This is the last episode in a series, entitled, Ruling Over Our Sexuality for God’s Glory. Proverbs 4:23 reveals a vital strategy for winning the battle with lust. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
Today, we want to look at five ways to PROTECT our hearts from the enticement of sexual sin. As we saw several weeks ago, our sex drive was designed by God to be powerful. Therefore, like a smoldering volcano, when it erupts it can lay waste to everything in its path including honor, reputation, families, virginity, fidelity, chastity, good intentions, life-long promises, and spiritual commitments. That is why we need to watch over our hearts with all diligence!
Last week we saw the value of going on OFFENSE—of preemptively directing our heart into channels that will strengthen us against sexual temptation. This episode is about having a strong DEFENSE. Here are 5 ways we Christian men need to protect our hearts from the enticement—the pull of—sexual temptation.
A. Avoid situations that bring temptation. Paul writes to the Romans, Make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lusts (vs 13:14) If you are on a diet, you don’t buy doughnuts. Jesus taught us to pray, Lead us not into temptation. Tell the hotel clerk to turn off access to adult TV in your hotel room while traveling. If the Internet keeps lulling you back to its porn, one of the best strategies for you to implement to protect your heart may be to sign up for Covenant Eyes software. Covenant Eyes is a Christian software company that will sell you its Internet accountability software, which will track every site you visit on your phone or computer and notify your designated spiritual leader, wife, or other accountability partner if you visit porn sites. By far, the EASIEST WAY TO WIN THE BATTLE for sexual integrity is to keep your sexual desires from being inappropriately stimulated. Once desire is aroused, the chances of victory dramatically decrease. Joe Dallas, presenter of the Every Man’s Battle Seminar, writes:
I believe there’s an eleventh commandment that says, “Thou shalt not kid thyself.” If you’re serious about sexual integrity, you’ll distance yourself not only from the particular sexual sin you are most prone to (fantasizing, pornography, affairs, prostitution) but you’ll ALSO distance yourself from any person or thing that entices you towards sin. Get brutally honest about your lifestyle; anything in it that makes you prone to sexual sin has to go. “All things are lawful for me,” Paul said, “but not all things are edifying. I will not be brought under the power of anything.
B. Vigilantly Stand Guard Over Your Sexual Appetite. Proverbs 4:23, mentioned earlier is also translated, Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. God is saying, Defend your hearts like a castle, the seat of your strength that you do not want to give away. As the sentinel, high up in the guard tower gazes intently across the plains seeking to identify any approaching threat to the castle, so, we are to identify any stimulus coming our way that can awaken our sexual desires and therefore might lead us into sexual sin.
Here are 3 practical suggestions about this defensive tactic:
1. Decide to have the dignity not to allow trash to stimulate YOUR sexual desires. Have the self-respect to refuse to let YOUR sexual appetite be manipulated. Don’t permit the creator of a trashy commercial or producer of destructive porn play around with YOUR sex drive. YOUR sexual desires are a treasure to be protected and shared only with your wife or future wife, not dragged into sewers.
2. Realize that defeating lust is easier when the thought first strikes and gets harder to defeat, the longer it is entertained. In the book of James, we read, Each one is tempted when, by his own lust he is dragged away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin (1:14-15). As the German theologian Thomas a Kempis says, Yet we must be watchful, especially in the beginning of the temptation; for the enemy is then more easily overcome, if he is not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but is resisted without the gate at the first knock.
3. Because God created males to be sexually aroused by sight alone, we must develop the discipline of bouncing our eyes away from enticing images that we stumble across, to prevent the image from penetrating our hearts and awakening lust. Apparently, this was a tactic followed by the godly, Old Testament saint, Job, who wrote, I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. (Job 31:1). Our sex drive is a very precious gift that needs to be guarded, protected. The second way to protect our hearts from the enticement of sexual sin is to stand guard over our sex drive, watching what would approach my heart to awaken it.
C. Understand The Way Illicit Sexual Pleasure Functions as a Powerful Idol. God traces sexual sin back to the root, heart-sin of idolatry. Paul wrote, No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph 5:5) To Paul, mankind’s root problem is not merely an external, behavioral problem—it is an internal problem of the heart. Paul believed that one of the primary reasons human hearts are not more transformed is because, the affections of people’s hearts have been captured by idols—false Gods who promise to satisfy what our hearts really want.
The idolatry condemned by the first and second commandments is looking to a false God to provide what only the true God can provide. We serve idols because of the rewards they promise. Let’s think about this for a moment. Success can become an idol because it feels very good to be respected. Power can be an idol because it feels very good to be in charge. Fame can be an idol because it feels very good to have everyone look up to you. Winning can become an idol because it feels so good to win. Sexual pleasure can become an idol because it feels so good. Sexual pleasure is designed to be INTOXICATING. Remember the chemical description of sex shared 3 weeks ago from Doug Weis.
During sex, chemicals called endorphins and encephalins rush to the excitement center (preoptic neuron) of a man’s brain, filling it to the highest possible level… Men who take risks such as sky diving, bungee jumping, or deep sea diving utilize the same part of the brain as sex does. However, sex, by far, produces the greatest chemical release, making his brain and body feel their absolute best. That is why men love sex and why it is so appealing. (Sex, Men, and God.)
Idols, by definition promise us something that our hearts strongly crave—and nothing feels good the way sexual pleasure does. What this means is that it is when our hearts feel negative emotions--discouragement, disappointment, rejection, loneliness, boredom, etc. the idol of sexual pleasure comes along and says, “I can make you feel much better.” Many men have found it useful to identify both the outer and inner conditions when the enticement of illicit sexual pleasure strikes. Here are the two short lists. What would you add to them?
OUTER Conditions When Lust Is Most Appealing:
- Something sexually stimulating crosses your path
- You are alone with the opportunity to pursue sexual pleasure
- You are far away from anyone who would know about your little private pleasure excursion
- It is the middle of the night and you can’t sleep
- You are in a physical situation that has a past association with sexual pleasure
INNER Conditions When Lust Is Most Appealing: FEELING
- Lonely
- Bored
- Left out or rejected
- Self-pity
- Angry (perhaps with your wife)
- Discouraged
- Disheartened
When you are feeling bad, the idol, Illicit Sexual Pleasure, comes along and whispers “Want to feel better—I mean A LOT BETTER?” And when the pleasure an idol promises is physical its enticements are especially difficult to resist, as Ed Welch points out in his book, Addictions: A Banquet in The Grave: He writes: Some idols hook our bodily passions and desires. This group of addictions include drugs (legal and illegal), alcohol, sexual sin and food. These idolatries can provide physical pleasure, relieve physical tension, and soothe physical desires. Such payoffs can be difficult to resist.
Repentance over sexual sin, therefore, requires repenting over the idolatry of our heart that led to such sin. We must repent of the sin beneath the sin. In other words, victory over sexual sin cannot come without addressing the idols that lead to it. Repentance means to:
- Recognize how inadequate your idol is to truly satisfy your heart. “Lord, I have foolishly made this good thing absolute. What is this compared to you? It cannot bless me, and love me, and help me like you.”
- Recognize how dangerous your idol is to you. It enslaves and will never be satisfied. “Lord, why am I giving this idol (sexual pleasure) such power over me. If I keep yielding to sexual sin, it will lock me in chains. With your help, I will not let this idol jerk me around, as if I were a dog on a leash. This will not be my master. You are my only king.”
- Recognize how grievous this idol is to Christ. “Lord, I can’t imagine how repulsive this idol is to you. In yearning for this more than yearning to please you, I have trampled your love for me into the mud. I have gone after another lover and said that you are inadequate to meet my needs.”
D. Remember that God never intended Christian men to fight their spiritual battles alone. After all, we have to fight a three-front war, with Satan who knows just how to tempt us, with a sinful nature that wants to overpower us, and with the world, which wants to entice us. If we are fighting sexual sin in the dark, telling no one about it, we will lose most of the time. I John 1 tells us we must bring our sin into the light to have victory over it. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (vs 7-10).
Joe Dallas, in the Every Man’s Battle workshop points out: Sexual sin thrives in the dark. If you’re caught up in any sexual vice, one thing is certain; the secrecy surrounding your behavior is what strengthens its hold on you. However ashamed you may feel about admitting your problem to another person, the reality is this: You can’t overcome this on your own. If you could, wouldn’t you have done so by now?
There is tremendous power in accountability. Steve Gallagher, in his book, At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, says it straight up:
Being brutally honest with oneself is crucial, but it is only the beginning. One man who had been convicted for attempted rape, but later struggled his way out of sexual addiction said, “If you don’t want to get rid of the problem, confess it only to God. If you want to get rid of the problem confess it to another person. And if you really want to get rid of the problem, keep yourself accountable.” Yet another man who is now living in victory said, “I confessed my sin to God for years. I mean, I poured my heart out, begging for his forgiveness, but it was within weeks of starting to confess to another brother, that I obtained victory.”
E. Always let failure drive you TOWARDS Christ, NOT AWAY FROM Christ.
Here are 4 facets of the perspective you need to prevent DEFEAT from keeping you down.
1. Realize that winning a war means fighting many battles some of which you are going to lose. The war against lust is much more like the war against terrorism than a conventional war. Our sinful nature extends to every part of our being. Since sinful habit patterns are deeply entrenched, unable to be dislodged without a difficult fight, you must bring determination to this fight or you will never succeed. You need to recognize that you are in for a long, hard fight or you will get discouraged. Though you will never be rid of your sinful nature in this life, you don’t have to be enslaved to it. Grace does change our hearts.
2. Realize Satan wants to use your guilt and shame over sexual sin to drive you away from Christ. DON’T LET HIM! Quote Romans 8:1 back to Satan, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Use Jesus forgiveness, granted AGAIN motivate you to live out Jesus’ words, “He who is forgiven much, loves much.”
3. Reject a warped view of God that envisions his reactions only to your failures but not to your successes. If on a given day you bounce your eyes, and say, “no” to impure thoughts twelve times, but lose the battle and surrender to lust once, why would you feel only God’s displeasure with your failure and not his pleasure with the twelve times you pleased him? Confess your sin, but also find joy in the twelve times you pleased your heavenly father. He does!!
4. Remember, real failure is not losing a battle, it is staying down! Joe Dallas says,
It isn’t the sinless man who makes it to the end; rather, it’s the man who’s learned to pick himself up after he stumbles. If you’re struggle seems relentless, remember this; when you commit yourself to sexual integrity, you commit yourself to a DIRECTION, not to PERFECTION. You may stumble along the way—that’s no justification for sin, just a realistic view of life in this fallen world. What determines the success or failure of an imperfect man is his willingness to pick himself up, confess his fault, and continue in the direction he committed himself to. Remember Paul’s approach: “Forgetting those things that are behind, I press on towards the mark of the high calling” (Every Man’s Battle Workshop).
For Further Thought:
1. What situations that bring temptation do you need to do better job of avoiding?
2. Identify the negative feelings that make you vulnerable to “Illicit Sexual Pleasure’s whisper, “Wanna feel better—in fact REAL good?”
3. Are you fighting your battles with lust too much in the dark? What steps might you take towards having a brother helping you fight this battle?
The material for this 4-week series, Managing Our Sexuality for God’s Glory was taken from a 56 page, mini-book, entitled Grace Transformed Sexuality: How Grace Changes a Man’s Heart and His Battle with Lust is available in this website's store. It is designed as a Bible Study that can be used individually or as a group with (safe) discussion questions at the end of each the nine chapters.
