For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 19,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2007-09-18 issue:

The deadly sin of lust

Lust degrades God's gift of sex.

by Steve Thomas

Print Article

God created sexual passion for loving intimacy. The Song of Solomon unveils this passion as a burning, erotic desire between a bride and groom to enjoy each other’s body. This passion is so powerful in the poem that we hear a repeated refrain, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it is ready.”

There’s nothing wrong with this erotic love, unless it turns to lust. And what is lust? A disorder of sexual desire. It’s not noticing an attractive person or the natural arousal we feel. Rather it is the carnal craving to gratify one’s flesh with that of another. It looks upon a person as a sexual object to use in order to satisfy one’s selfish desire.

Lust is the deadly sin that dishonors women and disgraces men. Lust is the deadly sin that defiles minds and destroys marriages. And lust is the deadly sin that degrades God’s gift of sex.

Of the seven deadly sins, lust may be the most gender specific. While some females struggle with this, the majority of males have a problem with lust, evident in that most boys and men admit to using pornography. So this article speaks mostly to men.

We do well to hear the warning of Proverbs 5. Those who are lured by lust will be ensnared, captured and destroyed. Sound exaggerated? Consider the deadly outcomes of lust: dishonor, financial waste and ruined reputation, to say nothing of degraded women, broken marriages and a spouse’s wrath.

The Bible is open about sexual passion and honest about sexual failure. Consider David, Israel’s greatest king, a man after God’s own heart and composer of inspiring psalms. He was overtaken by his lust for Bathsheba, which led to adultery, pregnancy and a violent coverup.

Like his father, Solomon was brought to ruin by lust. God’s wisest king and writer of countless proverbs knew better but didn’t do better. Overcome by his lust, his heart turned from God, and this great man fell into ruin, revealing the sway of lust.

Paul understood the tormenting battle between flesh and spirit. Realizing the captivating power of sin, he confessed: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15, 23-24).

With these men I, too, know the overpowering compulsion of lust. Not long ago, I came across a pornographic magazine. I knew better but didn’t do better. I entertained the thought of taking a peek, which thickened into desire and desire into passion. Too late. I yielded to lust and lost the battle. As Thomas a Kempis notes in The Imitation of Christ, the only time to stop temptation is at first recognition of the thought. After that, if one engages in combat with passion, temptation usually wins.

Browsing offered fleeting satisfaction, and I was left in an emotional stew. I was guilty of spiritual infidelity by looking with lust upon degrading pictures of women. I had self-contempt for committing adultery in my heart. I felt shameful in breaking my vow of chastity and betraying my commitment to honor women as beloved daughters of God. With Paul I felt, “Wretched man that I am!”

I threw that magazine away, lest it ensnare me again. But here’s the problem: Pornography is available everywhere in cyberspace. Part of a dark media empire generating more revenue than ABC, CBS and NBC combined, Internet porn is just a click away. And with just a click one is pulled into the pit of cyber porn.

It’s absurd what we trade for our sexual craving. Remember how in his hunger Esau traded his inheritance for Jacob’s bowl of stew? Noting the power of lust to dominate our will, Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship notes that lust “brings the whole body into hell, making us sell our heavenly birthright for a mess of pottage. … The gains of lust are trivial compared with the loss it brings—you forfeit your body eternally for the momentary pleasure of eye or hand.”

Consider the trade a person makes to satisfy the craving of lust with momentary pleasure. Like Esau trading his birthright for a bowl of stew, to gratify our flesh, we trade honor for violation, freedom for bondage, esteem for shame, sexual intimacy for tainted sex, reputation for disrepute.

No one in his right mind would make such a trade. But we’re not in our right mind. We’re set not on the Spirit but on the flesh in a world saying, “Gratify your desires.” In this corrupt culture, we are spiritually seduced by the lord of flesh and taken captive to the Tempter’s pit.

How can we overcome this deadly sin and captivating vice? Not by trying to overpower this spirit alone. By ourselves we are powerless against lust. If it can bring down a mighty warrior like David and a wise king like Solomon, it can easily conquer any of us. We need help.
Here’s good news: God delivers us from sin and shame. Jesus, who prevailed against temptation, frees us from the grip of lust. And the Spirit empowers us to overcome temptation.

God offers us amazing, freeing, redeeming grace. As he spoke to the woman caught in sexual sin, Jesus says to us, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” And the Spirit enables us to live a chaste life.

Chastity involves more than keeping your garments on or your zipper up; chastity involves how we look upon each other. Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).

Here’s where all men are convicted at some point. I haven’t committed adultery, but with every other man I’ve been guilty of looking upon a woman with lust. By doing so, I have dishonored women, disgraced myself and degraded God’s gift.

To recover a sexual life that is free, pure and loving, Jesus takes us to the heart of chastity by calling us to look upon others and ourselves for who we are. We are not objects for lust but people to love.

A word to males: Yes, we will notice a woman’s body. But if we gaze upon a woman, look into her eyes to see her not as a to-be-lusted object of desire but a beloved daughter of God.
Men, like Jesus, we need to rely on God’s Word and Spirit. We also need each other to keep us honest, share our struggles and receive support. We need to admit our problem to ourselves, to God and to another person. We must break the silence and the grip of our secrets, for there is freeing power in sharing with trusted friends. With God and others we can address our deeper needs and hunger that make us vulnerable to lust. By God’s grace and with the support of others, we can become Christian men of integrity and honor women as beloved daughters of God.

A word to females: Our corrupt culture tells you to look upon yourself as an object of desire. Resist this. Refuse to let society dictate what you should look like and to dress as game to predatory males. Realize who you are, beholding your beauty as a beloved daughter of God. Refuse anyone who treats you as an object of desire. Find and use your voice to say no to all forms of sexual degradation. And reclaim your body, embracing who God created you to be.

Let us all redeem the gifts of sexual passion and true intimacy that God created.

Steve Thomas is pastor at Walnut Hill Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind.

Reader Comments

Add Comments