If you have spent any time in the scriptures, you might agree that our society is rather debauched. If you want to know what a society or culture is like, listen to its music. Look at its television programs. You’ll get a bird’s eye view of what a culture is like. And it’s hard to turn on the radio these days without hearing some form of sexual perversion.
And it’s in the Church, too; it’s in Christians’ heads. Did you know you have a hard drive of pornography in your head? Growing up in this culture, most of us deal with the besetting sexual sin of the eyes, of the ears, and, as Jesus says, of the hands. I would say that most of us are dealing with that on a daily basis, and if you’re not dealing with it, you should be.
So that’s what I want to talk about specifically in this series. Generally you will be able to apply everything you learn to your personal besetting sin—envy, love of money, lust for power, the need for everyone’s approval, jealousy, contention, anger—whatever your proclivity is. But I would imagine most us are dealing with sexual temptations.
To mortify sin is to embarrass it, to humiliate it. It has embarrassed and humiliated you enough. It’s time for us to turn the tables, to embarrass, humiliate, subdue, discipline, and suppress sin. To kill it. To execute it. To put it to death. To keep it in the caves where it belongs. To keep it underneath those rocks, keep it in hiding, keep it on the run, that we might live.
