Lust: Satan’s Daily Attack on Men, Part 1

by Eddie Foster
Read in 5 minutes • Share
Topics: Relationships, Marriage, Overcoming

Due to our anatomy and physiology, Satan uses sexual lust as a powerful tool against men. How can Christian men fight back against the temptations of lust?

This two-part series of blog posts will focus on what men can do to fight the daily temptations of lust.

Gentlemen, we are surrounded

Hypersexuality is by no means a new development in the world. An in-depth study of sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome would shock most people. However, today we live in an unprecedented time because of the availability of sexually related activities.

Let’s take a walk through the day of a typical Christian male. Throughout this example, it will become clear that the encounters apply to both single and married men.

You wake up and pray, then turn on the morning news. The female anchor is wearing a very short miniskirt and a blouse that shows her cleavage. During the commercial break, at least one ad shows a scantily clad woman selling something. The news comes back on and features a story about a celebrity, with many pictures and video of her in tight-fitting clothing.

You get ready and start driving to work. On the way to work you see a Victoria’s Secret ad on the side of a truck going by you, with a woman in her underwear smiling at you.

At work you spend eight hours around two or three women with very short miniskirts and blouses that reveal their cleavage. On your way home from work, you stop at the store. In the checkout line there are at least four different half-naked women on covers of magazines smiling at you surrounded by such headlines as “5 Ways to Have Better Sex.”

After dinner you watch a little television or a movie: It is a Russian roulette game of change the channel or fast-forward the movie when a sudden sex scene or flash of a woman’s barely clothed body comes on the screen.

The point is, we are surrounded.

These examples illustrate the accidental encounters we can have with sexual lust just by living and operating in today’s world. We didn’t mention the more direct temptations of easily accessible pornography available through any media device with an Internet connection. Our world’s hypersexuality demonstrates we truly have become “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4).

Satan doesn’t want human beings to experience the happiness of a pure sexual union, so he markets sexual gratification without love. Why is it so difficult to resist?

Satan the devil, the source of temptation and lust, knows how to powerfully use the male brain and female anatomy against us. He is the “prince of the power of the air” and broadcasts a spirit that encourages “disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2).

He knows full well that God designed our sexual drive to be enjoyed and shared with a loving spouse within marriage. Satan doesn’t want human beings to experience the happiness of a pure sexual union, so he markets sexual gratification without love. Satan hates the marriage union between a man and woman for many reasons. Here are two examples:

1. Marriage is a type of God’s relationship with His people (which Satan is actively trying to undermine).
2. Marriage is the most stable foundation for balanced and godly children to be raised in (which Satan is also trying to undermine).

Some of Satan’s most powerful tools against marriage are the “lust of the flesh” and “the lust of the eyes” (1 John 2:16).

It may be difficult for women to understand the magnetic pull of sexualized images. Perhaps only wives who daily receive the looks of sexual desire and love from their husbands can comprehend the struggle. Men are very visual, so when Satan purposely places other visuals rather than a loving wife before our eyes, we have to fight our body’s natural response.

Resisting this is not easy.

Why fight what is natural?

Imagine going up to a woman on the street and saying the following: “Hello. I don’t value you as a human being, but I am sexually aroused by your body. Do you mind if I use you for sexual gratification?”

It is a harsh truth, but that is exactly what we are doing when we sexually lust after a woman’s body. Just because it may be natural for a male to want to look at a sexualized image does not make it right. In 1 Corinthians 6:18 Paul describes how sexual immorality is actually sinning against your own body. Lust doesn’t just degrade the person we are lusting after; it degrades us.

God loves all human beings, hoping they will all be a part of His eternal family. God did not create any woman to be a sexual object for people to use. Men should view every female as someone’s precious daughter, sister, wife, fiancée, mother or beloved friend. In other words, we should see them as a valued part of someone’s family—because they are.

So how do I fight it?

Part 2 of this series will give a variety of strategies to fight against lust in our lives. It is an everyday battle, but one God fully expects us to fight.

For more insight into the proper use of sex, read our articles “The Gift of Sex” and “Seventh Commandment: You Shall Not Commit Adultery.” 

Date Posted: September 1, 2015