Arrow of Lust

Arrows of Satan

Lust

I John 2:15-17

Theme: God show us the dangers of lust and how to get victory over it.

Welcome to MVBC. It is a tremendous blessing for us to have you attending the today’s service. We are also delighted to have first time guests here with us today. It would be a great honor to have you connect with us. Please stop by the welcome center that you might get better acquainted.

Take out your bulletins please. Consecration, connection, commitment, and calling. If God is leading you to join MVBC, we are having a Welcome to the Family Class coming up September 8 at 9:55 AM. Please fill out a connection card and hand to me if you are interested in attending this three-week. You can get your questions answered and learn more about the mission and history of MVBC.

Currently we are in a summer series entitled: Arrows of Satan. We have been examining the attitudes and allurements Satan throws at us to keep unbelievers from accepting Christ and believers from getting closer to Christ. This will be spiritual attitudes and values Satan throws to draw us away from God. The purpose of this study is to identify the arrows and learn how to overcome them as God teaches us In the Bible.

Our study has been on unbelief, envy, fear, and last week was pride.

Today’s arrow is a very deceptive one: Lust

Lust means to desire and it is generally used in connection to sexual desire. However, the word itself means desire for something that has been exaggerated. Lust is a difficult arrow because man is made with natural desires for food, water, clothing, and sex. These are natural and normal when exercised Biblically. Since Satan did not create these things, he will pervert and corrupt these things. The power of this arrow has taken a much deeper effect on our world.

A group of first-graders had just completed a tour of a hospital, and the nurse who had directed them was asking for questions. Immediately a hand went up. “How come the people who work here are always washing their hands?” one boy asked. After the laughter subsided, the nurse gave a wise answer. “They are ‘always washing their hands’ for two reasons. First, they love health; and second, they hate germs.” In more than one area of life, love and hate go together. A husband who loves his wife is certainly going to exercise hatred what would harm her.

There are verses in Scripture which indicate this very truth regarding our love for the Lord. If you love God, you will hate anything that hurts your love for God.

“Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: He preserveth the souls of his saints; He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” (Psalm 97:10)

“Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” (Romans 12:9)

In I John, God is teaching us what we are to know about loving God and hating sin. Since Satan is throwing the arrows to corrupt our desires, we need to be aware of the areas of these desires and how to deal with them. A great way to defeat the enemy is to love the truth and hate falsehood.

In verses 7-11 of the same chapter, John is showing us the right kind of love.

The Problem

He states the problem: the allurement to love the world. In Scripture the world is defined in three ways. First of all the planet and the atmosphere in which God created. These are the natural elements of God’s creation. Secondly, the world speaks of people. John 3:16 is addressed to people. Thirdly, the organized system which is controlled by Satan as a rival to God. This system will seek to destroy our live for the Lord and our service for Him.

Worldliness is not so much a matter of activity as of attitude. It is possible for a Christian to stay away from questionable amusements and doubtful places and still love the world, for worldliness is a matter of the heart. To the extent that a Christian loves the world system and things in it, he does not love the father as John writes here.

Worldliness hurts our love towards God.

God is teaching us that lust is connected to the world’s system. This is where we are lured into the system.

God has given us certain desires that are good and normal. Hunger, thirst, weariness, and sex are not evil in themselves. There is nothing wrong with eating, drinking, sleeping, or begetting children. But when the flesh nature controls them, they become sinful lusts. Hunger is not evil, but gluttony is sinful. Sleep is not evil but laziness is a sin. Sex is God’s precious gift when used rightly, but when used wrongly, it becomes immorality.

The choice

Satan is shooting his arrow of lust to get us to desire things contrary to God’s will. He wants us to make choices that will lead us from God and to ultimately ignore God completely in our lives. Satan wants to get us so in love with the world that we ignore God. He thinks if he can fill up your life with worldliness, you will have no desire for God.

Our choices will be to live for this world or live for the next world. To live for the temporal or to live for the eternal. To follow this world or follow the Lord. To be filled with the ungodliness of the world or be filled with the Holy Spirit. Do we live sinful or do we live Godly?

Basically you cannot have both. It is either one or the other and the choice is personal. Verse 15 spells it out for us: “if any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him.” You might say lust is Satan’s way of getting us to attach to the world which will take us away from God.

The tools

Lust of the flesh which includes anything that appeals to the fallen nature of man. Flesh refers to the basic nature of unregenerate man that makes him blind to spiritual truth.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Flesh is the nature we receive at physical birth and the spirit is the nature we receive at the second birth. This lust of the flesh is the desire to do something apart from the will of God which includes corrupt desires.

Lust of the eyes is the desire to have something apart from the will of God. Whatever is appealing to our senses, but is not properly ours to desire.

“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Genesis 3:6)

Satan brought the desire of having that which is forbidden to Adam and Eve.

It seems that man is easily attracted when Satan shoots his arrow of lust to that which is forbidden. Dogs love the taste of antifreeze. If they get near it, they love to lick antifreeze. Antifreeze contains ethylene glycol which is deadly. This will take the life of a dog. Mankind seems to have this attraction to this arrow of lust. They can be lured into things through lusts that will hurt their spiritual life.

Pride of life which we spent an entire message on last week. Pride of life is the desire to be something apart from God’s will.

Pride is when we think of ourselves over what God says or thinks. Adam and Eve struggled with this arrow as well because it is rooted in wrong desires.

The world operates by taking normal appetites and temps us to satisfy them in forbidden ways. In our world today, we are surrounded by all kinds of allurements that appeal to us.

The cure

We can only overcome this arrow of lust through the power of God. A worldly person lives for the pleasures of the flesh and things of this world, but a dedicated Christian lives for the joys of the Spirt. A spiritual Christian lives for the heavenly things spoken in Colossians. Believers need to set their affections in the right place. It is a choice we make.

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:2)

God has placed a desire in your life to know Him. There is a deep longing for God and Satan will shoot his arrow of lust to desire a Savior substitute. Only Jesus can satisfy that inner longing in your heart.

When you accept Jesus Christ, you are doing the will of the father in v. 17. God is not willing that any should perish. He wants you to know Him as your personal Savior. Will you call upon Him who died for you today? Will you accept Jesus as your Savior?

ChristIan, are you living for the Lord? Worldliness can creep int our lives gradually without us realizing it. The process is spelled out in Scripture

Friendship of the world James 4:4-by nature the world and the Christian are enemies but when we are friends with the world, the process has started.

Spotted by the world “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27)

Controlled by the world-think and act like the world.

To overcome this arrow, as a Christian, decide to turn your desires over to God’s control. Let God feed your soul on His Word and focus on heavenly things. Choose Christ over the lusts of the flesh, over the lusts of eyes, and over the pride of life. When you make that choice, you are doing the will of God spoken of here. This means church is a priority, prayer and Bible reading is a priority. The stronger we get in our walk the less effect the temptations of world will have on us.

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

Believers who are walking in the Spirit and serving God will not have a desire to fulfill the lust of the flesh. Believer, God gives us the antidote to defeat this arrow in our life.

Perhaps today you need to come and decide to give up your worldliness and place your desires on things above.