Articles
Why Lust is So Destructive
Nowhere is the destructive power of lust more vidid than in the account about Amnon and his half-sister Tamar. When you read 2 Samuel 13:1-19, the horror of lust becomes clear.
1) Lust consumes the mind and heart. “Amnon was so frustrated because of his sister Tamar that he made himself ill.” (v. 2a). When we want something we can’t have, it can drive us crazy, especially wants intensified by hormones. The longer we let lust fester, the more obsessed we become.
2) Lust leads to wicked plots. Eventually lust leads to action. Like David who “inquired” of Bathsheba, Amnon crafted a plot to get Tamar alone. When the trap was set, his lust conceived and he violated his sister. When we’re filled with lust, we plot ways to satisfy it, whether with pornography or going too far with our girlfriends or boyfriends. Some have allowed lust to consume them to the point of looking in people’s windows, stalking, and even committing rape like Amnon did. Our prisons are filled with people who gave in to lust.
3) Lust blinds us to God’s law. Lust gives us tunnel vision where all we can see is what we want. We may think to ourselves, “This is sinful and violates God’s law,” but if lust is in charge we quickly push it out of our minds and proceed. Even after Tamar told Amnon, “Such a thing is not done in Israel, do not do this disgraceful thing” (v. 12) he was blinded to the truth. Lust took his mind off God and on to the object of his lust.
4) Lust treats people like objects. When lust invades, people are no longer people. We don’t treat them like they have feelings, dreams, likes and dislikes. We treat them like objects to be used for our own pleasure, then discarded. Amnon didn’t care that violating Tamar would ruin her chances of getting married in the future. He didn’t care how she would feel to be used, abused, and tossed out like a piece of trash. He only cared about using her body for his own gratification. To him, she was just a body, an object, not a human being made in the image of God.
5) Lust is dissatisfying. “Then Amnon hated her with a very great hatred…and Amnon said to her, ‘Get up, go away!’” (v. 15). God designed us for relationship, for deep, intimate, emotional connection. He designed sex as the ultimate expression of that intimate relationship. When the sexual relationship is abused and twisted to be all about us, there’s no relationship there. He stole Tamar’s body, but not her heart. She didn’t love him, and so the lust and sex was completely empty and dissatisfying.
6) Lust destroys lives. Amnon’s lust destroyed Tamar’s life and his.
“I say to you that anyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28).
