemplating what he should do. He ran. Sometimes literally running away from temptation (even if it is your computer or phone) is the wisest thing a man can do.

#6 Related to the 5-second rule, avoid making provision for the flesh. In other words, if you sincerely want to obey God and remain pure, you need to avoid or shun certain sexual stimuli instead of inviting them into your visual field or imagination and entertaining them. What are some examples?

Avoid stimuli that will arouse your body toward sexual sin such as movies with erotic scenes, TV series with a lot of skin and gratuitous sex, possibly music, books and even certain individuals or locations. A corollary that accompanies the admonition to never make provision for the flesh is that a man always takes personal responsibility for his sexual arousal and choices.

#7 The battle against sin is not to be undertaken alone. Seek out a community of other men to walk with you in your journey of sexual purity not for the purpose of shaming accountability but to wisely follow biblical truths like confessing your sins to one another and that which is found in Proverbs 27:17: As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Also remember, Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses ~ 27:5,6.

Finally, be honest with yourself that there may be certain men you should avoid. They will not sharpen you like iron or wound you with truth but will dull your obedience to God and encourage you to cross lines into sin.

#8 Practice looking at your life from the long view. The fleeting pleasure of lust satisfied is so empty compared to the reality of living with Jesus forever. See everything you do from the eternal perspective.

#9 Often sexual intimacy/lust is related to emotional intimacy. If there is a deficit in emotional experiences with others and/or with God, sexuality will often be the avenue a person pursues in an attempt to fill the gap of presence. Relying on testosterone and dopamine during sexual gratification to fill deep relational needs is not even a short term solution because a man will soon begin to make sex synonymous with emotional intimacy and then will seek sexual experiences at the cost of increasing loss of true intimacy designed by God. Yes, the Creator no doubt made sex for us to enjoy within the river banks of covenant relationships, but sex is the icing on the cake that flows out of prior personal and relational love.

It is tragic how many people know how to have sex but have no clue how to get close to another person through deep conversations or sacrificial love. The cart has been placed before the horse so routinely and automatically that in today’s culture the horse has been dispensed with. There are those who have no idea that a horse even exists. But then what will pull the cart if there is no horse?

If you find yourself turning to lust on a regular basis, it most likely is a counterfeit for the experience of true relational love with another. Go on a personal journey and figure out what is interfering with your ability to attach to others and love deeply. Start with Jesus.

Summarizing this first section, I will say that it is no surprise that men feed their sexual appetites. We are born broken because of the Fall and are inherently driven by the desires of the body. What is normal in our fallen state is that we live for the passions of the flesh. Nothing else entices us more.

While it is true that we remain the only creatures who bear God’s image, that divine image has been marred, defaced, even largely erased by sin. Yes, the conscience that God placed within every human whether we live in the United States or the deepest jungles of South America continues to speak to us on some low frequency.

However, in the post-Fall state where they are alienated from God, men will not rule their desires. On the contrary, their desires will rule them, and their unrestrained sexual appetite will run rampant to be checked only by fear of consequences like angry spouses, STIs, and possibly even law enforcement.

Created perfectly by Jesus at the dawn of history but now held hostage in Satan’s prisoner of war camp, we will continue to practice rebellion, pride, and sin, unless we cry out to God to deliver us and make us a new creation. If we do not stop our straying and instead refuse to return to Jesus, we will daily drift farther from our Creator. Soon, we will resemble the beasts of the field more than the perfect Triune God who made us to love and to serve.

If we ignore the voice of the Shepherd to return to the sheepfold, Dr. Jekyll (conscience) within us will be little match for Mr. Hyde (Freud’s Id). Picture a seesaw with Mr. Hyde weighing 900 lbs. and Dr. Jekyll weighing in at 45 lbs. That contest is not even fair. But it is an accurate picture of life apart from the new birth that brings the power of God into our very beings.

However, if we believe in Jesus (John 3:16) and are born again, we will have power to fight against the desires of our fallen self because a member of the Triune God lives within us. Serving our sinful passions will be replaced by serving Jesus, the One who rescued us from sin and death. Oh, there will be an ongoing battle within us, but now Jesus will be our strength.

Maybe the most difficult part of our journey after being re-created, as it were, will be appropriating the Presence of the living God who abides within us. Why? We are always opposed on this journey. Satan will still strive to separate us from God’s Presence through any means available—distractions, discouragement, complacency, counterfeits that leave us empty and depressed. The old man within us will always crave the desires of the flesh.

So, how will we access the divine power that now dwells within us in the person of the Holy Spirit?

One of the best ways to overcome our old sexual desires is not by simply saying no to sin or by white knuckling our way through every temptation. Rather, we need to cultivate the habit of loving Someone more than our sin. We must set out on a lifelong quest to develop a stronger hunger for God than for our sexual appetites.

How do we practice God’s Presence and cultivate a love for Jesus? By walking with Him. Talking with Him. Spending time with Him as we would spend time with our dearest human friends. Listening to His words. Worshipping Him day and night. Praying always. Referring everything in life back to Him.

In short, by developing a deep intimacy with Him that overshadows everything else. Everything.

This intimacy does not come over night. Some Christians may practice Jesus’ Presence for years or even decades before they sense Him close and are able to appropriate the spiritual power to fight against the voracious hungers of the earthly nature. A few believers may need to practice God’s Presence minute by minute to have victory over sin. Each man must discover how hard he must go after God to be intimate with Him on a daily basis.

In the meantime, the seesaw will rise and fall until the newly created self within us has put on enough muscle to regularly outweigh the power of the flesh. Sexual sin is so available and can be so autistic, as it were. Men don’t even need another participant to make themselves feel good or aroused or comforted or admired.

Feel good—at least until the shame comes. Here we encounter Satan’s bait and switch. Come and eat from the table of sexual fare but then, afterwards, feel your stomach flip upside down and begin retching until you vomit out all the morsels that had tasted so delicious moments earlier. Sexuality enjoyed within the riverbanks of God’s created boundaries is sweet, but if it floods the banks, then it devolves into something unsavory and maybe even putrid.

In the end, mastering the sexual temptation that lies beyond the riverbanks is not so much about seeking bad things less but seeking good things more. Yes, we need to flee immorality, but if our eyes and minds and hearts are fixed on the most beautiful Being in the universe, we have little time for distractions beyond relating to Jesus.

Colossians 3 gives us an insight into appropriating God’s Presence. First of all, it describes the battle between the flesh and the new spirit man when it says, Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed which is idolatry. . . . You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived [before the re-creation, the new birth]. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things . . . You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator ~ vv. 5-10

Colossians goes on in vv. 12-14 to describe what putting on the new self looks like: Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. . . . Forgive as the Lord forgave you. . . . Put on love.

When you sin, remember that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death ~ 2 Corinthians 7:10. So be sorrowful about your sin. But then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:18). Freely receive God’s grace. Focus on Jesus and what He did for you and instead of on your sin. If you focus on your sin, shame and badness will abide in your heart and distract you from Jesus.

I’m going to end with some words from Randy Alcorn, founder of Eternal Perspective Ministries, about another way to avoid sexual sin:

There’s a particular curve on a road near our house where I regularly see a large cross put there by a family I know. It’s where their teenage son died in a car accident. Many times I’ve seen that cross and been warned “slow down and be careful.” Seeing it makes me instinctively put on the brakes. I wonder if contemplating that terrible thing that happened over twenty years ago may have kept a terrible thing from happening to me. If we would rehearse in advance the ugly consequences of immorality which we have seen in others or in ourselves, we would be far more likely to avoid it.

Randy makes a list of consequences that could occur if he opened the door to sexual sin. His list is more geared to adultery, but I believe it could easily apply to other choices like pornography and sexual fantasies as well.

I recommend that you make your own list, adding consequences that would be uniquely yours. The idea, of course, is not to focus on sin, but on the consequences, thereby encouraging us to refocus on the Lord and take steps of wisdom to keep from falling.

I know some will think any list is legalistic. Like anything it can be, but in fact it is just heeding the warnings of God’s Word (Proverbs 6:32: Proverbs 6:28-29).

• Dragging Christ’s reputation into the mud.
• Having to one day look Jesus in the face at the judgment seat and explain why I did it.
• Untold hurt to Nanci, my best friend and loyal wife.
• Loss of Nanci’s respect and trust.
• The possibility that I could lose my wife and my children forever.
• Hurt to and loss of credibility with my beloved daughters, Karina and Angie. (“Why listen to a man who betrayed Mom and us?”)
• Shame to my family. (“Why isn’t Daddy a pastor anymore?” The cruel comments of others who would invariably find out.)
• Shame and hurt to my church and friends, especially those I’ve led to Christ and discipled. (List names.)
• An irretrievable loss of years of witnessing to my unsaved father.
• Bringing great pleasure to Satan, God’s enemy.
• Possibly contracting a sexually transmitted disease, passing it on to Nanci.
• Loss of self-respect, discrediting my own name, and invoking shame and lifelong embarrassment upon myself.

It would . . . break my heart to betray my Lord Jesus and my wonderful wife, daughters, and grandsons. That’s why I still try to avoid the little compromises that could lead to moral disaster. And why I still call upon God’s Spirit to empower my obedience. I genuinely love Jesus. And He’s the one who said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Because I love him, I will go out of my way to guard my purity. Because I believe His warnings about the consequences of sin, I will go out of my way to guard myself, my family, and our ministry from those consequences.

But what if all the fallen Christian leaders of the past decades had made such a list and carried it with them? What if in moments of isolation and temptation they read it through? Might God have used that to help some of them dread sin’s immense price? Maybe counting the cost could have provided one more incentive the Holy Spirit could use to “put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Colossians 3 ends with specific recommendations of how to practice the sin-busting Presence of God and to appropriate Christ’s power: Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. . . . And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. . . . teach and admonish one another . . . sing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him ~ 15-17

All these admonitions involve focusing your mind and heart on Jesus. Being thankful, meditating on the word of God, teaching one another, worshipping, seeking the peace of Christ—these only happen as you pursue Jesus intentionally and practice His Presence. The quality and the quantity of pursuit are both critical.

As the words of a certain song say, The more I seek you, the more I find you; the more I find you, the more I love you. Keep seeking Jesus because finding and loving Him are your chief weapon against sexual sin. Love triumphs over lust.

So, men, your enticement to pornography, sexual fantasies, and sexual acting out with women (or men) will continue until you have adequate weapons to fight against these desires of the flesh AND, most importantly, until Jesus’ Presence increasingly dominates the vision of your eyes and soul.

This amazing focus will take discipline, community, lots of intentional pursuit of Jesus, and the eyesight to see beyond this world.

Not every man will see what you see through your eyes of faith. But don’t let that stop you. One day they, too, will see.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart ~ Jeremiah 29:13

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. . . . My heart says of you, ‘Seek His face!’ Your face, Lord, will I seek ~ Psalm 27:4,8