“Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” 1 Peter 2:11

If your fleshly lusts war against your soul, as Peter says they do, then that means you are in a battle. And if you are in a battle, then that means you have an enemy. But your enemy isn’t without. It’s within.

In your war against pornography and masturbation, you are at war with yourself, with your fleshly lusts. That is, you are engaged in a daily conflict with inordinate bodily, animal, unregenerate desires. These lusts come in the form of sexual fantasies, sexual temptations, sexual urges. They attack you when you are watching pornography, when you are lying in bed, even when you are sitting in church.

Your job as a soldier in this war is to never surrender to these fleshly lusts. You are commanded to abstain from them. You are to keep away from them as an alcoholic sta