Imagine that you have been sentenced to spend the rest of your life in a jail cell with a terrorist who has declared jihad against you. Imagine that this terrorist is not only an expert in torturing your body, but that they also know the most intimate details of your heart, mind and soul and will use them against you. Worst of all, this terrorist is willing die in the process of bringing you to hell with them.
Well, the bad news is that this has already happened. Your jail cell is your earthly body and the terrorist is YOU!!!!!
Congratulations. You've just met the undisputed champion of your Marital MMA division.
The truth is that ALL OF US ARE BORN EVIL. As soon as we leave our mother's womb, we embark on a lifelong, unholy jihad against God, waging a proxy war against Him by sinning in every way that we can. We are essentially committing martyrdom in the name of the "god" who we really worship: self. The root of all sin, including sexual sin, is self-worship, which is more commonly known as pride. When we sin sexually, we do to things:
1) We usurp God's rightful position as the Lord of our lives by replacing His Will for us with our own desires.
2) We seduce members of the opposite (or in some cases, the same) gender into committing idolatry by convincing them to offer their bodies as living sacrifices to us instead of Christ.
Because sexual sin is so destructive to the perpetrator and everyone around them, the person who uses these kind of acts as their method of rebellion has become the spiritual version of a suicide bomber. In particular, when people infiltrate churches to desecrate Christians in the name of sexual conquest, they are, figuratively speaking, putting on a backpack full of explosives and running into a marketplace full of God's children.
The bad news is that we are so brainwashed by our sin that it is impossible for us to stop our "War On Holiness" on our own. No matter how hard we try to resist our "inner terrorist" (which the Bible calls our flesh), he/she will suck us back into unholy jihad and we will eventually wind up burning in The Lake of Fire forever. The good news is that, if we turn ourselves in to Christ, plead guilty to our wickedness, and accept His death and resurrection on the cross as payment for our sins, He will cancel our eternal life sentence in the Lake of Fire. Not only that, but He will also give us eternal life in paradise and allow us to serve in His army of righteousness through living and preaching the gospel.
Unfortunately, even though our inner terrorist is mortally wounded when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, he/she doesn't die right away. In fact, he/she will be especially lethal because they know that they are dying and have nothing to lose. Before the Holy Spirit finishes them off (which doesn't happen until after you die), your inner terrorist will declare you a traitorous infidel and put a death warrant out on you. One major way that your inner terrorist will try to slay you is by using your own sexual desires to lure you into behaviors that will either kill your physical body or murder your witness for Christ. These behaviors include but are not limited to:
1) Hardcore pornography or "Romantic e-books" (a.k.a. hardcore porn for ladies)
2) Sexual promiscuity before/after marriage
3) Infidelity during marriage
4) "Spanking the Monkey"
5) "Girls Night In" (a.k.a. the feminine version of "Spanking the Monkey")
6) Erotic daydreaming (a.k.a. lusting after friends, coworkers, classmates, celebrities, etc.)
7) In extreme cases, criminal acts such as sexual assault (at this point, it really isn't about sex anymore, but we'll get more into that later)
So how can you "put to death the desires of the flesh" and defeat your inner terrorist once and for all? Read next week's post to find out.
Mark 7:21-23, "For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (NIV)
