Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: Think sexual promiscuity is a modern problem? Think again. Moral compromise has plagued humanity since the Garden of Eden, destroying lives, families, and legacies across every generation. The question isn't whether temptation will come; it's whether we'll be ready when it does.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll doesn't pull punches. He offers straight talk from Scripture and a practical game plan to help you stand firm when the pressure mounts. Living with confidence means living without blame, and that kind of freedom is worth fighting for. Chuck titled his message, "A Plea for Morality."

Chuck Swindoll: I'm convinced that living with confidence is directly linked to living without blame. Being blameless is better than knowing all the answers on a test, having plenty of money, or earning an advanced degree. When we are blameless, we can take life's pressures and enjoy its pleasures. And then when marriage comes along, we can enjoy the partnership of the opposite sex, including all the joys of sexual delights.

I'm grateful that God talks straight when it comes to moral purity. I'm grateful He doesn't stutter or shuffle about or shift His position. And because God is clear, He leaves us with a decision regarding our own personal holiness. Only one decision pleases Him: absolute obedience. And that's what the apostle Paul urges us to remember as we read chapter 4 of First Thessalonians.

Listen very carefully as I read a section from that fourth chapter, verses 3 through 8, from the New Living Translation. God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor—not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and His ways. Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in this matter by violating his wife, for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before. God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching, but is rejecting God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

Bill Meyer: You’re listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the Bible on your own, be sure to check out the wide variety of helpful resources on our online store. Take a few minutes to browse through the options at insight.org/store. And now, today’s message from Chuck titled, "A Plea for Morality."

Chuck Swindoll: Every person hearing me at this moment is married. Your companion will be with you for a life. Every morning as sure as the rising of the sun, your partner will be there. Every evening as sure as the darkness of the sky, your companion will be by your side. This companion will never leave you because of lack of support and a divorce is impossible. You are married for life to this companion.

Like it or not, you will be married until death do you part. Your partner, your lifelong companion, is temptation. There is no escape. There is no immunity. There is no exemption, and there is no safe location. Even if you entered into the role of the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church and lived the rest of your life behind the walls of a monastery, your battle would go on. Your companion would be there and would haunt you almost on a daily basis.

This is nothing new because it feeds on our curiosity. It continues to tell us what we don't have. And because it depends upon comparison, it tempts us to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side. As one seasoned wag put it, not only is the grass not greener, it's not even edible. But it's there.

And the temptation will always dangle the carrot, telling you it is better than what you have and it is worth the risk. Yield, and you will find satisfaction. This is nothing new. This is not a late 20th-century malady. It has been with us since the first fall in the garden. Travel back with me in the time tunnel to 3,000 years ago.

The nation is Israel. The city is Jerusalem. The season is spring. The time is evening, and the hour is early. And the place is the roof of the king's palace. It's a quiet evening, a soft breeze blows across the city. And in a rare moment of unaccountable privacy and relaxation, the king is walking on the roof to find some solitude and some cool evening breeze.

Behind the palace lives a young married woman, no children. Her husband is away in military service. She is the daughter of Eliam. She's the wife of Uriah. In all innocence, she's taking an evening bath. She is not a sultry, scheming streetwalker. She is a faithful wife.

And the man who begins to watch her with increased interest and excitement is about a 40-year-old respected monarch. He is not a sex-starved peeping Tom. He has at least seven wives, several unnamed concubines. He has fathered by now 17 children, so he is not some kind of human animal on the prowl as if in heat.

But he's attracted, and he can't take his eyes off her. Roberta Dorr in her novel, David and Bathsheba, portrays it vividly. Bathsheba pulled off her shift and stepped into the alabaster bowl her servant Sarah had filled with fresh water. She stood naked in the bowl while her servant dipped water with a gourd and poured it over her.

Bathsheba stood without embarrassment, even though she had nothing to cover her nakedness. Unknown to her, a man's eyes had been observing. And ordinarily, he would have turned away, but it was so unexpected and lovely that he continued to watch. With growing admiration, he studied her loveliness as only half seen through the dried palm branches.

Her hair clung in damp curls to her full breasts and her tiny waist accentuated the pleasing roundness of her hips. As he watched, she stepped out of the bowl and tossed her hair back, making the curve of her back visible. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful and so graceful in his life.

A quiet knock at her door totally changed her plans for the rest of that night and for the rest of her life. Now understand, David and Bathsheba had never met. If he had met her, she was just one of the many in the street and he couldn't even remember her name. But before that night was over, she would have his child within her. She would be pregnant.

Let's understand right away that illicit sex is not novel or new. It is not something that has grown out of our society. It has been with us throughout time. My Bible is open to James 1 that describes in clear and briefest terms a downward cycle that is taken by all who taste of this forbidden fruit.

Let no man say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God," for God is not tempted by evil, neither tempts He any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away from his own lust. The New International Version says "dragged away." That's not bad. Every man is tempted when he is dragged by his own lust and enticed. And lust when it has conceived brings forth sin.

And when the process continues, when sin conceives, it brings forth an existence that is like death. And if it continues, an addiction that is worse than death. Rather easy to analyze a sexual problem in a safe place like we find ourselves today, Bible open in our laps, lights are bright, no soft music, no sultry temptress in front of us.

We're not alone in a hotel room with the television that has available X-rated channels. We're not on the roof of our own home, as it were, looking down on some other lovely lady. No, this is the place to analyze how it all happens, how the secret smoldering fire can burst into a destructive blaze and ruin a home and ruin a reputation and ruin a career and ruin a life.

Yes, that bad. While thinking about this in these recent days, I have come up with some simple terms that describe why this kind of thing happens. First of all, and I think there are several steps downward, there is an innocent attraction. Nothing wrong with that. Almost without exception, it's spontaneous.

God has given us bodies and some people have beautiful bodies, wonderful shapes and figures and keep themselves well-attired. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is commendable. And the enjoyment of the beauty of another individual is not in itself sin. And it happens every day. We even compliment others who are not our marriage partner because we think they look nice and it is meant in sincerity and it is taken in the same way.

There is an innocent attraction. If that doesn't stop, then it leads to what we might call curiosity. Webster defines it a desire to know, interest leading to inquiry. There was a desire to know more about the person. At this point, comparisons usually take place.

And while getting to know another individual, it is a great temptation to compare that person to someone else, often the one we're married to. And invariably, we find things that aren't there in our partner. As one woman has said, "I'm expected today to be Mother Teresa, Betty Crocker, Chris Evert, and Cheryl Ladd all wrapped up in one, and all I really am is Betty Crocker."

The comparison goes on and we find the things that individual has whom we do not know intimately, and we compare those things with the one we do have and we see something lacking. Invariably, something is lacking. The curiosity then leads to temptation. I don't believe at that point it's sin.

Temptation happens all the time. And this is where imagination plays a vital role. But between temptation and the next step, sin has occurred. The next step is fantasy. Fantasy is the free play of creative and uninhibited imagination. Fantasy is mixing desires and wishes with dreams that have often been held in restraint.

And one plays out in the mind the actual intimate act of intercourse with the individual about whom he or she was once simply attracted or curious. This leads to lust. Lust is an overpowering desire to enter into the fulfillment of the fantasy. The restraints are removed when lust takes charge.

Let me define and let me describe for you four restraints that are blown to the winds at this point. First, ignoring of position, reputation, home life, personal commitments, moral standards. There's then ignoring of all of those personal things. All those things you're thinking about right now that will keep you pure, those are the things that lust cancels from your mind.

I had a man tell me who was in ministry for many years that when he began the affair with this woman and was involved with her on numerous occasions, that by and by it got to where he could hardly name his own children. A man just told me very recently, it got to where he was so addicted to the affair that when he was intimate with his wife, he felt he was unfaithful to his mistress. That's how blinded you get.

Second point: blindness to the consequences. You don't think about tearing up your career. You don't play back in your mind how some will find out and how it will bring heartbreak to your children or grandchildren. You cancel all that out, or lust does, whether you do or not.

You ignore position and reputation, you are blinded to consequences. A third, you are rationalizing the wrong. You begin to tell yourselves false stories. And fourth, you are burning with excitement to proceed. As so many will say, at that point you cannot stop.

Had an interesting thing happened late this past week. I was making a connecting flight in another city, I'll not name, to go to yet another destination for a quick overnight speaking engagement to come back just yesterday afternoon. And to my surprise, a couple rendezvoused on the plane that was my connection.

And they happened to have sat right behind me. And I confess to some eavesdropping. One was on the plane waiting for the woman to join him. And when she walked by, he reached out and took hold and pulled her in the seat. And there began a conversation mixed with all kinds of comments about what they had in front of them as they would enjoy ecstasy together for a couple of nights along with the attending the Super Bowl.

It was arranged and they joked with each other about how each other's mate knew nothing of it. And there was no mention made, of course, of the loss of reputation, of the depression that will follow, of the brokenheartedness when the mate—not if, but when the mate—does find out. No talk of that. Of course not. Only the delights of time together, and they could not keep their hands off each other.

It was incredibly vivid. While I was working on a message on sexual impurity, I had a living illustration going on behind me. And I thought of Solomon's words, "Stolen waters are sweet." Never doubt it. Don't think for a moment it isn't fun, at least for the moment. And lust when it runs its course finally leads to the exciting act.

And there is adventure, there is ecstasy, there is novelty, there is momentary delight. And not until afterwards does the mind come clear and the fog lift and all the reality of Monday following the weekend falls on you. It seldom stops with one encounter. Quite often, it begins a process of an addiction, a compulsion.

As one man confessed to me, he was at a gathering and within 20 minutes he was in the backseat of a car with another man's wife while the man was still at this entertaining evening. Just incredible. So it is. That explains it and all these things can be seen and pulled out of, like threads on a sweater, from the David-Bathsheba affair.

Now, the common reaction is threefold: protect yourself, blame others or circumstances, and three, eliminate the evidence. Just as there are night-before pills and morning-after pills, abortion will be nothing more than the swallowing of a pill and the death of a baby.

But in those days when Bathsheba knocked and said, "I'm pregnant," it wasn't that easy. It led to deception, it led to hypocrisy, and then it led to murder and family tragedy and finally the worst kind of divine judgment. Today it's easier, just kill the baby.

Which by the way is one of the subtle tragedies of abortion. It's a simple and quick birth control method if you don't mind killing babies. It's all part of what is described in this 15th verse as last word, death. Lust gives birth to sin.

When sin is accomplished, there is a strange kind of stillborn ecstasy that leaves you with a twisted mind, a broken relationship in the bond you have in your marriage, and the beginning of the seeds dropped for an addiction that you won't be able to stop if it gets powerful enough.

Turn from James to First Thessalonians chapter 4. We want to get scriptural insight from three passages from the pen of Paul under the direction of the Holy Spirit's inspiration. And we want with each of the insights from these passages, we want to have a lingering warning to take with us because we will not always be together like this.

The lights will not always be on. There will come times of personal privacy. There will come times of temptation when you are alone, when you are in a place that you consider safe, which could be the most dangerous place of your life. First Thessalonians 4: this is perhaps of all Paul's writings the most explicit statement regarding porneia, from which we get pornography. It is the word for sexual impurity, porneia.

This passage isn't complicated. The explanation is not mysterious. And the command, listen to this, is not impossible. You can do it or God mocks us giving us a command we can't fulfill. You can do it. The first two verses seem to be saying in your walk, please God by excelling.

Finally, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you excel still more. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

God would have us go further and further in our walk, which is called the doctrine of sanctification. A big word for growing in Christ, maturing in the Lord. And each day our goals are higher, our desires are greater to please Him. He says excel in that as you walk. Please God by excelling.

Don't be satisfied with just a mediocre lifestyle as a Christian. Work on holiness. Cultivate habits of discipline that are good for you and honoring to God. And then he gets very specific: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality."

Understand, most of these people were new in the faith. Some of them not more than weeks old in the Lord. Understand also that there was never an age in all of history where marriage was so disregarded and divorce so easy. You think it's disregarded and easy now? Ancient Greece, it was the worst.

Demosthenes writes: "We keep prostitutes for pleasure, we keep mistresses for the day-to-day needs of the body, and we keep wives for the begetting of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes." William Barclay adds: "So long as a man supported his wife and family, there was no shame whatsoever in extramarital affairs." That's first-century living in Greece and Macedonia. And of all things Paul says to them, secondly, in your morals, obey God by abstaining.

Bill Meyer: This is Insight for Living. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, Chuck Swindoll is presenting what he calls "A Plea for Morality." It's the third message in a special four-part series on the sanctity of life. To hear these four messages in their entirety, you can freely access the audio files on the Insight mobile app.

The creative team here at Insight for Living has assembled a Bible companion for this study. We’re made in God’s image, and as image bearers, we innately understand that human life is a precious and sacred gift. Everyone deserves the right to life that the Creator intended.

In this Bible companion, you’re invited to explore the biblical foundations for the sanctity of life: how to uphold it, how to protect it, and how to celebrate it. There are four chapters in the Bible companion: first, the Sanctity of Life; second, a chapter on Abortion: After the Fact; third, "A Plea for Morality," the message we heard today; and fourth, a chapter about strengthening our resolve to remain pure.

We’d love to send you this Bible companion when you make a donation to support the ministry of Insight for Living. Call us at 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org/donate.

One of the most impactful ways to support Insight for Living is to become a monthly companion. A monthly companion gives a contribution every month. When you take this step today and we receive your first gift as a monthly companion, we’ll send you Chuck Swindoll’s popular book, *Clinging to Hope*.

This book is for anyone who is struggling with the question: Why does God allow suffering in our world? And it’s for anyone who needs a dose of encouragement when going through heartache and setback. You can become a monthly companion by calling 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/monthlycompanion.

I’m Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll continues to present what he calls "A Plea for Morality" Tuesday on Insight for Living.