BATTLING LUST

in the battles with the passion of lust there are a number of strategies a number of ways we need to think if our battle is to be successful we need to reflect on ourselves and what it is we're really feeling what we're allowing to grow within us and what it is we're doing many times people will excuse their lust their passion by blaming blaming the women that they see in the street oh they wear clothes that are so different to the past they dress inappropriately it's the summer time look how they're dressing do we not

hear in this excuse the voice of adam when he said the woman that you gave me she led me to sin we must take responsibility for our lust for our passion for the things that we do we cannot go blaming others when we confess we're told never to confess the sins of others it is always our own sins that we confess so what kind of confession is this when we say but it's their fault look how they dress and we must ask ourselves if my mother my sister my daughter were to dress in this way

would it evoke these kinds of passions within me hopefully most people would respond of course not why then because already we feel differently towards these women than the women that we are allowing lust and the passion to overcome us towards why because we love these people we love these people truly our sisters our mothers our daughters we already carry in our hearts love for them and when we allow lust to overcome us towards some stranger or even somebody we know then it is a lack of love in our hearts we must recognize it is a

complete lack of love to turn somebody into the object of our lust and we must repent of this recognize that our hearts are unloving we need to change how we feel how we feel towards everyone how it is that our hearts are experiencing other people is it love that we are allowing to grow within us is it the love of christ or is it something more something different and are we feeding are we feeding this lust on this passion nowadays of course many young men feel they are trapped by pornography it's so available and pornography

of course as a number of recent fathers have said is the the iconography of the devil it is the iconography of the devil it is evil and it fuels evil within us it fuels the passions it fuels lust it reduces all women in our mind in our heart to to something that gratifies our feelings it reduces women in this way human beings made in the image of god are then reduced to something that will satisfy our desires again this is evil saint isaac the syrian says to us whoever does not voluntary whoever does not voluntary

withdraw himself from the sources of temptation will involuntary become the slave of sin will be captured and take away by sin he says so let us look at what saint syria saint isaac the syrian is saying here that if we do not voluntarily if we do not choose to deny ourselves to turn away from those things we know stir up the passions within us then involuntary against our choice we will be dragged away by sin we will become slaves of sin we will be captured we will become servants of evil we will find ourselves incapable

of resisting sin because we will become the slave of sin so we must first as with all temptations which must be cut off at the root before they begin to grow we must voluntarily we must choose to deny ourselves to reject those things that fuel temptation and pornography fuels desire and lust it fuels the passions it drags us away into the clutches of the demons who amongst us would look at these defiling images if we could hear the cackle the howls of laughter and delight of the demons when we do so these things will enslave

us enslave us to the passions the fathers teach us that temptation all temptation comes in two ways there is the outer and the inner and christ himself of course was tempted but he never allowed temptation to enter into him and we do this we we allow temptation to move from the outer to the inner when we engage with it when we fantasize when we gain pleasure from the images of that temptation and it enters into us and once temptation has entered into us it is much more difficult to resist so we must cut it off

before we allow it to enter us do not fantasize do not engage do not allow pleasure to accompany these feelings of temptation and we must confess we must rush to confession the demons want to keep us silent about all these things the sins we've committed the way that we're tempted everything rush to your priest confess it all this is the first step in stamping our foot on the head of the serpent confess confess this is where our healing lies the whole mysteries of the church that life within the mysteries of the church that is where

our redemption is that is where our salvation is to be found and when we overcome our pride when we humble ourselves when we speak aloud in front of our priest those things that we have done it is the first step in renouncing them so rush to confession and do not imagine that you are somehow bizarre or unusual in experiencing these things there are many saints who struggle through this certain saints particularly that i encourage you to to look at if this is the particular passion that you are fighting against particularly then go to the life

of except mary of egypt said mary a g of egypt who went and fasted and renounced her life and overcame this passion moses the ethiopian who who suffered from the passion of both lust and violence but is now a saint who now stands before the throne of god sent john the long suffering look up the life of saint john the long suffering who became a monk and even as a monk was taunted and attacked there goes [Music] saint john the long suffering even as a monk found himself tempted by the passion of lust it handed

him and yet he overcame it do not lose heart do not believe that you will forever be enslaved by this passion christ promises release but he wishes us to struggle to repent we must offer this struggle repentance to god and we must do so not simply just to be released to to repent of a particular passion but we must do so to bring down the idol of our own satisfactions the idol of our own desires and pleasure if we make an idol of our own pleasure then this idolatry will separate us from god you