Overcoming Sexual Strongholds With Beth Moore
I would like to share an excerpt from Beth Moore's book, Praying God's Word, the 13th chapter entitled "Overcoming Sexual Strongholds"
Most of us will agree that satan's present employment of blatant sexual tactics is unparalleled in human history. Pockets of it existed to a stunning degree in ages past, but satan has never had the kind of universal audience that he has presently. I'm not sure he has ever before scored the points of favor of sexual strongholds that Internet access has accomplished for him. Prior to the internet, society's access to pornography was a far more public affair. In other words, partakers had to have nerve enough to walk into an establishment and make a purchase. No Longer.
We can now sit in our Beaver Cleaver homes with our white picket fences and open the attic door of pornography through the internet. It's now a private affair. The rate of Christians being snared daily is staggering. satan gets his pawns trapped in secret shame, living miserable lives of deception. Please read this carefully:
We are being sexually assaulted by the devil. The church must start mentioning the unmentionable and biblical address issues that are attacking our generation. God's word applies to the strongholds of promiscuity, perversity, and pornography just as it does to any other. God is not shocked. He has the remedy. He is awaiting our humble earnest cry for help.
What's this stuff all about, anyway? Why do sexual strongholds seem to be some of satan's specialities? As I traveled and heard story after story of sexual strongholds in believers lives, I began to ask God to give me some insight. No doubt far more answers exist than theses, but I'd like to share a few things He's showing me:
(1) satan is trying to distort what God ordained a marriage to be
According to Ephesians 5:22-32, God instituted marriage between one man and one woman to be the closest earthly representation of a much greater reality: Christ and the Church. We established earlier in the book that satan's primary problem is that he is driven by a manic jealousy of Jesus Christ. He is seeking relentlessly to undermine and counterfeit the relationship that God ordained for the purpose of revealing a "type" of Christ and Bride.
(2) satan desires to undermine the sanctifying work of Christ.
he knows that all believers have been "set apart" from the unclean to the clean, and from the unholy to the holy. he also knows that when believers act like the sanctified people they are, God is released to do powerful wonders among them.
Joshua 3:5, Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."
No purity - no power. Purity-boundless power. satan is a fool but he's no dummy.
(3) satan knows the overwhelming effects of sexual sins.
We must resist "ranking" sin since every sin causes us to miss the mark and require grace. All sin is equal in the sense of eternal ramifications, but not all sin is equal in its earthly ramifications. satan knows that sexual sin is unique in it's attack and impact on the boy of the individual believer. 1 Corinthians 6:18-19 says flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. Since the Spirit of Christ now dwells in the temple of believers' bodies, getting a Christian engaged in sexual sin is the closest satan can come to personally assaulting Christ. That ought to make us mad enough to be determined to live victoriously. Sins against the body also have a way of sticking to us and making us feel like we are the sin rather than the fact that we've committed the sin.
### end of excerpt from Praying God's Word by Beth More ###
This is an excellent book and I wholeheartedly recommend to all. I will continue with part 2 of this message with scripture and some key prayer points, please click on the banner below:
