61 Sermon Illustrations on Lust

Back in the 50's there was a well-known radio host/comedian/song writer in Hollywood named Stuart Hamblen who was noted for his drinking, womanizing and partying. One of his bigger hits at the time was “I Won't Go Hunting With You Jake, But I'll Go Chasing Women”.

And along came a young preacher holding a tent revival. Hamblen had him on his radio show and let him plug the revival, and Hamblen himself showed up at one of the meetings.

Early in the service the preacher announced, “There is one man in this audience who is a big fake.” There were probably others who thought the same thing, but Hamblen was convinced that he was the one the preacher was talking about (some would call that conviction of sin), but he was having none of that. Still the words continued to haunt him until a couple of nights later he showed up at the preacher's hotel door around 4 a.m. and demanded that the preacher pray for him. One witness reported the singer was “broken up and crying as the evangelist said, 'We've been praying for you for weeks.'”[1] They talked until 5 a.m. at which point Stuart dropped to his knees and with tears, cried out to God.

But that is not the end of the story. Stuart quit drinking, quit chasing, quit everything that was “fun”. And he began to lose favor with the Hollywood crowd. He was ultimately fired by the radio station when he refused to accept a beer company as a sponsor. He began to write Christian music.

One day an old friend named John took Stuart aside and told him all your troubles started when you “got religion” and asked if it was worth it all. Stuart answered simply, “Yes”. Then his friend said, “You liked your booze so much. Don't you ever miss it?” And the answer was, “No.” John then said, “I don't understand how you could give it up so easily.” And Stuart's response was, “It's no big secret. All things are possible with God.” To this John said, “That's a catchy phrase. It sounds like a song.”

As they say, the rest is history. The song Stuart wrote in 1950 was “It Is No Secret” –

It is no secret, what God can do.

What He's done for others, He'll do for you.

With arms wide open, He'll welcome you.

It is no secret, what God can do.

By the way, the friend was John Wayne, and the young preacher who prayed for Stuart Hamblen was Billy Graham, at his famous 1949 revival in Los Angeles. And even though Hamblen lost his radio job because he objected to an ad for alcohol, the Prohibition Party nominated him as their candidate for President of the United States in 1952. Hamblen finished fourth, despite appearing on the ballot in only twenty-one states. And now you know “the rest of the story.”

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1. The original internet version says Hamblen was drunk and begged the evangelist to pray for him, but he refused, saying, “This is between you and God and I’m not going to get in the middle of it.” The above version is from the eyewitness account of Grady Wilson quoted in Mikkelson’s article. Mikkelson's "Urban Legends" verifies the validity of the above story.

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BreakPoint Commentary, April 14, 2015, Eric Metaxas

"The Story behind ‘It Is No Secret’: What God Can Do"

I never thought I’d get to talk about Billy Graham, Elvis Presley, and John Wayne all in one BreakPoint commentary. Stay tuned for the amazing story behind a famous gospel song.

We’ve all had the experience of getting a song stuck in our head for an extended period of time. If you’re really unfortunate, that song may be one by Christopher Cross or Air Supply.

But sometimes these “earworms,” as they are dubbed, can lead to good things.

That recently happened to one of us right here at BreakPoint. While reading a biography of the early 20th century evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, my colleague and friend Roberto Rivera found himself humming and singing the gospel song “It Is No Secret (What God Can Do).”

He’s not sure why the song popped into his head; he couldn’t recall ever singing it before. But once it entered his consciousness, it didn’t leave. While driving the next day, he searched for the song on Spotify and listened to two very different versions: the first by the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and the second by Elvis Presley.

At this point, he looked up the song on Google to find out who wrote it. And what he found was the kind of story that you can’t make up.

Fittingly, Roberto found the story on Truth or Fiction.com, which like Snopes.com, verifies and/or debunks rumors or urban legends floating around on the web.

As the site tells, “It Is No Secret” was written by Stuart Hamblen, who is regarded as one of radio’s first “singing cowboys.” Hamblen, the son of a Methodist minister from Texas, didn’t handle his fame very well. As Wikipedia tells us, his drinking, and the brawling and “destructive behavior” it produced, landed him in jail “many times.”

This all changed in 1949 when Billy Graham appeared on Hamblen’s show as a way to publicize what would become the historic Los Angeles Crusade. While on the show, Graham invited Hamblen to attend the crusade, and Hamblen accepted. Later, Hamblen contacted Graham and asked if they could meet and talk. And it was then that Hamblen committed his life to Christ.

Sometime later, a friend of Hamblen asked him about the rumor going around Hollywood that Hamblen had changed his ways. Hamblen replied that it was no secret what God had done for him and what God could do for his friend, too. The friend then replied that Hamblen should turn those lines into a song.

That friend’s name was John Wayne. No kidding.

So Hamblen followed Wayne’s advice — he wrote it. “It Is No Secret” became the first song to reach #1 on the Gospel, Country, and Pop charts. Think about that: a song that tells us that “with arms wide open, he’ll pardon you” reached #1 on the Pop chart. Thank you, John Wayne.

It’s been recorded many times, arguably most famously by Elvis Presley. Also by Johnny Cash. Perhaps the greatest illustration of the song’s lasting impact is that “the original manuscript of the song ‘It Is No Secret’ is buried in the cornerstone of the Copyright Buildings of the Library of Congress.” Wow.

Singing cowboys, Billy Graham, John Wayne, Elvis and a song about God’s restorative power. As I said, you can’t make this kind of story up.

But God can. And that is the point of Hamblen’s song. God longs to, as my friend Thomas Howard wrote in “Christ the Tiger,” (great book),”restore to you the good which your own foolish mistakes have cheated you.”

That’s no secret. That is the good news.

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Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

"It's May, it's May, the lusty month of May." So goes some lyrics from one of my favorite musicals, CAMELOT. As your Baptist minister I must point out that the singer's lust just about gets her burned at the stake and ruins the finest political, social, and ecological accomplishment of the Middle Ages.

Camelot is long gone but May still visits on an annual basis. It IS a fun month. Our white plum tree (it was supposed to be purple but white still looks nice) is in full bloom and a whole series of bulbs and bushes will follow. We all start jogging and biking again and just generally feel comfortable being outside. The world becomes green and beautiful again and our hearts turn to love.

Not everyone thinks that is such a good thing. I attended RIVERDANCE with the Village Baptist (NC) youth group and read the Playbill magazine before it started. It highlighted a current play on the life of Victorian scholar and poet A. E. Housman and began with this verse:

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard a wise man say,

"Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies,

But keep your fancy free."

But I was one-and-twenty,

No use to talk to me.

Poem XIII of "A Shropshire Lad" [HolwickID #19021]

It is a very sad poem about the heart and freedom; apparently he did not heed it and later regretted it. But is it truly wise advice? If he meant we should not give our hearts away lightly I can see the point, yet he really seems to be saying we should shun anything restrictive, like love or relationships. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "fancy free" as 1. Having no commitments or restrictions; carefree; marked by light-hearted nonchalance. 2. Not in love or married; unattached.

The Bible says relationships are critical to our happiness. God made us to need other people. Commitments are cool! Marriage is one avenue for this fulfillment: "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD" (Proverbs 18:22). You don't have to be married to experience fulfilling relationships; any Christian should be able to find it in the church as well. John says there we can find fellowship with one another and with God. Share your heart with others and prove the poet wrong.

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In the flurry of recent discussion on gays in the Anglican/Episcopal Church, I've passed by a statement several times. Now I'd like to stop and look it over. It's simply the claim that the church is open to homosexual clergy so long as they agree to be celibate -- it's the behavior and not the orientation that counts.

It can sound reasonable, since all ministers surely struggle with sin and sins.

We all have unholy impulses of which we are not proud and which we are determined, with God's help, to conquer. And how can we say that one unholy drive is worse than another? How are ours any less scandalous than those of the homosexual? So we're in no position to exclude them on grounds of desire, so long as they don't act on those desires. If we excluded pastors for their desires alone, there would be none left.

Or so the argument goes.

But something's wrong with this line of reasoning, for it collapses into absurdity.

Let's imagine two pastoral candidates meeting in turn with a pulpit committee. Each is asked about his weaknesses. The first says he has a tendency toward gluttony, but that he doesn't give in to it. The second says he has a tendency toward bestiality, but that he doesn't give in to it. I'm thinking it's pretty much a wrap for that second candidate. But how is that fair? Unholy tendencies are unholy tendencies, right? Not so fast.

I think two things are at work here. One is a challenge for both men; the other is particularly troublesome for the second.

First, the dichotomy between the inner man and the outer man is hard to sustain -- “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7a). A righteous- because-celibate homosexual is a fiction, the same as a righteous-because- celibate philanderer. You don't just want a well-behaved minister; you want one whose heart is in it, whose ascendant appetites are those of a regenerate man.

To put it another way, if we speak comfortably of homosexual Christians (albeit well-behaved ones), we should feel free to speak comfortably of well-behaved pyromaniacal Christians, kleptomaniacal Christians, homicidal Christians and pedophilic Christians -- or, for that matter, well-behaved gluttonous Christians and hypochondriac Christians. It doesn't work because it signals a certain resignation, even satisfaction, with an ungodly but defining condition of the soul. Thus described, these “Christians” don't simply suffer from sinful tendencies; they identify themselves with them.

Second, some sins are sins because they take good things to excess; others begin with bad things. For example, food is good; too much food is bad (gluttony). Spending is good; too much spending is bad (prodigality). You can even go the other direction: Too little food is bad (starvation); too little spending is bad (miserliness).

But it's different when we come to bestiality, for example. There's no such thing as too little or too much bestiality; any of it is too much, and you can never have too little. It's wrong from the get-go.

To press on, I would suggest Christians can better understand adultery, racism, theft and lying because they degenerate from normal heterosexual, tribal, acquisitive and self-protective tendencies. When, however, one expresses an interest in sex with animals, he departs the realm of the deplorable for the land of the unthinkable.

I maintain that homosexuality falls more in the category of the unthinkable than the deplorable. It is not the corruption of a natural tendency but the affirmation of an unnatural tendency. The same goes for animal abuse. Imagine a candidate's assuring the committee that, though he does have a persistent desire to pull the wings off live parakeets, he never acts on them. Goodbye.

Am I saying that homosexuals might as well be animal torturers? No, I'm faulting the facile logic that inner life, of any sort, does not matter so long as outer life is decorous.

Of course, Christians have episodes of lust and hatred and such, but they must never succumb to the impression that they may be chronic haters and lusters, so long as they keep things bottled up inside. (See the Sermon on the Mount.)

And to those who say that all sinful thoughts are equally horrifying, I challenge them to welcome a new son-in-law who struggles with necrophilia just as they would one who struggled with jealousy. Both are damnable offenses in God's eyes, but the Bible shows that, in earthly terms, God counts some offenses (maternal incest: Leviticus 20:11, 1 Corinthians 5:1-2) more dire than others (bickering: Genesis 13:7-9; Philippians 4:2).

A denomination doesn't arrive at an outrageous vote in support of actively homosexual clergy in a day. It's a matter of steps through the years, and I submit that one of those Episcopal steps came when they accepted priestly ordination for avowed, but celibate, homosexuals. This policy implied that homosexual orientation per se was innocuous and that the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit was insufficient for a “new creation.”

From there, it's not so long a journey to where they are today.

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Picture this: women taking to the streets to march en masse. Many are scantily clad in an apparent effort to illustrate a point. The purpose of the procession: to proclaim they are proud to be known as “sluts.”

It’s not a scene from some vapid pornography film. It is a recent phenomenon cropping up all over North America known as a “slut walk.”

The “slut walk” fad began in Toronto and was in response to a police officer’s comments made during a personal safety class to female students at York University. “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized,” the officer advised.

Though the officer later apologized, some women in the Toronto area believed the officer had suggested a victim of sexual assault could be responsible for an attack based on dress or perceived lifestyle, the Associated Press reported. As a result, hundreds of women in Toronto took to the streets to express “slut pride.”

Participants in the “slut walks” believe that by simply asserting a woman should not be sexually assaulted because she is dressed provocatively will somehow raise awareness and the problem will go away. Naïve is the best way to describe these marchers.

In an ideal world, no woman would ever be sexually assaulted, period, regardless of her attire. In fact, in a perfect world no person would ever be the victim of any crime. But, sadly, we do not live in an ideal world.

A reality too many people refuse to accept, and that includes the “slut walkers,” is that we live in a fallen world rife with evil and crime is an ever present reality. A wise person will do everything he or she can in order to reduce the probability that he or she will be a victim.

An example of being wise in respect to crime can be found in companies that deliver pizza. If an area of a city is known to have a high crime rate, many pizza companies will not deliver to that area, especially at night. Why? Because the company understands that to do so will place its delivery drivers at a greater risk of being robbed and perhaps harmed.

Certainly no pizza delivery person should be blamed for being robbed, regardless of when or where he or she is delivering pizza. However, common sense and experience have taught companies that to deliver pizza in a high crime area carries a greater probability of being robbed.

Some time ago my oldest daughter expressed a desire to travel to Mexico with some classmates for a senior trip. In an ideal world my wife and I should be able to allow our daughter to travel south of the border without any fear for her safety. However, the reality is that many parts of Mexico are not safe. Wisdom dictated that we say no and thus lessen the probability she would be a victim of a crime.

In an ideal world I would not lock my car while it is parked in my own driveway. In a perfect world I would not lock my house while I am at home. In an ideal world I would not have my kids text me upon arriving at a destination. I would not have them text me before they start for home. However, we simply do not live in an ideal world; we live in one rife with evil.

The “slut walkers” believe that if a woman wants to flaunt her sexuality and dress provocatively she should be able to do so without drawing any unwanted attention. In a world that is fallen, that idea is overly idealistic.

Couple the fact we live in a fallen world with aspects of a culture -- the entertainment world, for instance -- that openly objectifies women and the “slut walkers” argument seems even more naïve. Movies and television programs portray women as nothing more than sex objects. Popular rappers rhyme about using and abusing women sexually. Pornography has become pervasive and portrays women as sexually insatiable sirens. Too many men have had their view of women skewed by feeding on the filth.

In a fallen world evil is not some theory, it is real. There are twisted men who prey on women because they view them as weak and vulnerable. These perverts do not need provocative dress to fuel their twisted desire. So, like or not, these warped individuals see a woman dressed like a “slut” as an open invitation for sexual advance.

In an ideal world a woman would never be sexually assaulted. However, we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world that is fallen, corrupt and increasing infected with a perverted understanding of sexuality.

“The new trend today is depravity,” proclaimed American rapper Dante Terrell Smith, better known by the stage name Mos Def. Smith is only partly correct. The trend in the world today is depravity, but it is anything but new. And “slut walks” seeking to raise awareness are not going to change this reality.

Thomas Montgomery, 48, of Buffalo, New York, posed online as an 18-year-old in attempts to get dates with younger women. After finally catching an 18-year-old girl on his hook, Montgomery, the father of two teen girls, was trying to reel her in when an online rival, Brian Barrett, 22, got in the way -- so Montgomery shot Barrett to death.

But Montgomery, a married church deacon, never got his tryst: not only has he been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the killing, the 18-year-old girl turned out to be Mary Sheiler, a 50-year-old woman from West Virginia who used her daughter’s photo in her online profile.

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Buffalo News

Within each of us is the potential to do good or evil; we have the freedom to choose whether we do and say what is good and godly or those things that are destructive and evil. The problem is, most do not realize when they are giving in to evil since evil usually rears its ugly head very slowly and subtly.

I can’t recall who told me this, but I heard getting involved in behavior which God would regard as ungodly or sinful can be likened to feeding a terrible monster. The monster pokes and prods at our weaknesses. It is only through us giving in to these temptations that the beast can survive. Each time we give in to the monster’s requests to feed him with ungodly behavior, he increases in strength and size. With each passing day, it becomes increasingly difficult to harness the monster. The more we feed him by giving in to evil, the more the monster tries to dominate our life. Perhaps you have seen some of these monsters? I have seen a few named Hate, Greed and Lust.

Thankfully, there is a secret to ridding one’s life of such terrible beasts. The secret is to starve them. Without their constant supply of giving in to sinful behavior, the monster quickly begins to weaken and lose its hold on one’s life.

Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it is possible to have the strength to starve any “monsters” within whose purpose is to pull us far away from God. To these monsters, God and His word is like a giant sword. The question is, will we reach for the sword, or let it lie untouched?

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Contributed by Melanie Schurr (Copyright 1997 Melanie Schurr) Comments/feedback welcome. DWwriter@webtv.net