P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

"I CAN'T HELP DRINKING"

Here's a story from the March 10, 1998 copy of the Los Angeles Times. And by the time I'm done, you're very likely going to hate the person I'm describing.
A Mr. Castro, age 36, was arrested in Beverly Hills and accused of murder due to driving while intoxicated. He was in his Nissan 300ZX right here on the Golden State Freeway going about a hundred miles an hour and rear-ended a U-Haul trailer towed by a Jeep Wrangler. The young man driving the Jeep, Mr. Mahdad Koosh, was just 22, a resident of very nearby Westlake Village, just a few miles away from our radio studio here in Simi Valley, California.

But let me add a bit more. This victim had just finished college and was described by family as a nice young man, a gentleman who always helped others. More hard to understand — in 1989 he'd suffered from burns over 80% of his body, but had fought his way through that tragedy, through 49 days in a burn center. He'd come back to build a good life, finishing college and coming back to California to start his first job, a prestigious position with NASA.
And now this. So back to the crime. This Mr. Castro was zooming along at a hundred miles an hour, with a blood-alcohol content of .17, more than double the legal limit for being drunk. But now get this: this same man had been arrested on DUI offenses at least eight other times, and possibly up to 13 drunk-driving convictions. He'd committed several crimes, using various aliases, been in jail serving at least three separate terms, and had been driving without a license since 1984. And of course, the question prosecutors are asking now is this: how in the world could this guy have ever been allowed back out on the roads? Eight convictions of driving drunk? And now he rear-ends and kills this innocent victim? It's a very troubling story.

But for today and for all of this week, friend, we'd like to do the unexpected thing. Let's try to climb inside the skin of this man, Mr. Castro. A man who gets intoxicated and then drives . . . not one time, but eight times, maybe thirteen times. In fact, those are just the arrests on the books. This destructive pattern might have happened many, many times.

And of course, you and I are angry. People writing the letters to the editor are angry. Certainly the parents of young Mr. Koosh have to be heartsick and enraged. How can a person be so weak, so enslaved by a habit that makes them kill others? What kind of a person is this?

And do you know the answer? It's the kind of person you and I see in the mirror every single morning. Because for you and for me, it may not be alcohol and speed races down the 101 Freeway. But sinful temptations come to you and they come to me — in one form or another. And just like this Mr. Castro was helpless against the bottle, the scourge of liquor, you and I are no stronger against some other deadly sin.

Our title this week is this: RESISTING CHERRY CHEESECAKE AND OTHER SINS. And maybe that exact temptation resonates with you. Here at the office when birthdays or special events come around, there are often treats available: cookies or maybe a pie from Marie Callendar's, which is a temptingly convenient one block away from us. And one of our staff members confessed recently: "In all the years I've worked here at the Adventist Media Center, and with the cakes that come in around Christmastime, and the ice cream socials that people spring on someone who has a birthday, I have successfully said ‘no' to a dessert . . . exactly ONE time." That was all he could remember. One! Every other time there was a pie lying around, or a plate of doughnuts for the TV crew of one of our telecasts, when the invitation came, he was right there at the feeding trough. Even if he felt like a flu bug might be coming on, it just wasn't possible to say no to a piece of German chocolate cake.

There's a writer in the Bible — a good man, a man of God, an apostle and a prophet — who faced this exact same struggle. It may not have been for driving under the influence and it might not have been the temptation to eat 800 Joo-Joos in one sitting. But here's Paul's very frank confession, found in Romans chapter seven:

"We know that the law is spiritual, but I am UNspiritual, sold as a slave to sin." And then he adds: "I do not understand what I do! For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. . . . I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing."

So instead of picturing this Mr. Castro there in municipal court wearing that blue jumpsuit, let's put Paul in that prison outfit. And he says to the Beverly Hills judge: "Your Honor, I'm sorry. I can't help it. I don't mean to get drunk; I hate getting drunk. I hate what I do when I'm drunk. But I can't help it! It's a sick cycle, and I hate it, but I can't fight this temptation. I'm a wretched man." Friend, that's Paul's testimony and I guess it's mine and yours too. Fighting temptation is something we're helpless at accomplishing.

There was a cute one-liner the other day, with great spiritual importance from an unlikely source: the magazine Entertainment Weekly. And they pointed out this statistic:

"Americans spent over a billion dollars on exercise equipment last year." Then they added: "Not counting what they paid to keep it in storage."

And there's this same lament from Romans seven again. We want to exercise, but for some reason we don't do it. And we don't want to have that extra dessert, gain those extra three pounds, feel all bloated and weak-willed, but that's the thing we do over and over and over again. And the Exer-Gliders and Tummy Rollers and StairMasters we store under the stairs. We can't fight temptation.

This week we want to ask some important questions about temptation and sin and about strategies. Should we fight temptation? If it's hopeless — if even the great and wonderful Apostle Paul couldn't do it — maybe we ought to give up right now and save ourselves forty years of neurotic guilt. Or let's ask this: are we fighting the right fight? Maybe there's a way to succeed against Satan's snares, but we've just not used the right technique or gimmick. We'll talk about that too.

But for today let's simply put one biblical truth on the table. With God, victory is possible. With God, giving up is NOT the right approach. With God, Satan doesn't have to win; in fact, it's an assured truth that he's not going to . . . both in terms of global conflict and in terms of your own life and mine.

There are two verses which, if that was all we read, would give us great comfort immediately. First of all, Paul himself, as he describes his own chocolate-cake weaknesses (or whatever his pet problems were), closes with this turn-around cry. After moaning aloud — "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" — there is an answer. The chapter doesn't end there. Here's the next verse:

"Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Now, what does this mean? How does this work? "Thanks be to God" . . . what? "Through Jesus Christ our Lord" . . . what? What does Jesus do? There are many, many pages of deep, heavy writing that come right after this, and the answer's sort of hiding in what comes after. Which we'll get to as much as the clock allows. But doesn't it at least relax us a bit — spiritually speaking — when, even though we don't fully comprehend all the tactics and the plans of heaven, we do read that victory is inevitable and guaranteed? It's like the experience of watching a crucial football game on TV — actually, on videotape — and your nerves are shredded with the tension of it all. Will your team win? It's up and down and interceptions and bad calls and nail-biting drives down to the two-yard line. And then someone comes in and casually says: "Didn't you hear? The Broncos won it. No sweat." You might still watch the tape — after killing that person, of course — but there's immediate relaxing. Because victory is assured. And it's that way here because God's Word says so.

Before getting into the Bible's proven prescription for resisting temptation, let's add just one more verse. And this one is good for many circumstances, but especially here in the war theater against Lucifer. It's interesting that this is the same man writing: the battle-scarred Paul. In a letter to the Christian living in Philippi, he almost shouts out this guaranteed good news:

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

What's this verse telling us? It's not telling us things are hopeless, that we're doomed to always be defeated. On the contrary! We don't have to lose our battles with anger, with sexual temptations, with resentment, with pride, with drunk driving road trips. We can do all things. And the "how" of these victories is clearly stated. "Through Christ who strengthens me."
And maybe you're looking up to heaven right now and saying, "Well, Jesus . . . when are You going to get started?" Beginning tomorrow that's exactly what we'll explore.