Spir Dynamics 1006 2/2/97; Eph 461; Anti-Sem 7; Jam 3
A. Definition.
1. Lust is the overwhelming desire for something; a passionate desire; an illicite, uncontrolled, overwhelming desire which originates from the old sin nature and gains the cooperation of your volition.
2. The categories of the sin nature include:
a. The area of weakness - the source of all temptation and sin.
b. The area of strength - the source of all human good and dead works.
c. The trends of legalism or antinomianism.
d. The lust pattern of the sin nature.
3. The lust pattern of the sin nature includes:
a. Power lust. This includes approbation lust and inordinate ambition.
b. Pleasure lust, 2 Tim 3:4, “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Pleasure lust is a destroyer of honor, virtue, and integrity through sin and perpetual carnality. There is nothing wrong with pleasure as long as that pleasure does not involve sinful activity. Pleasure of the moment is not worth the displeasure of God.
c. Sexual lust, Heb 13:4, “Marriage must be held in honor by all, and so sexual intercourse in marriage is pure; therefore also God will judge fornicators and adulterers.”
(1) This includes the sexual sins of degeneracy as mentioned in Rom 1—homosexuality, bestiality, lesbianism, necrophilia.
(2) This includes the sexual sins of evil, such as the phallic cult.
(3) This includes the sexual sins of crime—rape, incest, pederasty, prostitution, pandering.
d. Social lust.
e. Approbation lust.
f. Monetary lust, which is greed.
g. Chemical lust, including drug addiction and the abuse of alcohol.
h. Crusader lust, which is Christian activism. Christian activism includes civil disobedience, criminality, paramilitary organizations, vigilante activities, social engineering, anti-semitism, refusal to pay taxes, terrorism, utopian socialism.
i. Revenge lust.
j. Criminal lust.
4. Introductory principles.
a. Lust destroys the motivation of the believer to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church.
b. Lust is a distraction to the modus vivendi and modus operandi of the Christian way of life.
c. Lust divorces the believer from reality, causing unrealistic expectation which eliminates understanding and using the problem solving devices.
d. Lust destroys spiritual self-esteem and replaces it with inordinate desire related to self-gratification.
5. There are two categories of lust: unfulfilled lust and fulfilled lust.
a. Neither category of lust brings happiness. Unfulfilled lust causes direct frustration and intensifies the desires involved. Fulfilled lust does not bring the anticipated happiness, and therefore, operation boomerang, the third stage of reversionism, occurs.
b. Fulfilled lust increases the function of Christian degeneracy, removing the believer from the use of recovery procedures.
c. Happiness and contentment do not originate from the fulfillment of the lust pattern of the sin nature. Happiness and contentment come from relationship with God and the understanding of His grace provision, grace policy, and the use of the problem solving devices.
d. Once the believer possesses spiritual self-esteem, a personal sense of destiny, and occupation with Christ, his relationship with people is one of great happiness, because he has eliminated the concepts related to degeneracy and replaced them by grace-orientation.
e. Lust destroys the modus operandi of the Christian way of life.
f. Therefore, lust destroys the effectiveness and power in prayer. This is illustrated in Jam 4:3, “You ask and receive not because you ask for yourselves with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasure lusts.”
6. Lust turns the believer into a tricky and deceitful person.
7. Lust destroys the believer's motivation to glorify God and replaces it with self-promoting motivation.
8. Lust causes the believer to become dishonest with himself, and therefore, dishonest with others.
9. Lust divorces the believer from reality so that every mechanic of the Christian way of life is distorted.
10. Lust can only be overcome through spiritual momentum, spiritual growth, the advance to spiritual adulthood through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation.
a. This means the lust pattern of the sin nature plays a major role in the function of all three stages of Christian degeneracy: implosion, explosion, reversion.
b. Three major factors result in the believer's involvement in Christian degeneracy.
(1) The failure to rebound after sinning. This results in the perpetuation of Christian carnality.
(2) The arrogance factor in implosion or self-fragmentation.
(3) The lust pattern of the sin nature which manifests itself in polarized fragmentation and the eight stages of reversionism that follow.
(a) The trend toward polarized legalism manifests itself in certain lust patterns.
(i) Power lust - the dominance of legalistic believers in local churches.
(ii) Approbation lust - the ego trip of self- righteous arrogance.
(iii) Crusader lust - believers seek to dominate government, emphasize political activity and activism, and destroy the distinction between church and state. The purpose of the Church on earth is the invisible impact of the mature believer who executes the protocol plan of God and sustains the client nation through his function of evangelism, Bible teaching, and missionary activity.
(iv) Social lust - the self-righteous arrogance of legalism seeks to dominate Christian fellowship and all social activities of believers.
v) Inordinate ambition and competition - the lust to excel at the expense of others. Hence, the persecution of grace believers through slander, gossip, judging, and maligning.
(vi) The only solution to legalism and its attendant lusts is: rebound; keep moving through post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation; learn and use the problem solving devices; glorify God by advancing to spiritual maturity.
(b) The trend toward polarized antinomianism is also manifest in certain lust patterns.
(i) Approbation lust - the ego trip of lascivious- lawlessness.
(ii) Power lust - the criminal believer trying to dominate his environment.
(iii) Social and sexual lust - the carnal believer seeks to center his social life around sexual conquests.
(iv) Pleasure lust - the carnal believer involved in partying to promote and gratify his sexual or chemical lust, or both.
(v) Chemical lust - results from the frustration of rejection or failure, and therefore, seeking to compensate by becoming heavily involved in alcohol or drugs.
(vi) Lust for revenge - caused by being jilted in an affair or by being frustrated in criminal activity.
(vii) Criminal lust connected with monetary lust - results in illegal monetary gain.
B. Inferiority related to Lust.
1. One of the most tragic functions of the lust of the flesh is the inferiority syndrome. People with an inferiority complex go through life either trying to rationalize or to justify or to prove some sort of superiority. It completely destroys their life. It keeps them off balance and the old sin nature becomes very active in their lives. These people are often so-called strong believers because they are very legalistic, self- righteous, and moral.
2. Self-justification plus living in the unrealistic world of flattery satisfies their approbation lust. Only salvation followed by the attainment of spiritual self-esteem can really resolve this problem. It is probably one of the most tragic yet prominent problems in life. It is definitely related to the old sin nature, and often explains the way the old sin nature functions in the lives and personalities of various individuals.
3. A deep-seated sense of inferiority can be caused by anywhere from fifty to sixty different reasons: parents, environment, childhood, problems with peers in all levels of school, etc. It is one of the most tragic things in life. Because these people never get away from competing with others, from rationalizing in their relationships with others that “I am better than he", and comparing their strengths with someone else's flaws or weaknesses.
C. The Categories of Lust.
1. There are many categories of lust, all of which relate to old sin nature.
2. When it comes to lust, all members of the human race are swimming in the same gene pool. None of us are free from lust. If you are human, normal or abnormal, you have lust problems.
3. Because of the different categories of lusts, all believers do not function under the same category.
4. The category of lust related to your modus operandi is directly related to both your personal areas of weakness and your personal areas of strength in your old sin nature.
5. All of us possess an old sin nature in the cell structure of our bodies. Therefore, all of us as humans have areas of strength and weakness. Remember that our areas of strength are very deceiving, and we often build a false self-esteem on our areas of strength. It is quickly broken down by arrogance. The only answer to these things is spiritual self-esteem.
6. This means that one person's weakness is another person's strength which is the basis for our arrogance, self-justification, and rationalization about inferiority and superiority. To go through life trying to prove others inferior and yourself superior is the worst concept in life. The majority of people go through life trying to compensate for inferior feelings. They inevitably destroy themselves through their area of weakness and their area of strength.
7. The lust pattern of the old sin nature includes at least six categories.
a. Power lust is the worst of all, for almost all other lusts are related to this one, especially if you have any inferiority problems. Power lust is the most devastating force for evil in human history. It doesn't require leadership ability or a prominent position to have power lust. You can be at the lowest echelon, rejected by all, and have a strong power lust. Power lust is one of our greatest enemies. It comes in dozens of different packages and in all flavors.
b. Approbation lust is merely one of the extensions of power lust, and it is separate because some people do want approbation without power. A beautiful woman may not desire power at all, but she certainly wants someone to tell her she's beautiful.
c. Stimulation lust has many parts, in which we cater to the nerve centers and functions of our body in the name of pleasure.
(1) Sexual lust, or lasciviousness.
(2) Drunkenness.
(3) Drug addiction.
(4) Mental stimulation or intellectual arrogance.
d. Killer lust is the problem solving device of the weak. Inferior people trying to prove they are superior often resort to violence, torture, murder. (Legitimate killing, within the confines of military function, police work, and capital punishment, is not the same as murder.) Murder often occurs within one's own family, as with Cain. For once this lust comes, it does not discriminate between family, friends, or enemies. Some people who live to kill love to kill and lust to kill.
e. Anger lust or cruelty. Anger does not always but definitely can bring out a cruel streak. Some people are genetically mean and naturally cruel. Some people hide it well and some do not. This lust is the evil desire to hurt others, e.g., the object of one's love, the object of one's hatred, or anyone who causes you a problem. Some people cannot stand glitches, and when anyone opposes them, whether it is a loved one or an enemy or someone at work, cruelty lust surfaces. Some people by nature are kind; some people by nature are cruel. It starts as a genetic factor. However, both can also be developed, and can also be overcome by both believers and unbelievers. Variations in cruelty lust depend upon cosmic living.
f. Money lust is called by the Scripture the “root of all kinds of evil.” It expresses itself in all the categories of evil.
(1) There is nothing wrong with having and acquiring money; that is not evil or sinful, as communist propaganda says. Marxism says people have no right to wealth; it belongs to the state.
(2) The USA was founded not only by Anglo-Saxon culture but also by the Protestant work ethic, which went so far as to say that people who were wealthy were blessed by God or even spiritual. Now with the influence of Marxism, we take the opposite view. Between the two is the truth.
(3) God does bless some people with money; God blesses other people in other ways. We must distinguish between the blessing of God in monetary success and the acquiring of money apart from any divine blessing.
(4) One index to the soul of every person can be read loud and clear by his attitude toward money. This doesn't mean that a person who saves is tight or stingy, nor that a big-time spender is necessarily generous. But one's attitude toward money very clearly delineates one's overall philosophy of life or one's spiritual condition or lack of spiritual life. 1 Tim 6:10, “For the love for money is the root of all kinds of evil, and some by lusting for it have wandered away from doctrine and stabbed themselves with many griefs [heartaches].”
(5) It is a very definite fact that love for money can distract people from Bible doctrine. Heb 13:5, “Let your life be free from the love for money, and be content [+H] with what you have. For He has said, `I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you.'”
_ © 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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