Robert Wurtz II preaches about the importance of understanding and managing our natural desires to avoid falling into sin, emphasizing how Satan exploits these desires to tempt us and create a wedge between us and God. He highlights the need for self-control, fasting, and sowing to the Spirit to cultivate Godly desires and live out the reality of 'so great salvation.' Wurtz warns about the enemy's strategy to keep us vulnerable to sin by increasing our natural desires to unnatural levels and providing close access to sinful means of gratification.

SALVATION TO THE UTTERMOST (Part 2) Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25) The objective of Satan has always been to use sin to drive a wedge between man and God. God is holy and cannot tolerate sin and Satan knows this. From the very beginning Satan has used man’s natural desires as the means with which to lure them into sin. Man was created with certain needs in order to function as God created them. These needs are made known to the consciousness by natural desires. For example: Man does not have an infinite energy source, so man needs to eat in order to sustain himself. Man is not infinite in knowledge, so man needs a natural inquisitiveness to learn by asking questions and experiencing situations and examining things. Man was given charge to rule over the earth so God gave him natural administrative desires to accomplish that office. Man was commanded to be fruitful and multiply so God gave a natural desire for physical relations. Many such desires God placed in man. When God had given man these and other necessary desires he called the creation very good. These desires were put in place in order to give man a driving mechanism of influence in order that he might fulfill his needs and accomplish his tasks. Satan’s Cunning Craftiness If you read carefully the Bible account of Satan’s encounter with Eve in the Garden you will find that he exploited her God given natural desires to accomplish his end. We learn later on in scripture that Satan seeks an occasion to tempt man for their lack of self-control. This is where his craftiness comes in. It is obvious that he waited until Eve was alone and very hungry before he introduced his series of questions. Hungry and alone; she was quite vulnerable. He appealed to her natural desire ‘to know’, only he introduced an option that was beyond the boundary that God had set up. He also exploited her natural administrative desires to suggest that she could be more than rulers of God’s creation and could in fact be as ‘gods.’ We read then what happened; And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat (Genesis 3:6). Every tree in the garden was good for food and had she not been hungry she would not have been nearly as vulnerable. Had she been filled with the fruit of the other trees and not allowed her appetite to reach a high level- she would not have looked upon the forbidden fruit as good for food. Her appetite was so great that the enemy was able to make partaking of ‘poison’ seem desirable. Hunger is a very powerful driving force that has driven many human beings to madness in times of famine. God never intended that our natural appetites would become so strong that they drive us to act unreasonably. Temptation is a proposition to the mind to fulfill a good appetite in a bad way. This is how sin is made possible. A good appetite that is allowed to get out of control makes a person vulnerable to temptation. God has given man a means of which to satisfy all of his or her natural desires without sinning. The enemy stalks and watches and waits to see when we are neglecting those God given means of satisfaction; and when our desire has reached its zenith, in whatever area we are neglecting, he moves in with a proposition to fulfill that good desire in a bad way. Keeping these natural desires in check is imperative if we are going to keep the wedge of sin out from between God and us. Satan is watching, he knows the needs of men and women and he sees the desires building. His strategy is to keep a matrix of conditions in place so that you are always vulnerable or struggling with sin. Understanding and managing these devices is an essential part of working out your salvation. Charting the Enemies Plan There are certain variables that we have to address if we are going to live out the reality of ‘so great salvation.’ We need to know that our natural desires are corrupted by worldly influences. The Greek word for strong desire or ‘lust’ is epithumia. It is used almost always to denote a forbidden desire. As born again Christians we must maintain a natural level of desire for our natural needs. The enemy on the other hand is always trying to get us to feed our natural desires more than is necessary. This makes a natural desire into epithumia. The more we feed our desires the stronger they become. This is why fasting is important. Fasting restrains our natural desire to eat. It puts a bridle on our desires. Allowing our natural desires to go unchecked leads to unbridled lust. Men and women in I Corinthians 7:5 abstained from marital relations with consent for a time in order to give themselves to fasting and praying. It completed their fasting of natural desires and allowed them to reign in the intensity of them. God did not intend for man to find satisfaction in life based primarily upon gratification of natural desires. He wants our satisfaction to be primarily in Him and secondarily in natural things. When this balance gets upset sin is crouching at the door. The enemy wants the level of desire as high as possible. The second variable he wants to influence is the proximity of a sinful means of gratifying these out-of-control desires. He wants access to sin as close as possible in order to keep God from making a way of escape during a time of temptation. This is why we are to lay aside every weight. It is also why we are told not to make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. Satan is most successful when we allow our natural desires to increase to unnatural levels and then tempt us with some means we have kept near. The natural desires become lust and when that lust gets stronger and stronger it begins draw us towards forbidden means of gratification. James said it clearly; Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (James 1:13-15). Sowing to the Spirit When we were born again we went from walking in darkness to walking in the light and from the power of Satan unto the power of God. We were of our father the Devil and now the Spirit of God is in us and we cry ABBA Father. We used to sin because we were of the Devil, now we cannot sin because we are born of God. As born again children of God we ‘sow’ to the spirit; that is, we cultivate the desires of the Spirit of God in us. We surround ourselves with means with which we can fulfill the desires of the Spirit of God. And as we walk step by step in the Spirit, full of Godly desires (zeal), we are enabled to live out the reality of so great salvation. On the other hand, if we sow to the flesh we are cultivating and strengthening the natural desires until they become unnatural lust. As this lust increases we become as vulnerable as Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan is watching. He knows when the desires are reaching that vulnerable level, and if we do not fulfill those desires in a good way he will tempt us to do it in a bad way. It is not spiritual to think you are stronger than the word of God says you are. Take heed! What if Eve had simply walked over to a good tree and began to quench her good appetite in a good way as Satan was talking? Would he not have fled for a season? What if people had not set evil before their eyes? What if they had not allowed the world to cultivate discontentment with all we have until covetousness set in? Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. When we are full of the Holy Ghost we are keen to these things and He empowers us to control our appetites. When we walk in the Spirit we are careful and conscious of things that would lure us into sin and we avoid them and are repulsed by them. The enemy in this hour is desperate to lead Christians and especially ministers into secret sin. He wants to do this because it takes cleans hands and a pure heart to preach repentance. Many authors and ministers have placed the percentage of ‘Christians’ that are actually born again at around 5% to 10% with 9% being able to correctly answer fundamental questions. The Church is the only hope for this world. If the Church is filled with lust and covetousness it is only proof that churches are a great mission field of their own. God is calling this generation to demonstrate genuine salvation- His ‘so great salvation.’