Lie Theology Not Sin Theology

Chapter 7

Book a new paradigm from which to view our very nature- Parts, Windows, and Rooms

The Divided Human Soul

Tempatation def

Two most famous temptation scenes

garden of eden temptation of christ- eve was tempted, jesus was not satan’s victory in the garden (knowldege of good and evil) jesus’ victory in the desert (stimulous (contains lie virus) quick scan of knowledge of scripture (who and how god is) response of uncorrupted scripture several times until satan retreats

Original sin”your not the boss of me”

satan’s problem

satan’s solution

satan got the entire human race doing his thing until the 2nd adam, not tempted, never becomes the judge of good and evil

Concept of sin in the bible

paul’s attempt to describe sinfulness

paul’s acknowledged defeat by sin

webster’s definition : rather than looking at the how or what we should be looking for the why(fully explained in chapter 8-knowledge base(needs debugging from lie virus)- stimulous(might or might not have virus) scan against god’s answers for us most 20th century churches are pusing self effort, self control, gimics to defeat sin while missing the main point that they have already sinned, they are just not acting out on it. Right now, the good is the enemy of the best.

Middle finger, other pastors acknowledging the contemplation of the sinful act, but self controlling. But jesus sermon on the mount 3 examples jesus model is the correct one. God, you are the boss of me after reading god’s view on a subject , my response sometimes is why? When it should be okay, i got it.

Mind,knowledge, understanding, beliefs today stimulous model of sinfulness Human being holds certain knowledge, etc. Confronted with a stimulous Always through one of the senses or possibly directly to the mind by demonic/satanic forces or powers first thought should be make every thought captive to christ. he is the way, the truth and the light. He is the truth filter and the word of god.

So , example of scantily clad woman(find in prior writings) sight

hearing something off color on radio hearing

smelling certain kind of alcoholic drink smell

having a person of the opposite sex not your spouse brush up against you touchstone

taste(chocolate cake first taste of small sliver of cake can get you thinking gorge,gluttony

Jesus’ response to simulous look away and pray for her/approach her and ask her why she feels she should dress this way, that she has value as a person outside of her sexuality, depending on the holy spirit turn the radio station immediately and pray for the persons doing the action smelling the drink, wine makes merry the heart of man but is this the right time, place, manner for merriment or are their pressing responsibilities?

Say excuse me, move away and bring to mind any of the scriptures against sexual immorality as a sin against the body itself

Temptation according to Webster’s dicitionary is as follows:

Definition of temptation

1: the act of tempting or the state of being tempted especially to evil:ENTICEMENT

2: something tempting:a cause or occasion of enticement

While this definition is somewhat circular, the issue of enticement is important. The Webster’s defintion of entice is:

Definition of entice

transitive verb

:to attract artfully or adroitly or by arousing hope or desire:TEMPT

The two most famous temptation scenes arguably are the temptations of Eve in the Garden of Eden and Christ in the desert, both by Satan. In the Garden of Eden scenario, God gave Adam the law or rule in that “And the Lord God commanded the man, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:4 16-17 New International Version

As Eve had not been created at this point in time when God gave this command concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam either gave the information incorrectly to Eve or Eve misinterpreted the command as seen when Satan approaches them in the garden.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden

3. But God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” Somehow, “and you must not touch it “ was added to the command. Satan placed a question in Eve’s mind as to whether there was a command not to eat from the tree of good and evil. Her response clearly showed that she was aware of the command not to eat because in botching the command, it was more stringent as you could not even touch it without dying. There was no doubt in Eve’s mind as to God’s command not to eat. Satan continues to try to tempt Eve to eat by not only presenting a lie about the command but by also lying about God’s intention or reason for the command.

4. “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.

5. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Satan’s lies were received by Eve and suddenly, the fruit looked appealing to eat and sounded like it was going to give her wisdom, she did the opposite of what God had commanded and disobeyed again giving Adam the fruit to eat as well. Eve has no defense of confusion or uncertainity about God’s command or Word on the subject, she had memorized the command and even added a higher duty not even to touch it. However, the main point that is not discussed much or at all is that the knowledge of good and evil requires the subordinate being to exalt themselves above the superior being so become Judge of the information, command, and motives of the superior being. Satan did it to rebel against God and Eve did it to rebel against God. Satan passed his rebellion and lust for rebellion against God to Eve and subsequently to Adam. Satan was given rules to obey by God and judged them inadequate or wrong, thus judging God as inadequate or wrong and the same for Eve and Adam. All of this was thrown out when the seemingly new information came through Satan. Satan tempted Eve to go against the command of God which was her sin. Eve tempted Adam to go against the rule of God when she presented the choice to him. At this point, Adam, too, joined in the rebellion by raising himself above God and Eve to determine the rightness or the path to follow. Ever since these two occurrences in the Garden of Eden, man and woman have been hell-bent on their rebellion to God and His rules for our lives.

Sin in Webster, is simply defined as:

1. an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.

Satan

God’s word on a subject is the divine law. Anything that we do against his divine law is considered sin regardless of what any other source says on the matter.

All of this rebellion continued throughout the time of creation until it was stopped by the 2nd Adam(Jesus). In the other equally famous temptation scenario in the bible, there is a much different ending. While Jesus is fasting and praying in the desert and at the end of the 40 day fast, Satan appears to get him to sin by twisting scripture verses. This point is important for two reasons: Satan knows scripture and how to twist it for his purposes and you need to know scripture well enough to spot the twists and not fall for them.

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” 5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” 9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; 11 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ” 12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. The second version in the book of Matthew is basically the same with the difference that Jesus adds to “man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

There are many bible teachers, commentators, and even Bibles that refer to this episode as “the temptation of Christ”. I will argue that it is extremely important for the church to rethink this scene as “Satan’s attempt to temp Jesus Christ”. The difference is subtle when glossed over quickly but extremely important for the church going forward if we are to walk in our hard won victory over sin that cost Jesus everything.

Going back to the Garden of Eden, the tempter, Satan was trying to get Eve do do just what he had wanted when he rebelled. Satan wants and wanted to be above God and clearly believed he deserved to be. While Satan might have been the highest creation by God, God is the creator. There is a huge difference between the creator and the creation, between the potter and the clay. Satan weighed God’s rules or Word as wanting and believed he could do it better than God. He wanted to be in the words of George W. Bush, “the decider”. He wanted to be the final arbiter on and of everything. In his efforts to tempt Eve, he got Eve to do exactly what he had done-that is, for Eve to elevate herself above God in the way that Satan in delusion, placed himself in the same position. Eve would decide for herself whether God’s rule, command and word for her was correct or better, or the other competing idea that Satan’s perspective was the one to follow. The best way for me to think about this is to picture Eve sitting in a courtroom in the place of the judge while weighing and pondering the merits of God’s command versus the beguiling case Satan was proposing to her. Unfortunately for all of us, Eve banged the gavel on the desk and decided, “I rule in favor of Satan, let me have that fruit” and ate of it.

Satan’s plan to tempt Jesus worked out exactly the opposite than that what happened in the Garden. Jesus, although weak from praying and fasting in the Judean desert for some forty days, never once was tempted by Satan in the way that he had tempted Eve. Every time that Satan tried or attempted to tempt Jesus, Jesus always quickly answered with God’s word on the subject. Like in the garden, Satan tried to get Jesus to question God’s word and get Him to sin by disobeying and by most importantly to judge God.

Satan even made it harder in that he was quoting scripture but Jesus knew scripture and He knew His Father well enough to know that the devil was quoting scripture out of context in an attempt to manipulate Jesus into sinning. Satan could not get Jesus to ascend to the Judge’s seat to make a judgment over his misrepresented scriptures. Jesus never once bought into the lie or deception that Satan was pushing but rather, simply responded with correct scripture for the correct context. An amazing aspect of Jesus’ response is that ultimately, Jesus is part of the Trinity and Godhead yet he still did not once put himself in a position to judge the truth, merit, or reasoning of His father’s word.

Jesus is called the “2nd Adam” in the Bible because, where the first Adam failed to obey God, Jesus in his redemption of mankind only obeyed. He also clearly studied scripture not only from this incident but from the story of Him leaving the Jewish teachers in amazement when He was only a twelve-year-old. As our model and as disciples/followers of Jesus, we have to see the importance He placed on knowing the scriptures and compare our lackadaisical attitudes to knowing God’s word. In the big, big, picture of life that includes accounting for our time on earth to God the Father, what book could be more important for us to learn inside and out than the bible?

Jesus solely relied upon God’s word to make the determinations of what is good and what is evil in this life. Eve did the opposite, attempting to steal God’s power and authority to make these life and death determinations. Satan thought that He had destroyed the whole of creation by getting humans to go down the path that many times ended with mankind usurping the judge’s seat reserved for God the Father alone in order for us to know and proclaim what is good and what is evil. While Satan did and has achieved a lot of turmoil, chaos, destruction, sadness and grief with His plan for earth, he did not foresee nor recognize the redemption plan that utilized Jesus as fully man, to do that which Adam did not-to live a perfect life without sinning. He did this to be the perfect sacrificial lamb to die and atone for our sins through His death. It is interesting that scripture states that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God the father with all power and authority so that He is now the proper judge and He will judge the whole of creation as it states in the bible.

The need for a new paradigm about sin in general is demonstrated in several ways, both scripturally and through our own experiences. Paul’s admitted defeat recorded in scripture runs directly against the scriptures that promise that through Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, we now have victory over sin in our lives. It is based on “self” control required to have more self control.

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:15-20 New International Version (NIV)

This couple of sentences succinctly summarizes Paul’s admitted honest defeat. I can’t do what I want to do and I do what I don’t want to do. Why? He says because it is sin’s fault, living in me that does it. I have always felt uncomfortable about Paul’s seeming personification of sin and his blaming it in a way that separates it from his being and makes him less responsible for having done it. Not that he is saying it is okay to sin, as he strongly condemns sin for what it is in God’s view—unacceptable. Instead, he acknowledges the wrongness of sin but not understand his lack of integrity between mind, will, and action, simply blames it on sin itself.

As this is the touchstone for our understanding of a “sin” theology in the church throughout the ages, all efforts have pointed to doing all kinds of other things to combat sin. The main idea though, is somewhat circular in that many of the highest authorities come back to the same kind of thinking. Sin is bad and we have been given power so not to sin so we can be like our Lord. In order to defeat sin, we must not sin! We must exercise self control over the things we are lacking self control.

Peter tells us to “abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Paul says, “I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Cor. 9:27). In other words, he is commanding his body to obey him. He also exhorts, “Flee [fornication] and pursue righteousness” (2 Tim. 2:22). Put to death! Wrestle! Use the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

So the answer to not sinning is to pursue righteousness or right living and “abstain from sinful desires”. Other respected current day theologians point to the scriptural admonition to kill sin within us. Most teachers and pastors teach with scriptural proscriptions that are somewhat cloudy. They sound high-minded but don’t offer the key for actual victory over sin. Ultimately they sort of come down in the self-help, self-effort, and self-control variants.

How Is This to Be Done? By John Piper

Take heart from the truth that the old sinful you is decisively already dead (Romans 6:6; Colossians 3:3; Galatians 5:24). This means three things:

the mortal blow to our “old man” has been struck;
he will not succeed in domination now;
his final obliteration is certain.

Consciously reckon the old man dead; that is, believe the truth of Scripture about the old man’s death, and seek to live in that freedom (Romans 6:11).
Cultivate enmity with sin! You don’t kill friends (Romans 8:13). Ponder how it killed your best friend, dishonors your Father, and aims to destroy you for ever.
Rebel against sin’s coup. Refuse to be bullied by his deceits and manipulations (Romans 6:12). Fight your sinful impulses with all your might like a boxer fights an opponent and like a marathon runner fights fatigue (1 Corinthians 9:27; 2 Timothy 4:8).
Declare radical allegiance to the other side—God—and consciously put all your mind and heart and body at his disposal for righteousness and purity (Romans 6:13).
Don’t make any plans that open the door for sin’s entry (Romans 13:14). Don’t prove your purity in a pornography shop.
Develop mental habits that continually renew the mind in God-centeredness (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 4:16). Fix attention daily on “the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5), “things that are above” (Colossians 3:2), “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8).
Admit failure and confess all known sin every day (1 John 1:9). Ask for forgiveness (Matthew 6:12).
Ask for the Spirit’s help and power in all these things (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:17, 22; Ezekiel 36:27; Isaiah 26:12).
Be part of a larger and smaller fellowship where you are exhorted often to beware of the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).
Beware of “works of law”; but let all your warfare be “the work of faith” (2 Thessalonians 1:11). That is, let your fight against sin spring from your confidence in the superior pleasures of closeness to Christ.

Pastor John Piper

This final determining example that a new paradigm is needed is demonstrated by most of the current church’s clear reliance upon self effort and self control to defeat sin. If that were possible(I argue if you look at the sinful state of things today, you can’t say that we the greater church are victorious over sin), we wouldn’t need a savior because through our self efforts and self will, we could control sin ourselves. What makes this delusion easier today is that after Jesus, the church has not paid much attention to the law as a mirror to show our sinfulness and we don’t slaughter animals which clearly demonstrated that sin leads to the death of something, if not ourselves.

When closely examining the arguments and prescriptions against sin such as these, a clear picture of the devil and angel on the shoulders fight is occurring daily and will occur until you die and that we need to “do” all we can in our personal fight against sin. Rightfully, and truthfully, we must admit and confess our known sin daily as part of the prescription against sin but doesn’t this beg the question raised above? How can we have mastery over sin if we are confessing our known sin daily and what about our unknown sins that we don’t even recognize? How can we feel confident in our victory over sin as we experience daily and is this really an extrapolation (continuation of defeat) from Paul’s dilemma with the problem of sin?

After learning about a new way(paradigm) to look at this age old problem, it was with much interest that I listened to my preacher teach on how to have self-discipline in the sense that Paul spoke about it when it came to fighting sin in our lives. I not only was interested to see my churches’ antidote for sin but also as a pastor in a church of around 5,000 attendees per weekend, what would be the advice given to all of these newer Christians for such an important issue for their lives? Throughout the first part of the sermon, he described going on to google to get worldly advice for how to gain more self-discipline in all areas of our lives. He gave examples from several of the writers but at the end of describing these ideas, bemusedly came to the conclusion and realization from these helpful hints on Google that you needed self-discipline to get self-discipline. In addition, he concluded that the strategy of self control through self mastery just doesn’t work. When he applied the same question to self-discipline in the spiritual arena, however, rather than following the same logical progression that he had found in general life issues , he, I believe, due to our inability to admit that we are not winning the sin battle, jumped logical and scriptural tracks and brought in an answer from another scripture that could solve the problem. Based upon the the scripture that quoted Jesus that His burden is light if we surrendered our lives to God. While connecting the idea that Jesus’ burden being light would allow us to overcome sin, the more important point about his conclusion is what he left out and that is Paul’s concluding sentences regarding this age old battle against sin. While my pastor quoted this part of the text, “ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”, he left out the conclusion:

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin. New International Version

So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. King James Version

So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh [my human nature, my worldliness, my sinful capacity serve sinity—I serve] the law of sin. Amplified Bible

Discuss

Christian theological discussions

My preacher’s response was to skip this very important and telling conclusion of Paul and argue that Thanks be to God, we have victory over sin based upon the following scripture:

28“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavily burdened[by religious rituals that provide no peace],and I will give you rest[refreshing your souls with salvation].29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me[following Me as My disciple],for I am gentle and humble in heart, andyou will find rest(renewal, blessed quiet)for your souls.30 For My yoke is easy[to bear]and My burden is light.” The following is a strong paraphrase of his my pastor’s conclusion,

Surrender control to me(Jesus)

when you let God rule your life

when you become a servant of Christ who is Lord of all

prayer, Oh wretched man… who is going to rescue me from this?

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord

God delivers and Jesus is Lord is the answer to lack of self-control

I intend you to a have life of self control

you will never be more free than the day you become a servant of Jesus Christ

Why do I bring up these two specific teachings of how to deal with sin in our lives? Is to put those teachers down? Not at all, but rather, it is to demonstrate that when we are working in an old or incomplete paradigm, that is missing the most essential aspect of truth as it relates to our specific problem. It is basically impossible to get to the solution or answer to the problem. I had always heard of the example of the prophecy in Isaiah of the Messiah to be both the conquering king and the suffering servant. In that time and culture it would be very hard to understand how both of those attributes could apply to the same person. It was easy to understand either possibility but they seemed to the people of that day, to be mutually exclusive in nature and not able to be demonstrated in the same person. We face many questions in scripture that teachers call tension points so that while both points appear to be at odds, somehow God can reconcile the two like He did in the person of Jesus in the example above.

Most serious students of scripture believe that God has given us power and victory over sin through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They also are honest in allowing that everyone continues to sin as evidenced by everywhere we look.(including the church). While the people of Israel had their ideas of suffering servant and conquering king answered in the person of Jesus, as the bridge which connected and allowed both concepts to be true, so a new concept of a “lie-based” theology rather than a “sin-based” theology is the bridge between the assured victory over sin and the truth of our sinfulness in our present experience. It is a new paradigm or new way of thinking about sin and from what I can tell, started with Ed Smith in Kentucky as an essential truth for dealing with the healing of old life wounds and the lies which we take in as part of our human experience.

The truth is, however, that the understanding and implications of “lie-based” theology are much bigger than that and can account for the root cause of all sins in our lives as well as the ability to overcome sin with truth rather than self-discipline.

As we break down in minute steps the ideas of temptation and sin, we can look at all the areas of our lives to ferret out the lies so that we can kill the sin at the root and not just keep pruning the bush or tree forever until it grows up again.

What I want to say here in the clearest fashion is that while all Christian “spiritual push ups” such as meditation, bible reading, prayer, fasting, and accountability fellowship are helpful, they are are part of the “sin-based” theology and the internal continuing struggle to do right as the devil and angels fight in out on our shoulders. The inherent problems with this approach are foremost demonstrated by Paul’s admitted lack of victory over sin as well as the problems outlined in chapter one describing the current sin sickness of the western church. Additionally, while Paul clearly outlines a divided person between his “mind and flesh” or “mind and sinful nature” or “mind and sinful capacity” he offers no antidote, but instead acquiesces to this constant war in his person with no hope of victory over sin. Understanding this point of division of the human nature and its implications for truly having victory over sin is very important which is where we go next.

But, we must go back to the garden and examine the idea of temptation again. What did Satan ultimately want? He wanted to be God in place of God being God. He wanted to be in charge of all—to set the rules by which everyone else had to abide. What was the tree really symbolizing that God told Adam not to eat from? In the amplified bible, it is the tree of the [experiential] knowledge (recognition) of [the difference between] good and evil. In order for anyone to be able to do that properly and correctly, to be able to know through experience whether something is good or evil, you would actually have to be like God in the sense that you would need all of His knowledge, omnipotence and omnipresence and be sinless in order to be able to correctly make the decision over good and evil. Satan wanted to say, I AM(God). He was able to get Eve and secondly, Adam, to enter into the experiential decision-making process of whether something was good or evil simply by proposing the same lie that he entertained in his head and that is that anyone other than God could become like God. By getting Adam and Eve to weigh the propriety of an action, he got them to say I AM GOD or I WILL BE LIKE GOD. I can make this decision and any decision regardless of God’s judgment on the issue because I don’t need Him for that. I, in my pride and delusion, am equally qualified to be God in lockstep imitation of Satan’s rebellion.

The biggest problem with all of this fighting back and forth between the devil and angel on our shoulders is that when we have ascended onto the heavenly judgment seat of God to determine that which we will carry out or not, we have already lost. Jesus taught clearly on the sermon on the mount that once a desire has risen up in our mind or heart, we have already sinned. All of the Christians proudly banging their chests about how although they contemplated the sin, and that they did not carry it out are missing the point of the sermon, we have already sinned. In the practice of criminal law there are two very important concepts for our understanding of defeating sin. The first is Mens Rea which means that a person has the mental intent to commit the crime. The second is Actus Reus which is the action that one commits in furtherance of a crime. Most 20th century churches are promoting self-effort, self-control and some gimics to defeat sin while missing the main point that according to Jesus, we have already sinned. While it is better not to act on our sinful thoughts, we are still losing our battle to sin despite our victory in Jesus. While attending a nice local church years ago, a member stood up for his praise report from the week prior to tell how after being cut off in traffic, even though he wanted to give him the middle finger(paraphrased without religious description of giving someone the middle finger), he did not. He was very proud and happy with the result as the congregation also appeared as almost everyone in the church clapped for his report. Without knowing this person, perhaps this was somewhat of a victory for him. Maybe he had committed violent acts in his past and this was forward progress, but even so, it always seemed to me that everyone there had missed missed sermon on the mount point by Jesus. Jesus gives examples of sinning in our thoughts constitutes sin regardless of whether we act on it or not. If we look at another person lustfully, we have already committed adultery. That means all of the time spent viewing pornography in itself is adultery over and over again. Most people sharing this sin problem probably don’t see what they are doing in that light. In fact, just this piece of information could cut through the denial of many person’s self-deception that it’s not really not that bad and no one is getting hurt.

In, Solomon says there is nothing new under the sun. Sure, there might be more of it and we might have easier access to it, but there must be some finiteness to our existence so all of the sins we practice today are either the same as or retreads of the sins committed three thousand years ago.

What must be done then, is the biblical command to “renew our minds” so that we can remove the lies of the Satan-run world and replace those lies with the truth of the bible. The bible is God’s will for our lives so we must read it daily with the intent of knowing our God and His will for our lives. The problem though, is that our minds are filled with the lies of this world and we will be shocked to see how much our thoughts are not God’s thoughts for our lives but instead, what Satan wants for us. In this way, when a stimulus becomes known to our system of perception, whether it be through our senses or directly into our mind in a devilish supernatural way, our first thought should be to make every thought captive to Christ. What does God have to say about this stimulus and what am I to do with it? As with Jesus in the desert, what does this stimulus mean or what is it projecting to me. Satan makes a statement to Jesus to get Jesus to weigh the message against God’s message. Jesus does this at an intellectual level but not in a way that makes him the judge between the competing idea that Satan is advancing against what God has declared on the topic. In the example of a scantily-clad woman in public, if you know that if you have a lustful thought and that constitutes the sin of adultery, you cannot look at her with lust. You can wonder why she believes she must dress that way to make herself feel better about herself? You can wonder why she thinks so little of herself to treat herself without proper respect? You can pray for her salvation or sanctification or think about the fact that she is someone’s daughter who probably wasn’t treated well. There are many ways to deal with the situation without sinning. You can even move along without giving her a thought at all or you could let her know that Jesus loves her and she has value beyond her looks and body(men speaking to scantily-clad women is not advised from a wisdom standpoint). If however, the man in question is currently having issues at home with his wife and the sight of the woman reminds him of earlier times of sinful relationships with other women, you can see how the stimulous can lead to sin very easily.

So , example of scantily clad woman(find in prior writings) sight

hearing something off color on radio hearing

smelling certain kind of alcoholic drink smell

having a person of the opposite sex not your spouse brush up against you touchstone

taste(chocolate cake first taste of small sliver of cake can get you thinking gorge,gluttony

Say excuse me, move away and bring to mind any of the scriptures against sexual immorality as a sin against the body itself No one would seriously make the argument that the current western church is winning the sin war. We will never win it if we don’t first renounce the lie that exhibiting self control about an outer behavior is not a substitute for not sinning in the first place. When a stimulus occurs in our life, we must as Jesus did, be able to know God’s word on the matter and simply adopt that as our mind’s answer and move on accordingly. Any information to the contrary of God’s word on the topic is some sort of lie be it deceit, self-delusion, partial lies, or just plain big hairy audacious lies. Seeing temptation, original sin, and how sin operates in reality is an important step in our victory over sin promised as our birth right as new creatures in Christ.