Lust Arrested

Donald Barnhouse told a story from his book on Romans that illustrates Paul's idea of what it is to be dead to sin. A man came to Dr. Barnhouse's office and told this story. I work for such a company and I have a private office. Several months ago my secretary was absent and I had to use another lady. One day when she brought a paper for my approval she got too close and when she leaned over the desk, she let her hair trail across my face and I fought it down but after all I am a man and toward the end of the day I put my hand on her and she came right back to be kissed. Even while kissing her I was visualizing my two children running to meet me and my wife standing in the door. I hated what I was doing but I kept on. I had the greatest desire to push her from me put I kept pulling her to me. My body was doing one thing and my mind was doing another. When I went home that night I hugged my children so hard that one of them cried and when I got him to laughing I told him that I loved him so much I had tears in my eyes and my wives eyes were shining, we all clung together in one of those moments that are indescribable. My wife was supremely happy because I walked around the house that night touching familiar things that we had scrimped to buy expressing my love for the home and for her. And for God I was never more true. Next day, the office intrigue began all over again. I was never more miserable in my life. Before a month had gone by I realized that my lust and my love was in a terrible battle. When I came home, there was everything I wanted in life. When I went to the office the machine of my body seemed geared to something terrible that was purely mechanical in which I wanted to get out of more than any fly ever wanted to get off fly paper. I heard my wife tell someone that I was becoming more and more a homebody and that all I wanted to do was stay home and its true. I’d follow her around the house, talk with her in the kitchen where she’s working, I’d watch her as she put the children to bed. This morning when I left the house she told me that she thought she was the happiest woman in the world because I showed her so much that I loved her alone. I could hardly talk and when I lifted a lock of her hair to dry them I said I love you more than life itself and she cried, I crushed her to me until she screamed and smiled at the same time, I ran off to my train. But now what shall I do? With the husbands consent, says Dr. Barnhouse, I called the wife to my office and told her the story. Fear leaped to her eyes but I reassured her. We took a taxi and went to his office. He was expecting us and I stood by as they embraced and she said, “I know, I know, I understand, it’s alright”. And then I called the other lady in the office and the scene that followed typified the mortal struggle between the flesh and the Spirit. Both striving for the mastery of that body. But the wife was not striving; she knew that the mind soul and heart of her husband had never been away from her. She understood the glandular warfare of his body and that his lust had sprung to life in response to the lure of strange flesh. She looked at him with complete understanding and love. The secretary stood there speechless. I said to her “she knows all about it. She loves him and he loves her completely and he has never had any thought toward you except one of animal lust. You were never wanted except physically and you are not wanted at all from now on. Do you understand? I asked her to wait in the hall while I prayed with the couple and then I went out and saw the secretary dabbing at her eyes and I talked to her about her need for Jesus Christ. I wished all stories on lust ended like that but they don’t. I wish all pastors were as faithful as the late Dr. Barnhouse and could be called in to intercept before adultery has happened but that’s not possible. And my message to you today is that you do not have to have a pastor, you do not have to have another Christian to intercept your lust. You have Christ the master and he will do it. But you have to present yourself as an instrument of righteousness and just "no" and he will come to your rescue. God who raised him from the grave can raise you above the level of your sins if you will let him.