Tim LaHaye - Seduction of the Heart: How to Guard Your Heart From Evil

Seduction of the Heart

Seduction
of the
Heart

How to Guard and Keep
Your Heart from Evil

TIM LAHAYE
AND
ED HINDSON

Copyright 2001 Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson.

Published by W Publishing Group, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotation in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Verses marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version.

Verses marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible , Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973.

ISBN 0-8499-1726-3

Printed in the United States of America

0 1 2 3 4 BVG 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

OUR EMOTIONS CAN CAUSE US SERIOUS PROBLEMS. Emotions can confuse our thinking, disturb our hearts, sap our vitality, and disrupt our walks with God. Anger, guilt, fear, and worry take an incredible toll on our well-being. In fact, doctors tell us that nearly 70 percent of all illnesses are emotionally induced.

Most of us are stretched beyond our limits. We give of ourselves mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, pouring our hearts and souls into our jobs and families. But we do very little to guard our hearts and replenish our fast-paced lives.

Disappointment and unfulfilled expectations are the results. Our marriages are failing, our children are hurting, and our lives are coming apart. It is time to stop and ask ourselves what is really important in life. Our hearts would say that peace, contentment, and personal satisfaction are more important than the meaningless pursuit of material gratification. We should listen.

This book will speak to your heart about the really important issues of life. It will challenge your thinking, examine your culture, and call you back to what really matters. It is a message of hope for people who have lost hope, for those who are searching for something deeper in their lives. Most of all, this book points to the timeless truths of God that can make a difference for us all.

The Meeting:
A Short Story

TEARS WERE PART OF THE MEETING.

It had been that way since the beginning. But always they belonged to other people. The faceless tide of troubled folk who washed up on the shores of Micah Phillipss crisis intervention meeting every Wednesday, any season of the year. Battered women, guilty men, depressed souls, lonely octogenarians.

All struggling for answers and a reason to live.

Micah swallowed hard and forced the days events into the recesses of her mind. Then she mentally put on her counselor hat and took her spot amid the five people who had come to her that day searching for answers.

Im Micah Phillips. Her gaze made its way around the small circle, locking eyes with each person. Welcome to Heart Crisis Intervention.

She explained that after the two-hour meeting an evaluation would be made. Typically participants would be placed into an appropriate weekly outpatient group. Other times a recommendation would be made for hospitalization.

Well start with revelation. Each of you can talk about what brought you here... share your story. Well have a question-answer session after that, and end with group closure. The faces in the circle hung on every word, and Micah felt her confidence grow. She knew the basic details of their stories. It was part of the job, familiarizing herself with a group before actually meeting them. She prided herself on being their beacon of light, their source of hope. It was her place to sit above them and hand out advice.

But today the truth was something entirely different, and she hoped with every breath that the ocean of tears welling in her heart would not break free.

At least until she got home.

Because today, regardless of the stories she was about to hear, she had done something she never planned on doing.

She had become one of them.

All right... She sat a bit straighter. Who would like to go first?

Mark Adams was neither nervous nor fearful of the opportunity to tell his story. After more than a year of keeping silent about his darkest secrets, he was practically bursting to share them with the group. In some ways the things he was about to say were no different than a tragic closing argument or a dissertation on behalf of a doomed client.

A client with blood on his hands.

The difference was that these were not someone elses sordid details designed to sway a jury.

They were his own.

Hi. He looked around the room and saw trembling hands on three of his peers. He was an attorney, trained to notice such things. He inhaled deeply. I heard about Micahs program on the radio and decided to come. No one forced me. He rubbed his hands together. Im having panic attacks and... His voice broke and his cheeks grew hot. He had promised himself not to get emotional. Certainly he was professional enough to keep his feelings at bay for one brief discussion.

He cleared his throat and continued. My wife moved out six weeks ago, and, well... I feel like a murderer. He glanced at his shoes, unable to make eye contact through his tears. Its a long story.

Micah shifted her position. We have time. Why dont you start at the beginning?

Mark nodded and allowed himself to drift back to that sunny autumn day more than a year ago. The day his young partner Leslie Landers first brought her personal feelings into his office.

Until that time, everything about Mark Adamss life had been measured and planned. Hed earned the right grades and attended the right schools. He passed the bar exam on the first try and avoided the type of serious relationship that might derail his career.

Ill marry when Im thirty-six, he liked to say. Kids will come a few years later.

After a decade of climbing the corporate legal ladder, he met Susan on a Caribbean cruise and fell in love. They married three weeks after Marks thirty-sixth birthday and had three children by the time they celebrated their sixth anniversary.

Just like Mark had planned.

I always believed Id be faithful to Susan. He sucked in a slow breath through clenched teeth. But that was before I got to know Leslie. She was young and beautiful with a convincing manner and a mind like a steel trap. We were friendly with each other, of course, but I kept my distance. There was enough attraction between us for me to know better.

The story spilled from his heart, and in no time he forgot about the strangers seated around him. All that remained was the sad, sorry tale of Mark Adamss life, every dark and devastating detail.

It started in the fall after Leslies live-in boyfriend moved out. Theyd planned to marry within the year, and after the breakup she seemed always on the verge of tears. One morning Mark was in the break room stirring vanilla syrup into his coffee when Leslie walked in, took a seat, and quietly began to cry.