There’s a number of things that can help with any kind of addiction, especially sexual addiction. I’m very familiar with that one. For one thing, for a man, I made myself a few rules to live by. For one thing, if I drive down the road, and I see a lady who is wearing a bikini washing her car, I turn my head to the other side. I don’t flirt with women anymore. I don’t do anything that would suggest that I have any interest in them, other than just a brother-sister kind of relationship or business relationship. I don’t ride in cars alone with a woman. I don’t get in rooms alone with a woman. If there is a woman at my house, and my wife is not home yet, I don’t go home. So I made myself some rules. It’s not so much that I think that I’m going to do anything wrong, but I don’t ever want to be put in a compromised situation again. So I refuse to look at anything that would be pornographic in nature, that would be suggestive in nature. I refuse to look at it.
So somewhere along the line, Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to follow me, let him take up his cross and deny himself, and come after me.” So somewhere along the line, we have to have some self-denial. You know, we have nature in us to do wrong, but we have to deny ourselves of those opportunities that come along and just don’t do stuff that’s going to put us in a compromising situation. Another thing is to study is the word. You know, because we need to have our minds renewed. The word is like the washing of the water, the word that washes out the filth that’s in our mind. Another thing is to follow the principle like it says in 2 Corinthians of taking thoughts captive. We all have thoughts. Thoughts come to us. Satan throws stuff in our mind to consider, but take it captive and bring it into the obedience of the truth, it says. It says destroy speculations that are raising themselves up against the knowledge of the truth. You have to deal with it. You can’t just say, “Well I’m just human. We’re all human. God understands.” No, we’ve got to stop this stuff. We’ve got to deny ourselves.
I will tell you one other thing is we don’t have a healthy fear of God anymore. It’s sort of like the fear of the Lord has vanished, but it says plainly in Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It says that the fear of the Lord is to hate sin. It says that the angel of the Lord encamps around those that fear Him. It says the fear of the Lord will keep you from sin. So what it is, if Paul said, Paul the apostle plainly said that all those who commit immorality will not enter the Kingdom of God. Plain and simple. All means all whether you’re Christian or non-Christian. It doesn’t mean whether your Baptist or Catholic. All is all. There are no exceptions to all. So everyone who commits immorality will not inherit the kingdom. If anybody believes that, it will put the fear of God in them. Honestly, I believe that and it has kept me straight these thirty-one years even though I was strongly addicted to it before. I have had many opportunities. I have had women even to bring themselves to me and offer themselves to me. I have completely stayed away from that these thirty-one years because the fear of God rules in my heart. There’s no temptation but such as common to man. With every temptation, God gives a way of escape.
I will tell you about one situation. One time, after I became a Christian there was a lady who presented herself to me. For a few moments, I got into an agreement with committing adultery with her. She was beautiful. She enticed me. So at the very moment that I was going to leave my house and go meet with her (I knew this was wrong but I couldn’t seem to help myself with this beautiful lady), my little son, at the time he was four years old, three or four years old, he said, “Dad can I go with you?” This shows you how God gives you a way out. That was my way out. I said, “Yes.” So he went with me. So I didn’t meet her. Then I gained my strength back in the Lord. I called her and said, “Don’t ever call me again. I’m done with this. I’m not going to go there.” Then I told her, “What you need is the Lord. You don’t need me. You don’t need a sexual relationship. You don’t need a thrill. You need Jesus Christ. I have found Him and I’m going to walk and live with Him.” My son was my way out. As I began to fall into that temptation, my son said, “Can I go with you, Dad?” I said, “Yes. Yes.” God provided the way out. With every temptation, look for that way out. We do get weak sometimes and we sometimes find our knees trembling because we are about to do something that we know we shouldn’t, but God is not a liar. With every temptation, He provides a way out.
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