AUGUST 29 "GOT LUST?"

ALL men should be both comforted and challenged by Job's statement, in today's reading, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman."  Why did he make such a covenant with his eyes? For the obvious reason that this is what he was doing or being tempted to do. We should be glad that he did not just write, "my eyes look lustfully at young women".   If he had, we would all feel justified in unbridled lust. You think of King David, a man after God's own heart, according to scripture. He had hundreds of women that he had sex with, many wives and concubines.  He found a way to feed his lust for young women by trying to legitimize it by making them wives and conubines.  Many Preachers have joked about this, "it's hard enough to be married to one woman, who would want more than one?" If only that were the case, David was married to these women simply on paper, so to speak. He did not deal with them in the normal sense of a relationship. They were there for one reason. It was legitimzied prostitution. They were there to give him sex when he called upon them or they were picked by one of his men. In return, they and their children were well taken care of. Even Queen Esther in her great relationship she had with the King, was afraid to just appear before him lest she be killed. This was actually a legitimate fear she had, according to her own words. David's lust after young beautiful women never went away, it's like a Gremlin (for those of you from the 80's), the more you feed it the more it grows.  With hundreds of beautiful women to have sex with he still manages to be lusting after another, Bathsheba. Of course this becomes his undoing. This is the place that pornography is filling in men's lives today. It's unbridled lust, sex (in their minds) with the prettiest, young women and Lust is never satisfied.  God made man to be attracted and aroused by beauty and physical appearance and the worse part is Gut put no governor on it.  I used to drive a vehicle, when I was in the Marine Corps, on the Flight Line, and this vehicle had a governor on it that limited the speed I could go. I could have the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor (which I did) but I could go no faster than the speed limit that was set on the governor. We as men, it is as if God has put us in a Ferrari Race Car, with no governor, go as fast as you want, but you may just kill yourself as many men have done, driving race cars and also in our personal lives.  God leaves it to us to govern ourselves, crazy as that may be, and Job actually did it! You read about Actor Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, how they might be separating (of course!).  If you look at the picture of the two, you just think, "this aint right!".  He's wrinkled up and grey haired and she's young and beautiful" (25 yrs younger!!). But just like David, Solomon and powerful, influential men of the past, they can have it so they take it!  Job was powerful, rich and influential and could have done the same, but he did not.  Most men are not rich, powerful and influential so they go for the next best thing, pornography, cause they can't get the real thing. But Jesus says, "you're just as guilty!".  Whether you fulfill it physically or fulfill it in your mind, you are just as guilty. The answer is in governing yourself, make a covenant with your eyes not to lust after a young women", because the more you feed it, the more it grows and the stronger it gets. I will always remember "The Gremlins" it finally occurred to the owners, that the more they fed the Gremlins, the more they grew and multiplied, at first the owners thought the answer was just to satisfy their hunger, but it was insatiable; the answer was to starve them. I believe the Gremlins (from the 80's movie) were a metaphor of Lust. You think if you feed it, give in to it, it will be satisfied and leave you alone, but it only grows. The answer to lust is not to feed it, but to starve it! " I have made a covenant with my eyes not to lust after a young woman".