Women are three-dimensional creatures with a spirit, soul and body and have relationships, responsibilities and dreams for their lives. When we lust, we remove all of the other aspects of their beings and just look at only one dimension—their outward appearance. We objectify or make them things instead of souls or people. When we lust, we devalue the amazing soul that she is and make her into a lust hit—entertainment that we scan into our brains.
Lusting is absolutely wrong. Who says so? God does. In Exodus 20:17, otherwise known as the Tenth Commandment, God clearly states, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
It’s clear we are not to lust after our neighbors’ wives. You might think, Great! My five neighbors are not attractive to me, so no problem. But when Jesus was asked about whom our neighbors are, he responded and made it pretty clear that everyone is our neighbor (Luke 10). That means that we are not to lust after any woman on planet Earth. Paul said to treat “the elder women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, with complete purity” (1 Tim. 5:2). Why sisters? Because “sisters” puts women in a relationship context. We would not lust after our own physical sister regardless of her level of attractiveness, because, of course, she is our sister. In the absence of the option to lust, we see her as a whole person with feelings, a history, relationships and value, not as an object.
Lust, if it is not destroyed at this level, can and will grow. And if it is watered repeatedly with more lust, fantasy and pornography, lust will continue to grow and become stronger. If you lust after the same person repeatedly, you are in real danger of creating a situation where you will be drawn toward her. You are reinforcing that situation with your lust.
The second stage of the seed of lust is sin. Sin can start off small, like inappropriate humor, jokes, asking about a woman’s marriage or telling her how bad your marriage is, and progress to a hug, a longer hug, private meetings, and then kissing, sex and ongoing sex. Sin is the evidence that you have fertilized lust over time. Since sin is the next growth stage of lust, it doesn’t just happen; there is always a process of nurturing the seed of lust.
You can repent of sin, be forgiven, and once again grow spiritually, although there may be consequences of sin that continue for quite some time. If a man chooses not to repent, however, he is guaranteed only one future, and that is the fruit of lust: sin and death.
A man may lust for years, never thinking he will sin. I have heard that hundreds of times from men, Christian men, who thought they would never cross the line. They didn’t understand that feeding lust guarantees the seed would grow into its next stage. Whether a man is saved or not, that’s the principle of the seed.
Sin can also be fertilized. Reinforcement promotes the growth of this sin your life making lust and sin stronger and stronger over the years or decades. Sin, like a plant that has sprung up from the ground, definitely grows in a particular season (Heb. 11:25).
“Season” is an interesting term to use because it is a period of time with a beginning and an end. A man in the season of sin often believes he will never get caught; he thinks he is smarter than those other guys. This man is deceived, because there is absolutely no such thing as a secret; there is just a season of secrets. Countless men learn this the hard way. If a man doesn’t humble himself before God and others during this season of sin, he will be faced with the seed of lust reaching its final fruit, death. This harvest season of death has its own distinct beginning. It starts with the humiliation of getting exposed or caught.
God’s Spirit is calling out to men in every nation to lift up their weapons and fight. He has called you to be the protector of those you love, not a perpetrator of pain. It’s men who must protect their families, churches and cultures. It’s men in the last decades who have dropped their weapons, making our church impotent to address a culture getting sicker by the day.
Men are the solution God has chosen. When the world is in trouble, he sends a man. Listen to the call of God in your life. Look at your wife and children’s faces; their futures largely depend on you. Will you sacrifice them to stay unclean and indulge yourself in a little temporary pleasure as you fertilize lust, sin and death?
I don’t believe that for a minute. I believe there is a man inside you who wants to look in your wife’s—or future wife’s—and children’s eyes, and from the deepest part of your being, with every cell in your body, say the word “clean”! As you lift your weapons and fight the good fight, fight to win. Be the patriarch of blessing and purity, as God has ordained you to be.
Remember, it’s not your battle scars or even the lost battles that count; it’s about winning the war. Our God is calling us to be his solution for the condition of this unclean world. Aim your weapons in a way to honor God and our families, and let’s take back our land. {eoa}
Doug Weiss, Ph.D., is a nationally known author, speaker and licensed psychologist. He is the executive director of Heart to Heart Counseling Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the author of several books including Clean and Lust Free Living. You may contact Dr. Weiss via his website, drdougweiss.com or on his Facebook or by phone at 719-278-3708 or through email at [email protected].
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