09. CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9 SYMPTOMS OF A PARTICULAR LUST Particular directions considering these dangerous symptoms of any lust:
It is long-standing and deep-rooted Peace can still be obtained under it; several ways that is done It is frequently successful in its seductions The soul fights against it with arguments only taken from the event of it It is probable that rehabilitation is at work It withstands dealings from God – The state of those in whom these lusts are found.
III. Particular directions for dealing with a disturbing lust
Now that I have proposed some general rules, there are particular directions to guide the soul when it discovers a disturbing lust or compulsion. Some of these are preparatory, and some contain the work itself. The following are the preparatory sort: The FIRST direction: Consider which dangerous symptoms accompany your lust.
Examine your sin to see whether it has a deadly mark on it or not. If it has, extraordinary remedies are to be used; an ordinary course of mortification will not do it. You may ask, “What are these dangerous marks and symptoms that you mean, the desperate accomplices of an indwelling lust,?” Let me name some of them: 1. The sin is long-standing and deep-rooted. By this, I mean the sin has been with you a long time, corrupting your heart. If you have allowed it to continue in power and acceptance for some time, without attempting to vigorously kill it, and heal the wounds it caused you, then your disease of the soul is dangerous. Have you permitted worldliness, ambition, or excessive study to push aside the other duties you need to maintain your constant communion with God, and done so for an extended period? Have you let immorality defile your heart with pointless, foolish, and wicked fantasies for a number of days? Then your lust has a dangerous symptom. This was the case with David: “My wounds stink and are infected because of my foolishness.”120 When a lust has remained in the heart for long time, corrupting, festering, and infecting it, then it will put the soul in a sorry state. In these cases, an ordinary course of humiliation will not do the job. Whatever the lust may be, it will infect all the faculties of the soul. It will accustom your feelings to its presence and its values. It will become so familiar to the mind and conscience that neither one startles at it. They will become brazen, treating it like something they want. Indeed, it will often assert itself without any notice being taken at all. This seems to have been what happened with Joseph swearing by the life of Pharaoh.121 Unless some extraordinary course is taken, a person afflicted this way has no reason in the world to expect the outcome will be peace. First, how will he be able to distinguish between a long-term unmortified lust, and the control or sovereignty of sin, which cannot happen to a believer? And second, how can he promise himself that it will ever be any different, or that his lust will stop tormenting and seducing him? This is especially true when the lust has been embedded and tolerated this way for so long, and in such variety.
It may be that the sin has alternated between leniency and torment. Those actions have been so extraordinary, that the soul could not avoid taking notice. It may be that the lust has weathered many a storm, and been unaffected by a myriad of sermons and bible studies. Will it be easy to dislodge an inmate who claims squatter’s rights? Lust is that kind of inmate if it has been allowed to remain unopposed. It will not be ejected easily. Old neglected wounds are always dangerous, and often fatal. Indwelling infections grow inflamed and stubborn when they are left unattended. If it is not killed daily, it will gather strength. Sin never dies on its own.
2. When the heart secretly pleas to approve and not oppose it.
If the lust has remained without a vigorous gospel attempt to mortify it, we have another dangerous symptom of a deadly disease in the heart. There are several ways this is evidenced:
(1.) When troubling thoughts about a sin arise, instead of seeking to destroy the sin, a man searches his heart to see what evidence he can find of his own goodness. He overlooks the sin and lust so that he can feel good about himself.
Now, gathering up the experiences of God, recalling them, collecting them, considering, trying, and enhancing them, are all excellent things to do. It is a duty practiced by all the saints. It is commended in both the Old and New Testaments. This was what David did when he “communed with his own heart,” and called to mind the former loving-kindness of the Lord.122 This is the duty Paul sets us to practice, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Prove yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Christ is in you, unless you are lost?”123 Not only is recalling excellent in itself, but it improves when it is employed in its proper season, such as a time of trial or temptation, or when the heart is troubled by sin. This is a picture frame of silver to set off this golden apple, as Solomon might put it. But doing it to satisfy conscience, which cries out for quite another reason, is the desperate device of a heart in love with sin. When a man’s conscience deals with him, when God rebukes him for the sin troubling his heart, he should be striving to get that sin pardoned in the blood of Christ, and mortified by his Spirit. Instead, he tries to relieve his guilt by throwing off the yoke that God has put on his neck. His condition is very dangerous. His wound is barely curable. When the convicting preaching of our Savior stung their consciences, the Jews supported themselves saying they were “Abraham’s children.” Because of that, they felt accepted by God; and so they approved of their own reprehensible wickedness to their utter ruin. To some degree, this is a man blessing himself, saying that by one way or another he will have his peace, “although he adds drunkenness to thirst.”124 In point of fact, this attitude reveals a love of sin, and it cheapens the peace and love of God. Such a man plainly shows that if he can just keep up hope of escaping the “wrath to come,”125 he is content to be unfruitful in the world. Any distance from God that is not final separation is fine with him. What is to be expected from such a heart?
(2.) This deceit is carried on by seeking grace and mercy for an unmortified sin, or for one that is not attempted to be mortified sincerely. This is the sign of a heart greatly entangled with the love of sin. A man’s condition is sad when he has secret thoughts in his heart similar to those of Naaman concerning his worship in the house of Rimmon.126 “In all other things I will walk with God, but in this thing, God be merciful to me.” Resolving the issue by indulging in a sin with hopes of mercy, seems to be altogether inconsistent with Christian sincerity. It is the badge of a hypocrite, and “turns the grace of God into wantonness;”127 Yet I do not doubt that through the craft of Satan and their own remaining unbelief, the children of God may themselves sometimes be ensnared with this deceit of sin. That must be true, or Paul would never have cautioned them against it as he did, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound?”128 The flesh would have us believe that it should be indulged for the sake of grace! Sin stands ready to pervert every word that is spoken of mercy for its own corrupt purposes. To apply mercy to a sin that is not vigorously mortified, is to fulfill the perverted aims of the flesh under the guise of the gospel. A deceitful heart will sometimes make use of these and other ways to approve its detestable acts. When a man secretly cherishes the sin in his heart, even if he is not consumed by it, and if he would practice that sin except for his fear of the consequences, then he is at the door of death. If he excuses it without mortifying it, and without seeking pardon for it in the blood of Christ, then that man’s “wounds stink and are corrupt.”129 He is at the door of death. He must quickly seek pardon for it.
3. There is frequent success in sin’s seduction.
If the sin seduces the soul frequently, and it obtains the general consent of the will to do it, then we have another dangerous symptom. This is that I mean: when the sin gets the consent of the will with some delight, even though it is not actually committed, it has succeeded. A man may not be able to outwardly “finish” the sin, as James puts it,130 because of the circumstances. Yet, if the will to commit the sin was actually obtained, then I say it has succeeded.
Now, if a lust is able to get this far, it may be quite dangerous. The man is in a bad state, perhaps unregenerate. It depends on whether this consent is achieved by choice of will or by accident. In a way, an accident may still be chosen. If we are careless and negligent, where we are required to be careful and watchful, then that accident does not reduce the voluntary nature of what we do. Although men do not choose to be careless and negligent, if they choose a course of action that will make them so, then they choose the accident itself.131 Let us not think that the evil of men’s hearts is less because they seem to be surprised into the consent they give to it. It is negligence in their duty to watch over their hearts that betrays them into that surprise.
4. When a man fights against his sin only with legalistic arguments.
If a man opposes his sin only with arguments as to its consequences or punishment, it is a sign that sin has taken substantial possession of his will. There is an overflow of wickedness in his heart. A man whose only objection to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart is the fear of shame among men, or hell from God, would commit the sin if no shame or punishment were involved. How that would differ from living in the practice of sin, I do not know.
Those who are Christ’s act in obedience to gospel principles. To oppose the seduction of sin in their lives and lust in their hearts, they have the death of Christ, the love of God, the repulsive nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, and a deep-grounded abhorrence of sin as sin. Joseph did so. “How shall I do this great evil,” he says, “and sin against the LORD?” my good and gracious God.132 And Paul writes, “The love of Christ constrains us;”133 “Having received these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all pollution of the flesh and spirit.”134 But if a man is so dominated by the power of his lust that he has nothing but the law to oppose it, then that sin possesses his will. If he cannot fight against it with gospel weapons, and deals with it entirely by hell and judgment (which are the proper arms of the law), then it is evident that sin has conquered his will and his affections, and to a very great extent. Such a person has rejected the conduct of renewing grace. He is kept from ruin only by restraining grace. He has fallen from grace and is now back under the power of the law. This must surely provoke Christ to anger. He has thrown off Christ’s easy, gentle yoke and rule, and put on the iron yoke of the law, just to indulge a lust.
Judge yourself by this: what do you say to your soul when sin forces you to make a stand? You must either serve the sin and rush into folly, like a horse into battle, or you must make headway against it to suppress it. How does the conversation go with yourself? Do you say, “The outcome of this will be Hell; vengeance will find me.” If so, then it is time for you to look around; evil lies at your door.135 To clearly demonstrate that sin shall not have control over believers, Paul’s main argument is that they “are not under the law, but under grace.”136 If your battles with sin are all legalistic, what assurance do you have that sin will not control you and be your ruin?
You need to know that this preserve of the law will not hold out for long. If your lust has driven you from stronger gospel forts, then it will speedily overrun this one too. Do not assume that the law will deliver you when you have voluntarily surrendered to your enemy those helps and means of preservation that are a thousand times stronger. Unless you recover from this condition quickly, be assured that the thing you fear most will come upon you.137 What gospel principles do not do, legal motives cannot do.
5. When it is probable that there is Godly rehabilitation involved through punishment. This is another dangerous symptom. I have no doubt that God sometimes leaves even his own under the bewildering power of some lust or sin to correct them for their former sins, negligence, and folly. That was cause for the church to complain, “Why have you hardened us from the fear of your name?”138 And no one questions that this is God’s way of dealing with unregenerate men.
How do we know whether God’s intervening hand has left us to the anguish of our own heart? Answer: examine your heart and ways. What was the condition of your soul before you became entangled in the sin that you complain of? Were you negligent in your Christian duties? Had you lived too much for yourself? Do you suffer from the guilt of an unrepented sin? A new sin may be permitted, as well as a new affliction sent, to bring an old sin to remembrance. Have you received any outstanding mercy, protection, or pardon that you did not reciprocate, or for which you were ungrateful? Have you been suffering under a sin without laboring to put an end to it? Have you failed to use opportunities to glorify God in your generation that he graciously provided? Have you conformed yourself to the world and its men, succumbing to the numerous temptations of your day? If you find this has been your state, then awake! Call upon God! You are fast asleep in a storm of anger around you!
6. When your lust has already withstood particular dealings from God against it. This condition is described in Isaiah, “Because of the evil of his greed, I burst out in anger and struck him. I hid myself and raged. And he walked on in the idolatrous way of his heart.”139 God dealt with them about their prevailing lust in several ways, by affliction and by desertion, but they held out against it all. This is a sad condition which nothing but sovereign grace can relieve (as God expresses it in the next verse), and which no man should take upon himself to cure. In his caring way, God often meets with a man and speaks specifically to the evil of his heart. He did this with Joseph’s brothers about selling him into Egypt. This makes the man reflect on his sin, and judge himself for it. God cloaks himself in the voice of the danger, affliction, trouble, or sickness that assaults him. Sometimes, reading the word of God makes a man stay on something that cuts him to the heart, and shakes him about his present condition. More frequently, God meets with men through the preaching of the word, which is his great arsenal for conviction, conversion, and edification. God often cuts men by the sword of his word in that arsenal, striking directly at their heart-loved lust. He startles the sinner, and motivates him to mortify and relinquish the evil of his heart. Now, if the hold that his lust has on him compels him to break these bonds of the Lord, if it can overcome these convictions and regain its old posture, and if it can close the wounds that his soul has received from God, then he is in a sad condition. The evils that accompany such a frame of heart are unspeakable. Every warning that is given to a man who is in such a state is a precious mercy to him. How much those who reject these pleadings must despise God! And what infinite patience God must have not to cut him off, and swear in his wrath that this man shall never enter into his rest! This evidence, and much more, exist of a lust that is dangerous, if not fatal. As our Savior said of the evil spirit, “This kind goes out only by prayer and fasting.”140 I say the same about lusts of this kind. An ordinary course of mortification will not do it; extraordinary ways must be focused on. This is the first particular direction: Consider whether the lust or sin you are contending with is accompanied by any of the dangerous symptoms listed above.
Before I continue, let me give you one caution, for fear someone might be misled by what has been said. Although the things mentioned above may happen to true believers, just because someone encounters them, it does not mean he is a true believer. These are the evils that believers may fall into and be ensnared with, not the things that constitute a believer. A man may as well conclude that because David fell into adultery, and he is an adulterer himself, that he is a believer. It is like this argument: A wise man may be sick and wounded and do some foolish things; therefore, everyone who is sick and wounded and does foolish things is a wise man. It does not follow. The seventh chapter of Romans contains the description of a regenerate man, a believer. If you need evidence of being a believer, it must come from the things that constitute a believer. Someone who evidences these things in himself, and yet is plagued by sin, may safely conclude that, “If I am a believer, I am a most miserable one.”