On the way to a men's retreat two weeks ago, he goes, the problem with our churches is we are passing out jello, but we're not passing out uniforms and weapons. And I really pray that this session, this second session, would be passing out weapons this morning. Because we are in a battle to the death. Sometimes the evil one is more aware of that than we are. That we're in a battle to the very death. One of our most powerful fortifications, if not the most powerful, is the religious affections. That was Jonathan Edwards' magnum opus. He wrote that book because so many people were professing Christ during the Great Awakening that he was convinced there were many false professors in that group. And so he wrote that book as a litmus test of what a true believer is. Is at the foundation of your faith a love for the holiness of God, or is your profession of faith driven by self-interest? That's why he wrote that book. So, it's extremely important that we understand how a saver for heavenly things operates. When you were born again, a new organ of sight was implanted into your soul. that new organ of sight gave you the ability to see the glory of Christ. Because according to 2 Corinthians chapter 4, to be unsaved is to be blind to the glory of God in Christ, and to be saved is to have seen the glory of God in Christ. So this new organ of sight is implanted at the new birth. It's a sovereign act of God. A fiat creation, just as calling light out of darkness was a fiat creation. God says, let there be light. in the soul of that spiritually dead man, and he's enabled immediately to see the glory of Christ. Now, that's not just your entrance into the Christian life. Beholding the glory of Christ becomes the vocation of the church. That is the vocation of every believer, to keep beholding the glory of Christ. So that, your highest treasure and your highest pleasure is the glory of Christ. That's not an automatic. That's not a passive situation. You have to fight for that. This is our battlefield. Our battlefield is not simply abstinence from sin. Our battlefield is, as John Piper says, fight for joy. Fight for joy. This is central to our strategy. That we have to labor and fight for this exercise where Christ is our highest pleasure and treasure. And when he slips from that, That's just as much a part of your repentance as repenting from moral failure. Repentance is not just repenting from moral failure. It is a repentance that restores Christ to his proper place of prominence. See, this is where we get off in our fight against sexual lust. We think that repentance is simply, okay, I'm determining not to put that image in front of myself again. I'm determining not to make a provision for the flesh. I'm determining not to lust anymore. Your repentance is not just seeking to cut off occasion that gives lust an opportunity. Your repentance, your ongoing repentance is restoring Christ to that place of prominence He deserves in your life. So, He's your highest treasure. He's your highest pleasure. Now, that's the safeguard against lust right there. Because as you're feeding upon Christ, as you're looking upon His glory, as you're being ravished by who He is, as you're rocked by His supremacy, and his preeminence, that this infinitely vast being became sin for you, became a curse for you. That's designed to rock you. So you have to make regular presentations of Christ to your soul as a fortification against lust. This is vital. Now, I think of a couple of stories from centuries past that have helped me. One is the story of Pastor Thomas Chalmers. He was an excellent expositor. Love the Lord. He loved the Word. He loved God's people. And as he preached from week to week, he's tearing his hair out. Lord, why is this congregation so dead? I'm preaching Your Word. I'm preaching to the mind. I'm preaching to the conscience. Why is this congregation so dead? And so he finally took a sabbatical. He just poured out his heart to God. And the Lord made it clear to him, you're preaching to the mind. You're preaching to the conscience. You're preaching to the will. but you're not preaching to the affections. You're not parting the heavens in your sermons to show the beauty, the glory, and the desirability of Christ. You're not parting the heavens. You must show what a perfect match Christ is for the sinner's ruin, the sinner's longings, the sinner's yearnings. You must show what a perfect match Christ is for the sinner's poverty. Spiritual poverty. Display Christ. So he went back into his pulpit And he wrote his most famous sermon, and the name of that sermon was, The Expulsive Power of a Greater Affection. Or, The Expulsive Power of a Superior Affection. And this was his whole point. Idols will not go. Idols will not be thrust out. Heart idols will not budge unless a higher object of desire replaces them. You cannot. Expel your idols, take them out in the alley and crush them to bits unless you have a higher source of happiness than your idol. Sheer abstinence won't do it. Sheer ascetic self-denial won't do it. You have to have a superior object of desire. And this is what Chalmers discovered. Puritan John Howe said the same thing when he wrote his treatise on delighting in God. This is what John Howe said in his comprehensive treatise on delighting in God. He says, since God created you to be a worshipper, since God created you for happiness and delight, since God created you to be an enthusiastic spectator of excellence and to always be searching for excellence as a source of happiness, your heart affections are made for an object of desire. You have to reckon with that. God created the affections of my heart for an object of desire. says John Howe, your heart refuses to live as a salt waste. Your heart will refuse to live as a barren desert. Your heart has to be enthralled with something. Your heart has to be fixated on an object of desire so that in the pursuit of that desire, happiness is the byproduct. That's who we are. God created us to be worshipers. And as my biblical counseling, pastoral counseling professor always used to say, you're worshiping all day long. You're constantly looking for excellence. You're constantly fixated on objects of desire which you believe will bring you pleasure and happiness. You see, so our job is to keep presenting to the eyes of the heart the beauty of Christ. That's our privileged labor. That's our privileged calling. Keep presenting to the eyes of the heart The beauty of Christ, His perfect suitability for your brokenness. His perfect suitability for your ruin. His perfect suitability for your dereliction, loneliness, weakness, ineffectiveness, inconsistency, failure. His perfect suitability for who we are. We know we are that as men, don't we? Our failures beat us up to a pulp. And yet Christ is our perfect match for all of that. We kind of oscillate back and forth, that pendulum in our life. I call it the Nebuchadnezzar-Belshazzar pendulum. What did Nebuchadnezzar do? Well, he stood out on that balcony and he goes, oh my, my hands made all these things. The glory of Babylon is sitting before me and I constructed the whole thing. Well, God dealt with him and he turned him out to a beast. He had to eat grass on all fours until he came to his senses and was humbled before God. See, sometimes the pendulum swings in that direction. We want the honor and the glory of our accomplishments as men. They say a man goes through three stages as he gets older. Young man is fixated on the opposite sex. Middle-aged man is fixated on money and career. And the older man is fixated on honor. It changes through the seasons of life. See, we can't escape that but by having Christ in that place of preeminence, that first place. So the pendulum can swing. We go from the Nebuchadnezzar syndrome, look what I've done, look at all my accomplishments. I am the sum total of my accomplishments. The pendulum swings the other direction, the Belshazzar direction, where the writing on the wall appears. Daniel interprets it, you've been weighed in the scales and found wanting. He turns white, his knees are knocking together, he's terrified. That's one of our fears as men, that we shall be weighed in the scales, and found deficient in one or all of our roles. That's what beats us to a pulp. Oh my. I'm doing well in my career. My marriage is in trouble. I'm doing well in my marriage. I've been neglecting my health. I'm doing well at the office. I've been neglecting my extended family. There's always some area that we have to catch up in, right? There's always some area. So our pendulum goes back and forth. Well, we have to practice finding our sufficiency in Christ. And I think about the letter that Christ sent through John to the church at Laodicea. And in that letter, Laodicea was boasting that they were wealthy, they had wisdom, they were well clothed, they were in need of nothing. And what did Christ say to them? Your perception of yourself and my perception of you are polar opposites. You're actually poor, miserable, blind, and naked. And I advise you to come to Me that you might have clothing, sight, wealth, food, everything you need, come to Me. In that verse that's quoted so often out of context, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, is actually an invitation to fellowship with Christ by matching our spiritual poverty with His infinite riches. And I just exhort you men as a protection against lust, that you begin to practice that in your thought life. We know how to fixate on our own inadequacy, don't we? But we don't take it to the second step and say, okay, Lord, I am weak. Christ is strong for my sake. I am weak. My devotion to you is often, the love I have for you is often so weak, so inconsistent. You see, when we start matching in our meditation life, the complete sufficiency of Christ and match that up with our spiritual poverty, we start living the exchange life. We start living the exchange life. I had a quiet time the other day. I'm just taking a walk in this little wilderness area near my house. I felt absolutely a zero in my ministry. And I said, Lord, can I just exchange today my weakness for Your strength, my inconsistency for Your... You are the perfect disciple. Can I change? your perfect discipleship for my inconsistent discipleship? Lord, I'm so self-centered. Can I exchange my selfishness for your perfect love?" And I just went through that in my prayer life. And after that prayer life, the Lord just used me in a profound way that afternoon. It was Him, not me. There's a conscious exchange which takes place when we bring our spiritual poverty to Christ and then realize that He is perfectly fitted for everything we need. Now, let me show you how this works in your meditation life. As you go to Scripture with the express purpose of feeding upon Christ and thinking about all that God is towards you in Christ and the beauty that is Christ, as you think upon the desirability of Christ, your affections embrace that. Christ begins to have first place in your heart again. He's restored to that place of first love. And your affections embrace what your mind has explained. Now, your affections inform the will that this is truly a worthy thing to pursue. That Christ does deserve first place. I will pursue Him. And then a conscience, educated by God's Word, is flooding you with peace. Christ is first place in my life. I can say no to the world's offers. I can trample the world's offers and invitations to lust because I see Christ as clearly as I possibly can at this moment. This is the soul of a person who has, as it says in Romans 15, someone who has peace and comfort and joy in believing because they're explaining the beauty of Christ to the other faculties of the soul. This is our protection against lust. This is so powerful that we keep putting Christ first. It's interesting that we forget that we were constructed for this. I've done a prison ministry in a very large prison in L.A. County. Sometimes they'll lock me in a room with 30 men. They're convicts at this huge weigh station waiting to do hard time in the San Joaquin Valley. And as I sit with these men and preach to them, two or three will come up to me afterwards and tell me how they're going to improve their life. It's only like one out of 30 once a month that really knows the Lord and comes up and says, can I tell you what Christ means to me? You can always tell the real Christian because they'll say, can I tell you what Christ means to me? The other guys come up and they tell you how they're going to fix themselves up for God. May I say, we sometimes fall into that same trap. I'm going to fix myself up for God. Sometimes we fall into that same trap. Instead of seeing Christ as our complete sufficiency, our complete adequacy, that Christ alone recommends us and commends us to God. Christ took our place in order to give us access to his own joy in the Father. Because of his redemptive work, our future in him is glory. At the consummation of the age, Christ's own joy in the Godhead will spill over and fill the universe. Christ is like the sun in our solar system. In this analogy, the planets represent the goals, desires, and responsibilities of the believer. Christ's majesty is like the blazing glory and gravitational pull of the sun. The orbits of the planets are held and guided by His preeminence. When Christ is central in your life, the planets of your desires and goals and labors are ordered by Christ and put into their proper orbits." I didn't think that up. That's actually John Piper who said that. But I completely agree with him. That when we're captivated by the supremacy of Christ and we're ravished by all that God is toward us in Christ and promised to be toward us in Christ then our hearts are enlarged to take in more of the Lord. And that's really our calling. That's our vocation. To keep beholding that glory, having our hearts enlarged, our soul broadened to take in more of the majesty of God. And when we grow in that direction, where God is enlarging our hearts, guess what? God is big and lusts are small. This is an inverse proportion, brothers. When lust is big and God is small, it's time to go back and start looking at the glory of Christ again because it's an inverse proportion. I find cycles in my life. Man, why is lust kicking down the door of my peace this week? And I always have to come back to this. It's time to have my heart enlarged by the glory of Christ again. As we grow in that direction of God enlarging our heart, sexuality, with its little frill, assumes its proper size and orbit in our life, and sexual lust loses its power over us as a ruling desire. That is so critical. Now, contrast that with a professed believer who is still dominated by sexual lust that gives evidence that his soul has remained small for a long time. Little souls make little lusts into big and powerful forces that dominate like a tyrant. We must have our heart enlarged. We must realize that as new creatures we were recreated to find unending satisfaction in Christ. For in Christ God gives us Himself. And only the supremacy of Christ is immense enough to enlarge the soul. Now you live in a state with majestic landscapes. The Grand Canyon and some of the craters I've seen. The Mogollon Rim, you have incredible vistas here. But those things can inspire you, can move you to praise, but they can't enlarge your soul. Only a sight of Christ's glory can do that. And our problem today is that lust has come in the back door of the church because the church is full of souls that are small, little souls, that aren't doing the labor to be enlarged by the glory of Christ. Satan is using this. to compromise us. He's using the world to send tsunami waves into the church and they're washing over us in lust. There's a reason for this. Your soul was created for soul-staggering grandeur. Your heart and mind must be connected to the majesty of Christ or it will settle onto trivial things if you're not making that your occupation. The human heart was made to be lost in wonder, in love, in awe and praise. And therefore, if it's not staggered by the supremacy of Christ, it will reach for the greatest natural high it can get. Sex. The deepest cure for sexual lust is to be emotionally staggered by the supremacy of Christ. The sheer weight of Christ in eternity constitutes the gravity of what life is all about. So heavy is that weight of glory. To have felt the tiniest portion of it makes it almost emotionally impossible to go to the internet to view pornography if you have tasted the glory of Christ. To the degree your mind and heart are awakened to the glories of Christ's supremacy, your power potential for purity is ever greater. All our moral regimes to fight lust have a certain futility about them if Christ is not our greatest pleasure and treasure. We must press on to know the Lord. If seeing and savoring Christ then is the object of your desire and satisfaction, by comparison, temporal objects of desire will pale in comparison. I'm preaching this to myself as well as you men today, that I have to make constant course corrections to stay on that path. I must make constant course corrections to keep navigating toward the glory of Christ, to make beholding Him My vocation, constant course corrections. Well, I want to finish this address this morning with a few sermons that I've been preaching to myself in the interest of purity, in the interest of being that vessel who is cleansed from these things that might be useful to the Master. There are things that I must preach to myself. And one of them is that when Paul was being examined Before Felix, if you turn to Acts 24, let's see what he says about his conscience. Acts 24. Before I read that passage, I want to share something that's just a little bit amusing. I cut out a cartoon out of the comic strip the other day, Hagar the Horrible. Hagar is a barbarian who goes out pillaging during the day and he comes home and he's just a regular guy at night. He sits down and asks what's for dinner. hangs up his shield and his sword, his Viking helmet, and he asks what's for dinner. Well, he comes home one night, he's hanging up his shield, and the teenage daughter says to the mom, you know, this is really unfair. I don't think the gods were fair when they made men powerful and having all the privileges. I just don't think that's fair at all. And the mom goes, well, you'd be surprised. Women have a secret weapon. And the daughter goes, what? What is it? And the woman goes, well, the secret weapon is man's guilt. And the daughter goes, well, what if a man's not guilty? And the woman goes, nonsense. Every man's guilty about something. See, the point is, it's a rare man who's got a clear conscience. I disciple nine guys and once in a while I ask them, have you kept your conscience clear this week? And it's rare that they'll say yes. We must keep our conscience clear. It's not a matter of staying perfect. It's a matter of staying cleansed. As Pastor Jim opened up this section with, we must keep returning to that infinite provision in the New Covenant for cleansing. Hebrews 8. I will be merciful to their iniquities. The Holy Spirit keeps showing us the blood. We get tired of running to the atonement, but we shouldn't. We must keep going back for cleansing as often as necessary. Keep short accounts between you and God. Make sure there's nothing between you and heaven. Nothing stands in the way of complete intimacy. Make that your goal. This is so vital. Look at what Paul said when he's on trial here. Acts 24, 15 and 16. I'm going to start in 14, but this I admit to you that according to the way which they call a sect I do serve, the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the law and that is written in the prophets, having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall be certainly a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked in view of this. I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience before God and before men." Brothers, what's the context? You're students of the Bible. the judgment to come. That's the context. Paul was animated by the eschaton. Constantly animated by the return of the Lord, or when he would see the Lord at his death. He was constantly animated by that. He says in 2 Corinthians 5.9, in view of this judgment to come, I make it my ambition to always be pleasing to Him. That's my controlling ambition. 2 Corinthians 5.9. This controls his life. I've got a pastor friend in San Diego and he has a sermon which he calls, How Will You Greet the King? And his exposition of 1 John 2.28-3.2 where it says, Abide in him. Abide in him, little children, so that if he should appear, you may greet him in confidence and not shrink away from him in shame at his coming. So the by-product of a lifestyle of abiding in Christ, maintaining a clear conscience, maintaining intimacy, the by-product of that lifestyle is When you greet Him, you'll greet Him in confidence. You'll marvel. You won't shrink away in shame and look to the shadows. You'll greet Him with confidence. So the subtitle of my pastor friend's sermon is, How You Greet the King IS Your Judgment. How You Greet the King IS Your Judgment. Will it be confidence or shame? You won't sit there and wonder, wow, I wonder what Christ is going to say to me? You will either greet Him in confidence or shame. based upon whether you've been abiding in Him as a lifestyle. You see, this is critical in our strategy against lust. You must maintain short accounts with the Lord. You must cultivate that intimacy so that abiding in Him is your highest priority. Now, with that clear conscience comes a host of benefits. And I'm not just preaching pragmatic things to you. I want you to know that a clear conscience results in numerous things that will assist you in saying no to sin. One is a clear conscience means your hope is thriving. It says in 1 John 3, whoever has this hope fixed upon Christ, then when you'll see him, you'll be like him. If that hope is fixed on Christ, you will purify yourself just as he is pure. The apostle makes a direct connection between purification and hope. So when you keep a clear conscience, what does it do? It invigorates your hope. And when your hope is invigorated, your power for purity is invigorated. Hope and purity and saying no to sin are all bound up together. Now, when your conscience is defiled, you're actually the weakest in the face of temptation. A clear conscience gives you strength in the face of temptation. Guilt is a rotten sanctifier. The Catholic Church thought they could harness guilt and produce sanctified souls as a result. All it did was produce slaves. You cannot harness guilt to produce sanctification. I love what James Haldane says in his Romans commentary. If you have even one sin circulating in your conscience, it will kill your confidence that you can go to God for love and grace and expect to receive it. Haldane also said, you cannot mortify a single sin in heart and life unless you get forgiveness for it first. See, that's our problem. Sometimes we try to mortify lust without getting forgiveness for our compromises. Get the forgiveness first. Confess the sin. Get the cleansing. Get washed in the blood. Then mortify the sin. See, that's so critical. That's gospel-driven sanctification. The staging area for all your forays against sin is your radical identification with Christ. All the benefits of his incarnation, his death and his resurrection are yours. That's the starting point, the staging area for all your forays against sin. It's right there. Get the sense of forgiveness. Then go to work against the sin. Guilt's a lousy motivator. Guilt's a lousy sanctifier. Keep that conscience clear. So, a clear conscience invigorates your hope, gives you power for purity, Let you say no to temptation, gives you expectation and prayer that the Lord wants to meet with you, wants to give you fresh installments of love and grace, and you can have a high, holy expectation that He desires to do so when your conscience is clear. When our conscience is defiled and we leave it that way, what kind of optimism do you have the Lord's eager to meet with you in prayer? It's not very high, is it? Keep that conscience clear. As Paul says, it's a vital, It's a vital piece of your strategy against lust. It's absolutely critical. Well, that's one of the sermons I preach to myself. Keep those accounts short. If you sense anything between you and heaven, take care of it immediately. Keep those accounts short. I often have times where my confession was inadequate during the day. I wake up for a moment in the night and I go, this can't wait. I don't want to go the rest of the night with anything between me and heaven and I'll have to go into my prayer closet and pray through it. And I always sleep peacefully after that happens. The Holy Spirit's right there. He is ready to emanate peace, joy through you. He is a person. When we sin and don't confess it, He is grieved. And that grief to some degree be there in your being if you don't confess that sin. So, restore to me the joy of thy salvation. Keep that clear conscience. It will be there. What else do I preach? I preach that God has a master plot in redemptive history. And that master plot, I mean, you guys are solid Calvinists. You know this better than anybody. That that master plot is not God trying to make the best out of a bad situation. That's the Arminian worldview. We are proponents of sovereign grace. We believe that God has not been taken by surprise. We believe what Jonathan Edwards says in his most famous sermon, the reason for which all things exist in creation, that the sin of man and the sin of angels will not thwart God's purpose, that all things shall bring him glory. And so, because we believe that, there's a plot taking place. And in this redemptive plot, every man and woman is a player. As J. Adams says, whether you want to or not, you will be an eternal object lesson to the watching universe. Because human history is God's grand demonstration. I am a player. I will be an object lesson to the watching universe. And as the preachers of the Second Great Awakening used to say, my friends, characters are being formed right now. Destinies are being fixed today. Though I believe in the decree of God from all eternity, characters are being formed and destinies are being fixed. Because what you say and do in your thought life is crystallizing your character right now. This is why we must repent and keep repenting. We are players in this redemptive plot. Everyone will be an object lesson. When God on the last day finally takes error and sin and rebellion and blasphemy and hangs it on the gallows publicly forever, then we will know that every single person is an object lesson to the watching universe. I preach this to myself all the time. I don't want to be an object lesson of what a hypocrite looks like because God will display hypocrites as part of His display on the last day. I don't want to be that hypocrite. That's terrifying to me. I read the book of Jude And it makes me shudder that there are individuals in the church who think they can have heaven and their lusts both. And the book of Jude puts that to the lie. Sorry. You can't have heaven and your lusts both. Those people who use grace as a license to sin are marked out ahead of time for condemnation. If you use grace as a license to sin, it is a denial of Christ according to the book of Jude. These are sobering sermons I have to preach to myself. I will be an object lesson to the rational universe. And by that I mean angels. I will be an object lesson. What will it be? An object lesson of a brand saved from the fire? A man saved by grace? What will it be? Every man will be an eternal object lesson. How this overturns the great lie that religion is but a compartment of life. No. Everything is under the Lordship of Christ. He will bring everything to its consummation. So I preach this to myself all the time. This is the end toward which redemptive history is headed. This is so critical because we're dealing with people who just live in a state of apathy, spiritual lethargy, just a malaise. And God is calling you to wake them up to some degree by your zeal, by your fervor for these spiritual realities. God is calling you to wake him up. See, we forget what the conscience really is. The conscience is a little annex of God's courtroom. The conscience is a subpoena to God's courtroom. The conscience is an extension of God's perfect justice. It's God's moral mark upon us and we will never escape it. We will have a conscience for all eternity. In this life, it's possible to bribe your conscience, lie to your conscience, and sear your conscience. But on the last day, your conscience, God's verdict, and the law will be in perfect unity. And on the last day, this is a horrific thought, on the last day, the conscience of the unbeliever will rise up to its full stature and take its eternal revenge on its ungrateful host. That's an alarming thought. Every man's conscience will be his source of peace or torment. His source of peace or the worm that does not die. I had a baby Christian in my living room. He'd been saved six months. And what I just told you, the last five minutes I was telling him, he put his face in his hands, he shook his head over and over again and uttered four-letter words as he says, oh no, oh no, oh no. Though he was a baby Christian. He'd not been keeping his conscience clear. This was absolutely terrifying to him, that the implements of his eternal torment don't have to be manufactured by God. He's already carrying them in his conscience, because sin is its own punishment. We have to keep a clear conscience. Lust sullies it up and dirties it up quicker than anything. We've got to keep going back to the blood, confessing the sin, getting that cleansing. running to the atonement as often as we need to. Another sermon I preach to myself, I have 12 here, I'm going to give you 4. But another sermon I preach to myself is the violence that must be done for the Kingdom of God. One of the greatest works by Thomas Watson is a wonderful little book he wrote. It's not that thick. That particular book is taken from a single text in Matthew 11-12 where Jesus said that since John the Baptist, the Kingdom of God is suffering violence, and violent men are taking it by force. And so, Thomas Watson wrote the book, Taking Heaven by Storm. And he just opened that text up and said, look, do you understand how much violence is necessary to enter the Kingdom of God? Didn't Jesus tell us In Mark 10, 24, children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. And in Acts 14, 22, by many tribulations, trials, sufferings, we must enter the kingdom of God. You see, the issue is, will we pay the price? Part of mortification of lust and cutting off occasion to make opportunities for the flesh is the violence necessary to enter the kingdom of God. I like what Watson says in his book. The more violent you are in your spiritual disciplines, in your rigor, in your self-discipline and self-denial, the less violent Satan will be in your life. But start neglecting your spiritual disciplines. Let compromise come in. Be a double-minded man and Satan will be a vicious wolf, hounding you and ripping you and being violent to you all the time. Satan has a goal. We know this from Job 1. Job 1, we can deduce from that chapter this very fact. That God is seeking worshippers, as he said in John 4, and Satan is seeking hypocrites. Satan would like to prove that there is not one single person on the face of the earth that really loves God for who he is. Everybody's in it for self-interest and mercenary things. Satan has something to prove. He wants to prove that your affections are more tied to this world than to God Himself. And Satan has the entire pleasures of the world to work with. That's what he baits his hook with. And that's what he's trying to prove. That God really doesn't have any worshippers at all. How do we trample Satan and conquer him? By our love for the Lord, come what may. Through losses and crosses, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. through everything, our consistent love for Christ tramples Satan. Because in seeking to populate hell, Satan is still trying to undergird the original lie hatched in his soul, that God is not worthy of worship. Therefore, all God can get are people who are transacting with him for earthly blessings, earthly prosperity, health and wealth, mercenary means only. God can't even get one true worshipper. And that was the contest in Job's suffering, was it not? Is Job a true worshipper or is he in a personal game? See, Satan is not done with that agenda. And that's why he uses lust on you and me. He wants to prove that your faith is nothing but hypocrisy. I've got to preach that to myself. Satan is baiting his hook with the pleasure of this world to try to reveal my affections that are untrue. He wants to prove I'm a hypocrite and not a true worshipper. He wants to do the same to you. You must know the agenda of your enemy. Now, Satan is a roaring lion. He's a wolf. He's a liar. He seeks to kill and destroy. Most of you men have a security system in your home of some kind, either electronic or deadbolts or some type of security system. You want to keep thieves and robbers out. And if a thief walked into your house, started taking your possessions, accosting your wife and children, there's no way you'd stand idly by. You'd grab anything, a lamp, a baseball bat, anything, and you'd try to dispatch that guy so he could stop his ravaging. The problem is we don't do that when lust enters in. We let lust come into the house of our soul and wreak havoc and mess things up and turn over the furniture, bash our value system. And finally, a couple of days later, well, I guess I better stop lusting. I'm always reminded of this illustration of a father who took his eight-year-old son to a very first drama, the very first play that eight-year-old boy had seen. It was a play about the time of King Arthur, and there was an incredible sword fight on stage. These swords are clashing, and at one point a spark even came as this metal hit. This little boy's eyes are like this. Finally, the villain takes the sword to the side and falls to the stage, and the curtains finally close, and the little boy is just breathless. The father goes, how would you like to meet the cast? What? How would you like to go backstage and meet the cast? This eight-year-old boy agreed to do that. And as he went backstage, the two men who had represented the antagonist and the protagonist, the good guy and the bad guy, are sitting at a table having coffee together. And the little boy is absolutely scandalized. How could they sit down to coffee? I thought he defeated the bad guy. This is crazy. You see, that's a picture of the fact that in our words, in our speech, in our public testimony, boy, we've declared war on sin. And in our private testimony, we might have a peace treaty with it. We might actually be a secret friend. We might actually have a detente with our lusts. And I myself am even convicted as I say this to you. We must declare war privately, not just publicly, against our lusts. I used to run on the beach in San Diego near where they had the SEAL team training facility. A SEAL team member, water is his medium. He's trained for search and destroy missions. Water is his medium. That's how he conceals himself. He doesn't use palm tree camouflage. Water is his medium. That's his stealth. And he goes on these search and destroy missions underwater. And his mission is always find and destroy. You see, that's your job if you're going to subdue lust. Every single lust has a lie operating behind it. We know that from Ephesians chapter 4. The lusts of deceit, it says. The lusts of deceit. Every single lust has a lie which drives it. And the way you win is not by toying with the lust, not by turning it over in your mind, arguing whether it'd be pleasurable or not. The way you win over the lust is you must out-truth the lust. You must deconstruct the lie. You must attack the lie that drives the lust, because every single lust has a deception factor behind it. You must be a spiritual SEAL team member. Find and destroy. Find the lie that gives the lust its appeal and kill it. That's your victory right there. Find the lie that drives the lust and kill it, drive a stake through it, put it to death. See, part of our problem in our thought life is we're not honest enough. We don't make that our goal. I am on a mission to destroy every lie that comes across the conveyor belt of my mind, including the lies that drive lusts. And there's plenty of lies that come through there per day that need to be destroyed. I think about an amusing story where one of the emperors of the Roman Empire, someone said, look, why don't you choose this gentleman as your advisor? Bring him on your cabinet. He's so intelligent. He's so wise. And the Caesar said, no, I don't think so. He said, why? Well, he's 100 pounds overweight. What does that have to do with it? Well, if he's 100 pounds overweight, I already know he lies to himself three times a day when he sits down at the table. The whole point is our character is inseparable from how we attack lies. If we allow lies safe harbor, our character is defiled in the process. Your integrity is joined to the fact that you keep putting the lies to death. You keep destroying those lies and exposing them in the process. Well, one last sermon and then we'll bring this to a close. I think Pastor Jim, if I have time, is going to give me a couple of minutes for questions and answers maybe. We can explore that a little bit. The book of 1 Peter, if we could just go there for a moment, the book of 1 Peter, starting in verse 3, and I'm going to close with this passage just so you know, just a few more minutes here. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith." Through what? Faith. For salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And I'll finish that verse in a moment. But this passage is also strategic in your battle against lust. The fact that you are kept secure through faith. God keeps your faith alive, vital, and vigorous. And that's the way He keeps you, brings you safely to glory. Now, this faith must be proven, refined, strengthened, exercised, and developed. And so, the Lord has custom-designed things in the school of Christ to keep your faith vigorous. And that needs to be our perspective on a regular basis. We must see all of life through that grid. God is constantly nurturing my faith, refining it, and proving it. Testing it for one great goal. when he presents you publicly before the watching universe on the last day. And he synchronizes the cleansing of the universe and the remaking of the universe with your public presentation as the sons of God. When that event takes place, your faith will be presented as the most precious thing in the universe. More precious than galaxies made of platinum, your faith will be presented as the most precious thing It'll result in praise and glory and honor when Christ is revealed publicly. And this is critical in our fight against lust. Because in our fight against lust, it's a fight over whose worldview we'll believe. The worldview that Christ has told us or the worldview the devil tells us. Faith is all about who we believe. This faith is being tested. There's a kind of faith, it says in James 2, which can't take you to heaven. That's a sobering thought. There's a kind of faith which can't save you. The kind of faith that can save you is preoccupied with the person of Christ. Look what it says here. It says of this kind of faith, that though you've not seen Him... I'm in verse 8. Though you've not seen Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. Obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. This is vital in our strategy against lust. To know that God is at work on your faith. Nurturing it. Refining it. Developing it. And proving it as genuine. You've got an enemy. You've got a personal enemy. The devil who wants to prove your faith spurious. Fallacious. God is at work in your faith. Developing it. Notice that our response to this section on a faith ready to be revealed the last time is in verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your minds for action. Pull up the pants of your mind and get ready to run the race. Make your thought life weaponry. Make your thought life a source of weaponry. Keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance. See, it's always a tension between being conformed and being transformed. How much energy does it take to be conformed? None. All you have to do is be passive. as my friend said, what do you have to do to become a sensual humanist? The answer is turn on the TV and close this book. It'll happen naturally. See, the world wants to conform us to itself and push us into its mold. But God is saying, gird your mind for action. Use your mind as that which is captive to the word of God so that scripture is always transforming you instead of the world conforming you. See, if we see that that's what God is up to, we can cooperate with His purposes, right? We can cooperate with those purposes. Well, the challenges could keep going on. Looking for a summary statement this morning, I'm just absolutely so encouraged that this many men have come out in a chapel of this size. And I just want to encourage you so much that your willingness to sacrifice half of a Saturday for this kind of teaching is just a delight to my soul. And I'm convinced that you'll take the biblical material you've heard today and use it in your relationships. Because God is requiring of us that we do what? Admonish every brother and teach every brother that we might present every brother complete in Christ. That's not Pastor Jim's job, that's our job in our relationships with one another. And that includes overturning some of the greatest enemies to the soul, and that is lust. We're desert survivors. You men who've walked with Christ 30, 40, 50 years, some of you, you've got a high responsibility. You know how to teach people how to survive in this world that wants to destroy their souls. And we need your wisdom. Praise God. Let's take some time for Q&A unless you'd like to transition, Jim. Is that okay? Yes, Alan. That's a great question. And I've heard churches that have done really well and some that the sheep have scattered. And I think the ones that have done really well have been utterly honest about the principles involved. So rather than putting the man up and saying, here he's good, here he's bad, they went to the biblical answer that according to James 1, sin sits there for a while before it's expressed. Look what it says here. It says in verse 14 of James 1, but each one is tempted when he's carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then, and that intimates a little bit later or sometime down the road, then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Now that last phrase only describes an unregenerate person. But the other two phrases could describe a Christian. So we need to be utterly honest. The kind of moral failure you're talking about does not strike as a lightning bolt out of the blue. It's something that has sat there and gestated and developed over time. And what you see on the outside of the man may not be what's on the inside. His doubts about God's goodness, his weariness of God, have made a way for lust. This is critical. All lust is related to weariness of God. All ruling lusts are connected to doubts about God's goodness to you in particular. So we can look at these principles, Alan, and understand that a man does not fall overnight. There's an internal process which has been going on invisibly. You see, we must encourage the sheep to fear the Lord all the more. and guard themselves, as Jim read from Galatians 6. Anything else on that that would help you? Okay, good. Someone else. Yes. Thank you for being so practical. That's a really, really terrific question. Yes. especially when you struggle with that desire for companionship and an outlet for sexual desire. Yes. And then you think, okay, I'll get married and lust will evaporate. I'm looking at 1 Corinthians 7 that when you're single, you can devote your time on the Lord, but when you're married, your interests are divided. When I was single, I read that and really didn't fully understand it, but now being married for about 90 years, I can more appreciate what it's written. Good. I thought you were talking about the fact that a married man, a Christian married man, can still have a lust problem. You weren't bringing that up? Being single, when I got married, I wasn't having problems with lust. you know for your mother obviously not being married or not born again but thought in the context of marriage you would have an outlet for that desire that luck but when you're married you still have to struggle with like you say images that come before sure well because i'm married now you can bring any lady before me and i have No problems of lust because I'm married. Well, that's true. Okay, good. And there's probably a number of single men here this morning. Thank you for bringing that up because sometimes it's easy to think, I didn't marry until I was 36. And I would ask my Christian friends who are married, does marriage cure the whole lust thing? And I love the way he answers. It doesn't cure it, but it sure takes the lid off or puts a lid on it, I think he said. But the problem of lusting can still be there very much. So, how about some practical answers, men? What does it say in Proverbs 5? That let your wife's bosom or breasts satisfy you at all times. It is your affection and passion for your wife that is designed to guard you from the strange woman, both in your thoughts and physically. That's the strategy scripture gives us, is it not? But see, also connected with this is the fact that we're dealing with a sin like no other sins. There's never a time when covenant is right. There's not a time when lying is right. There's not a time when slander is right. There's not a time when idolatry is right. But there is a time when sex is right with your spouse. This is like no other sins. You can't find anything else like it. Sex in the proper context is beautiful. It glorifies God. It makes one flesh. Out of that context, it's destructive. So, here's the problem. My wife looks beautiful to me, and that woman that just won Miss Georgia looks beautiful to me. What am I going to do? I want to stay focused on my wife, not the one who won Miss Georgia in the beauty pageant. But I might have to acknowledge that that woman who won that beauty pageant is gorgeous. I'm not going to lie and say she's not gorgeous. She is gorgeous. But what do you do with that in your thought life? If you're in love enough, you're going to compare that beauty queen and say, yeah, she's beautiful. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't let anyone compare her to myself. No contest. Amen. Amen. See, that's the kind of thought life that keeps fidelity in place. And we have to think that way. But if you're in love enough, that in love tickling can go away. Well, I mean, I've been married almost 65 years, but that woman's more gorgeous to me than she's ever been. Okay, and David's bringing up something interesting here. Even the ability to say that, that my wife is more beautiful than another woman, I wouldn't ever even consider that other woman. It's not a feeling. Love is a volitional act whereby my commitment to my wife before God is the controlling principle here. Because feelings come and go. Some weeks my wife looks more beautiful to me than others, but that's not the variable. It's a covenant until death, which God says is beautiful and he wants it that way. Now sometimes when I see a beautiful woman, I admit. I turn it into a prayer. Lord, you sure knew what you were doing when you could make that out of a rib. Sometimes I'll even use humor in my prayers. Sorry guys, I don't want to say you have to follow what I'm doing here, I have to acknowledge the fact that in Southern California, there are many beautiful women. They're going by me all the time when I'm at the coast or in a mall or something. And I have to keep a constant communication with the Lord. Father, You sure know what You're doing when You made women. What a blessing. How good You are. What a testimony of Your goodness that You gave me a woman who's so perfect for me. Thank you. Thank you. That's right. You bet. And when you maintain communication... See, lust takes place in a very private, secretive way where you're not even cultivating any relationship. That's why lust makes you feel shameful when you engage in it. Because the gift of sexuality is designed to produce oneness in a relationship that's God-given. Sexuality by yourself can never have anything but shame. Because the gift of sexuality is to produce oneness between two people. So I diffuse that lust by talking to God about what's surrounding me. Maintaining the relationship, maintaining intimacy. Alan. Yes. So true. And that's huge. And there are times where I remind myself of this. There is the proverb that a beautiful woman without discretion is like a ring of gold in a swine's snout. And I have to remind myself, yes, there are plenty of beautiful women that have zero character. Their integrity is absolutely absent. I think about the virtues of my wife and suddenly everything is in perspective. She is a Proverbs 31 woman. What a Ruby she is.