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[This post is excerpted from Chapter 3 of From Heartache to Healing: Finding Power in Christ to Deal with a Loved One’s Sexual Addiction by Colleen C. & Philip A. Harrison.]
Some of the Lies Satan Tells Men
Of course, women aren’t the only ones Satan lies to. He lies to men just as much as to women. Some of the lies are the same–some are different. You may recognize some of these in your husband’s excuses. Maybe you see them in some behavior of your own. At any rate, let’s get more explicit about the lies he’s telling the guys:
- Sex is your most important need.
- You are never going to get enough.
- No one is really going to take care of your needs.
- Even if your wife is a willing partner, you need more.
- You are being kind to her by taking care of your needs, yourself.
- It’s important that other women besides your wife find you attractive.
- But you’re not attractive to others.
- You’re a loser.
- No girl would want you.
- Go ahead and stimulate your own sexual feelings. No one cares. No one knows. Just you.
- Go ahead and do it–get some pictures and do it. It won’t matter.
- You deserve to know what it feels like.
- You deserve to know what is going on in the world.
- Go ahead and look. They’re just pictures.
- You’re not victimizing these women in the pictures. They enjoy expressing themselves.
- You’re not hurting anyone.
- You’re only hurting yourself, so it’s ok.
- This is normal. All men do this.
- You’re not normal if you don’t look.
In Clean Hands, Pure Heart, I wrote about the double whammy Satan throws at men, first enticing them to sin, then shaming them for giving in:
Satan actually twists the enticing of our own conscience to defeat us. Unlike the Lord, he doesn’t respect us and he doesn’t have any integrity. He doesn’t fight fair. He entices us to sin, saying “Hey, this will be fun, this will be great–come and try this out! It’s not that bad. It won’t do any harm.” Then when we give in, he turns on us and sneers in our face, in a cruel, sadistic imitation of our conscience: “You sinner! You scum! You are the biggest slime ball in history. No one could possibly tolerate you (let alone love you) if they knew what you are really like.” On and on it goes. Is it any wonder the adversary is referred to as “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10)? The really sad part is that after a while, we take up the cry ourselves, becoming our own accusers. Our enemy has convinced us to join his side against ourselves, exactly as he intended. He knows if he can confuse our perception of our conscience enough, if he can get us to identify ourselves as sinners, we are that much easier to coax into sin. We act as we believe, and if we believe ourselves to be bad, we are much more likely to act badly. We say to ourselves: ‘Why shouldn’t I do (whatever)? That’s just the sort of person I am. There’s no point in expecting anything better from me.’ Thus our negative beliefs contribute to our own defeat. As the scriptures tell us, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).
Too often, when we are in a marriage, we look to the other person for our strength and inspiration and are disappointed when we find that they are just as human as we are. This can lead us to look elsewhere, to things that can become addictions for both the husband and the wife. It doesn’t matter to the adversary which direction he takes to bring us into bondage, as long as he gets us away from the truth.
[Continued tomorrow]
~Phil H.
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