"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matthew 5:27-30 ESV)
In 750 BC Ahaz would close the door of the temple from worship of God to worship Baal. People really weren't caring much about the temple, but were more interested in worshipping Baal. So, they did. In these Baal-worshipping temples, prostitution would often happen. So, in order to make Baal happy, they would have relations with the prostitutes. It was hard for them to make the decision to sacrifice livestock and follow God with that sort of temptation. God also didn't want His people storing up to excess. He wanted His people to want what they need and not have in excess... So, they provided daily bread in the temples. Also, during this time was also the sacrifice of living children in Bin Hinon by allowance of Ahaz. Often kids would be slain and thrown into fires. Often the large metal Baal statues would be standing with arms and would be lit on fire and children would be thrown onto and would be melted onto these statues. The army is strangulating Jerusalem. Soldiers came and captured the king and slayed his sons in front of him and the plucked out his eyes. They put the pieces of the kids in the Gahena.
2 Kings 10:16-18
2 Kings 21:4-9
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, "In Jerusalem will I put my name." And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. And the carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them." But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them astray to do more evil than the nations had done whom the Lord destroyed before the people of Israel. (2 Kings 21:1-9 ESV)
It is easy for us to give to ourselves over to a vapor.
We are constantly hit, from a young age, and are formed by what we allow ourselves to be influenced by. The flesh is weak, though the spirit is willing.
Aquinas wrote, "Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures."
Lust is handing control of my body and mind over to illicit cravings. However, when our desire for sex takes over - when our appetites demand whatever they wish without commitment or care - our sexual longings step beyond their natural role.
Early Christians didn't dislike lust because it was immoral, they didn't like it because it was real! They also married young and by adulthood were married and had responsibility before 20, whereas nowadays we are having to fight our desires much longer to remain pure.
For thousands of years there have been monks and priests who lived in convents and monasteries of community of people who are desiring and choosing celibacy; which is way better anything experienced by Hugh Hefner or Jenna Jameson. They experienced the level of communitas and connection that lust was not a common struggle.
To have community, especially roommates and such, it helps keep you from passing boundaries and such that would cause you to sear your heart with a hot iron and your heart slowly become calloused and hardened instead of soft and malleable in Christ's hands.
Are we going to allow ourselves to live in the wasteland of the sin of disobedience in a funk, or are we going to choose to live on the mountaintop of joy in a place that is holy and pleasing to God. This helps us share and carry and bare our burdens and fulfill the law and orders of Christ. You need at least a friend or two you can talk to about anything to help be real and raw and have a place to bare your soul.
Job 19:25
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!
If you say, 'How we will pursue him!'
and, 'The root of the matter is found in him,'
be afraid of the sword,
for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
that you may know there is a judgment." (Job 19:25-29 ESV)
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of The Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of The Lord
and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4 ESV)
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8 ESV)
Early Christians - most lasting religious traditions, in fact - obligated to lust not because it produces ecstasy produced is a third-rate substitute for something real. Lust turns us from the hope of long-lasting bliss and offers us vapor, for we were not made to be mere animals who procreate and die. We are made to be so much more. Even if an evolutionary process produced humanity, God has created us for one more great leap out of the animal whims that birthed us and into the kind of life and happiness he experiences. Yet lust offers us a wasteland of broken relationships and illusory pleasures instead.
All this sounds like theory, but it's not. It is universal laws God has spun into place. They apply to all 7 of the deadly sins. The closer you are in community, the less a hold these things have on you. All this is not about YOUR works, it's not you trying to force yourself to read scriptures, that's from God. If you start FORCING yourself this, you are no different than a Pharisee. To live in a wasteland of your poor decisions is a Hell like no other... Don't be like this. Pray to God to let you live inside the grace only He can give.
