Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: Scroll through your phone. Walk through a mall. Turn on the television. Sexual temptation isn't lurking in dark corners anymore. It's everywhere, unavoidable and relentless. And if we think we're immune, we're already in danger. The statistics are sobering. Marriages destroyed, ministries ended, lives shattered.

How do we avoid becoming another casualty? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll confronts the reality we all face and provides the biblical wisdom we desperately need. This isn't about sheltering ourselves from the world. It's about standing strong within it. Chuck titled today's message: A Plea for Morality.

Chuck Swindoll: 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. 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, ruin a reputation, ruin a career, and ruin a life. Yes, that bad.

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 an 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. 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. 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.

Turn from James to 1 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 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.

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.

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.

Paul says to them, secondly, in your morals, obey God by abstaining. Verse 3: "This is the will of God." You don't even have to pray about it. You don't have to ask Him what He feels about or how He would have us live regarding sexual purity. Just read it. For this is the will of God, that you abstain from sexual immorality. Apechomai is the word abstain. Get this, it means to go away from, to depart, to be distant, to keep hands off. I think that's significant. It's used rarely in scripture, but when it is used, it means that every time. In one place, abstain from meats. In another place, abstain from fleshly lusts. In yet another place, 1 Thessalonians 5:22, there's the same word apechomai: abstain from every form of evil. In the Christian faith, unlike the pagan faith, your sanctification is significant in that you don't do what the pagans do. They run around, they play around, they keep mistresses, they live with low morals because it has nothing to do with their idol worship. But in the Christian faith, it has much to do with your worship.

The answer is a total removal, hands off, no contact. And that has in mind porneia includes homosexuality, incestuous relationships, unnatural acts with beasts and animals, premarital relationships, extramarital sex. You say, "Good night, Chuck. You sound like a celibate." No. Let me show you the answer. Hebrews Chapter 13. Hold here and we'll be right back from a quick look at Hebrews 13. I'll show you the acceptable route for the expression of sexuality. Here's a series of commands. "Let love of the brethren continue," verse 1. "Don't neglect to show hospitality to strangers," verse 2. "Remember the prisoners as though in prison," verse 3. And in a series of commands, here's a fourth one. "Let marriage be held in honor among all. Let the marriage bed be undefiled."

Marriage is to be held in honor and the joys of marital sex are to be enjoyed and delighted in and cultivated with great creativity and with ecstatic passion. But he adds, "Fornicators and adulterers God will judge." We're going to read in a moment in Thessalonians, He is the avenger of such. Strong word. The answer of course is marriage. And if not marriage, hands off. If single, hands off. If divorced, not married, hands off. Stay out of bed with anybody else, same or opposite sex. Stay away from it. I'm just telling you what scripture teaches. It's also the safest route.

I saw a cartoon several years ago where a grandson asks a grandfather, "Gee grandad, your generation didn't have all these social diseases. What did you wear to have safe sex?" Grandad says, "A wedding ring." A wedding ring. A monogamous relationship with a wife with whom you stay faithful or a husband the same, you've got it made. Now I've also described the most difficult thing in the world to maintain. And that's a creative, delightful, passionate romance with the same woman or man year after year after year. Anybody can change partners and keep it ecstatic. But to do it with the same person with ecstasy and creativity and delight and romance and enjoyment—ah, we're talking tough assignment. Oh, the fulfillment and oh the relief in one's spirit.

I'm talking straight. These are words that probably wouldn't have been even used in pulpits 50 years ago. But they have to be used today. These are things that must be addressed. Go back to 1 Thessalonians 4, we're just getting started. Let you abstain. Verse 4: "That each of you." I love the way he puts that. There's an individualization here. There is an each one of you, and each one is different. "Each one know how to possess his own vessel." Scholars dance between whether the vessel has a reference to wife or a reference to body. That each one know how to control, or how to cultivate, or how to manage his wife or husband or body.

Perhaps for the sake of illustration, we'll use body. That each of you know how to manage your body when passions take charge, and to do so in sanctification and honor. I love the way he puts it, "know how to do it." Verse 5 and 6 talk about those passions when we are alone. Verse 5 talks about when we're alone and verse 6 addresses when we are with others. Verse 5: "Not in lustful passion like Gentiles who do not know God." Anything that stimulates the path toward porneia: hands off.

May I get specific? Films and pornographic literature that bring lurid pictures stimulating the base desires of the human anatomy. Conversations and discussions that arouse the same. Parties and pastimes, activities that seduce us and weaken our resistance. Certain friends that are bad for us and cause only the sensual to arise, or mainly the sensual. Drugs, alcohol, literature, music—anything that externally stimulates a breakdown in convictions, stay away from. Abstain. You can't handle cable television? Get rid of it. You're in a room where it's available in a hotel? Don't turn it on. We're not talking about rocket science complication here. There's an off button. Just push it. That's all. But it works against the nature, see? And everything in society says leave it on. I mean, don't be stupid. Well, that's my line. Don't be stupid. Leave it off.

You're in the newsstand looking for some sports magazine or some magazine of current events, you cannot help but stumble over many of the others. Don't gape at them. You've got to work through them to get to your magazine. Get to your magazine and buy it and get out. The longer you linger, the harder it will be. And before long, you will yield. And it is assaulting. He says, "Not in lustful passion." And look, he goes further. Verse 6: "And that no one transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger." I said we would be reading about this. The Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we told you before and solemnly warned you.

Now he has reference to deceiving someone else in the process and drawing them into the practice that we are engaged in. Or falling into their seductive allure, biting the bait that is before us. This has reference to any kind of indecent practices that are carried on secretly and promiscuously. With another man's wife or another woman's husband. With one's own child or stepchild. With one's stepmother or stepfather. In the blended families of our day, it is an increasing problem. Incest would not have even been used from a pulpit. Now it must be stated. And if you are engaged in it, it is not only an illicit act, it is a criminal act and it is to be reported. It is to be stopped. And if you are a mother tolerating it with a daughter or a stepdaughter, it is to be stopped. It is to be reported. It is not to be tolerated. Verse 7 puts the capstone on it. "God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification." Wonderful. God has called us to be people of holiness.

God has our good at heart. This isn't judgment. This is assistance. This is great coaching. This is counsel on how to stay healthy. This is the best advice you could give your child, your teenager, the young adult who still lives in your home. This is straight talk from the book. The lingering warning of this passage, let me give it to you. In obedience to God's command against immorality, resist. Yes, it is possible. In obedience to God's command against immorality, resist. I counsel the pastors of our church not to take their secretaries to lunch. Don't sit alone with them in a car. Take your wife along. I counsel businessmen the same way. Don't travel alone with the opposite sex in the business. Bring someone else along. Stay away from even the appearance of evil. Play it smart. Don't give the devil an opportunity. Run from that, resist it, abstain. And you know what? Chances are good you won't fall because you played it smart and you played it safe and you walked in obedience.

Back to 1 Corinthians Chapter 6. Same era, same writer, another town. But don't think because we've left Thessalonica that we've come to prudish Corinth. You know what the other word for fornication was in the days of Paul? Corinthianize. That ought to tell you something. If you had a wild night, if you had some kind of orgy, if you were engaged in some kind of drinking bash with a bunch of guys and you had a bunch of women, you Corinthianized that night. That was the word used. We're talking people who gave themselves to that even in worship. The worship of pagan gods included cohabitating with priests and priestesses who stayed at the temple for the services of men. Like I say, this was no puritanical society, the first century.

1 Corinthians 6:15 to 20. Six times the same word is used. See if you can figure out which one it is. Verse 15: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For he says, the two will become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body."

Six times the word body or bodily appears. The apostle's point here is directly related to one's physical body. The general context is the inappropriate connection of the body to that which is specifically described as porneia. Let me put it this way. I have never had this explained to me like I want to explain it to you, so this is sort of an original. When you come to know the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a bonding that takes place like the mashing of gears with one another. You are linked together in a bond. You become members of one another. Somehow in the inappropriateness of sexual involvement outside the bonds of monogamy, there is a fracture in that bonding. This mystical union is violated. It is broken. And you become a member with the partner in sex and thereby break through the promiscuity this mystical bond between you and the Lord. And it takes a devastating toll on your life. It opens the door to all kinds of violations. And sometime they are, I have to say it, irreparably damaging. Sometime there isn't recovery.

This has led me to take what some call an extreme position. I think it makes sense. I think when there is this kind of sexual failure among ministers, they should relinquish the responsibility of high-profile public leadership. They can minister when there is recovery and when there is repentance. They certainly can, and I find nothing wrong with serving alongside them in various kinds of ministry. I have great reservations about an individual who falls, and certainly those who fall on multiple occasions showing a breakdown in their character, as still being qualified to preach as they once preached. I think one forfeits the right. There is a violation. There is a break of the mystical bond. There is a psychical change. And it isn't just a quick overnight change back. For some, it can't be reversed. And there are tragic tragedies that follow this failure. You see what he says in verse 18? This is terribly important. "Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body. But the immoral man sins against his own body." Listen closely. In this case and only in this case, the body is the instrument of sin and becomes the subject of the damage wrought, says A.T. Robertson.

Bill Meyer: This is Insight for Living and Chuck Swindoll is presenting what he calls a plea for morality. It's the third message in a special four-part teaching series on the sanctity of life. You might know that all this month, churches across America are drawing attention to this issue. We're hoping and praying that Chuck's four messages in this special broadcast series will equip Christians with biblical conviction and compassion.

Insight for Living has a Bible companion book on this topic as well. In a world where life's value is increasingly debated, we address four essential issues with biblical clarity and Christ-like compassion. And that includes one of the most divisive topics of our time: abortion. Written in Chuck's characteristically warm and pastoral style, this Bible companion doesn't shy away from difficult questions. Instead, it offers wise counsel for anyone facing this heart-wrenching decision, biblical perspective on the sanctity of human life from conception, and a path forward for those carrying the weight of past decisions, because shame was never a part of God's plan for healing.

When you make a donation to Insight for Living, we'd love to send you our Bible companion called *The Sanctity of Life* as our way of saying thank you. Whether you're wrestling with these questions yourself, walking alongside someone who is, or simply seeking to understand God's heart on these matters, the compassionate wisdom in this guide will meet you right where you are. You can request your copy of *The Sanctity of Life* by partnering with us here at Insight for Living. Call 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/donate.

It's possible you've been following Chuck's teaching for many years, starting when your family was young. If you haven't already, let me encourage you to become one of our monthly companions. By giving a monthly donation, you can do for someone else what others did for you in the early days. Here's the number to call: 800-772-8888. And you can sign up online at insight.org/monthlycompanion. I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll continues to offer what he calls a plea for morality tomorrow on Insight for Living.