Like a giant multi-tentacled octopus, our society is full of influences attempting to lure us into lust and its attendant sins. How does the righteous saint live in society, but not succumb to all of the ungodly and ultimately damning sinful lustful temptations that assault a person everyday from every direction?
In this second video, we discuss how to use biblical strategies to successfully fight and overcome lust and all its attendant sins.
In our modern society, lustful and covetous temptations are bombarding us from many directions everyday in the things we see, hear and watch other people do. This includes lust for money, power, possessions, fame, good looks, knowledge, pleasure, etc., etc. But there is more to lust than meets the eyes.
Biblically, lust is much more than mental illicit sex. It has to do with strong and destructive passions that can lead to a host of other sins such as coveting, thefts, sinful imaginations, foul language, murder, mental and physical sexual sins, which all, in turn, lead to guilt and shame.
In the first video video, we identify the problem, which is half the battle to overcoming it and gaining the victory. In the second video, we discuss biblical strategies to resisting and overcoming lust.
Matthew 19:16, What good thing. Yeshua’s answer to the rich young ruler when he asks him what he must do to have eternal life might, in a cursory reading, appear that Yeshua is promoting a works based salvation. However this is not the case. Yeshua cleverly shows the young man that he is incapable of obtaining eternal life through good works, for man isn’t capable of perfectly following the Torah. In the case of the young man, he thought himself to be perfectly righteous, when in reality, Yeshua showed him that he was covetous, and therefore still an unrighteous sinner thus disqualifying himself from reward of eternal life. Yeshua, on the contrary, instead of promoting a works-based salvation model, instructs the young man to deal with his sin by selling his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor, and then becoming a follower of him. The lesson here is that salvation and eternal life can come only as we turn from our sin and become a follower of Yeshua.
What Yeshua is really saying when he answers the young man’s question in verse 21 is this: “If you want to be perfect [Gr. teleios meaning “brought to its end, finished; wanting nothing necessary to completeness”],” turn from sin by obeying the Torah more completely, but also follow the Messiah by becoming his disciple. Remember, to hear and to obey (Heb. shema) the Messiah was a command of the Torah as well (Deut 18:15), and to not believe in him is sin (John 16:9 cp. 3:18). So according to the Bible, to be spiritually perfect or complete one must, as Yeshua said, love him by keeping his (Torah) commandments (John 14:15). It is the Torah that shows us how to love Elohim (and our fellow man as well).
Yeshua makes a similar point in his exchange with a scribe in Mark 12:28–34. While extolling the virtues of Torah-obedience, and commending the scribe for his understanding of the deeper heart issues of Torah-obedience, Yeshua makes an interesting concluding statement. He tells the scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of Elohim (v. 34) as if to tell him, “You’re on the right spiritual track with regard to your Torah-obedience, and you’re heading for the kingdom, but that alone won’t get you into the kingdom. You must also become a disciple of Yeshua.
Luke 11:33, No one. As Jonah witnessed to Nineveh proclaiming the message of repentance (vv. 29–32), even so, Yeshua is teaching us that we must do the same to our generation.
Furthermore, if when proclaiming the gospel message of repentance (turning from sin or Torahlessness and turning to Yeshua) our eye is evil—a Hebraism for greedy or covetous—then our whole message will be compromised or tainted. How is this? If we have been called to preach the good news or gospel of the kingdom of Elohim, and we’re in it to make money, then those hearing our message may view it as suspect because they see behind our preaching an ulterior motive. Are we preaching the message out of pure altruism and seeking no financial gain or other personal benefit, or do we have a hidden agenda—namely, personal enrichment? If the latter, are people going to believe our message more or less? How is this going to reflect on the message itself—favorably or negatively? Is this going to help bring people into the kingdom of Elohim or keep them out of it?
Sadly, many in the church system have perfected the nefarious art of taking people’s Continue reading