May 17
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)
Today I’d like to address an area that seems to be becoming more and more of an epidemic among non-believers and believers alike, the issue of lust. The internet today feeds and fuels and stirs up temptations of lust and immorality to a degree few of us would have ever imagined to be possible a few decades ago. Every type of immorality and perversion is instantly available in graphic display with just a few key strokes. Sins and evil practices that one would have had to go to great lengths to get access to in the past now can flood our minds and corrupt our hearts and gain a foothold in our lives with just a small amount of carelessness. It is a great evil of our day, and each person who is tempted in this area will have to face and come to the point where they gain daily victory over it.
If you are enslaved with addictions to pornography, hopefully you know it is evil and are aware of its enslaving grip on you. In a few months, after we finish discussing each of the twenty four overcoming temptation principles, I hope to spend a few days addressing this evil in more detail, but for today, I would like to point out other areas of lust besides the obvious viewing of pornography that can be less obvious to us but nonetheless is evidence of sin in our lives. The following will apply mostly to men, I believe, but women are more and more influenced and tempted by lustful thoughts in these times than perhaps in the past, so I am told.
LUST. Do you desire the beauty of other women besides your wife (or the attractiveness of other men besides your husband)? If you see a beautiful woman, do you enjoy staring or gazing at her or do you study her features admiringly? Or if you are a woman, do you do gaze at attractive men and admire their physical features? Do you ever make inappropriate comments, gestures, or give other indications of approval about the appearance of members of the opposite sex to them or others? Do you have a habit of regularly noticing and complimenting women on their appearance? Do you tend to measure people’s value based on how attractive they seem to you? If you see someone who is very unattractive, are you repulsed by them or do you make negative comments about them to others? If you see an attractive woman/man on TV, in some movie, in some advertisement, or on the internet, do find yourself staring at them and studying their features? Do you search on the internet and seek out pictures of individuals that you consider beautiful? Do you ever desire the women (or men) that you see and imagine yourself being married to them instead of your spouse? Do you ever imagine yourself having sexual acts with people other than your spouse? Do you ever have unnatural sexual desires come into your heart and mind that you are tempted with? Do you find yourself thinking it might be desirable to be able to have more than one wife (or husband)? Do you ever find yourself dissatisfied with or in disagreement with God’s prohibitions against immorality? Do you ever harbor resentment in your heart toward your wife or your husband because of their appearance? If you were single and choosing the qualities in a potential spouse that were most important to you, how important would appearance be to you, really? Would you rate appearance and physical features more importance than godliness and character?
These and other questions can help us discern whether or not lust has a foothold in our hearts. Some of us might think that if we aren’t viewing pornography or having an affair that we aren’t committing adultery or don’t have a problem with lust. I disagree. I believe that God calls us to absolutely pure and free from immorality, not just in action but in our minds and hearts as well. This is a high calling indeed, and anything less is living a contaminated and weakened life, in my opinion. Examine yourself carefully and honestly, and I think many may see more lust in your hearts than you realized was there before.