ESPECIALLY FOR
MEN: HOW TO DEAL WITH LUST
Your word I have hidden in my heart, that
I might not sin against You.
— Ps. 119:11
It
is common for righteous men, especially when they are writing their
autobiography, which often takes the form of a confession, to tell on
themselves in reference to how lustful they have been. St. Augustine was one
of these.
Ouida
and I remember a brother in a congregation we attended, the preacher in
fact, who was always confessing his lust, which in his case was sexual lust.
There are of course other kinds of lust, which may be even more serious,
such as lust for things or revenge or power or money. But for this brother,
as for men generally, it was women, and it was probable that he would make
some reference to his besetting sin whenever he addressed the congregation.
Sometimes he would not spare the details, and with his wife sitting there
before him. One time Ouida's mother was with us when he made our small
church his confessional and she afterwards commented, "I felt sorry for
his poor wife sitting there," which was probably the sentiment of us
all. Some sins are best confessed to God and God alone.
If
we had a way of determining the sins that beset Christians the most, I would
guess that for women it is the disinclination to forgive some past injury,
insult, or rejection, including those heaped upon their children. While men
also have a problem in forgiving those who sin against them, they have a
greater problem with lust. But unless they are "saints" (in the
sense of being unusually righteous) they are not likely to admit even to
themselves that they have this problem.
If
we are to deal with lust effectively, we must first understand what it is
and what it is not. If we confine the definition to sexual lust, we are to
understand that it is not simply "looking upon a woman" as is
often implied by preachers who emphasize those words when they quote Jesus'
injunction in Matt. 5:28. Jesus' words should rather be emphasized this way:
"Whoever looks upon a woman to
lust after her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart."
There
is nothing wrong in looking at a woman and enjoying her beauty, just as
there is nothing wrong in beholding the beauty of any of God's creation. It
is the lusting that is wrong. And this is not simply a passing sexual
thought, which may be inappropriate but not lust. This is the distinction
Martin Luther sought to make when he said it is one thing when birds fly
over our head but another thing when they make nests in our hair.
Lust
has no respect for its partner and is concerned only for its
self-gratification. It conjures in its mind what it would do physically and
thus uses the woman's body for its
own selfish ends. It is mental manipulation of another human being, a kind
of passive rape in that it is without the person's consent. It is as
impersonal as being "serviced" at a filling station. Lust is
voyeurism that makes the mind a desert. Malcolm Muggeridge said it well when
he observed, "People now seem to have sex on their minds, which is a
peculiar place to have it."
Lust
is wrong, indeed one of the seven deadly sins according to the medieval
theologians, because it seeks gratification without involvement. It blinds
the mind to respect for persons and to the joy of meaningful sex. It is
insidious in that it is a private and secret sin, and since it is not
actually physical it deceives one into supposing that it is not so bad.
We
take the first big step in dealing with lust when we face up to the fact
that it is a weighty sin. It is the sin that led to the fall of Jim Bakker
and his PTL empire, and it is the sin that caused the destruction of Billy
James Hargis' ministry. In the case of Hargis, who at the time was president
of a small Baptist college, he was "found out" when a couple on
their honeymoon, both graduates of said college, confessed their
unfaithfulness, both of them naming Hargis as the partner. Whatever else may
be said about homosexual acts, as well as much heterosexual conduct, it is
enough that they are born of lust rather than committed love.
If
we allow lecherous thoughts to dominate our minds it is just as well that we
not pass judgment on the likes of Bakker and Hargis. A man that will use his
wife's body while in his heart he commits adultery with another man's wife,
which sex therapists assure us is not uncommon, may commit a greater sin in
God's sight than the perennial womanizer who is more open in his
transgression. The ancient Roman sages knew how to make merchandise of lust,
for they would advise their clients that if they could not have the girl
they wanted (or the boy since homosexuality was common) they only needed to
use the body of a slave and let imagination in the dark do the rest. And is
not a woman unfaithful to the marriage covenant when she allows lust for
another man to rule her heart while her husband makes love to her? Jesus
teaches that when the mind is so enslaved the person has already
committed adultery in his heart.
So,
we deal with lust by coming to terms with it as a serious, degrading sin. It
is not a sin to be winked at. We must come to loathe lascivious thoughts in
our mind as we would cancerous cells in our body. This we do when we desire
purity of heart more than the spoils of lust. To Soren Kierkegaard, the
Danish religious philosopher, this is the essence of Christian character: purity of heart is to will one thing, which was the title of one of
his books. He meant that the Christian is to have one great desire in life,
purity of heart. While he realized that only God provided the grace for a
pure heart, he understood that we must want it and we must will it.
Ah,
there's the rub! Do we really want purity of heart? Perhaps that is why
David was a man after God's own heart - not that his heart was all that
pure, but he wanted to be pure. We are blessed when we hunger and thirst for
righteousness, even if it seems we never quite attain it. We have the upper
hand in our struggle against lust and all other sins of the mind when we
have a deep and sincere longing for purity of heart.
Equally
important is that we ply our minds with good thoughts when evil thoughts
threaten to invade, When lust knocks at the door of our mind, we can turn it
away by drawing upon great truths from the Psalms, such as:
"Your
word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.'' (119:11)
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxieties, and see if there
is any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting."
(139:23-24)
"Let
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your
sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." (19:14)
"How
can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your
word." (119:9)
We
can take refuge in the promise of 1 Cor. 10:13 that God is faithful and will
not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear, and will with
the temptation provide the way of escape. His word is the way of escape. In
temptation we can turn to the power of God's word for strength, as Jesus did
when he drew upon Scripture in confronting Satan. If we will saturate our
minds with those four passages from the Psalms, committing them to memory
and making them our heart's desire, we can ward off Satan and his demons of
lust and lasciviousness. It is "the way of escape" that the Bible
promises, and it is ours if we want it. When Jesus resorted to God's word,
never turning loose, Satan gave up on him and departed. If we resist him
with God's word in our hearts he will also leave us. If he is overly
persistent in his assault, rebuke him and order him to leave, like Jesus
did. Satan will not get far with us if we keep saying and keep practicing
that great line from the one who was a man after God's own heart:
"Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin
against you." The way of escape!
There
is also prayer, soul-searching prayer, and much could be said about the
power of prayer in combating sins of the mind, which are more devastating to
the soul than sins of the flesh. But there is one important principle of
prayer: be
honest with God. Another principle is to be specific, and that means to
name the sin and even the person or persons we sin against in our heart,
calling the name or names before God, and asking for forgiveness for sinning
against them. And pray for the renewal of the mind by means of God's mercy
and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Pray for purity of heart and for
victory over the demon of lust.
Victory
will not come easily nor swiftly. It may be a long struggle and to some
degree a lifetime struggle. What is important is that sin lose its dominance
over us, as Paul urges in Rom. 6:12 "Do not let sin reign in your
mortal body, that you obey it in its lusts." It is a matter of who is
in charge and who is obeyed. It is expected that lust will hang around, all
our lives in one way or another. We must keep him off the throne of our
hearts.