Lust / Chastity

Two weeks ago, an article appeared in the Johnson City Press titled, Seven Deadly Sins are Alive and Well on Television.” The article asks,

Do you know the seven deadly sins? Covetousness, sloth, gluttony, envy, pride, anger, and lust. If you watch movies and television, you should be quite familiar with all seven. Let me pose another question. How often do you see the seven heavenly virtues depicted on television or movie theater screen? Do you know what they are? If so, you should give yourself a pat on the back.

The author then goes on to discuss the complete lack of morals on television and in the movies. And she’s right on target. You remember the old song, “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don’t mess with Mister In-between.” Today, however, we accentuate negative and ignore the positive. It’s claimed that television only mirrors society. If it does, it finds the worst of society to spotlight while completely ignoring that which is good. We have completely forgotten the admonition of Paul to the Philippians:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.(Philippians 4:8)

Isaiah refers to a day when people will call evil good and good evil. This is no truer than of the deadly sin we will look at today – lust – a sin Jewish scholars have called the chief of all sins.

In doing research for this series, I came across a website that compares the seven deadly sins to the seven stranded members of SS Minnow in the television series Giligan’s Island.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan’s Island theory is quite simple. Each of the seven characters on the island represents each of the seven deadly sins. Most obvious is the Professor, who fits PRIDE to a T. Any man who can make a ham radio out of some wire and two coconuts has to be pretty cocky. (His character was later revised and given a series of his own, called “MacGyver.”) For the sin of ENVY we need look no further than Mary Ann, who may have worn those skimpy little tops, but could never achieve Ginger’s glamour. The Skipper is linked to ANGER. He was, after all, a big guy with the tendency to hit Gilligan with his hat at least once an episode. We must connect Mrs. Howell to GLUTTONY, Giligan with SLOTH, and Mr. Howell gets my vote for GREED. And who could doubt for a moment that Ginger is LUST incarnate?

Lust is the sin of Ginger, but probably not for the reason you think. When Sherwood Schwartz wrote the character he wanted a cross between Marilyn Monroe, and Lucile Ball. But what she evolved into was something entirely different. Sure, she was good looking and the beautiful movie star but there was also another side as well. Ginger was the most powerful castaway on the island. She used her looks to get her way with the men castaways, used her youth to get her way with Mrs. Howell, and used her knowledge to get her way with the little farm girl Mary Ann. She thought that she was the most important person and that everyone was there at her disposal.

Lust is a difficult subject to talk about, especially in mixed company, even though both genders struggle with it – though the object of their lust may differ. Therapists suggests that men think about sex every three minutes and women every six minutes.

I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago when I was at Johnson and told him I would be preaching this message. I asked if he had any suggestions. He only said that when preaching about extremely serious subjects it sometimes helps to add a little humor. But when I asked if he knew of any humor related to this subject, he kind of frowned. Even though this isn’t going to be just loads of fun, we all need to hear it.

Part of the problem we have in confronting this fifth deadly sin is the same one we had last week with gluttony. We have a definition in our mind as to what it means that doesn’t always go along with scripture. If I had taken a survey beforehand as to the meaning of lust, most if not all would say it has something to do with sexual desire. As does the Bible. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.” But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)

However, there’s more. In the Bible, the word lust itself is morally neutral. It is the context that determines whether it describes a sin or not.

If asked if Jesus ever lusted, how would you answer? No, he never lusted. He may have noticed how beautiful Mary Magdalene was, but he never permitted that observation to take root in his heart. However, we read in Luke 22:15 where Jesus said:

I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. (Luke 22:15)

The King James translates it more literally when it reads, “With desire I have desired. . . .” The repetition of the verb and noun forms is used for emphasis. The Greek word translated desire (epithumia) is the same word used in Ephesians 2:3.

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. (Ephesians 2:3)

While it is translated “desire” it is understood to be a desire with an evil intent, linked to our sinful nature. This same word is also found again in 1 Thessalonians 4 where we read:

each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God. (1 Thessalonians 4:4-5)

The word is translated desire and was good when Jesus wanted to celebrate the Passover one last time with his disciples. However, it is understood to be sin when it is a desire that controls us – our is perhaps part of our desire to control others. Thus, our battle today is to keep our desires pure.

The Bible contains some rather steamy tails of men and women losing that battle and giving in to their desires. Judah and Tamar, the men of Sodom, Amnon and a different Tamar, David and Bathsheba, and Absalom to name just a few.

The battle with lust has always been difficult, but it’s being waged in different, more challenging ways today. We know that Solomon said there’s nothing new under the sun, but modern technology has enabled us to commit old sins in a more efficient manner. The internet provides 24-hour accessibility, anonymity, affordability and immoral extremes. In August, 1997 there were 72,000 sexually explicit sites on the Internet. Today it’s estimated that 266 new sites are added every day.

But the computer and the internet are only the beginning. By the time our youth graduate from high school they will have spent an average of 15,000 hours watching TV, 12,000 hours in the classroom, and many fewer in any kind of religious activity. The average American teen will view nearly 14,000 sexual references a year, yet only 165 in a healthy way. One study says that 70% of all programs on American television contain sexual content.

It’s overwhelming. And I didn’t even mention the magazines at the checkout line in the grocery store, billboards along the roadside, movie channels, or the epidemic of immodest apparel that even our middle school is fighting.

For men, the power offered in pornography is the belief that you can always find someone who is always beautiful, ready, willing and able.

Actress Michelle Pfeiffer appeared on the cover of a magazine a few years back with the caption “What Michelle Pfeiffer Needs Is . . . Absolutely Nothing.” Well, maybe. Here is a list of things done by the touch up artist to make her appear perfect.

Clean up complexion, soften eye lines, soften smile line, all color to lips, trim chin, remove neck lines, soften lines under earlobe, and highlights to earrings, add blush to cheek, clean up neckline, remove stray hairs, adjust color and add hair on top of head, add forehead.

Total price $1,525.00. The beauty we see in magazines and on TV is only a lie.

For women, who make up 45% of the pornography market, there is the search for the perfect man who always saves the victim, but is tender, listens, and shares his feelings. But have you ever noticed that people in movies and novels never belch? They barely eat. Their fingernails are always clean. And they never need deodorant. It’s an unreal world.

In our list of steamy biblical stories, we mentioned earlier we forgot to mention one person, Eve. Eve’s undoing was immediately attributable to lust.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. (Genesis 3:6)

Eve was also undone by lust because sex isn’t the problem in lust any more than food is the problem in gluttony. At its core, Eve had a lust for knowledge, a lust for power.

Our problem with lust is that we believed that power gives us control. We suppose that we can control the situations in our life and that we are in control of our destiny. This power takes away every thought of consequences and the dangers that wait for us. Our minds become blinded by this lust for power. And in the end, the lust for power doesn’t provide us with control, it strips us of it. Paul told the Romans:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.(Romans 12:2)

Drew Anderson wrote to Reader’s Digest with this story:

While my wife and I were shopping at a mall kiosk, a shapely young woman in a short, form-fitting dress strolled by. My eyes followed her. Without looking up from the item she was examining, my wife asked, “Was it worth the trouble you’re in?”

The answer is no. It is not just the trouble we can get into with our spouse, but the trouble it can lead to in every other area of lives. So, we must make a decision, to give into the sinful desires of our flesh or choose self-control and chastity.

Sometimes lust is viewed like any other physical desire. Take thirst for example. When I’m thirsty if I just get something to drink, I’m not thirsty anymore. But that’s not true with lust. Lust is more like a fire, the more we feed it the more it wants. Lust slowly drags us down till it destroys us.

Paul Harvey illustrated the deceptive power of lust over our lives when he told the story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf.

First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood. Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night. So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more – until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!

The account is grisly, yet it offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destructive nature of sin. It is a fearful thing that people can be “consumed by their own lusts.” Only God’s grace keeps us from the wolf’s fate. Lust must not be fed; it must be starved.

In their book, Every Man’s Battle, the authors ask this question, “What’s your aim in life – excellence or obedience?” The authors insist that to aim for obedience is to aim for perfection while aiming for excellence is often much less.

They give the example of a company aiming for excellence. It is desire is to deliver an excellent product with excellent service. Perfection however, costs too much. A company doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to seem perfect to its customers. So, it reaches a profitable balance between perfection and excellence. To find this middle ground a company will often look at how others businesses in their market are doing. How much do they need to do to seem perfect, to be excellent to their customers?

It might work for business, but does it work in the Christian life? Do we have to be perfect? Can’t we settle with excellence? After finishing the section in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says “You have heard it said . . . but I tell you . . .”, Jesus gives us the answer when he says:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

Be perfect. This is the standard God sets for us – not excellence but perfection. That is our goal. We may not reach it this side of heaven, but can we aim for anything less?

Fred Stoeker tells this story of Pete and Mary who were attending a premarital class he was teaching at their church. At the end of one of the session the couple approached him. Pete started. “Your discussion on sexual purity really hit home last week, especially when you said that viewing pornography and X-rated movies won’t strengthen your marriage. My first wife used to rent X-rated movies and we would watch them together before going to bed. In the end, it hurt us. Mary and I will not do this in our marriage.”

Then Mary stepped in. “We’ve been having an ongoing struggle over what we watch together. We’ll often rent a movie to watch at my apartment, but you know how it is. Most of the popular movies have some pretty racy scenes, and I’m feeling more and more uncomfortable with this. When it gets steamy, I tell Pete we need to turn it off, but he gets angry, arguing that we’ve invested good money in the rental and it’s a waste of money to shut it off. So, I go off into the kitchen to do some work while he finishes watching.” She got a tear in her eye and looked down. “I don’t feel these movies are good for us,” She said. “I’ve asked him to stop for my sake, but he won’t. We make it a practice to pray together before he goes home, but after these movies, I often feel dirty and cheap. I feel these movies are coming between us.”

In this area, was Pete in search of excellence or obedience? By the standards of most, Pete knew he could watch those popular movies with their racy sexual situations and still “seem” Christian. But is that all’s that’s needed? What’s our aim in life – excellence or obedience?

In so many areas of our lives, we’re often sitting together in the middle ground of excellence, a good distance from God. When we are challenged by God’s higher standards, we’re comforted by the fact that we don’t look too different from those around us. Trouble is, we don’t look much different from non-Christians either.

What can we expect from our across-the-board commitment to the middle ground? Don’t we realize that recent converts – not to mention our own children – will become just like us? Will it be a comfort to see them just as lazy regarding their personal devotion to Jesus as we are?

2 Chronicles 34 tells the story of a revival that occurred in the southern kingdom of Judah. A copy of God’s Law, which had long been lost and forgotten, was discovered during a renovation of the temple. This copy of God’s Law was read to twenty-six-year-old King Josiah. When he heard God’s standards and realized how far the people were from them, it broke his heart. Josiah didn’t say, “Oh come on, we’ve lived like this for years and it hasn’t hurt us. Let’s not get legalistic about this.” No, Josiah was horrified. He tore his robes as a sign of his grief. He said:

Great is the LORD’s anger that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written in this book. (2 Chronicles 34:21)

Josiah sought God’s forgiveness and further guidance. He didn’t try to cover up the sins of the people. Nor did he try to excuse them. After all, the Law of God had been lost, no one knew anything about it. Josiah dealt openly with the sins. And God quickly answered with these words about Josiah’s reaction:

Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD. (2 Chronicles 34:27)

Josiah led the entire nation in a thorough return to obedience to God’s standards. They renewed their covenant to God and they removed the idols from all the land belonging to the Israelites. We are told that as long as Josiah lived the people did not fail to follow God’s commands. There was no mixture. Josiah’s goal was not excellence but obedience.

And that should be the goal of our lives. Anything less is sin. Our goal is not to look good before men but to be found pleasing before God. The Bible admits there is pleasure in sin. But the pleasure is short lived.

Charles Spurgeon once told this parable about the dangers of dangers of sin.

There was once a tyrant who summoned one of his subjects into his presence, and ordered him to make a chain. The poor blacksmith – that was his occupation – had to go to work and forge the chain. When it was done, he brought it into the presence of the tyrant, and was ordered to take it away and make it twice the length. He brought it again to the tyrant, and again he was ordered to double it. Back he came when he had obeyed the order, and the tyrant looked at it, and then commanded the servants to bind the man hand and foot with the chain he had made and cast him into prison.

“That is what the devil does with men,” Mr. Spurgeon said. “He makes them forge their own chain, and then binds them hand and foot with it, and casts them into outer darkness.”

That is just what every sinner is doing. But thank God, we can tell them of a deliverer. The Son of God has power to break every one of their fetters if they will only come to him.