{"id":40023,"date":"2017-03-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/cs-lewis-talks-to-dog-about-lust\/"},"modified":"2017-03-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T00:00:00","slug":"cs-lewis-talks-to-dog-about-lust","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/cs-lewis-talks-to-dog-about-lust\/","title":{"rendered":"C.S. Lewis Talks to a Dog About Lust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People sometimes think of Christian morality as a straitjacket&mdash;as if God gave us random commands that we must keep in order to prove our devotion to him. C.S. Lewis addressed this viewpoint in a letter he wrote on September 12, 1933 to his good friend Arthur Greeves. Lewis was no stranger to lust and sexual temptation, and neither was Greeves, who experienced same-sex attraction. Lewis gave the following illustration:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Supposing you are taking a dog on a lead through a turnstile or past a post. You know what happens (apart from his usual ceremonies in passing a post!). He tries to go to the wrong side and gets his head looped round the post. You see that he can&#39;t do it, and therefore pull him back. You pull him back because you want to enable him to go forward. He wants exactly the same thing&mdash;namely to go forward: for that very reason he resists your pull back, or, if he is an obedient dog, yields to it reluctantly as a matter of duty which seems to him to be quite in opposition to his own will: though in fact it is only by yielding to you that he will ever succeed in getting where he wants.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>The dog believes the lie that the only way forward, the only way to get what it wants, is to push ahead. Lewis, the dog-owner, affirms the longing of the dog to go forward, but he must pull the dog back in order for it to actually make any progress.<\/p>\n\n<p>So what should you do when you fall into sin? Ask for forgiveness <em>and<\/em> redirection. Lewis continued, &quot;You may go the wrong way again, and again [God] may forgive you: as the dog&#39;s master may extricate the dog after he has tied the whole lead round the lamp-post. But there is no hope <em>in the end<\/em> of getting where you want to go except by going God&#39;s way.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3694,3794,4010,4011,4084,4222,4409,4552,4664,4747,4803,4955,4958,5100,5134,5277],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-40023","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-correction","tax_ctp_tags-discipline","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-goodness-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-immorality","tax_ctp_tags-lust","tax_ctp_tags-obedience","tax_ctp_tags-pornography","tax_ctp_tags-purity","tax_ctp_tags-renewing-the-mind","tax_ctp_tags-sex","tax_ctp_tags-sexual-immorality","tax_ctp_tags-submission","tax_ctp_tags-temptation","tax_ctp_tags-will-of-god"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>C.S. Lewis Talks to a Dog About Lust - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/cs-lewis-talks-to-dog-about-lust\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"C.S. Lewis Talks to a Dog About Lust - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"People sometimes think of Christian morality as a straitjacket&mdash;as if God gave us random commands that we must keep in order to prove our devotion to him. C.S. Lewis addressed this viewpoint in a letter he wrote on September 12, 1933 to his good friend Arthur Greeves. 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