WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.879 We're going to read together from Proverbs chapter 7. 00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:08.720 That's our text from which our teaching is based this morning, Proverbs chapter 7. 00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:10.599 This is God's word. 00:00:10.599 --> 00:00:14.880 My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you. 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:16.839 Keep my commandments and live. 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:19.199 Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. 00:00:19.199 --> 00:00:20.960 Bind them on your fingers. 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:23.240 Write them on the tablets of your heart. 00:00:23.240 --> 00:00:25.879 Say to wisdom, you are my sister. 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:30.280 And call inside your intimate friend to keep you from the forbidden woman, 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:33.000 from the adulteress with her smooth words. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.359 For at the window of my house, I have looked out through my lattice 00:00:36.359 --> 00:00:42.200 and I have seen among the simple and I have perceived among the use a young man lacking sense. 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:46.519 Passing along the streets near her corner, taking the road to her house 00:00:46.519 --> 00:00:50.759 in the twilight in the evening, at the time of night and darkness. 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:55.879 And behold, the woman meets him dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. 00:00:55.879 --> 00:00:58.039 She is loud and wayward. 00:00:58.039 --> 00:00:59.960 Her feet do not stay at home. 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:03.560 Now on the street, now in the market and at every corner she lies and waits. 00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:06.280 She seizes him and kisses him. 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:10.039 And with bold face she says to him, I had to offer sacrifices. 00:01:10.039 --> 00:01:14.359 And today I have paid my vows, so now I have come out to meet you, 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:16.840 to seek you eagerly and I have found you. 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:22.200 I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen. 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:25.800 I have perfumed my bed with my murals and cinnamon. 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:28.520 Come let us take our fill of love till the morning. 00:01:29.320 --> 00:01:31.320 Let us delight ourselves with love. 00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:32.600 For my husband is not at home. 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:34.520 He has gone on a long journey. 00:01:34.520 --> 00:01:36.520 He took a bag of money with him. 00:01:36.520 --> 00:01:37.960 At full moon he will come home. 00:01:38.520 --> 00:01:41.879 With much seductive speech she persuades him. 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:44.040 With her smooth talk she compels him. 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:45.879 All at once he follows her. 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:49.640 As an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast. 00:01:50.199 --> 00:01:52.599 Till an arrow pierces its liver. 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:57.399 As a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life. 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:01.640 And now listen to me and be attentive to the words of my mouth. 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:04.199 Let not your heart turn aside to her ways. 00:02:04.199 --> 00:02:06.199 Do not stray into her paths. 00:02:06.199 --> 00:02:11.000 For many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are mighty throng. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:15.800 Her house is the way to shield going down to the chambers of death. 00:02:16.840 --> 00:02:18.520 This is God's holy word. 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:25.960 We're working our way in the summertime through proverbs and through specifically 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:31.159 problems of the human heart that appear most frequently across the book of proverbs. 00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:35.400 And so so far we've looked at pride, envy, and anger. 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.920 And today as you might have noticed from the reading, 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:44.439 we turn to one of the big problems across the book of proverbs, and that's the problem of lust. 00:02:45.799 --> 00:02:50.039 So if you're a first-time visitor today, you've come on a wonderful day. 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:53.239 Welcome to St. Columbus. 00:02:54.919 --> 00:02:57.959 We're going to talk about sexual lust from the Bible. 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:05.479 But actually this is really important of course because sex and sexuality is always 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:09.159 upfront in the culture we live in. 00:03:09.159 --> 00:03:13.799 And so if the church has got to be talking about it all the time and got to be treating these issues. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:20.839 And proverbs five to seven actually is a series of texts that are very similar. 00:03:20.839 --> 00:03:25.879 We read really a sample of proverbs seven, proverbs five and six do very similar things. 00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:29.399 Talk about what's called here translated as the forbidden woman. 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:33.000 And really we're going to see in a moment that it's talking about something 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:37.719 underneath the surface of the text. It's talking about the problem of lust. 00:03:37.719 --> 00:03:43.879 And it is so critical to talk about this because the contemporary culture actually says to us that 00:03:43.879 --> 00:03:49.719 that lust is okay and that lust is normal. It's just a part of what a human being naturally, 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:54.439 instinctively does and is. And the Bible comes and says actually it's a big problem. 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:59.159 And it's one of the great human struggles and that we should fight to put it away. 00:03:59.159 --> 00:04:04.520 And so you've got two very different visions of what lust is. One says that it's good and one 00:04:04.520 --> 00:04:09.560 says that it's not. And so let's look at that and explore that for a few minutes this morning. 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:15.879 We're going to look at two things. First, the nature of lust and then secondly, the way out. 00:04:15.879 --> 00:04:20.439 So very simple. The nature of lust and the way out. So let's start with the nature of lust. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:26.600 All right. Proverbs chapter seven, as you noticed in the reading is tracing the movement 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:34.040 from lust to adultery, to the act of adultery. It doesn't ever use the word lust at all. 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:39.800 Proverbs almost never. It only shows up two times in all of Proverbs, although it talks about lust 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:45.800 and around lust all the time. But if you look at the other terms that are translated lust in the 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:51.480 Bible, it's very clear what lust very literally means. The term in the New Testament, the Greek 00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:56.759 New Testament for lust very literally just translates to over desire, too much desire. 00:04:57.640 --> 00:05:03.800 It means desiring. And this is very important. Good things, but in the wrong way, too much 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:10.280 in bad ways. What Proverbs five, six, and seven does is talks to us about how it happens, 00:05:10.280 --> 00:05:17.160 how it arises. And here in chapter seven and verse one, the father is talking to a son 00:05:17.160 --> 00:05:24.360 and he's trying to give the son wisdom. And he says that he tells his son of a story. 00:05:24.360 --> 00:05:29.880 And the story is of a young man who the father perceives through the window and he sees this young 00:05:29.880 --> 00:05:36.920 man and it says that he's being tempted by verse five very literally in the Hebrew text, 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:41.080 the strange woman. So it's translated here as forbidden woman, but it's very literally the 00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:46.280 word strange, the word strange woman. And we'll come back to that. That's important. But notice 00:05:46.279 --> 00:05:52.439 if you see in verse 12 that when the young man is walking around the city, he sees quote the 00:05:52.439 --> 00:05:58.119 strange woman on every street corner in the marketplace on that corner, on that corner, 00:05:58.119 --> 00:06:02.519 on that corner. And that's an important detail because what that tells you is that what's 00:06:02.519 --> 00:06:08.119 happening here is not an actual story. It's not the father's not literally telling a story of 00:06:08.119 --> 00:06:13.719 something he's seeing right then. He's he's speaking in metaphor. He's saying that I see a 00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:19.720 young man, I envision a young man who stands on every street corner and sees the strange woman. 00:06:20.520 --> 00:06:25.400 And so you see he's talking about more than an actual literal, literal, literal woman. He's 00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:31.960 talking about lust. And he's saying here in the young man's life, sexual lust is happening 00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:37.320 frequently on every corner. Every in the market. He's in the marketplace and he's seeing beauty 00:06:37.320 --> 00:06:41.880 that entices him and he's lusting after it. And it's happening all over the place. And what the 00:06:41.879 --> 00:06:48.759 passage is doing is very simple. It's saying it's very easy to move from the initial moment of lust 00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:55.159 to the point of external physical action in a short time. And that's he's saying that that 00:06:55.159 --> 00:07:01.480 movement from lust adultery, in the case of a married woman, a married man, is like being is 00:07:01.480 --> 00:07:06.839 like an ox or a fox being caught in the trap of the snare. That's how he compares it metaphorically 00:07:06.839 --> 00:07:13.639 here. Now you've got to read this. That's that little nuance that this is a metaphor is very, 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:19.639 very important because at the very end of the passage in verses 25 to 26, the father concludes 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:26.199 with this, let not your heart turn aside to her way, to her ways. You know, don't let your heart 00:07:26.199 --> 00:07:34.919 be captured by her. Now any modern person in Edinburgh, as the late modern 21st century people 00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:41.400 that we are, is going to come to that and read a text like this and say, you know, it really 00:07:41.400 --> 00:07:47.640 sounds like what it's saying is that when it comes to lust, women are the problem. And you know, 00:07:47.640 --> 00:07:53.000 this man's being enticed on every corner, but he's being enticed because this woman is always 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:59.080 being seductive. And she's trying to draw him. She's the one that's really doing this. She's 00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:05.479 the one at fault. And so if women would change, men wouldn't lust. But of course, proverbs, it's 00:08:05.479 --> 00:08:13.399 not doing that. Proverbs knows that lust works both ways, number one. And it has sections where men 00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:18.360 are being seductive across the book of Proverbs. But the most important qualification is that he's 00:08:18.360 --> 00:08:25.799 speaking metaphorically to both genders even. But there's a context here and the context is this. 00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:32.279 The reason why it's written like this is because Proverbs is a book originally written for boys, 00:08:32.279 --> 00:08:39.879 young men. And it was a book written for young men who were training to be leaders. They were 00:08:39.879 --> 00:08:45.399 probably royal young men in the household of Solomon and beyond. And they're training to be leaders. 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:49.799 And so this is written and there are two great characters in Proverbs, the two most dominant 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:58.279 characters. And who are they? There's one, the strange woman. She is Lady Folly. And but, 00:08:59.079 --> 00:09:03.879 you see, you can't say that he's blaming women here because who is the greatest pinnacle 00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:09.159 character of all of Proverbs? It's Lady Wisdom. And you see at the very beginning of this chapter, 00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:15.799 it says, young man, son, seek after Lady Wisdom, make her your sister. Sometimes it says mother, 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:20.519 sometimes it says friend. But basically what Proverbs teaches is a father talking to a son 00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:24.759 and saying, you need to be like your mom. She's the pinnacle of wisdom. You need to be like her 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:29.959 and grow into her. You need to find a wife, Proverbs 31. That is like your mother because she's, 00:09:29.959 --> 00:09:34.839 she's a person of wisdom. That's what Proverbs is really doing. And so he's saying metaphorically, 00:09:34.839 --> 00:09:41.159 there's Lady Wisdom and there's Lady Folly in both genders. Men and women can fall and chase 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:46.839 after Lady Wisdom or Lady Folly because ultimately what is Lady Folly here? Who is Lady Folly here? 00:09:46.839 --> 00:09:53.559 Lady Folly is what's going on in the young man's heart. It's lust. Lady Folly is lust. It's actually 00:09:53.559 --> 00:09:59.399 what's happening in him, not what's happening outside of him. And that's why when he steps onto 00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:05.879 every street corner, he sees her, meaning he's struggling in his heart and in his mind with 00:10:05.879 --> 00:10:11.159 lust. It's his problem, not her problem fundamentally. It's, but it can be, it's a woman's problem. It's 00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:18.039 a man's problem that Lady Folly is ultimately disordered desire. That's what the book of 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:23.960 Proverbs is trying to show us. Now it's hard to talk about lust without immediately jumping to 00:10:23.960 --> 00:10:30.679 the New Testament and quoting Jesus on this issue, Matthew chapter five, the most famous 00:10:30.679 --> 00:10:37.159 section on this problem. And remember what Jesus says, Matthew five, he says, if you look at another 00:10:37.159 --> 00:10:43.159 person with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. And then he goes so far as to say, 00:10:44.199 --> 00:10:50.359 if this is your struggle, pluck out your eyeball and cut off your hand to deal with it, lest your 00:10:50.359 --> 00:10:58.120 whole body be cast into hell. Now again, you come to a text like that as a modern person and you say, 00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:08.039 boy, does Jesus seem to be very negative about sexuality and sex. And further, a modern person 00:11:08.039 --> 00:11:13.240 from, and from this city is going to say, you know, what is the big deal anyway with lust? 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:18.759 Because it's something that happens in my own thought world. It doesn't harm anyone. And of 00:11:18.759 --> 00:11:25.159 course, the great rule of sexuality in the modern era is only this, do no harm. As long as you do 00:11:25.159 --> 00:11:29.639 no harm to another, you can do anything you want to do sexually. And so people are going to come 00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:35.799 and say, what's wrong with lust? It does no harm to anybody else. It's just me. It's a solo enterprise. 00:11:36.360 --> 00:11:42.679 And Jesus, two things, Jesus is not number one, not being negative about sex and sexuality. 00:11:43.319 --> 00:11:48.199 And he's saying there is a huge problem with lust. And you've got to have a bigger vision, 00:11:48.199 --> 00:11:53.720 a different vision than the way of the world in order to see that problem, in order to see the 00:11:53.720 --> 00:12:01.080 damage that it that it actually does. Okay, so the word here that Jesus uses, in fact, 00:12:01.800 --> 00:12:07.639 for lust, this New Testament word, can literally just mean greed. And that's that's where Jesus 00:12:07.639 --> 00:12:12.920 starts. That's where Proverbs seven hints. In other words, the problem with lust, the alternative 00:12:12.920 --> 00:12:19.320 vision, and I'm going to start to build it for us, is that lust is actually deep, disordered, 00:12:19.320 --> 00:12:27.480 and especially selfish desire. That's the way that the Bible takes it. Now, Jesus is not condemning 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:37.320 sex or sexuality, or even sexual desire at all. People will often say today that Christians 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:42.040 perceive of sex and the body and sexuality in really negative ways that religious people are 00:12:42.040 --> 00:12:47.480 prudish. And indeed, sometimes religious people are prudish. But you can never say that about the 00:12:47.480 --> 00:12:52.680 Bible. And if you read carefully through the Bible, one of the things that you'll see, you know, 00:12:52.680 --> 00:12:57.399 if I was to read certain passages from the song of song, song of Solomon, as we often call it, 00:12:57.399 --> 00:13:03.960 right now out loud, in St. C's, all of us would blush, you know, the Bible is not negative about 00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:08.840 sex and sexuality. It's positive. It gives a positive vision for it. But what it wants to do 00:13:08.840 --> 00:13:15.000 is say that it's, if you don't treat it in the right way, it will break you. It will destroy you 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:21.320 from the inside out and the outside in. And lust is the beginning of that problem. And here's why. 00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:27.799 Here's why lust is greedy. Here's why it's selfish. Here's why it misses what sexuality is and sexuality 00:13:27.799 --> 00:13:34.840 is for. Let me show it to you. The first thing to say, back in Proverbs 7, there's a real reason, 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:41.320 I think, why the writer uses the word strange to talk about the woman, the problem that's going on 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:49.480 in the young man's heart. Why is she called the strange woman? And it's because strange in Hebrew 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:54.840 doesn't have the connotation of weird. It has the connotation of unknown. So some people will translate 00:13:54.840 --> 00:14:00.200 this as she's a foreign woman, but that also kind of misses the mark. It's saying that she is the 00:14:00.200 --> 00:14:06.280 unknown woman on every corner. He has, in other words, he's seeing beauty all around him and he's 00:14:06.279 --> 00:14:13.399 letting that beauty entice him to the point where his thought life is running wild with it. And she 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:20.039 is the, she is exactly unknown. In other words, all he perceives about the person that he's 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:27.399 lusting after is the external. He doesn't know her. She's truly unknown. All he has is what's on 00:14:27.399 --> 00:14:33.639 the surface and he lets that run wild. And you see that that's exactly the problem with lust 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:38.439 because, and here's the start, the biblical vision of sexuality comes to us and says that 00:14:39.159 --> 00:14:44.759 the only way that sex and sexuality really work well in the order that God's created it 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:50.600 is when a person gives themselves physically when they've given themselves in every other way, 00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:58.360 emotionally, spiritually, by, by total union. And lust does the exact opposite of that. 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:04.360 Lust says, I want to have this person, but only in one way, in a way that keeps them at a distance, 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:08.600 that keeps them unknown to me. I never truly need to know them. I don't need to know their 00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:13.480 character. I don't need to ever know what a relationship with that person would really cost 00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:19.399 to me. You see, what lust does is it says, I can get sexual fulfillment, but maintain my utter 00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:25.639 freedom and individuality. And so it's fundamentally selfish. And that is the modern cosmopolitan 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:33.960 concept of sex, lust, sexuality. It's basically this. Sex in the modern world is a consumer 00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:39.559 approach. It's just like any other market transaction. It's like buying something on Amazon. 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:43.399 When two people find that they have a good that they want to share with one another, 00:15:43.399 --> 00:15:48.120 and they agree, then you can do whatever you want. And once it's over, that contract ends, 00:15:48.120 --> 00:15:53.159 you're out again. You're gone. There's no sacrifice. But there is, but there is a sacrifice, 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:59.159 because sociologists are very clear on this. And I had notes on this, but I took them out because 00:15:59.159 --> 00:16:05.799 I knew that my notes were already too long. But several quotes from different sociological studies, 00:16:06.439 --> 00:16:11.240 not from Christian sources, that have shown that the modern notion of what sex and sexuality is 00:16:11.240 --> 00:16:18.279 has utterly broken people consistently. It hasn't fulfilled these temporary sexual pleasures, 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:24.439 have not sustained society. They've destroyed society in many ways. And they break people's 00:16:24.439 --> 00:16:29.720 hearts. And it takes years and years for people to recover from a lifestyle of utter promiscuity. 00:16:29.720 --> 00:16:37.240 It's damaging. It's because it's a broken vision, because it has no understanding of what sex is 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:43.559 and what sexuality is for. And so we've got to turn today and see that the problem of lust, 00:16:43.559 --> 00:16:49.799 the problem of free sex as it's acted on in a consumer environment that we live in, 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:56.119 is all part of missing actually a vision, a vision for what all of these things actually are. And so 00:16:56.119 --> 00:17:00.679 here it is. I'm going to give it to you very fast, so we don't take up too much time. But it's two 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:06.119 things, the biblical vision that Proverbs wants us to see, that Jesus wants us to see a better way 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:14.919 for all of these things as this. One, sex is created by God only to exist within a covenant. And 00:17:16.039 --> 00:17:23.559 that's an enduring legal and spiritual vow before God and the local authorities, 00:17:24.199 --> 00:17:29.719 that you commit yourself fully to a person in every way. And C.S. Lewis picks up on this. He says 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:36.360 that the real damage of lust, pornography, sexual promiscuity is that it makes us more and more 00:17:36.360 --> 00:17:43.000 selfish because we were not made for sexual action, physical union without total union, 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:48.839 without emotional union, spiritual union. And so it doesn't work outside a covenant. Now what's a 00:17:48.839 --> 00:17:54.920 covenant? A covenant is when you so legally, before God, commit yourself to another person 00:17:54.920 --> 00:18:01.880 that you're saying, I lose my freedoms for your sake. And that only happens in the bounds of 00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:07.400 marriage as God created it between a man and a woman. And the reason that it's so, you know, 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:11.080 when we do a wedding, if you've been to weddings, you've all been to weddings, 00:18:12.360 --> 00:18:19.240 you'll hear in the vows, they'll say, in sickness and in health, you know, I commit to you before 00:18:19.240 --> 00:18:24.519 God and these witnesses in sickness and in health. In other words, no matter what comes, 00:18:24.519 --> 00:18:30.519 as long as we both live till we die. And why do we do that? Because, well, because you know that 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:37.559 if you were to ask, you know, do you need that vow on the wedding day? No. Everybody knows 00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:42.680 on the wedding day, these two people, they're in, they're all in, they're committed, they love each 00:18:42.680 --> 00:18:47.240 other, they love each other emotionally, physically, spiritually, in all these ways, they're excited. 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:54.279 But in 10 years, you know, that's when the vows really start to matter. In 10 years, in 20 years, 00:18:54.279 --> 00:19:03.000 in 50 years, when physical attractiveness isn't quite what it used to be, then the covenant 00:19:03.879 --> 00:19:10.759 is really the power to sustain the marriage. And in that, and through that, in loving with the whole 00:19:10.759 --> 00:19:15.480 self, then physical love actually all works together to create a love that's deeper than 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:19.559 anybody could ever imagine. And that's exactly what the modern world loses with the contemporary 00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:26.359 vision of sexuality loses. Now, level two, the last thing about this, and we'll move on, and this 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:33.720 is our long point, we'll have a short point. And even bigger vision than that, that sex only fulfills 00:19:33.720 --> 00:19:37.639 and works inside of a covenant, and even bigger vision of that, because you could say, well, why? 00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:47.879 Why is that? And here it is. God created sexuality, God created gender, God created sex, God created 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:53.960 us and tells us how to be, how to be fulfilled, how to act, what the things that He's made or for. 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:58.040 He tells us, and here's what He says, here's what the Bible says over and over again, 00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:06.040 that God gave sexuality and sexual love, and this is its meaning. And it's a grand meaning, 00:20:06.920 --> 00:20:12.760 one that the contemporary world can't understand without help. And this is a, that sex and sexual 00:20:12.759 --> 00:20:22.519 love is to be seen as a signpost and foretaste of the love that fulfills all loves. And that's 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:32.119 experiencing the love of God in person. That God, the Bible says, created sex and sexuality 00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:40.839 to just be an allegory and analogy of foretaste, a sign, a signpost of the ultimate love that 00:20:40.839 --> 00:20:47.720 fulfills all love that everybody was made for, and that's experiencing the love of God and being 00:20:47.720 --> 00:20:54.439 near to God. That's what sex actually exists for. And what that means actually is that sex isn't 00:20:54.439 --> 00:21:00.759 necessary. Expressing one's sexuality is actually not necessary in life, because in the biblical 00:21:00.759 --> 00:21:05.639 vision, the greatest love, the only real love that everyone needs to be ultimately fulfilled, 00:21:05.640 --> 00:21:11.080 is experiencing the love of God. And that's why when the apostle Paul comes and says, it's good 00:21:11.080 --> 00:21:18.040 to be single, he revolutionized the world, because he said, because the love of God is the only love 00:21:18.040 --> 00:21:23.880 that a person really needs to be fulfilled, that you can be single and it's great. Or you can be 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:28.200 married and it's great. And if you're married and you're, and you can express your sexuality in that 00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:34.280 way, then that's a signpost, just a small hint of the overwhelming experience of the love of God 00:21:34.279 --> 00:21:38.599 that you will share in the new creation in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's what sex is 00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:45.079 actually for. And without that vision, you can't put lust in its place. You can't kick it to the 00:21:45.079 --> 00:21:49.879 curb. You can't even, you don't even know why it's bad, because it just feels like natural human 00:21:49.879 --> 00:21:55.240 instinct. But in that vision, in the vision of creation order, it changes everything. It turns 00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:59.559 what the world says upside down. Now, the last thing I want to say about it before we move on 00:21:59.559 --> 00:22:07.399 is that the way the word lust is used in the Bible is not just sexual. You can lust after 00:22:07.399 --> 00:22:13.399 anything. The great Greek word that's used for it, overdesire, epithemia, can be applied to any 00:22:13.399 --> 00:22:20.679 object. You can, you can lust after money, relationships, safety, security, jobs, success, 00:22:20.679 --> 00:22:26.679 power, health, longevity, food, drink after anything, because lust is simply this, 00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:35.080 loving and longing too much for good things that God has made in illicit, disordered ways. 00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:41.799 In other words, it's longing and chasing after things to the point where you want them more than 00:22:41.799 --> 00:22:47.640 you want God. In other words, very simple. And the Bible, lust is the pathway to idolatry. That's 00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:53.320 what lust is. Let me give you one example. Might not resonate with everybody, but it's 00:22:53.319 --> 00:22:57.639 understandable at least. In the late 90s and early 2000s in the United States, 00:22:59.799 --> 00:23:05.240 baseball was in the news all the time, much more than today. And the reason for that is because 00:23:05.240 --> 00:23:09.399 at that time there were three or four individuals playing Major League baseball that were chasing 00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:17.159 the home run record. And they were hitting home runs to the extent that had never been seen. 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:23.400 You know, they were hitting, they had power to hit home runs in game after game, every single game, 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:28.200 it seemed like. And the world had never seen anything like that before. And they would interview 00:23:28.200 --> 00:23:33.320 these men, there was three or four of them, and you know, you got the sense. They wanted to be 00:23:33.320 --> 00:23:38.360 the greatest. They wanted to be, they wanted their name to be above all other names in the Hall of 00:23:38.360 --> 00:23:42.920 Fame. The greatest achievement a baseball player could ever have is to set the home run record 00:23:42.920 --> 00:23:48.600 for all time. And they did it. And each of them broke the others records and nobody could believe 00:23:48.600 --> 00:23:53.160 it and how they were all doing it at the same time. And then it came out. And you remember, 00:23:53.160 --> 00:23:56.440 it was in the new international news, you remember what happened. It came out. We learned that 00:23:57.080 --> 00:24:01.640 consistently they were, they were many, not all, but most of them were taking steroids. 00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:06.519 They were taking human growth hormone. They were taking anything that could get them to the top, 00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:10.440 that could get them into the Hall of Fame, that could get them to the name that they wanted. 00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:16.680 And what happened? It all fell apart. And now their names are tarnished. Their names are worse 00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:23.000 than ever. Their names will not be in the Hall of Fame. And they experience public shame. And 00:24:23.799 --> 00:24:30.759 you see that, that is exactly lust. In other words, lust is longing for a good thing and an illicit 00:24:30.759 --> 00:24:38.039 way to the point that it carries you down a path where you'll do anything to hold on to it. And 00:24:38.039 --> 00:24:42.759 what happens is it ends up destroying you. It's the path of the young man from lust to adultery. 00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:49.799 It's the path of home run hitters in the MLB. It can happen with anything. And so Lady Wisdom 00:24:49.799 --> 00:24:56.680 says today, lust is so serious because lust is the starting point of all idolatry. All right. 00:24:56.680 --> 00:25:03.079 Secondly, and very briefly, the way out. The reason we lust is because we have unfulfilled 00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:11.159 longings and we look for fulfillment in the wrong places. That's what Proverbs is teaching us. 00:25:12.519 --> 00:25:17.000 De Tocqueville, Tocqueville is a famous French political philosopher that wrote a lot about 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:22.279 American democracy, but he has a great line. He says it like this, the incomplete joys of this 00:25:22.279 --> 00:25:26.759 world will never satisfy the human heart. And that's exactly what the Bible says over and over 00:25:26.759 --> 00:25:32.119 again, the incomplete joys of this world will not satisfy the human heart. We'll continue to lust 00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:40.439 as long as we chase after incomplete joys. And instead, we've already said that God is our greatest 00:25:40.439 --> 00:25:46.439 fulfillment. That's what Christianity says, unlike any other tradition that love beyond all love is 00:25:46.439 --> 00:25:53.159 the love of the love of God. And if you don't grasp that, you'll find instead that your heart 00:25:53.159 --> 00:25:59.879 will be really damaged. You know, lust leaves a trail of bodies, of dead body, of damaged hearts, 00:25:59.880 --> 00:26:06.200 of broken hearts. Verse 22 says that following lust is like an animal walking to the slaughterhouse. 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:13.320 It destroys us. And here's the way out. There's a famous moment in John chapter 4, New Testament. 00:26:13.960 --> 00:26:20.600 Jesus is there with the Samaritan woman at the well. And he says to her, very strange, he says, 00:26:21.240 --> 00:26:28.920 I have water to drink that will satisfy your thirst forever. And she says, what do you mean? 00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:32.840 You know, where is this water? I want, if you have water to drink where I never have to come back 00:26:32.840 --> 00:26:39.480 to this well again, I want it right now. And he says, okay, go and get your husband. 00:26:41.480 --> 00:26:45.560 And she says, I don't have a husband. And he said, I know you have, you've had five 00:26:45.560 --> 00:26:49.880 and the man that you're living with now is not your husband. Now you say, why in the world does 00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:55.000 Jesus do that? Why does he say, I have living water to give you that will, that will fulfill all 00:26:55.000 --> 00:27:00.599 your lusts, your longings forever. And he says, now this is your sexual history. 00:27:02.599 --> 00:27:11.000 Do you see what he's doing? He's saying, I know you, you have been looking for deep fulfillment 00:27:11.880 --> 00:27:17.559 in sexual intimacy, person after person after person. And the reason it's been person after 00:27:17.559 --> 00:27:21.799 person is because none of it satisfied you. It's never really been what you're looking for. 00:27:21.799 --> 00:27:29.559 Because we don't actually need it. And he's saying, I've got water that is much greater than that, 00:27:30.279 --> 00:27:36.119 living water. And look, here's what makes Christianity so powerful. Christianity comes 00:27:36.119 --> 00:27:42.680 and it says two things. Okay. One, when we lust and we struggle with sexual sin, what we're doing 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:49.639 in that moment is saying to God, I don't believe you can really fulfill me. And then secondly, 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:53.560 this is what Christianity does. It says that, but then it says this, there's good news. And that's 00:27:53.560 --> 00:28:03.080 that your lust, your broken sexual past, whatever it is, can be forgiven fully, finally, and forever. 00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:08.600 It can be cast on 103 we read as far as the east is from the west past, present, and future, and 00:28:08.600 --> 00:28:15.960 never remembered in the eyes of God, in the mind of God any longer. And also, it's not just the 00:28:15.960 --> 00:28:21.480 negative side, but the positive side of your real needs of fulfillment can be met. You can actually 00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:26.440 rest in a love that fulfills your desires and that will never leave you. That's why the Bible 00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:31.720 speaks of our relationship to Jesus Christ as marriage. It's the greatest marriage. It's the 00:28:31.720 --> 00:28:38.279 true fulfillment Ephesians chapter five. And so here it is Jesus Christ, who is the water of life 00:28:38.279 --> 00:28:45.079 himself, who has God become man, who is the only one that can both forgive and fulfill our sexual 00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:53.879 past. He was the lamb. He was the fox. He was the ox from Proverbs seven that was led to the slaughter 00:28:54.919 --> 00:29:02.359 for our lusts. You know, he joyfully went to the cross to bear the weight of what our sexual 00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:10.679 sin has cost. And he can in his power of resurrection heal the brokenness and fulfill a life and set 00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:17.400 it on a new path and changes forever forgiveness and fulfillment all had in the death and resurrection 00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:25.480 of the Son of God fully and finally. Now, Jesus says that that's the way out, but he also says 00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:32.840 to after that, and this is the last word he says after that, you got to cut off your hand and pluck 00:29:32.840 --> 00:29:38.600 out your eye to deal with this. And you've got to Proverbs seven at the very beginning of the 00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:43.000 passage. It says that you've got to make the way of wisdom, the apple of your eye instead of lust. 00:29:43.639 --> 00:29:49.480 So anytime you may have heard a sermon on lust in the past, you've probably thought, 00:29:49.480 --> 00:29:53.079 I'm here for the practical bits, you know, I'm here to hear like, what are the steps 00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:59.879 to take? What do I do today? And that's important. But not until you have a biblical vision, 00:30:00.599 --> 00:30:05.639 not until you've come to the man himself, the power forgiveness and fulfillment. 00:30:05.640 --> 00:30:10.280 And only then can you come to the practical helps. And here's a few practical helps to close. 00:30:11.560 --> 00:30:18.120 One, if you're a Christian today, start today. So that means very easy, not easy, very, very clearly. 00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:23.240 Start where you are, make a plan today for how you're going to fight the battle. 00:30:24.040 --> 00:30:28.520 Don't leave it. So that leads me to second, just four things and they're this fast. Second, 00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:35.480 don't take a passive view of your thought life. The Christian can never have a passive view 00:30:35.480 --> 00:30:40.039 of your thought life, of what you ingest, of what you consume, of what you think about, 00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:44.839 of where your thoughts go. You've got to fight a battle where you take active control of your 00:30:44.839 --> 00:30:48.440 thought life. It's got to be part of your spiritual disciplines to never be passive, 00:30:48.440 --> 00:30:52.839 but always active to go into battle for your mind. And you say, look, I've struggled with this issue 00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:57.319 for my whole life. I've struggled with this issue issue for 25 years. And I don't feel like it's 00:30:57.319 --> 00:31:04.200 gotten very, very, very, gotten very far, including everything I've already said. Are you, are you 00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:11.559 passive about your thought life? That's a question to consider. Third, here's a little detail to 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:17.720 fill that out. Galatians takes up this issue and says the way to deal with lust is to walk and step 00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:23.639 with the spirit in order to put away the desires of the flesh. That's the line. So it says walk 00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:27.880 and step with the spirit. Here's a way to think about it, a pithy way to remember what that means. 00:31:30.120 --> 00:31:34.759 Fitness, when it comes to our thought life in terms of lust, is just like physical fitness. 00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:39.240 If you want to get fit physically, you got to do two things. You've got to have resistance 00:31:39.880 --> 00:31:45.480 and nutrition. All right, so resistance, you got to be lifting. You know, you got to be, 00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:49.720 you got to be pushing against gravity in some way. You got to be pulling weights off the ground. 00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:53.880 You got to be running long distances, whatever it may be, you got to be resisting gravity 00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:59.240 in order to get fit. It tears your muscles. They grow back bigger. That's how it works. 00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:06.360 That's part of fitness. Resistance, spiritual fitness, fighting lust has got to have resistance. 00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:12.200 So you got to put boundaries and rules. At the beginning of Proverbs 7, he says, 00:32:12.200 --> 00:32:17.799 write the rules of wisdom on your forehead, on your wrist. You've actually got to start there. 00:32:17.799 --> 00:32:24.359 In Christ, you've got to start with some rules. How are you avoiding temptation? What are you 00:32:24.359 --> 00:32:31.240 putting in place to deal with it? Later on, you can kick away the rules once your heart and your 00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:36.680 will grows fitter. But you begin with boundaries. You begin with rules to fight temptation. 00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:41.720 And then once you get more spiritually fit in that arena, then you can kick away 00:32:42.440 --> 00:32:47.079 the scaffolding of the rules and go back to some normal activities. But at first, 00:32:47.079 --> 00:32:51.960 there's got to be an avoidance of temptation, a resistance, a weight training element. But then 00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:57.000 secondly, a nutrition element. It's not just about how you're resisting negatively, but also 00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:02.599 what you're putting in. So you can lift as much weights as you want. But if you eat terribly 00:33:02.599 --> 00:33:08.039 donuts every day, every meal, you're just going to have a big biceps, but with a lot of layers of 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:12.599 fat on top of those biceps, right? That's how it works. You got to get your nutrition under control. 00:33:12.599 --> 00:33:17.959 The same thing. What are you ingesting? So there's a negative and a positive. Of course, 00:33:17.959 --> 00:33:23.240 the word of God in prayer. But let me say even more than that, because sometimes 00:33:24.199 --> 00:33:29.639 reading God's word and all these things, but in midst of the main thing, which is this, 00:33:30.599 --> 00:33:38.199 we're not just about reading God's word. We're about meeting with the living God through the word. 00:33:38.200 --> 00:33:45.080 It's not the word that we're coming to be with. It's God. It's him. It's the trying God, Father, 00:33:45.080 --> 00:33:50.920 Son, and Spirit. So you've got to be actually ingesting a relationship, eating and drinking 00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:57.240 the relationship you have in Jesus with God himself in very intentional ways, seeking his face, 00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:04.440 praying and asking that he would make himself a much greater desire than sexual fulfillment is 00:34:04.440 --> 00:34:10.920 for you. We've got to be eating and drinking in that way. And then a principle to go with that. 00:34:11.880 --> 00:34:17.400 And it's this. Remember, in this fight, awareness of beauty is not sin. 00:34:18.360 --> 00:34:24.280 Awareness, sexual desire is not sin. Jesus is not saying that. Awareness of beauty is not sin. 00:34:25.159 --> 00:34:31.159 But what you do with those things can be and can become sin. And so I'll leave you with one thing 00:34:31.159 --> 00:34:36.519 that Alan Noble, an American public intellectual writes in one of his books. He confesses in one 00:34:36.519 --> 00:34:43.079 of his great books, his own fight with lust over the years as a grown man. And this is what he 00:34:43.079 --> 00:34:47.879 says he learned to do. He says, every time I begin to be tempted, he says this, and this is for the 00:34:47.879 --> 00:34:53.879 for the men, especially, I think, but for everybody, he says that I pray this prayer, Lord, thank you 00:34:53.880 --> 00:35:01.800 for the beauty you create in others and help me to appreciate that beauty and to know that that 00:35:01.800 --> 00:35:07.320 beauty is not mine to possess. He says, that's his prayer. Every time he struggles, Lord, help me to 00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:16.680 love that beauty. But no, it's not, it's not for me. It's not mine. Lastly, for Jesus Christ has to 00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:24.039 be your main spouse. If not, if God is not your greatest love, if Jesus Christ is not your first 00:35:24.039 --> 00:35:29.159 spouse, your main love, your first spouse, the marriage, the groom of the bride, the church, 00:35:29.159 --> 00:35:33.480 the people of God, then we'll even look to the best things in our lives for fulfillment, our 00:35:33.480 --> 00:35:40.919 spouses even for fulfillment in ways that they cannot be. And because God is our true spouse in 00:35:40.920 --> 00:35:46.920 Jesus Christ, you can be single, you can be married, and you can find a real lasting fulfillment 00:35:48.280 --> 00:35:54.519 in this life instead of soul destroying lusts. Let's pray. Father, we ask now that you would 00:35:54.519 --> 00:36:00.039 give us a better vision than the modern world gives us, which is so broken, but it's in our bones 00:36:00.039 --> 00:36:05.480 sometimes in our hearts because we eat and drink the nutrition of the world all the time. So we 00:36:05.480 --> 00:36:11.639 ask for help and a way out and help those today maybe that are visiting, that are exploring 00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:18.119 Christianity even for the first time and thinking about this and not sure what to think Lord, 00:36:18.119 --> 00:36:25.719 would you reveal yourself to them and meet with them we pray and help us to have a good conversation 00:36:25.719 --> 00:36:35.719 and answers Lord. And so we pray for these things that you would move by the Spirit in Christ's name. Amen.