Living Hope Fellowship Church

AT WAR WITH LUST

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

AT WAR WITH LUST

Preface

(lust, fasting, praying)

We say we want all that God has for us, but we won’t crucify the flesh.  We must pray without ceasing, and we must fast.  If we wait for a convenient time to fast and pray, we will never do it.  It doesn’t exist. 

I have talked to people who say they desire something, yet they know it is not right, yet they want it and have got to have it!  I told them they needed to fast and pray until God drove it out of their soul and mind and gave them victory over it! 

God desires to use us for His glory, but we must get rid of our selfish lusts, because they war against the soul.

AT WAR WITH LUST

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          It will take the power of God to move in the earth for the Bride to get ready for the rapture.  Current status quo won’t fly!  God is going to send an earth shaking revival, first in the believer, and then it must sweep the church, and then the world.  We seek God for a great move, and we wonder what is wrong.  We have to search our motivation. 

James is talking to Christians in James 4:1 which says, “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” 

 Verse 2 says, “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”  Ye lust and have not – you are not satisfied.  One of the signs of perilous times is ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Verse 3 says, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”  You ask for the wrong reasons.  The church has a problem with lust. 

Lust isn’t always for sex.  You can lust for power, influence, or a lot of other things, but lust is always centered on self.  Many so called Christians are totally ruled by self.  What can God do for me? I will do certain things for God, and I will seek after God, so He will reward me. 

God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, but your heart must be right before the Lord in the reason you are seeking Him.  Isaiah 58 tells us that some people fast for strife and debate.  They want their voice to be heard on high.  In a crowd their voice is the loudest so everyone will look at them.  A lot of church people say the things they do are for the Lord, but actually it is for themselves.  A lustful person is very selfish, and one who is a legend in their own mind!  They think and talk about themselves all the time. 

Isaiah 26:3 says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. . . .”  However, some of us are “stayed” on ourselves.  We cry out to God, wondering why God doesn’t change us and move on us.  If we will get our minds on the Lord, and glory in Him, and read His Word, we will get our minds off of ourselves!  Peter walked on water when his mind was on Jesus.  When he got his eyes on the storm and his mind on himself sinking, he had to ask Jesus to save him.            When your eyes are on yourself, you don’t care about your neighbor.  Because of our lust, we pray heartily to God for something WE want.  We need to ask the Lord to change us as the Spirit of God and His Word reveal flaws in us. 

Examine your heart.  Will it bring glory to you, or to God?  Will it give victory to other people, or will it give you victory over other people?  We must get rid of lust if we are going to have the great glory that God has designed for us.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (see 1 John 3:8).  Sin, sickness, affliction, and bondage are works of the devil.  Jesus came to loose the captives, break every yoke, and to set the oppressed free.  He has called the church to do the same.  We have all come short of the glory of God, but He is drawing us closer to a walk of holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. 

Not everything I know to do, I do yet, but I am pressing toward God.  I know there is a place God has called us to.  If it is tough, and even if it means sacrifice or losing what I want in order to do His will and get in that place, then I say, God help me get in that place as soon as possible!

The place of holiness is the only place you are going to see God move, save, heal, and deliver.  Unsanctified vessels shall not be in this place of the Lord.  God is calling whosoever will, to pray through and get a hold of Him, and not let go nor look to the left hand or the right.  If we will get our minds on Him instead of ourselves, God will set us free from the bondages that trouble us and what troubles the neighbor. 

You ask and receive not because you ask amiss.  You ask for the wrong reasons.  Your motivation is all wrong.  James accused the people of being murderers.  He said, “. . . Ye kill and desire to have. . . .” 

You need to fast and pray.  Have you tried the principle of binding and loosing, but the thing just looks at you?  Someone told me of a dream where they told the devil, “I bind you in the name of Jesus,” and it just looked at them and said, “So you say.”  

He does that with many legitimate Christians.  Many things of the world dazzle and entertain us to keep us occupied.  If we would just lay them down and really look at Jesus, we wouldn’t take them back up.  Not everything is sin, but many things will hinder you from bringing deliverance to the captives that so desperately need it. 

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

You never see a runner put on MORE weight to try to win a race.  You see them take weight off.  A man crossing the desert will sometimes discard any thing he doesn’t need so he can make the trek and get to the other side without dying.  Most of the church has not fully committed to God by discarding extra weights. 

James asked where the war and fighting came from.  It is our right to have some things, but the things of the Spirit are more precious than what we can get in the natural.  1 Corinthians 10:23 says, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” 

My salvation was bought with the precious blood of Jesus.  That was supernatural.  We have to get back to the supernatural, because God is supernatural.  You cannot get the supernatural by natural means. 

We must pray without ceasing, and we must fast.  Isaiah 40:31 says, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

If we covet anything, let us covet the gifts of the Spirit.  1 Corinthians 12:31 says, “But covet earnestly the best gifts. . . .”  We need to seek the Lord like we have never sought Him before.

God feeds the birds, and He will feed us.  He clothes the grass of the field, and He will clothe us.  Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”  I wonder how many hours a day we work for luxuries for ourselves.  We are constantly self-centered, yet we are not pleased.  It’s me, me, me.  The main word some people use is “I”!  When we get down to pray, is it the same way?  If so, we need to ask God for deliverance!

People all around are hurting!  They need a miracle.  You can’t get miracles in the natural.  The only way you can get them from God is by waiting on Him, seeking Him, and crucifying the flesh that gets in His way.  The truth will make you free IF you obey it.  James 1:22 says, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

Things have gotten in our way.  I told the Lord I was really going to press in after I got such and such done.  He said, What if I come before you get that done?  What if so and so dies before you get it done?  There is no convenient time.  Now is the time.

If you wait for a convenient time to fast and pray, you will never do it.  It doesn’t exist.  Do it now, and the Lord will make a way for you.  If you continue to hammer and seek God, He will redeem the time for you. 

I weep about some of the troubles people go through.  I said, God, we’ve got to do something about this.  He said, Yes you do.  I have given you power over all the power of the enemy.  We are not supposed to be passive, sit back, and watch the world die and go to hell.  We should not be spectators only.  We’ve got to do something about the situation.  We have to get in Christ. 

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  Old things are passed away, including failure.

Lust will come to you in your natural flesh and fight against the things of God.  When you get saved, and you get the Holy Ghost, God will show you things about you that you don’t like.  Some people only see it in other people. 

According to the Scriptures a great revival will come to sweep the bride in.  The devil knows his time is short, and he wants to defeat it.  The devil tried to defeat Jesus by coming after His self side.  If Jesus was not sold out to the Father, the devil would have found a hole in His hedge.  The devil did NOT find one.  When he was hungry, the devil tempted Jesus to make the stones into bread.  Jesus said no, and that He was living by the words of God. 

The devil tempted Jesus to cast Himself off of the temple, saying God’s angels would take care of him.  Jesus said that you are not supposed to tempt the Lord God.  The devil was still trying to get Jesus to make Himself something, looking for pride. 

First it was natural hunger, then pride and self and being seen among men, and then he finally hit him with a power temptation.  He told Jesus he would give Him all the kingdoms of the world.  He translated Him and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.  The devil said it had been given to him, and he could give it to whomever he would.  Jesus refused.

Do you know that sometimes “blessings” of the world that have been pulling at you, are from the devil to keep you occupied and diverted?  If he can’t bring you a crocodile, he will bring you a rose, anything to keep you out of the deep things of God.  There are so many things to spend our time and effort on to keep us away from our main mission! 

We cannot get our eyes off of Jesus for one minute!  He said not to look left or right, because there is a lot to look at in the world, and in religion!  It feeds self, and self - lusts and wars against the Spirit of God.  The closer you get to God, the greater the war for your soul and ministry.

James 1:13 says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:” 

If Christ is in you, the hope of glory, you won’t find God tempting Christ in you.  God tempted Abraham, He tried him, but Abraham didn’t have Christ living in him.  As a child of God, we are not tempted by God. 

We go through hard trials, because our faith has to be tried.  God won’t tempt the Holy Ghost in you; that would be coming against Himself.  God will allow things sometimes.  God went to great lengths to save you, and He won’t try to kick the props out from under you.  He knows you have to be tried so you will be able to stand what is coming in these last days.  You will stand up in the ministry and have power in God to cast the devil out.  So let no man say it is for the glory of God when you are tempted. 

James 1:14 says, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”  I am convinced that people are tempted when they provide an opportunity for the devil to do it.  A sinner is easy to hit, but the Christian has to provide a foothold, a place for the devil, or he can’t get a hold of him.

Proverb 13:18 says, “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction. . . .”  That goes for individuals, whole generations, and everybody.

When you try to please self and God at the same time, you are double minded, and you will not receive anything of the Lord.  You will get frustrated, because things aren’t getting done.  You’ve been praying, but if you don’t do it according to the Word of God, you leave an open door for the devil. 

James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  Many Christians say, Pray for me, because the devil is after me.  You are a potential candidate to work for the devil, so he is chasing you down.  He will try to trip you up even if you are walking perfect as a child of God.  However, if he hangs around you all the time, I wonder why.

You are drawn away of your own lust; the devil cannot make a Christian sin!  The Christian has to give permission to let him in, and then the devil will help him sin.  The blood of Jesus and the Holy Ghost will keep the devil out if you live the life. 

People are not interested in the testimony of Christians, because they don’t see enough of them living it fully.  They are interested in people who have arrived and are performing the works of God with signs following.

The Lord dealt with me that I was ignorant about how to be holy.  He knows I was not raised in holiness.  God said He was going to teach me, and as I yield to Him, He would teach me more.  He said if I did not yield to Him, he was going to whip me.  I am not interested in that.  My mama used to whip me.  I believe God can hit harder than she could.  Hebrews 12:6 says, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” 

James 1: 15 says, “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”  You can’t go to heaven that way.  People say, Lord, it is a weakness of my flesh.  No.  There is a devil in it.  Don’t run around swearing, smoking, drinking, and cursing, and living in fornication or adultery.  You can’t go to heaven like that.  No sin goes to heaven!  NONE.  Sin does not fall off of you on your way up to heaven in the rapture.  There is no Bible that says it does.  We have to be real, or we don’t go.

Not enough people are in love with Jesus.  The only way you can love everybody is to first love Jesus with all of your heart, and mind, and soul and strength.  The Bibles tells us to cleave unto God. 

Someone asked Jesus which was “the great commandment”.  In Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus said, “. . . Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.”  The second commandment is something you can do if you do the first commandment.  Verse 39 says, “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

 A neighbor you really love is not one you just feel sorry for, but one you bring to the Lord.  You heal them of their disease.  You cast the devil out of them so that they can be saved, walk uprightly in the power of God, and go do the same for others.  If you really love your neighbor, you will be raising them from the dead.  Faith without works is dead.  (See James 2:20 and 26.)

 Why do we desire to HAVE?  Because it will make me look good if I can get it, but we never say that.  That is the wrong motivation, and God resists it.  James 4:6 says, “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” 

Acts 4:33 tells us that great grace was upon the first church.  It was because they were humble before the Lord.  They had a great fear of the Lord. The world does not fear God, and the church now does not fear God like she should.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom.  People think they know so much, but their knowledge is vain and empty.  James 3:15 says, “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.” 

I want revival, and I am willing to move ME out of the way to get it.  If I will submit myself to the Lord, He will raise me up in due season.  If I fast and pray, God will hear me.  He will set me free from my own iniquity so I can help others. 

Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”  Sin puts a barrier between us and God and the victory we need, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 

James 1:15 says, “. . . sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”  Verse 16 says, “Do not err, my beloved brethren.”  He’s talking to the church!

If the devil can get a hold of your mind, he can work in you.  Someone said that a sane mind is a controlled mind.  The carnal mind will run all over the place constantly if you let it, bringing confusion.  It is never stable, ever changing like waves of the sea.  Therefore, your mind must be disciplined. 

James 1:6-8 says, “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” 

We’ve got to keep our minds focused on the things of God.  Kick out anything that isn’t of God.  This is how we get transformed.  Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Galatians 5:16 says, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”  It takes time; it’s a war; it’s progressive, but there is that place and that walk that you cease from sin, and doubt, and fear.  Anything that is not of faith is sin.  Anything we do and anything we desire, if it is not according to the Word of God (which is where we get faith), is sin. 

I have talked to people who say they desire something, yet they know it is not right, yet they want it and have got to have it!  I told them they needed to fast and pray until God drove it out of their soul and mind and gave them victory over it!  Romans 6:16 says, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

If you are obedient to your own self, then you are not a servant of GOD.  Some people’s god is their belly, not the King of kings and Lord of lords.  Some people say when they are two days into a three day fast, that it is over with.  They say they’ve got to have something, and they yield to eating.  Jesus is taken off of the throne, and the belly is put on the throne in His place.  See how things sneak in, and get a hold of you, and keep you from the victory you know belongs to you. 

Things so easily beset some people!  (See Hebrews 12:1.)  They yield to temptation, and off they go into the darkness!  Anything can trip them up.  That is not the kind of people God is taking in the rapture.  They don’t cast out devils, or raise the dead, or heal the sick. 

Galatians 5:17 says, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”  Spirit is capitalized there, meaning God’s Spirit.  This is one of the most definite Scriptures that shows our carnal nature fights God.  It is a normal thing.

 Paul cried out in Romans 7:24, “O wretched man that I am. . . .”  In other words, There is a war going on in me, and I can’t stand it!  How in the world am I going to get free?  He finally realized after he fasted and prayed and sought God that he had to GET IN CHRIST.  God got a hold of him and told him to walk in the Spirit.

Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

If you are honest when you pray, many times you come under condemnation.  You know you should have done this and that.  You can’t bring forth faith when you have condemnation in your heart. 

Your old nature does not want God, because if you walk with Jesus, self will not be satisfied.  That is why the closer you try to walk with God, the more powerful it seems you are encompassed in a sepulcher of death.  Paul had to pray till God gave him the victory!

If you have yielded to sin, you have to pray back through to where you were.  You have to know that your heart is right before the Lord.  I believe thousands of Christians would say, I am not totally sure that everything is right between me and the Lord.  There might be something I don’t know about.  Some people pray, Lord, forgive me if I’ve done anything wrong today.

Folks, we need to KNOW if we’ve done anything wrong!  We need to know if there is anything the devil can accuse us of before the Lord, because it is holiness or hell!  Hebrews 12:14 says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:”

There are many hard truths in the Word of God.  Lust and self centeredness cannot be in our lives if we are going to make it to heaven or help anybody else that needs God.

Galatians 5:17 says, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. . . .”  It doesn’t say the Spirit is lusting against the flesh.  It says the Spirit is AGAINST the flesh.  In other words, He will give you power over self!  Many people believe they got saved, so they can do what they want to, and now it isn’t sin!   WRONG.  Jesus said He gave us power over all the power of the enemy, not power so your flesh will have more glory.  Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  So, if we are carnal, we cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  A carnal Christian is a backslid Christian. 

Again, Galatians 5:17 says, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”  You would heal the sick.  You would pray all night, and you would fast, but the flesh fights, and many times you succumb to it.  We have to overcome as long as we are in this body.  Revelation 3:21 says, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”

Jesus wrestled his own self and flesh.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”  The trials and temptations we go through of the world, the flesh, and the devil touch Jesus, because He was also tempted like as we are.

Jesus said in John 10:7, “. . . I am the door of the sheep.”  He went through the door and told us to follow Him.  John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” 

Our flesh cries out, Oh, NO.  I have rights.  I have given up some things, and I don’t do that anymore.  That is your reasonable service.  Quit bragging about it.  We don’t have a thing to boast about.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  We can’t out give God.  

When you give more of your life over to God you are afraid you aren’t going to have any fun.  What about the little boys and girls who are dying of cancer?  They aren’t having any fun.  We have fun taking our portion, but they are dying.  They need us to turn our plate over a few hours and seek the face of the Lord.  You aren’t going to lose anything!  Cast out devils, heal the sick, and raise the dead, and you will have a ball! 

Mark 16:17-18 says, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

You can’t walk in self and God at the same time.  As long as we are gratifying self, we are not pleasing God.  We just build a higher wall between us and Him when we try.  As a Christian, the wall between us and God has been built by us.  As a sinner we were born in it, and the devil built it up.  When we got saved, Jesus tore down the wall of partition between us, but we start building it back. 

God wants us all to pray without ceasing, to believe God, and watch revival come to earth one more time.  Eternal souls are dependent on whether or not you FEEL like praying!  Some people say if you don’t feel like praying, it is self and hypocritical anyway.  WRONG again.  You are fighting against the flesh.  That is normal.

When I start praying, I start yawning, but quitting is not an option.  You don’t make heaven if you quit.  You have to get violent with self.  Has God wakened you to pray, but you rolled back over and went to sleep?  Matthew 25:23 tells us if we have been faithful over a few things, He will make us ruler over many things, and we can enter into the joy of the Lord! 

You can purpose in your heart and not even say it that you are going to fast and pray, and in five minutes or less something can come up.  Oh, I can’t that day.  Anything will come up to keep you from getting closer to God.  We say we want all that God has for us, but we won’t crucify the flesh. 

Some know to do good, but they haven’t done it yet.  James 4:17 says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”  If God has told you things to do or cease from doing, and you haven’t obeyed, the knowledge does you no good!  We need God’s version of holiness!

I pray that God will help us to meet the conditions for revival.  I command the devil to loose his hold on every one who receives this message by any means and time in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.