How Can We Resist the Lure of Sexual Sin?
From an old pamphlet I picked up on deployment aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt and apparently lost....
Can we find real intimacy and fulfillment by accepting the sexual ways of our times? Is what we call "making Love" really love? Can "safe sex" be found by taking precautions? Are our sexual desires impossible to resist? Is there hope for sex-obsessed minds? Are we destined to repeat and repeat the choices that make us feel alive one moment and so dead the next?
A Matter of Perspective
When some people think of sex, they think of irresistible urges, passion, and lingering guilt. Other people think of the magnetic attraction between a man and woman that can lead to a joyful spiritual, emotional, and physical intimacy within marriage.
What makes the difference? What can make sex so bittersweet to one person and so delicious to another? It's a matter of perspective. You can view your sexuality as something that causes you to lose your self-control, or you can see it as something that holds great joy when kept in check.
People who come to Niagara Falls can experience this awesome natural wonder in two different ways. As newlyweds often do, they can walk along the side of the falls, feeling the mist and sensing the powerful energy of the roaring rapids and thundering cascades of water.
Another way to experience the falls, though, begins upstream. You could go swimming in the Niagara River far above the falls. You could allow yourself to be gently pulled along by the current, ignoring the danger signs, until you reach the point where you are caught in churning rapids and then carried over the falls, dropping 160 feet to the water and rocks below.
When it comes to our sexuality, too often we may feel as if we are caught in the strong current of our desires. We lost control somewhat along the way, and we end up doing what we later regret. Why is that? Why do we fail to turn back have gone too far? Could it be that we have waited until too late to look for signs of danger? Could it be that we overestimated our ability to resist temptation?
The writer of Proverbs 22:3 said that a wise person sees trouble coming and takes action to avoid it, but a foolish person continues on and suffers the consequences. And to people who were struggling with sexual temptation, the apostle Paul offered a plan of action to avoid trouble. He wrote, "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).
But how can we detect danger, what does it mean to "walk in the Spirit"? That's what this page is all about. In the paragraphs to follow, we will try to see sex from God's perspective. We will learn how to recognize the danger signs, and we will discover how we can gain wisdom and power from God to do what is right.
"A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished."-Proverbs 22:3
You may be facing some serious choices right now. Maybe you've "gone over the falls" several times. Maybe you're facing strong temptation. Perhaps you don't know what is right or you wonder why God has given certain guidelines for sex. By knowing what is true about sex, by learning the wisdom of God's commands, by choosing God's way, and by relying on His Spirit, we will do what is right, best, and most fulfilling when we find ourselves being lured by sexual desire.
The Lies We Believe About Sex
Why do we so often make choices we later regret when it comes to dealing with our God-given sexual desires? It all begins with lies. We fail to make the right choices when we believe lies about the proper place and practice of sex.
Why don't we spot the errors? The lies we believe about sex aren't always all wrong. In fact, the most attractive ones are those that mix truth with error. Like a fishing lure that makes a trout think he's getting his favorite meal, lies disguise the "hooks" that can catch us.
Of course, we are a lot smarter than fish-usually. Sometimes we're not. Too often we would rather feel good than think. As a result, we make it more difficult to find the kind of real intimacy and pleasure our God made us to experience. Like a fish, we get caught on a line.
The basic lies we have to sort through to avoid getting hooked are nothing new to our generation. For example, the first-century followers of Christ in the seaport city of Thessalonica faced the same kinds of pressures and temptations we face today. In the apostle Paul's first letter to the new believers in that city, he spoke about the truths they needed to hear so they could avoid the hooks that would only hurt them and others. Paul wrote:
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit (1 Thess. 4:1-8).
Those words apply to us today as well. That's why in the paragraphs to follow we will compare what 1 Thessalonians 4 says with the lies that we hear in our world today. These errors can be grounded into three categories: lies about standards, lies about consequences, and lies about solutions. With God's help we can sort out fact from fiction.