Victory Over Lust

Romans 6:12
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

There is no one who doesn’t know its fire. The burning and frustration. Also the failure and the shame. Hopefully only few know its full, awful, consequences when it has its way. Sexual sin has ruined lives. It has ruined kings and nations. It has brought down God anointed ministers in scandal and devastation.
The world says that it’s impossible to deny its pull. The world even tries to deceive us into thinking it’s natural and good to surrender to the power of the flesh. It does this in open war against the word of God that condemns it as sin.

God’s word says…

1 Corinthians 6:18-19
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

Sexual immorality is definitely a sin. It is a sin against our own body and a sin against the God who now dwells in our own body.
But God has not left us without direction on how to have victory over the sin of lust.

Rule #1: FLEE!

Look at what verse 18 said, “Flee sexual immorality…”.

The first piece of good advice you need is that you are never to hold yourself fast in the lustful situation you may find yourself in. Flee! Run! Get out of there. Get away from it. Turn the channel. Hit delete. Get out of the chair, get out of the room, look away and do it now.

2 Timothy 2:22
Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Do not stand there. Do not think you’ll stand and fight. Not where sexual lust and desire are concerned. That enemy breached your walls long ago. It has been in your heart and head since puberty and it will never be gone until our old flesh is burned away and we have bodies like Jesus, (Matt 22:30).

Remember the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife? She kept tempting him to commit adultery with her.
As the story goes, Joseph did not stand up to her and he quickly quit arguing with her. He ran…

Genesis 39:11-12
11 But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, 12 that she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.

Do not try to “stand up” to lust and sexual sin.

Rule #2: STAY AWAY!

Also never think to “test yourself” by going where you shouldn’t to see if you can fight.

Proverbs 5
3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.
6 She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths are crooked, but she knows it not.
7 Now then, my sons, listen to me; do not turn aside from what I say.
8 Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house,

“Keep to a path far from her…” (Pro 5:8)
All of us know what channels we shouldn’t be selecting and we know what web sites we shouldn’t be going to. We know what magazines we shouldn’t be thumbing through and we know when we’re staring.

If you want to live in victory, don’t even turn to the wrong channel in the first place. Don’t go to that web site, don’t even Google search for such things. Accidently got there? Sure it can happen. I’ve learned the hard way not to Google “Toys”. Some incredibly raunchy things came up. But when such things happen, get out of there.
And magazines? You don’t just get the sin of lust from outright pornography there are plenty of Hollywood and ladies magazines with photos galore to arouse the senses. Just leave them alone.

Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

And I’m well aware of how difficult this is. These days we are in an ocean of carnal hedonism that buries us in sex and lust and sin. But we must be strong and try because the final motivation is…

Rule #3: You will be profoundly sorry if you don’t.

Proverbs 5
8 Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house,
9 lest you give your best strength to others and your years to one who is cruel,
10 lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich another man's house.
11 At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent.
12 You will say, "How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction!
13 I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors.
14 I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly."
15 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.
16 Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?
21 For a man's ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths.
22 The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast.
23 He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.

If and when you ever surrender to a sexual temptation the very “best”, if it can be called that, at the very best you can be punished with is confession of your sin in your prayers and move on.
At worst you might have seriously crippled your witness, destroyed your family, corrupted your health or your spouse’s health, or brought the birth of a child into a world where its family is a lie and a sham. At worst sexual sin can effect your life and the lives of everyone around you in a tragic way that is absolutely irrepairable.

Consider this now. Always be thinking and looking where the escape door is before you ever find yourself in a spot where you later pray with all your might you had never been.

I once read a story about how Billy Graham would never even enter an elevator alone with a woman. He’d wait for the next one. There are situations where it’s not even about temptation but about the appearance of integrity and purity that must be kept.
I have heard of many pastors who hold policies of never counseling women alone unless his wife is there too. And I knew a pastor who made sure the church took the extra expense of large windows on his office and door so that not even the suspicion of impropriety could be imagined.
These disciplines can be considered in our own lives.

Rule #4: It IS possible to live in victory over sexual lust, temptation and sin.

Don’t ever believe hell’s lie that, “I got needs.”
You can keep God on the Throne in your body.

Romans 6:12-14
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

It is right before this part in Romans where Paul says we are “dead” to sin. We are in Christ now and since He died to this world we are dead to the world also in Him.
Conditionally that is where we are. I know it doesn’t feel like that most of the time but the point is we DO have the power to say “no” to sexual sin…

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

We DO have the power to flee. We DO have the choice to stay far from where these temptations are known to lurk.
If we keep this truth in our hearts and stick to these disciplines in our body we will grow and become more and more the image of His Son, (2 Cor 3:18), and less and less the image of a fallen and temporary world.

1 John 2:16
16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.