How do we win the war against lust?

That was the question Pastor John addressed in his sermon, battling the unbelief of lust

as sermon he preached 25 years ago on 1st Thessalonians 4 verses 1 to 8.

Here's how we ended the message.

I close with an illustration of a man who was in bondage to lust for 10 years in the

most gross forms, short of adultery.

But who got victory, he wrote his story in an unsigned article in Leadership Magazine,

which any of you can read in our library, Fall 1982.

He was a religious man and the story he tells is one of great tragedy until something

happens.

And I want to just tell you from the key paragraph what happened in his life.

He discovered a book by Francois Mauryac, a Catholic French novelist who wrote a book

called What I Believe.

And in that book he had a chapter on sexuality and lust in particular in which he described

his own war against it as a little Catholic young man.

And he says that all of the guilt that he experienced and all of the shame did not conquer

lust in his life.

Rather he came to discover that one great power exists that can conquer lust, and that's

the power described in the Beatitude, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see

God.

And the man who is writing this and reading that book wrote this paragraph which describes

his own discovery.

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