Rocks, Bread, and Living for Sex
by Joe Leavell
“Yes, but why is it sin?” I asked.
A confused look on his face indicated that the young man wasn’t sure what I was digging for. “Um, because God said it is.”
“Yes, but why?”
He continued to think for a few moments and threw up his hands. “Because it harms women, I guess? Because it’s addictive? I mean, honestly…I have no idea.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d had the conversation, nor would it be the last. Men, addicted to pornography and masturbation, who know it is sinful, know it is harmful, but have no idea why. The reality is that many men are working hard to overcome a problem that they don’t even truly see as a real evil. They know it’s wrong, because that's what they've been taught, and they know that it hurts those they love. However, deep down in their hearts, in the moment of temptation, they believe that it is a good.
Like someone who is otherwise fit and energetic enjoying the sweets of a cookie, they believe that their otherwise disciplined life is not harmed by their little treat. Cookies taste delicious and are worth enjoying from time to time.
In fact, they are somewhat perplexed by the strong reaction of their wives when they are either discovered or confess their actions. Some have even lied to themselves that they are doing it FOR their wife so that they do not overly burden them with their strong sexual appetites. “You’d think she’d say, ‘Thank you!’” Yes, I have heard those words expressed by those who are trapped in sexual sin.
I Mean, it was Just Bread
Have you ever read the temptations of Christ in Matthew 4 and asked, “What’s the big deal?” I think on the final temptation it’s pretty obvious, and we can all agree that anything that ends with worshiping Satan is pretty bad! What about that first temptation though?
Scripture says, “And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’” (Matthew 4:3)
That’s it?! That’s the temptation to get Jesus to sin? Really?? Turning rocks into bread because He’s the Son of God? Tell me…what’s so horrible about that??
Take a step back and take in the scene. Matthew 4 starts by saying that after Jesus was baptized, he, “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.”
We often gloss over these kinds of straightforward words in Scripture without thinking of their significance. “He was hungry.” Um…you think? Understatement of the year! I can’t imagine what it would look like to miss even a handful of meals let alone be in the wilderness for 40 days without eating! He must have been weak, body shutting down, frail, and in desperate need of nutrients in the hot desert sun!
Jesus was quite literally nearly starved to death.
So why would it have been sinning for him to turn those stones into something his body truly needs to survive? That’s what you do when you’re deprived of food! You eat!
It Wasn’t about Bread
There are many aspects as to why. I mean, Satan told him to do it, so that’s a good clue it was wrong. It for sure wasn’t that Jesus had a gluten allergy. The main issue that Jesus addresses is found in his answer. He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Notice he didn’t say, “Man shall not live by bread.” That would be absurd since it was God Himself who gave us the physical need for “our daily bread.” The issue here is that Satan was attempting to get Jesus to live by bread alone – that he would be ruled, not by God, but by his stomach. That it would not be God’s will and provision that he trusted in; it would be his primal needs for physical existence.
That sounds easy for us to resist with our full bellies, but try doing that without eating for 40 days! Jesus rightly responded, in no uncertain terms, that he was not guided by the dictates of food, but he was guided by the Father’s will, even if that left him near starving to death.
In the very next few chapters, Jesus would go on to express in the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:31-33)
Jesus instructs us to put the focus where it belongs – on God’s kingdom. Trust that He will take care of our needs! In turning the rocks into bread, Jesus would have been expressing that God was not trustworthy.
You see, it was the Spirit that had led him into the wilderness to experience starvation so that he was completely depleted of human resources and strength. Jesus was to be tempted while experiencing possibly the worst physical and mental conditions a person could experience. Satan’s temptation declared the seeming cruelty of the Father to allow his Son to starve by not providing even the most fundamentally basic needs of the human body.
The temptation? He couldn’t trust God. He had to go around the Father and take care of his own needs.
Not a New Temptation
Does this sound familiar? It’s the same type of temptation that Satan gave Adam and Eve in the Garden, and it’s the same temptation with sexual sin. Satan took something that God had made and tempted mankind to corrupt it for his own purposes and use, rather than for God’s glory. He did this with fruit, and he does it with sex, turning God's design for selfless love into self-indulgent lust.
A heart that has bent sex towards self-fulfilment sees something that God has designed for His glory and perfect purpose and then believes that they deserve a piece for themselves. They believe that God is withholding good from them and they have a fundamental right to as much of their own little kingdom of sexual gratification as they can.
So, just like Adam, men who indulge their lust don’t see it as something sinful – they see it as a way to satisfy the good (which God-honoring sex and God’s design of women truly is) that God is cruelly withholding, so they bypass God to make it happen.
Jesus refused. Even while his stomach would have been racked with pangs of hunger He would not be ruled by his human body because he trusted the Father. Whatever His Father provided, He would rest and be satisfied, even if it meant temporarily starving. God would sustain him by his every word.
Here’s the question then:
Are you living by every word that proceeds from the Father or are you living by ‘bread alone?’
When a man lives for sexual gratification, he is declaring in his heart and actions that what the Lord has provided is not enough. He ‘needs’ more and he has trained his body to agree and to function with the expectation and craving for more stimulation. He sees sex like a drug addict who can’t survive without one more high and when you talk about giving up porn, his body will respond with painful cravings and withdrawal. Those hunger pains are not easy to endure!
In reality, unlike bread, he won’t die without his lust…but he isn’t living in the truth at that point. He’s living by the feeling of his physical impulses which he believes to be almost as strong as his desire for food. He is living for sex.
Many husbands have thought their problem was indulging their lust through porn, so he devalues and ‘porn-ifies’ his wife by expecting her to be the sole outlet of his lust. This is why when a well-meaning wife has even made herself available to her husband at every possible time, way, or manner, it still is never enough. It could never be. How much gluttonous lust could ever truly satisfy you when you are living for sexual gratification?
So, What’s so Sinful about Porn?
We all know that many in the sex trade are real victims of sexual abuse and trauma. Your involvement is perpetuating the sex slave trade. Yet, even outside of that industry, women who make a career of their bodies have been led to believe that selling themselves to men’s lust is the highest value they possess. Your participation is an agreement that her body is all that matters.
You’re obviously not there to preach the Gospel or bring freedom and value. You’re there because you have reduced a woman to a dopamine hit. You need and find pleasure in her sin in order to gratify your own lust. If her body is pleasing enough, you will consume her content and get your rush. If she doesn’t do it for you, her entire life and soul you will deem meaningless and keep searching for a body that does.
To Hell with her! This is your vote for each and all of them. You are quite literally wishing them destruction by your actions!
You have seen her body in the most intimate of ways and may never give her existence or her soul a second thought because she has done what her life was meant to accomplish.
Click.
Swipe.
Next…
Porn, and all sexual sin takes something and someone that God has made in His image, for His purpose and design, and steals it to satisfy your own lust. It’s far more than a cookie. Rather than killing your lust and resting in God alone, you have allowed your bodily desires to rule and control you. Rather than blessing women with the honor and safety of a godly man, you have become a villainous, gluttonous devourer of any woman who is misfortunate enough to attract your attention!
It’ll Kind of Feel Like Starving to Death
Men who have spent a lifetime indulging their lust have little concept of knowing what it’s like to live without it. They don’t know if they can. They’ve always known it to be sinful but it has been a go-to choice for self-medication for so long. They believe they are trapped because they know that to live for Christ, their lust will starve. And yes, it will feel like starving. What have you habitually done when you’re starving? You eat!
But Jesus knows what it’s like for his entire body to crave just one morsel of bread, and still continue to live without it, trusting himself to God’s care and goodness. Jesus shows the path to freedom from porn which is found through trusting Him. In the midst of your starving and retraining of your body and mind, He really does love you and has given you all that you truly need.
As your body works through withdrawals and learns a new pattern of purity and freedom that is found through the Gospel, you may discover, maybe for the first time, that “man does not live by sex alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” “Jesus is enough” will no longer be a trite saying but will have deep and significant meaning.
If you are struggling with sexual sin, or are the victim of sexual mistreatment of others, please reach out for help and freedom today!
For Further Study:
Finally Free: by Heath Lambert
What’s the Big Deal? by Joe Leavell
Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building a World of Nobility: by Ray Ortland
Closing the Window: by Tim Chester
