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Transcript: Welcome to "5 Minutes with Pastor Lutzer." I'm so glad that you joined us again as we continue our study of the will of God. As I've been emphasizing, we often wish that God were to come right out of heaven and tell us—"This is My will for you" and I'm insisting in this series that that's exactly what God has done.
My passage today is taken from 1 Thessalonians 4, where we read these words in verse three: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality." And he goes on to talk about the fact that God has called us not to impurity but to purity. You say, "Well, what is the will of God for me?" Here it is in God's word. Abstain from immorality.
Of course, when we have passages of scripture that talk about impurity and immorality it goes beyond simply the acts that people may perform and the kind of behaviour they might have, right to the human heart. It would include such things, for example, as pornography. And if you're struggling today, if that's where you are, then I have to say, quite candidly, that you are out of God's will. Now, I want to be very clear. This is a struggle that all of us have. Because it is not natural; it is not according to our desires that we gravitate to purity. Philosophers such as Rousseau, for example, believed that human nature was basically good and if it could just be unleashed everyone would live in happiness. Nonsense! Many of our desires are very base and they lead us to destruction. And you know what Satan does? On the one hand, he tempts us and tells us that immorality is very pleasurable. So, he tempts us to sin and then he turns around and he tells us that we are condemned and he condemns us through our consciences. Come out of the cave today and discover God's will.
Many years ago, it was my privilege to see a wonderful painting in Amsterdam in a museum nightwatch by Rembrandt. Of course, tourists come from all over the world to see it. Well, I was told that there was an incident that happened several years ago where someone with a knife came and poked that knife through the canvas. Well, of course, the folks in the museum were very embarrassed because people were coming from all over the world to see it and the painting was taken and put into a backroom and covered. The question was what to do with it. Well, thankfully there were some French painters who said that they would be able to fix it and so the painting was taken, it was given to them, and they were able to repair it, and today as you look at it you'd never know that there was anything that had ever been wrong with it. Is that a picture of your life? Maybe you are struggling with something that someone has done to you. It may have been a knife in your soul, figuratively speaking. Are you in a backroom covered? The only hope for you is to come out of that backroom. Join a small group, go to church, find those who are able to share your struggles, and pray together and trust God to win a victory in your life and never give up the fight.
What is God's will? Well, here it is in His Holy Word. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, to abstain from impurity." Thanks so much for joining us today. I hope that you join us next time as we conclude this series but as for today, you just go with God.