The Enemy, Part 2

“A barracks is meant to be a place where real soldiers were to be fed and equipped for war, not a place to settle down in or as a comfortable snuggery in which to enjoy ourselves. I hope that if ever they, our soldiers, do settle down God will burn their barracks over their heads!”

Catherine Booth

Kirk Cameron’s Comment

Lust is a favorite and effective tool for the enemy, and the entertainment industry is eager to be a partner in the devil’s attacks.

Questions & Objections

Lesson

Do you have a problem with lust? Hopefully you do. When a Christian doesn’t have a battle with it, it may be because he isn’t fighting. Maybe he has surrendered to the enemy. If you are fighting daily, know that you are not alone in the battle against the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16).

Our sex-drive is God-given, and can find satisfaction in marriage. But lust is more than a “drive.” It is a vehicle that overtakes the driver. It straps him in, locks the doors, and takes over the wheel. It steers him onto a fatal collision course with the Law of God. Lust is a spark in the eye that will start a fire in the heart if we don’t put it out as soon as we detect its presence. In almost every case where Scripture details specific sins, sexual sin is at the top of the list. Sin, especially sexual sin, draws us as a moth to a flame. Scripture speaks of being “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). The Amplified Bible puts the same verse this way: “hardened through the trickery which the delusive glamour of his sin may play on him.” Sin has a delusive glamour to it. The old saying “as miserable as sin” just isn’t true. The person who said it probably also said, “Crime doesn’t pay.” Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Sin is enjoyable. I have walked the streets of New York and have noticed that porn stores don’t have to do too much advertising. All they need is a peephole for perverts.

The domain for the battle is your mind. If you have a mind to, you will be attracted to the world and all its sin. The mind is the control panel for the eyes and the ears, the center of your appetites. We think of sin before we commit it. James 1:15 warns that lust brings forth sin, and sin when it’s conceived brings forth death. Impure thoughts fill the room of the mind with lethal gas, and all it takes is an ember of opportunity to create a disaster. Sin holds a deep-rooted charm for our sin-full nature, but carries the sting of death with it. Lust is a landmine hidden in the dirt of the world. Keep out of the world or you will end up maimed by it. People in the world stomp around in dirt and wonder what hits them when things blow up in their face.

Every day of life, we have a choice. To sin or not to sin—that is the question. The answer is the fear of God. If you don’t fear God, you will sin to your sinful heart’s delight.

Did you know that God kills people? He killed a man for what he did sexually (Genesis 38:9, 10), killed another man for being greedy (Luke 12:15–21), and killed a husband and wife for lying (Acts 5:1–10). Knowledge of God’s goodness—His righteous judgments against evil—should put the fear of God in us and help us not to indulge in sin.

If you have a desire to reach the lost, know that you will be a target of the enemy. So be very careful when it comes to what you look at. So much of the world’s entertainment is designed to stir up lust ... and it is easy to stir it up because it is pleasurable to the sinful human heart. Like Job, make a covenant with your eyes not to look with lust upon a young woman (Job 31:1).

One great tool of the devil is idle hands. Do nothing and you can be sure the enemy will do something with you ... it won’t be long until your mind wanders into forbidden territory. So do something with your brain. Fill it with activity. Join a club (golf or anything where you break free from the Christian environment) so that you can rub shoulders with the world. Either that, or find yourself a “fishing hole”—somewhere where sinners sit and nibble their lunch outdoors. Go there to strike up conversations with the unsaved. If you can’t find a fishing hole, make a video for your church on what people don’t like about the church. Perhaps you could take a video camera to a university to interview students. You are sure to get a few bites with that subject. Don’t forget to take tracts with you and give them to those you meet.

A great preacher once said that we may not be able to stop birds flying over our head, but we can certainly stop them making a nest in our hair. One way to do that is to always be abounding in the labor of the Lord.

Preacher’s Progress

A sample witnessing conversation, written in the style of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Feathers for Arrows

African natives found an effective way to capture monkeys. They would hollow out a coconut, cut a small hole in one end, and drop in four or five stones. They would then secure the coconut to the ground and wait for a victim to come along.

It wasn’t long until a curious monkey saw the coconut with the hole in it. He would put his hand into the hole and grab the stones. The monkey then wouldn’t be able to pull his hand out as long as he held onto the stones and he wouldn’t let the stones drop out of his hands because he was curious to see what they were. The natives would sneak up behind the creature and whack!—monkey soup.

The devil has an effective way of dragging sinners to hell. He knows that many will hold onto sin, even if it means the death of them. Encourage sinners to come to their senses—to let go of sin and escape the power of death.

Questions

1. What could be the case if a Christian does not have a battle with lust?
2. How does the sex drive differ from lust?
3. What quality does the Bible say exemplifies sin?
4. Is it true that people who are sinful are usually miserable?
5. When are we a target for the enemy?
6. What is one great tool that the enemy likes to exploit?
7. How can we avoid lust?

Answers to these review questions are provided in the back of the printed book / source PDF.

Memory Verse

“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides for ever.”

1 John 2:16, 17

Last Words

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), twenty-eighth President of the U.S., said when he died: “I am ready.”

Woodrow Wilson