#3: Sexual Enticement is a Lie

I. Introduction
A. This is the third week of our sermon series about truths we need to know for the sexual struggle.
1. First week: The sexual struggle is a spiritual battle.
2. Second week: There is hope for the sexual struggler.
3. Today: Sexual enticement is a lie.
B. Before we get started I’d like to heartily recommend a book on this subject by Paul David Tripp entitled Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies.
II. Proverbs 5:1–5 My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, 2 that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. 3 For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, 4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;
A. This passage is about listening to truth (the father to the son) on the one hand, or listening to lies (the forbidden woman to the son) on the other.
B. The father speaks words of wisdom and understanding, discretion and knowledge.
C. The forbidden woman on the other hand is lying through her teeth. Notice the contrast between what she says and what she actually delivers. Her lips drip honey, her speech is smoother than oil BUT in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. The path she leads you in goes down to death and hell.
D. In this we see much about Satan and his lies.
1. He is the deceiver, lies are his main weapon; deception his main tool of trade.
2. Through many crafty means he gets us believing things which are not true.
3. When you think that everything is different than it really is, we call that insanity. And that’s exactly what we are when we look out at the world and think that created things like sexual pleasure are what we need to be happy.
III. Common lies Satan tells sexual strugglers (There are many more than these, but here are some.)
A. Ever since the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-7) our enemy the devil has been whispering in the ear of man: “There’s a better way to happiness than God’s way. He’s just depriving you of the really good stuff. Throw off His yoke and then you’ll find out what good living is all about.”
1. The fact is, Satan is actually the enemy of pleasure. He hates it. He uses it to enslave people, just like bait on a hook. But he doesn’t really want anyone having a good time. He wants them miserable. He promises them a good time but has no intention of delivering. He is a liar, remember. He allows things to look pleasurable but never delivers the pleasure, except sometimes he allows enough pleasure to make sure the hook is really firmly in the fishes mouth.
2. God is the One who is on the side of real pleasure. That’s why the romantic and sexual relationship between a man and a woman is so wonderful. He made it that way. “At His right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps.16:11)
3. Satan wants it to appear that God is opposed to pleasure, but it’s just another one of his lies. After all, how could the one who created all capacity for pleasure (e.g. eyes to see beauty, ear to hear music, all the apparatus to enjoy good food) be against pleasure? It doesn’t make sense. How could the one who created music and sunsets and snowflakes and stars and flowers and mountains and sex be opposed to pleasure?
4. God is PRO-pleasure. However, He knows how man obtains true, lasting pleasure and He knows how false temporary pleasures came sometimes be used to lead man away from true pleausre.
5. That’s why He’s given us His word. And when we go His way, we find real pleasure. But He wants us to avoid Satan’s lies, which promise pleasure and deliver nothing but death.
a. This is why He tells us not to seek after pleasure, because Satan can make many things look pleasurable that are really traps. God says, “Seek Me and I will give you pleasure.”
b. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
B. Another lie of Satan is that sex is the really big thing in life.
1. It is so easy for people to be captivated by the glory of sex. But the first thing about sex is that it is not first. Like every other created thing, it is second.
2. The sun and the moon illustration illustrates this well. In the dark of night, the moon looks very bright. It can even hurt your eyes a bit when you first look at it. But the glorious light of the moon does not actually come from the moon. It is derived from the sun. The moon reflects the glory of the sun. The reason the moon is so bright is because the sun is so much brighter. The moon only looks dominant in the sky when it does not share the stage with the sun. When the sun is in the sky, it’s hard to even find the moon. When you look at the sun you don’t merely feel a twinge of pain, but you must look away immediately or it will permanently burn your eyes.
3. So it is with sex. The glory of sex is like the glory of the moon. The reason it is so glorious and powerful is because it is a reflection of God’s glory. And yet it is dim compared to the glory of God. Sex isn’t the biggest thing in the universe. God is.
4. And yet when we are blind to the glory of God, sex can appear to be the most glorious thing of all.
5. God created sex. He has a purpose for it. He made it powerful. He made it glorious. But He made it to be second, not first.
6. The question we need to ask ourselves is: What glory captivates me?
a. Our hearts are idol factories, constantly making created things into gods.
b. Every day we struggle with this.
7. Can we go back to Sychar for a moment? Sychar is the town in samaria where Jesus met the woman at the well (John 4). We talked about the story last week, but there are a few parts we left out.
a. When the disciples returned back from fetching lunch in town, they went to give Jesus His portion of it, but He refused, saying, “I have food that you know not of. My food is to do the will of My Father in heaven.” You see, there is food and then there is Food (with a capital Of). The disciples were thinking about lunch but Jesus was thinking about the true Food.
b. The woman was at the well to get water, but Jesus told her that He could give her living water.
c. They were thinking about created things, but Jesus was there to revveal Himself as the ultimate, eternal thing: the living water, the true food (John 6:32-35, 48-58).
d. The woman Jesus met at the well had spent her life thinking that the answer to her longings was men. She had had five husbands and was now living with a man she was not married to. But just as there is water and then there is living water, and just as there is food and then there is Food, there is men and then there is THE MAN. Jesus shows up in her life and says, “It’s Me! I’m the One you need!”
8. So, what are you feeding yourself with? What are you looking to for life? When you wake up each morning and head into your day, what is it that you hunger for? What is it that you can’t wait to get to?
9. Whatever it is, Jesus says, “It’s Me!”
a. But then Satan and his fellow master spin artists get hold of it. And boy can they make something perfectly wonderful look perfectly horrible!
10. The fact is, He is our Pleasure, (with a capital P). He is the beautiful One, our beautiful savior.
11. Eph.5:28-32 has sex symbolizing the union between Christ and His church.
a. The sexual relationship is so holy and so deep! When God wanted to find a way to communicate to man about the intimate union between Christ and His Church, He created the sexual union to illustrate it.
b. God didn’t pick the lowest activity to picture the highest.
c. However, the fact that the sexual union in marriage is given to us as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and His church shows us that even though it is wonderful, it is not the ultimate reality or the ultimate pleasure. The sexual joys of earth are given to us to give us a tiny glimpse of the supreme joy of knowing Christ and worshiping Him and dwelling in union with Him forever.
12. The God who created sexual intimacy with a word is the same God who is creating the delights of heaven for His beloved bride. And even though the glory and power of sex is great, the glory and power of what God is preparing for us, and the glory and power of Jesus whom He has given us, is infinitely greater.
a. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1Cor.2:9)
13. You see, the gospel is the answer to the sexual struggle.
C. One more lie of Satan is that you are your own person, that you can do what you want to do when you want to do it.
1. That feeling rises up in every one of our hearts. We don’t like doing what somebody else tells us to do. We want to make up our own minds.
a. And the world cheers us on in this spirit of independence. “Do your own thing!” “Go for it.” “Don’t let anybody else tell you what to do.”
2. But the truth is: “I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”? (Heidelberg Catechism, #1)
a. This is the first theological truth proclaimed by this great reformed catechism: “I am not my own.” And it is not stated in disappointment. It is the answer to the question, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” or we might say it this way: “What is the key to your happiness in life and in death?”
b. When we think that way, we are ready to joyfully surrender our bodies to Him as living sacrifices, as instruments of righteousness for the Lord’s use.
c. And when we know that He gave us His own Son, we will be ready to believe that He will withhold no good thing from His children, and that if and when he deems it good to give me the joy of a godly sexual relationship, He will certainly do so in His own time.
3. Satan wants you to forget who you are. He wants you to think you are your own.
IV. Application
A. In life, we repeatedly come to forks in the road: Which way shall we go?
1. Have you ever gotten off the interstate to look for gas or food or a bathroom? you come off the exit and come to a ‘T’ in the road. We sit there looking right, looking left, trying to figure out which way looks more promising. But it’s often hard to tell, isn’t it? You might see one store off to the left and only woods or fields to the right. But when you drive left, you find that the store is closed and there’s nothing at all past it. So you turn around and go the other way. And even though it looked like there was nothing, after you come over the hill, there’s a whole town with everything you need.
2. And so it is in life. There is a way which seems promising and pleasant, but which ends in emptiness and misery (Prov.14:12 & 16:25). And there is a way which seems hard and narrow, but which leads to fullness and life (Matt.7:13-14).
3. Jesus doesn’t always SEEM to be better, does He?
a. We know the path to Jesus is the path to glory, but it doesn’t look like that at times. Satan has been at work spinning it to look boring and harsh and unpleasant.
b. Sometimes the first step toward Jesus feels like you’re dying. His glory is obscured right now. But the glory of created things is not.
4. This fork in the road often comes much earlier than you think.
a. You see, sexual temptation is pleasant. This is different than most temptations. When I’m starving but can’t eat because of my diet, I don’t go up and sniff the brownies to feel good.
b. And so we’re tempted to indulge in the temptation without committing the act: to look, but not touch.
c. In Matt.5:27-30 Jesus tells us that by the time we lust, we're already down the wrong path.
B. One of God’s great blessings to us is that everyday we reboot. Every day is something of a clean slate. Everyday when we wake up the battle begins anew. And it begins in the first minute of your day. Or, maybe we should say the lies begin the very first minute of your day:
1. The lies about who you are
2. The lies about what’s important
3. The lies about what you need to do
4. The lies about what’s going to give you life and satisfaction and happiness today
5. The lies about what is the really big thing in life today
C. Last week we talked about our need for grace to fight the spiritual battle of sexual temptation.
1. We talked about praying for grace. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” – Matthew 7:7–8
2. We talked about making use of the means of grace, such as public worship, the reading, study, preaching and teaching of the word of God, fellowship and counseling.
3. I would like to mention one more key to obtaining the grace of God we so desperately need. The fact is that God gives grace to the humble, as it says in James 4:4–10: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”