Part 3: Lust: Taming The Human Animal Series

Illust: Play the old "Human Animal" song by Disney.

All of us are human animals. We’re all humans, designed by God for a wonderful purpose in His creation. Yet all of us have this animal instinct in us that causes us to do things we know we shouldn’t do. That’s the animal inside each one of us. The animal is always there. Sometimes it’s restrained and sometimes the animal breaks free, but it’s always there.

The animal inside is our human nature: the flesh, which is constantly following after it’s own desires. The problem with that is the desires of the flesh are usually opposite the desires of the Spirit of God. They are in opposition to God’s will for our life.

How many of you have you ever seen a child trying to walk a large dog on a leash? If you have, you’ll wonder who’s walking who: is the child walking the dog, or is the dog walking the child? I remember being given the job of mowing the lawn when I was a kid. We had a California trimmer: self propelled. Trying to control that thing was like going along for the ride. That struggle is a perfect picture of what it’s like to fight against the animal side of our human nature… Our animal instinct is to pull away from restraint and to run into dangerous areas: to sniff out things we ought to keep our noses out of…

Like a dog, they’re always sniffing around where they ought not to. Our animal instinct is the part of us that gets us into things we ought never have gotten into.

The Bible says, our animal instinct even voluntarily returns to the mess it left a few days before to check it out again! Why is it that a dog returns to its mess? Have you ever figured that out? Why do we return to our sins over and over again?

“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11

Do you ever get caught in the same sin more than once? Do you find yourself repeating the same offenses over and over again? That’s the animal in you… Today we’re going to learn a little bit about taming, restraining the flesh in us humans.

Now, the animal in you has a name, and that name is lust.

You might be thinking, “I don’t have a problem with lust!” One way or another, we all have a problem with lust. Lust isn’t just about sex, it’s about natural desires… It’s about the human animal instinct to do that which we are not supposed to do.

Paul talked about it in His letter to the Romans, saying: Rom 7:19-25

“For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-- this I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is [the animal] sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”

Praise God you and I have a rescuer! His Name is Jesus Christ! Jesus is the key to restraining the animal in us, and we’re going to learn some practical steps to tame our human lusts soon, but first let me illustrate the deceptive and destructive power of lust in our lives…

Like a big dog walking a little boy, Lust has the power to pull you off course and cause you to go places you never meant to go… And like that little boy, you might initially think those places where you are dragged away and enticed are innocent and harmless at first, but in the end, Lust only leads to death.

? Who tempts us with lust? Satan does.

? What does the Bible say about Satan? He comes to steal, to kill and to what? To destroy.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; [Jesus says,] I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 If you have life in Jesus Christ, you aint missin’ out on nothin’.