paul thanks for being with us one of the most common questions i have with young men students anybody in general is on how they can fight sexual temptation what would be your biblical input on how we can fight temptation that seems to wage war against us well fighting is correct terminology but we really need to understand it biblically uh paul tells timothy in 2 timothy 2 now flee youthful lust so i'm not going out looking for a fight following what we see throughout the book of proverbs i am going to fear sin in genesis sin
is waiting at the door its desire is to have you i'm going to fear sin so the first thing i'm going to do is avoid those things that are most likely to trip me up whether it be media or proximity to another person that may be that may offer temptation so you want to say first of all i don't trust myself and so i'm not going to put myself in situations that make me more vulnerable so that's the first thing flee youthful lust the other thing is something that it amazes me that people don't talk
about this you know james chapter one is the kind of the big book on temptation or the big chapter on on temptation but right after he talks about temptation people think that automatically he changes to another subject because he says every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights and i don't separate that from temptation why because i believe that the greatest motivation for avoiding temptation and fighting temptation is this everything that the world everything that the devil can offer me is a counterfeit that eventually will
become like gravel in my gut a young man let's say he desires a relationship uh with a young woman he desires intimacy that's that's normal that's biblical but he he's tempted to go about it the wrong way what he needs to realize is hold it if i go about it this way it will not turn out to be a good and perfect gift also i need to look back at all the kindnesses of god and also my faith in what god is going to provide i can take the counterfeit now or i can wait for
the better which god offers and that's a tremendous motivation that is oftentimes overlooked so we need to flee those things and those circumstances that put us in almost uh you can't do anything but fail situation get away from that but also look at the goodness of god realize that in his sovereignty and his omniscience he knows that many of our desires that can be perverted are actual in themselves good desires and he has a plan for them can you talk just briefly on the extent of what paul is including when he says make no provision
for the flesh you said media other things that might cause us to be tempted talk about the radical nature of no provision right um first of all we we need to be careful about that why because some people say okay i'll make no provision for the flesh and that's true but none of this works unless as a life discipline first of all we must be regenerate we must be christians you know you can fight i know lost people who fight sin and and they they're not very successful secondly even as a christian the foundational thing
is um renewing my mind in the word of god that i might know what the will of god is romans 12 1-2 so in that that's the foundation now this thing of of making no provision of the flesh for the flesh is not just media computers um being of someone that i'm attracted to in in a certain circumstance that make both of us vulnerable but it's also and i find this to be one of the most important things it's um that bad company corrupts good morals when i was in college people said you know that
i grew really fast and there was a reason for it it wasn't that i was special god surrounded me by with other college students that were godly i was in a church where righteousness was preached and so a lot of times you're making a provision for the flesh by hanging out with people that really do not take sin very seriously especially immorality i am a one of the things i always go to is that christianity is not a lone wolf religion if i am surrounded by godly men or someone surrounded by godly women a young
lady it that's what we have to have so if someone comes up to you paul and says i'm fighting my sin i'm fleeing temptation and i know i need to renew my mind how can i do that how can my mind be renewed you know um when it talks about renewing your mind in romans 12 it doesn't say renewing your mind with the word i mean that it's not in there but we do know from other passages psalms and and throughout the bible that the greatest way in which we renew our mind is with truth
and the only infallible truth is the bible but it's also talking about renewing our mind in fellowship conversation you know colossians 3 16 17 renewing our mind with the the music that we listen to the reformation was advanced through the hymns they they were singing and so that's that's that's the way we do it that's the way we do it so helpful thank you so much but let me let me also say this um so how do i study the bible and and yes there are a lot of ways but i find that very few
people have ever read matthew to revelation i find that there even fewer people have read genesis to revelation just read the bible through over and over and over and it'll renew us yes paul thank you so much
