If I continue to live the way I’m living right now, I would say that the chances of me ever committing adultery are 0%. If I changed my way of life, started to neglect the word of God and prayer, stopped going to church, and just let myself backslide, then I suppose anything is possible. Remember, sin is a form of moral insanity that wants to dominate every area of your life. “Let the man who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” But if I stay in the game and keep seeking the Lord, I can’t imagine that I would ever fall prey to this sin.
Yet many, many people do commit this sin. I’m thinking that people who commit this sin are only thinking about the cookie and not thinking at all about the big picture and the long term consequences.
The cookie, of course, is an attractive woman giving you come hither signals. If you just think about the cookie, I can’t imagine how you could fail to commit adultery from time to time. “She looks good and I think she wants me.” So you start day dreaming about her and desire builds. You tell yourself that you can get away with it and the next thing you know you’ve committed the sin.
But what about the big picture and the long term consequences?
Let’s start with my wife, Nancy. Let’s think about Nancy heartbroken and weeping. Talk about pouring a bucket of ice water on the fire of evil desire. If there were no other big picture, long term considerations, and I only had one chance in ten million of “getting caught,” I still couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take one chance in ten million of breaking her heart. It’s unthinkable. (Remember, as we grow in Christ likeness, the irresistible is supposed to become the unthinkable.)
But let’s not stop there. Let’s think about the kids. Here is an interesting medical fact. If I cut my wife, my children bleed. To be honest with you, I can’t even begin to form in my mind the looks on their faces if they ever found out that dad had betrayed mom. This isn’t because I don’t have a vivid imagination, it’s because it would be too painful to imagine.
It’s never inappropriate to think about the enemy in these situations. The fallen angels are the moral opposites of God. There is at least one spirit being out there who would be laughing as my wife and children cried. Why would I want to bring a twisted form of joy to a being who is totally committed to my destruction?
My kids are grown, but when they were small it would have been inconceivable for me to live in a different house from them and only get to see them every other weekend. Also, I’ve never made much money. I can’t imagine how I would have gotten by on what a judge would have left me to live on.
If you commit adultery with someone, they own your marriage. All it takes is one phone call to your spouse. The person you are committing adultery with doesn’t even have to make the phone call. They can have a friend do it anonymously. “Were you aware of the fact that your husband and Ms. Loose Morals checked into the no-tell motel last Tuesday afternoon?” What? You don’t think they would do something like that to you? You do realize that this person you are trusting is just as much of a lying weasel as you are, don’t you? They are helping your trash your wedding vows. The essence of sin is moral insanity. How sane is it, really, to trust this person?
Of course there is always a chance the birth control won’t work. Instead of trying to figure out how you are going to live on what the judge takes away from you to support the children you already have, let’s think about how much more he will take away to support the new baby. But not to worry. In a couple of decades the child will be grown and then you can go back to keeping 100% of your income. 18 – 10 years. No big deal.
An now a brief commercial about STD’s. I remember where I was when I heard that president Kennedy had been shot. I also remembered where I was when I first realized the potential death toll from the HIV virus. Do you remember when you first heard about it? We didn’t know right away that it wouldn’t transfer from person to person in the non-drug using heterosexual population just as easily as something like herpes does. Can you imagine the death toll if the virus spread from person to person the way the more common STD’s do?
Here’s another thought that I shared with a youth group awhile back. HIV was a “new” disease. Who knows what’s coming next? What will it do to us? How many will die? How many young people will be rendered sterile before they ever have a chance to start a family? Sexual intimacy is a super highway for the transmission of disease. It’s best not to connect your road to the interstate system. Better to have a private road connecting just two people.
Does this sound unchristian? Not spiritual enough? Thinking about consequences? Doesn’t sound very romantic. Shouldn’t you love your wife enough not to cheat on her? I do, but not all marriages are sweetness and light all the time. There is probably only one perfect woman in the world and I am already married to her. Other men may need more motivations that I do. But as to how “spiritual” all this is, we’ll let Solomon be the judge of that. Consider the following verses from Proverbs 5 (NASB).
For the lips of an adulteress drip honey
And smoother than oil is her speech;
But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword. (3,4)
That sounds like he is focusing on the long range consequences. “This looks good right now, but you will be so very sorry if you give in to it.”
Keep your way far from her
And do not go near the door of her house,
Or you will give your vigor to others
And your years to the cruel one;
And strangers will be filled with your strength
And your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien. (8-10)
Is it just me, or does that sound like a guy who is upset because he has to pay so much child support? How does that feel when your house becomes her house after the divorce? And then it becomes their house when she remarries? But guess who is still making the payments?
And you groan at your final end,
When your flesh and your body are consumed. (11)
Have you ever seen pictures of people who are in the final stages of dying from AID’s?
There are evil spirits out there and they have learned how to train the human race. “Look at the cookie. Pay attention only to the cookie. Think about how good the cookie will taste. Yum! Yum!”
One of the most important keys to victory is to stop and actually think about what is happening from a godly perspective. A godly perspective includes thinking about the big picture and long range outcomes. The whole book of Proverbs, the “wisdom” book of the Bible, is an appeal to learn to think in this way. And thinking in this way is like pouring ice water on the fire of evil desire.
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