SEVEN DEADLY SINS
DR. JIM DIXON
LUST
II SAMUEL 11:1-4
FEBRUARY 11, 1990
“Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lusts of it. But who does the will of God abides forever.” Those words were written1900 years ago by John, the Apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote those words as a warning regarding lust.
The Greek word for lust is the word epithumia. This word was given a wide range of application, but primarily, it referred to improper sexual desire. I have three teachings today. The first is this, lust is sexual desire without love. Epithumia was used to refer to sexual desire, divorced from love.
King Henry VIII took the throne of England in the year 1507. He was a young man, eighteen years old, handsome and gifted in speaking many languages, playing music and participating in athletics. The people loved him. It was the dawning of the 16th century and they hoped, that he would usher in a golden age, but it did not happen. Thirty-eight years later, six wives later, hundreds of women later, hundreds of pounds later, King Henry VIII died holding the hand of Archbishop Kramer. In his latter days, he had become obese from his gluttony, he was not able to walk. To get upstairs, he had to be carried in a cage, pulled by a chain. He had become the laughing stalk of England. He involved England in fruitless wars, drained the national treasuries, taxed the people to poverty, and alienated the Roman Catholic church. He murdered good men, like Sir Thomas Moore and Thomas Cromwell and he had driven Cardinal Woolsey to his own death. He had murdered two of his first five wives, and according to historians, he was plotting the murder of his sixth wife when he died.
What happened to this man? What happened to the hopes of England? The hopes of a golden age ushered in by this immensely talented human being, what happened? Historians tell us that this man was consumed and devoured by lust. It was said of him that he spared no woman in his lust.
His first wife was Catherine of Aragon. He was married to her, but he was not faithful to her. He had a strong sexual desire for Mary Boleyn and he began to have sexual union with her two to three times a week. He fathered a child by her, though he never gave the child legitimacy. His lustful eye began to move from Mary Boleyn to her sister, Anne Boleyn. He wanted her, but she said, “I will not share your bed unless you share your throne.” He wanted to possess her so he resolved that he would divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, but the Roman Catholic Church wouldn’t permit it. He renounced the Roman Catholic Church and established the independence of the Church of England. He declared himself the sovereign head of the church as well as the state. He divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Bolen, his second wife, and not his last. He beheaded her. He married Jane Seymour, his third wife, not his last. He went on to marry Anna Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, six women.
Historians tell us he didn’t love any of them. He had countless affairs while married to each of them. Indeed, some historians believed that King Henry VIII was not capable of love, only lust. He used people to satisfy his quest for power and pleasure. Women were simply objects to be used for his own sexual gratification. No love, just lust.
The Bible tells us that love does not seek its own way. I hope you know lust always seeks its own way. Love is selfless. Lust is consumed with self and the gratification of the self. The Bible says love, true love never ends. Lust always ends. It uses and it discards, and then it finds someone else to use. Lust uses and abuses. It is sexual desire without love. That’s how the word epithumia was used.
The second meaning of the word lust is sexual desire without sanity. You see, there’s something insane about the sexual desire of lust. The word epithumia always referred to excessive sexual desire, some kind of augmented, exaggerated sexual desire. Sexual desire without sanity.
Cleopatra was born sixty-nine years before our Lord Jesus Christ. She has been called the most famous woman who ever lived. She was the last of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. Technically, she was Cleopatra the VII. Six Cleopatras had preceded her. As the queen of the Nile, she was most famous for her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. Most of what we know about her comes from Octavian, who really was her adversary and enemy. Some historians question the accuracy of much of our information concerning Cleopatra but most believed she was a nymphomaniac. She had her first sexual affair when she was twelve years old as queen of Egypt. She had a special house where she kept scores of men. She fed them special food that she believed, augmented their sexual appetites that they might be able to satisfy her. It was said that she once had a hundred men in one night. Surely not true, but it is true that she had excessive sexual desire, sex without sanity, epithumia.
Hedonism and a preoccupation with pleasure never fulfills. Cleopatra committed suicide at the age of thirty-eight. Throughout history there have been many nymphomaniacs, from Catherine the Great to Mae West. There have been womanizers, men who viewed women as objects for their gratification from the Marquis de Sade to Giovanni Casanova. You see, when we look at people like that, most of us think, “Well, I’m okay. Their sexual desires are insane, but I’m okay. I’m normal.” The problem is we’re not normal. We’re all warped sexually because of the world’s fallenness. The world has been invaded by sin, and we’re all warped sexually. Even if you totally repress your sexual desires, your sexuality is warped.
I think I can illustrate the problem through an automobile. You see, the first people to use the word automobile were the French. They developed the word in the latter portion of the 19th century took two words, the Greek word auto, which means self, and the French word mobile, which means moving. That’s what automobiles are, self-moving. Now, in the beginning, there were only a few automobiles. Today there are more than 400 million automobiles on the earth, thirty-five percent of those automobiles are in the United States of America. Eighty-five percent of the people in America have an automobile and more than fifty percent of the people in this country have two or more automobiles.
Automobiles are very common. But you see there’s one kind of automobile that only a very few people have, and that’s the kind of automobile we call a race car. Race cars are rare and different than normal automobiles because they have altered engines. The performance of the engine has been augmented.
Now, in stock car racing, the automobiles look normal on the outside but on the inside the engines have been altered. They have more rpm, horsepower, and able to move more than 200 miles an hour. In Formula One racing and in Indy car racing, the engines have been turbocharged. So the cars are even faster. Some of the sports car used in racing have been turbocharged. In drag racing, the engines have been altered to attain speeds of more than 300 miles an hour in a short distance. They need parachutes to stop.
Now, the thing about these race cars is they’re very rare, but the people who own them would never take them out on the normal streets of the world because we have speed limits. A race car would be insane in the normal world and impossible to control within the limits. I hope you understand that sexually, men and women have become race cars. We have altered engines, and yet God establishes the limits. Our sexual desires have been augmented, like hard to control race cars. Partly this is because of our own sin and the sinful world in which we live.
The fallen culture, particularly our western culture, we are bombarded by sex in the newspapers, advertisements, the media, in the movies, on television, in the books we read, in the conversations we have and the friends we choose. We are bombarded by sex and our sexual desires have accelerated excessively. It’s not sane.
Imagine for a moment somebody, some guy coming out stage with a tray in an auditorium filled with people. On the tray the man has an orange covered by veil. Slowly, just gradually, the man on stage begins to remove the veil from over the orange. And the people in the audience begin to go crazy, just crazy. And there’s background music. And slowly he begins to slide the veil around off the orange off one side just a little bit. And the people are going crazier and crazier trying to look around each other to get a glimpse of this orange. Finally, they just take the veil away and everybody sees the orange and they’re all going crazy. Then the man takes the orange and he begins to peel it one strip at a time and the people can’t believe it. They’re standing up and they’re shouting and they’re hollering. I mean, you’d have to say, that’s insane. That is insane. Normal appetite for food, obviously insane. What’s happened? Well, I hope you understand that from God’s point of view, that’s what’s happened sexually in this world. It’s become insane. Men crowd auditoriums to see a woman take off her clothes. Now women crowd auditoriums to see men take off their clothes.
Are you a Christian? I mean, do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and your savior? And do you long to please Him? Do you want to be found pure before Him? Do you want to be like Him? Is there any quest for holiness in you? Do you long to see Him and, to see Him smile and hear Him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” If you do, there’s got to be a quest for sanity in your life. That means if you subscribe to playboy or penthouse, you got to cancel those subscriptions. You really do. You got to be careful about the movies you watch, even the television you watch, the books you read, the conversations you participate in, the friends you choose,
You see, if you’re a Christian, the Bible says you have two natures. You have the old nature patterned after the flesh in the world and you have the new nature given in Christ. What are you going to feed? If you feed the old nature, you’re going to really struggle with lust. If you feed the new nature, you’re going to begin to experience victory. You need to choose to read the Bible and be in the word every day. It isn’t convenient, it isn’t easy. You need to choose to spend time in prayer, bathing your life daily in prayer that you would feed your mind and your heart with that which is pure. Because you see, there’s a certain insanity about sexual desire in this world. You know, sexual drive, sexual desire is natural. It’s a gift from God.
Thirdly and finally as we look at this difficult subject, and we look at the word lust, we see that lust is not only sexual desire without love and sexual desire without sanity, but lust is also sexual desire without boundaries. You see this word epithumia used in the Bible oftentimes was used to derive sexual desire or behavior that moved outside the boundaries of God. Lust has no boundaries.
Three thousand years ago during springtime in Israel, the Bible tells us kings normally went out to battle. David summoned Joab, his supreme commander, gathered the armies of Israel, and he sent them out to battle with the Ammonites. David remained in Jerusalem at his royal house. Late in the afternoon, David rose from his couch and walked out on the roof of his palace, as he looked out he saw a woman bathing. The Bible says the woman was very beautiful. David should have just left it there, but he didn’t. He began to inquire about her. He found her name to be Bathsheba., the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah, the Hittite. He surely should have left it there, but he sent messengers to invite her over. He was consumed with lust and had sexual union with her. Out of that sexual union, she became pregnant and David knew he was in trouble. Her husband, Uriah would surely find out. He decided to bring Uriah back from battle and give him a little vacation with his wife. Surely they would have union and Uriah would think the child was his own child. But you see, the problem was Uriah was a committed soldier, zealous in his commitment to Israel. He refused to even see his wife while his fellow soldiers were in the midst of battle. David was desperate and needed another plan. He contacted Joab, the military commander. He said, “Take Uriah. Put him in a place in battle where he will surely die.” Joab did as he was commanded and Uriah was killed. David married Bathsheba and God was enraged. The King of Israel had committed adultery and murder. Lust is truly a deadly sin.
Now, you see Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah. She was out of bounds for David. She was out of bounds for any man except for Uriah. She was married but lust didn’t care. Lust has no boundaries. Now you see, God has established boundaries around human sexuality, sex is not dirty. Biblically sex is beautiful. A great gift given to men and women meant to be opened only within the context of marriage. The highest expression of physical union meant to be joined with the spiritual and the emotional union called marriage. When sex is divorced from that, when it’s opened in some other context, it is cheapened and tainted. It is epithumia. It is lust. It is sin.
Even the secular world we live-in recognizes that adultery is out of bounds. But, you see, other than that, the secular world has no boundaries sexually. Other than adultery, in the secular world, sex has no boundaries. If you’re a single man or woman, and you are attracted to one another sexually, go ahead. That’s what the world says. It’s natural. It’s fun. Do it. God says it’s out of bounds. God says sex before marriage is fornication. The Greek word is pornea, a word referred to sex before marriage. It’s used again and again in the Bible. Sometimes its translated fornication. Sometimes its simply translated immorality or sexual immorality, but it is epithumia and it is sin. It is out of bounds
The world says homosexuality and lesbianism are okay. The world says it’s a natural part of the variety of human sexuality. The Bible says it’s out of bounds and sin. Some medical doctors tell us that, homosexuality is genetically predisposed. Some psychologists tell us that homosexuality is environmentally predisposed, there’s a great conflict. But you see biblically it doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s out of bounds. God has compassion. God loves us all. God is a god of mercy and grace. He understands our struggles. He cares and he warns us. He is holy. He has established boundaries. When He calls it sin, it is sin. Some people are born with unnatural predispositions sexually. That’s tragic but the world is fallen and we’re all born with flaws. Some have greater crosses to bear. God warns us. We’re not going to be judged by our predispositions but we will be judged by what we do with those. If you take desires that are wrong and you play with those in your mind or you give in to them in your actions, you move outside the boundaries of God and this is sin. That is epithumia, and God warns He will judge.
I think we live in a world that’s more concerned with consequences than it is with truth. People are willing to ignore the truth if they can avoid the consequences. People are willing to move out of bounds sexually if they can just avoid the consequences. Syphilis, gonorrhea, AIDS … if we can avoid those things, then people are willing to do most anything. God wants you to know. You never escape the consequences. He sees everything. You can stand in the mirror in the morning and you look okay. You can go to a doctor and have a blood test and he’ll say, you’re okay, but you’re not okay. God sees everything.
You know, yesterday I was jogging on the Highline Canal I had something happened to me, which has happened from time to time. There were a couple of dogs loose and they were big. One of them saw me and began to zero in. As I was jogging, the dog came up on my heels and began to nip at my heels. The woman was calling her dog, but the dog was really into it and jumped on the back of my legs almost tackling me. This has happened before. Now there’s a leash law on the Highline Canal. I’m convinced most people don’t care because after all, what’s the chances of being seen? What are the odds of a park ranger driving down the Highline Canal while you’re walking your dog? Not very good. So people think, well, no one’s going to see no consequences. God wants you to know when you go outside his boundaries, he always sees and there are always consequences before him. No creature is hidden.
If there is a sexual sin in your life, he wants repentance. The problem with these seven deadly sins is we struggle with all of them, all of us. The Bible indicates that the sin of lust begins to occur long before it’s actually manifested in action. Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said of old. Thou shalt not commit adultery. I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart.” How’s your heart? How are you doing? You see, God wants to cleanse us. He wants to release His power and holiness. You must want it. You must long to be like Christ.
This last week I went to a movie called “The Music Box” starring Jessica Lang. She played the part of an attorney. Her father was accused of Nazi war crimes. She just knew it wasn’t true. She loved her father; she knew him well. And of course, her father denied that he had done these horrible things. So she decided to represent him in court. But as time went by, she began to suspect that maybe he really was guilty. Maybe he really had done these things. There began to be more and more evidence, and it culminated with evidence found in the music box.
I listened to the producer of that movie on television this week on the news. He said that his purpose was to show that no human being really knows another human being. You don’t know them really. You don’t really know your father. You don’t really know your mother. You don’t know your wife. You don’t know your husband. You don’t know your children. You don’t know your ministers. You don’t know your best friends. God knows. He knows us all. He sees our hearts and he wants to make us whole. But you’ve got to long to be like Jesus Christ. He wants you to say, “Search me. Oh Lord, know my heart. Try me. Know my thoughts. See if there’d be any wicked way in me. Cleanse me from every sin. Set me free.” The Bible says, “Do not love the world, or the things that are in the world… If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. The world passes away and the lusts of it. He who does the will of God abides forever.” Lust is sexual desire without love, without sanity, excessive, and without boundaries. The Lord calls us as Christians to faithfulness. Let’s close with a word of prayer.