The latest sexual harassment scandal of presidential candidate Herman Cain is only one of a steady flow of stories year after year about men and women whose reputations, careers, marriages, and legacy were destroyed because of sexual misconduct whether true or merely alleged to be true. Each new disastrous story should be another reminder of why we all should hunker down with a good spouse and commit to complete faithfulness for life. Forbidden sexual pleasure is not worth risking the kind of pain that too often follows. Each incident of indiscretion brought into the light and displayed in amazing color on our high definition, 50 inch, flat screen TV with surround sound should result in a resolve from the rest of us that we will never allow ourselves to even fantasize about doing it with anyone but our own wife or husband.
During moments of temptation perhaps we should pop in a DVD of the old 1987 movie “Fatal Attraction” with Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. The horror that followed their one night stand made for a movie that many claimed, “will scare your pants on!” Still, despite numerous illustrations of celebrities and of our own family members who invited ruin into their lives for sex, there are still many who will flirt with the devil thinking themselves indestructible. “With her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her as an ox goes to the slaughter, Or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool, until an arrow pierces through his liver; as a bird hastens to the snare, so he does not know that it will cost him his life” (Proverbs 7:21-23).
Knowing the extreme danger of sexual promiscuity, immorality, and infidelity ought to help us understand that it is a loving God who gives us warning and boundaries. God included adultery in His ten shall-nots. Jesus added that “everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Sex kept in the context of marriage is a gift from God, but sex outside of the marital vows is tossing that gift in the trash. Paul reasons that “husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body” (Ephesians 5:28-30).
It is absurd to think that anyone would intentionally cause serious pain and injury to themselves. We do that when we allow ourselves to step across the boundary line between obedience and disobedience to God’s Word. It is also absurd to think that believers in Christ, who are members of the body of Christ, would subject that body to the filth and corruption of sexual sin. When we do, it is as if we hate our own body and Christ’s. That, of course, is only worth pondering if to you God’s Word Matters.