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’.
Lust is the bate that Satan uses to lure you away from God. It’s the illusion, or the counterfeit of what God has to offer: life to the full… And Satan will use anything that pleases your body that appeals to the animal instinct in you, to lure you away from the safety of God’s protection and guidance.
Let me illustrate this for you. Satan hunts you down to destroy you the same way an Eskimo hunts down a wolf.
"First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.
"Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the snowy earth with the blade up, knowing that the wolf will be lured to the trap by the scent of fresh blood (That’s what the wolf lusts after.) How enticing it is! The wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait. He licks it and upon doing so tastes the fresh frozen blood.
It tastes so good! So the wolf begins to lick faster and faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the sharp edge is bare. By then, his tongue is so cold he doesn’t feel the edges of the sharp knife slicing into his tongue.
Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night. So great becomes his craving for blood, that he doesn’t recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more and more --until the rising sun finds him dead in the snow." The wolf’s lust for blood was his own demise.
Friends, that’s exactly how Satan uses our lust: our animal instincts to destroy us.
He’ll give you just enough of what you want to numb your conscience and from there, your animal instinct will consume your life and then end of lust is death. The illusion is so enticing. The first taste seems so promising, but in the end it only leads to death.
Satan uses counterfeits of the real thing to entice us with. He uses promiscuity, perversion and sensuality in place of God’s gift of monogamous sex in marriage. Promiscuity, perversion and sensuality lead to death.
That’s why AIDS is a worldwide epidemic and pornography is a $13 billion/yr business.
* In 1999 revenues from porn web sites was 1.2 billion dollars.
* More than 100,000 existing pornographic websites litter the internet every day, with over 200 new porn sites on-line every day.
* 10,000 porn movies are released with over 300 million videos are sold every year.
* In fact, over 75% of all internet users on line after 10 o’clock at night are viewing pornography and the largest group are boys between the age of 13 and 18.
Satan is selling us a counterfeit of the real thing, and in the end, it kills.
Lust is destroying marriages, it’s tearing apart families and robbing hundreds and thousands of people from their inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Satan is setting the traps. Hundreds and thousands of souls pass from life to death every day, simply because they were lured away by an enticing trap. They drifted away from the Master. They let go of their restraint. They were tempted, they tasted and they died.
See, the hunter of your soul doesn’t have to chase you down to destroy your life… All he has to do is set out a trap enticing enough for you to run after it… Once that’s accomplished, his work is done.
You’ll follow your own natural instincts to the grave.
There’s only one rescue from the deadly snare of lust. It’s not alcoholics anonymous, or even 12 step programs, it’s that pool of blood, which we find at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. Through the shedding of that blood, you and I have been offered a rescue from our lusts, from death to eternal life.
Satan is the father of lies, a master of illusion, but Jesus Christ is the substance, and the fullness of life forever more.
God’s Word reveals to us some very practical ways to avoid falling prey to lust. But Jesus Christ is “The Final Answer.”
? How do I avoid lust?
I: AVOIDING LUST means changing your desires.
I Jn 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world-- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-- comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
In short, Godly advice for the person who wants to avoid the situation where we’re dragged away and enticed by your lust is “do not love the world”, OR “Change your passions: your cravings.”
Revolutionize your tastes in life! It’s a process of retraining your thinking: renewing your mind, whereby you train yourself to hunger and thirst for righteousness: the things of God.
Let’s say you’ve made the decision to get in shape again… What’s one of the first things you change in your life? Your eating habits. When a person gets serious about getting into physical shape, everything in their life begins to change, from our daily activities right down to our eating habits. We have to transform our desires into healthy ones. Now, we may still go through times when we desire the things we’re not supposed to eat, but over time, with discipline, we learn how to fill those cravings with healthier ones.
In the same way, as men and women of God, we are constantly having change our cravings from unhealthy ones to healthy ones: to restrain the human instinct from following after things that are ungodly: having the discipline over our flesh to partake in things that are healthy to our souls, and not those things that are destructive to our souls.
That’s why, when Paul spoke to the Romans about offering our lives as living sacrifices to God he said,
Rom 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Be transformed in the way of your thinking: in your passions and in your desires.
Change your diet. Discipline your body.
How do I avoid lust? I discipline my body. I restrain it from running after ungodly things… I train it, by discipline, to desire the things that build me up and not the things that tear me down.
Well, how about when I’m minding my own business and the temptation comes to me? The what?
RUN LIKE THE WIND!
The story of Joseph in Potiphar’s house: Gen 39:5-12
5 “From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the LORD blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the LORD was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.
6 So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate. Now Joseph was well-built and handsome,
7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me!"
8 But he refused. "With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care.
9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?"
10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. [She set the trap]
12 She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.”
Joseph knew what might happen if he entertained that thought, so he RAN!
Whenever temptation sneaks up on you, when you’re enticed by your lusts to sin, RUN! Don’t entertain the temptation. Discipline your mind to cast away those kinds of thoughts, or they’ll kill you.
The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
The world and its lusts: the things that entice us: the things that lure us away from God: whatever compels us to disregard our relationship with God is a lust.
A single man might may have a healthy desire to find a single woman to marry, but if his desire to find her compels him to take the counterfeit, instead of the person God has chosen for him, he may be compelled to sin and fall away from God’s plan for his life.
Satan offers the counterfeit, but God has the real thing.
For instance: did you know that new studies show that faithfully married church-goers are better lovers: It’s true!
A new study commissioned by the Family Research Council of Washington, D.C. found that the people most likely to report a high degree of satisfaction with their current sex life are married people who strongly believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong. The study found that 72% of these “married traditionalists” reported sexual satisfaction.
That’s 31% higher than unmarried non-traditionalists and 13% percent higher than married non-traditionalists. The study went on to show that sexually happy people also tend to go to church.
Some two-thirds of the responders who attend church weekly are very satisfied with their sex lives, compared to barely half of those who never attend church.
You see, doing things God’s way is always more fulfilling because it’s the genuine article.
But following after ungodly passions and desires only leads us down a road to self-destruction.
God wants us to live life to the extreme, but He wants us to live it in a way that will benefit us in the long run. Lusts don’t benefit us in the long run. They may satisfy an immediate need, but they only end in death…
II: HOW DO I DISCERN ILLUSION FROM THE REAL THING? TURN TO THE WORD.
Measure everything up against the instruction manual: the Word of God.
Matt 4:1-11, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. [How many know, when you’re hungry and tired, that’s when y ou are at your weakest against temptation?]
3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
4 Jesus answered, "It is written: ’Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "’He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’" [See, there goes Satan, offering a counterfeit truth to lure Jesus away from the genuine article But Jesus went to the Word!]
7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: ’Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’"
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.
9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ’Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’" [Not the devil, not your lusts…]
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.”
You can determine the truth from a lie by knowing The Word of God.
There’s no substitute for reading God’s Word. No-one’s going to do it for you.
They might try to retranslate it and offer you a counterfeit, like the book of Mormon, but it’s ultimately up to YOU to KNOW THE WORD.
III: HOW DO I MASTER SELF-CONTROL? How do I tame the human animal?
Set yourself aside for God’s purposes. Be sanctified.
Restraint is setting something aside, not allowing it to escape or run out of control.
BE SANCTIFIED: SET YOURSELF ASIDE FOR GOD’S PURPOSES.
1Thes 4:3-8, “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. [And that, life to the full, right?] Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man [pastor (name)] but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.”
Be set aside for God’s purpose. Consider yourself a Holy Vessel for use in the house of God. Quit messing in the filth of worldly desire and start enjoying life as God intended it!
Kill the stray thoughts. Put to death the worldly nature.
Col 3:6, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.”
1 Pet 4:3-5, “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do-- living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”
Conclusion:
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:24-25a
? What is it that Satan lures you away with?
When the Son of Man rises from His throne in Heaven, when His Glory overshadows the earth and the nations, will He find you like the wolf: dead in the snow, in a pool of your own blood, caught in the snare of your lusts?
Or will He find you living in the fullness of life, sanctified by the blood He shed for YOU at Calvary over 2,000 years ago?
There are people all around us, wandering through life without restraint, without a master to guide and steer them away from the snares of sin. They are sitting ducks, easy targets for the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. Chasing after every illusion, some of them are only days away from their last breath, and it’s our duty to introduce them to The One who saves us from the deadly traps and from our own natural instincts… His Name is Jesus Christ…
Self control, comes through Jesus Christ and the discipline of a soul who walks with Him, not just on church day, but every day of his life… It’s available to you today.
Are you struggling with a self-control issue? Is it worry, anger, or lust? Whatever it is, you should know there’s a solution – through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Altar call)
