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Episode #8 - Choosing sexual Purity
“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:7)
Choose to do what is right and you will be blessed. Choose to do what is wrong and you will suffer the penalty of your sinful, selfish choice.
In this episode, we are going to talk about choosing sexual purity – it’s entirely up to you. When facing the temptation to lust, to look at porn, to fantasize sexually, to masturbate, Remember This: you have a choice. You always have a choice.
Transcript
(Opening Soundtrack)
In Genesis 4:7 God is talking with Cain just before he kills his brother Able. Listen to God’s warning.
“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Think about what God is saying. Choose to do what is right and you will be blessed. Choose to do what is wrong and you will suffer the penalty of your sinful, selfish choice.
Welcome to The Point of Purity Podcast. I’m your host Steve Etner – and here in Episode #8 we are going to talk about choosing sexual purity – it’s entirely up to you. When facing the temptation to lust, to look at porn, to fantasize sexually, to masturbate, Remember This: you have a choice. You always have a choice.
(01:00) Liar Liar
One of the most powerful lies the enemy of your soul whispers in your ear is that “I have no choice. I just can’t help myself. I have to look, I have to lust, I have to masturbate! After all, I’m only human. God will understand.”
My friend, those thoughts are lies directly from the pit of hell. In John 8:44 Jesus says of Satan, “there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Yes, you are only human, and yes, God understands, but you DO have a choice. You always have a choice, and (through Christ) you CAN help yourself. You DON’T have to lust, you DON’T have to masturbate, you DON’T have to sin.
Please listen to me closely. Every time you think you have no choice; every time you feel you have to give in to your temptations or you will burst – I want you to quote Genesis 4:7 ... “ If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” And as you’re quoting this verse, remember, you can choose to do what is right, or you can choose to do what is wrong. The choice is yours.
Something you will frequently hear me say in these podcasts is that you do what you do, because in your heart you want what you want. Let me repeat that. You do what you do because in your heart you want what you want. To change your outward behavior, you must first change your inner being – your heart.
(03:04) The Million Dollar Question
When you are facing your temptation, a great question to ask yourself is, “what is it I like so much or want so badly, that I am willing to sin to get it or to keep it?” Although you choose to lust, in part, because you like the “pop” and the “rush” that lust brings, there is also something deeper and more profound than that happening. There is something that you like or want so much that you are willing to sin – to turn your back on God and commit idolatry and adultery - to get it or keep it.
Why do you want what lust pretends to offer instead of what God promises to provide? To answer that, let’s look at the last part of our statement “You do what you do, because in your heart you want what you want.”
In other words, you choose to lust because in your heart you believe that lusting after another person is what will bring you the things you think you want. You believe that which you desire so deeply is what is in your best interest, and you are convinced that lusting is the only (or maybe we should say - easiest) way to get it.
Let’s add one more point to our statement to bring some clarification. “You do what you do, because in your heart you want what you want. You want what you want because you believe what you believe.”
(05:07) Why, Why, Why?
Why do I lust?
Ultimately you choose to lust because you believe that God cannot or will not meet your current “need” – at least not in a way that will truly satisfy and fulfill you. So, you believe that lusting is the only way to get what you truly want. You are making a willful choice to lust because you want something that you believe only lust can provide.
The question I want you to consider here is this: What is the “need” you have that you believe God cannot or will not adequately meet?
Why do I look at porn?
You choose to look at porn because in your heart you want something that you think looking at porn will provide. Again, the choice is always yours. You do what you do, because in your heart you want what you want. You want what you want because you believe what you believe. So, you are choosing to look at porn because you want to “feel good” and you believe that looking at porn will relieve the stress. It will remove the boredom. It will satisfy your fleshly desire and make you feel like a man.
Ultimately, you choose to look at porn because you believe God cannot or will not meet your current “need” – at least not in a way that will truly satisfy and fulfill you. So, you believe that looking at porn is the best way (easiest way) to get what you want.
So, the question I want you to consider here is this: What is it that you like so much or want so badly that you are willing to look at porn to get it or keep it?
Why do I masturbate?
Let’s take it a step further. You choose to masturbate because in your heart you want something that you think masturbating will provide. The choice is yours. Either you choose to take matters into your own hand (quite literally), or you will choose to trust God to meet your needs. You cannot have it both ways.
You do what you do because in your heart you want what you want. You want what you want because you believe what you believe. So, you choose to masturbate because you believe that self-gratification is the only way to relieve the sexual tension and pressure that has been building up inside of you. That built up tension, by the way, is there because you chose to lust, you chose to fantasize, you chose to look at porn; in other words: you created the tension in the first place.
You are choosing to masturbate because you want that “ahhhh” moment – that reward, that fleeting euphoric high – and you want that high more than you want the joy and pleasure of glorifying God. You want that high because you believe that giving in to your temptation is the only way to be “normal” again.
At that moment, your desire to experience the relief is dominating your thoughts and driving you crazy. You believe you need “normalcy” and you believe that masturbation is the best (and easiest) way to get that. You believe life will come to an end if you don’t give in. You are convinced that you need to experience that relief.
Ultimately, you believe that God cannot or will not meet your current “need” – at least not in a way that will truly satisfy and fulfill you, so you choose to masturbate. There is something that you like so much or want so badly that you are willing to masturbate to get it or keep it.
(09:15) Me, Me, Me!
Consider for a moment the personal pronoun “I.” I want. I need. I desire. I long for. I deserve. I must have. I cannot live without. I, I, I. When King Me is sitting on the throne of your heart, all of your thoughts, words and actions will be for the benefit of King Me. When you are thinking about how to satisfy King Me, you will eventually make sinful choices that are in favor of self and opposed to God. Why? Because your King Me choices will always be focused on pleasing yourself instead of glorifying God.
Glorifying God should always be your #1 goal in life. I Corinthians 10:31 commands, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
In Colossians 3:17 we read “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
And 2:Corinthians 5:9 says we are to make it our goal to please God
According to these verses, what percentage of your life is to glorify God?
Up to this point in time, what percentage of your life has consistently glorified God?
Now consider this: What needs to change in your life so that your answer to those questions is 100% of my life?
Let me repeat one more time: you do what you do because in your heart you want what you want. You want what you want because you believe what you believe. Don’t lose sight of the fact that at the core of all you do is what you believe . To change your behavior, you must first change your heart.
(11:43) Not That Order - Disorder
I want you to understand this one simple but powerful truth – the issue you are struggling with is NOT lust. It is NOT pornography. It is NOT masturbation, or any of a number of sinful activities you are choosing to engage in. Each of those are the by-products of the real issue.
The real issue you are battling with is a worship disorder . Whom is sitting on the throne of your heart? Whom are you worshiping? King Me or Jesus? Your response to that question is the answer as to why you are struggling and cannot get free.
Take a moment here and consider once again Genesis 4:7. “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Now here’s my next question for you to consider: As it relates to your personal battle for sexual purity, what is the “right” thing to do?
To fully understand the “right thing to do,” it’s important that we keep Genesis 4:7 in its context. If we don’t, we may assume that the correct answer to the question I just asked is something like – “the right thing to do is quit looking at porn. The right thing to do is stop lusting and masturbating. The right thing to do is to be sexually pure.”
While you would be mostly correct (it is right to stop lusting, stop looking at porn, stop masturbating and instead be sexually pure), you would also be somewhat incorrect as that is not what God is referring to here. It goes much, much deeper.
(14:01) The Main Pain of Cain
Here is the context. Listen as I read to you Genesis 4:3-5. “In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.”
Now let’s compare that with Hebrews 11:4 which says, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.”
And 1 John 3:12 which says, “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.”
In Genesis 4:7, God tells Cain to do what is right and the result would be God’s acceptance and blessing. What did Cain do (before killing his brother) that was so wrong, so evil? I submit that the answer is simply this: he chose to worship himself instead of God. He chose to do things the way he wanted instead of the way God demanded. Abel offered “the firstborn of his flock” – a blood sacrifice - as an act of faith in and obedience to God, whereas Cain “brought some of the fruits of the soil.” Able worshipped God - God’s way. Cain worshipped his own god his own way.
The heart of Cain’s problem was a worship disorder. He chose not to worship God in a way acceptable to his Creator. Rather, he went through the empty motions of “worship” in a way of his own choosing. He was guilty of idolatry.
(16:27) Do Right
Listen once again to what God says to Cain in Genesis 4:7 “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
You are doing what is right when you choose to remove King Me off the throne of your heart and make the willful choice to worship God instead of yourself. Oh, my friend, choose to do what is right – daily choose to worship only God as Lord of your life. When you do, you will be accepted and blessed.
Again, I ask the question: As it relates to your personal battle for sexual purity, what is the “right” thing to do? Hopefully you now understand that the only correct answer is to always worship God, never King Me.
God goes on to tell Cain (and us) that when you choose to do what is wrong sin - wants to devour you. It wants to gobble you up and spit you out. It wants to consume every part of your life – not just your sexual purity, but EVERYTHING.
Choose King Me and sin will begin to consume every part of your life. So, as it relates to your personal battle for sexual purity, what is the wrong thing to do? The answer – worship King me not God.
(18:27) Closing Soundtrack
As we close out today’s podcast, I have one more important question for you to seriously consider. In what ways have you seen sin consume your life as a result of choosing to worship self instead of God? And what are you going to do from this point forward to change that?
Well be sure to join us next week for Episode #9 of the Point of Purity Podcast where we talk about the consequences of your choices. Until then, remember the words of Romans 8:12-13 which admonishes:
“We have an obligation – but it is not to the sinful flesh, to live according to it, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live!”