Fornication and Adultery
by Kerry Duke
God placed desires in us. We have a natural desire for food and water. Desire for the opposite sex is just as natural. God is not cruel in giving us these desires and then telling us not to misuse them. He forbids us to abuse them because these strong urges can destroy us if they are not restrained. God is lovingly protecting us when He warns against adultery and fornication, and so are preachers, parents, and Bible class teachers who warn of these evils.
But the world speaks differently. We are enticed on every side to throw off restraint. Prime-time television is one sexual joke after another. Daytime programs are called soap when they should be called smut. Advertisers can’t even sell a pair of shoes without a lewd scene in a commercial. Even sports events are not free from this enticement. Cheerleaders in miniskirts and hot pants perform lewd dances for an eager crowd. Young and old alike flood theaters to see nudity and to hear the most vile sexual words in our language, and members fo the church go in with them. I have never been able to understand such members. What are Christians thinking when they go to see a PG-13 or R rated movie at a theater when that movie is a "comedy"? What do they think the rating is for? Do they care? If the rating is not for violence, then what else could it be for except bad language and sex scenes? One of the "stars" of Titanic is said to have appeared topless in the theater version of this film. Yet some young men, even sons of Christians, went to see such, even with their parents’ approval. You are pouring gasoline on a burning candle when you expose a young man to scenes like this, but parents and even church leaders often don’t care. Going to see a movie is like going to a mall for them; there’s nothing in there that will hurt anybody, they reason. And do we wonder why the gospel has such little effect on people? Our pews are full of members who still have nudity and sex scenes fresh on the mind and the worst four-letter words still ringing in their ears from the movies they watched on Friday and Saturday night. Some of them are so hardened by constantly watching such films that they don’t even consider that they may be doing something wrong. They have become conditioned to accept and even laugh at perversion. One news reporter asked young people what they thought was the funniest scene in a recent movie. Most answered, "The love scene with the two lesbians." But many Christians who still have a little conscience will argue, "You can’t shelter kids from everything. They have to learn to take the good with the bad." Why don’t these parents mix garbage in with their children’s plate of food at dinner? Why don’t they stop washing their children’s clothes, since they will get dirty anyway? Such parents need to repent of being weaklings and cowards.
Dating can be extremely dangerous. A young woman and a young man who date have passions they don’t even understand, much less are able to keep under control once a flame is ignited. Parents can hardly be too careful and too watchful about this. I’ve never met parents who were too strict in their rules about their children dating, although I’ve met a lot of these children who thought their parents were too strict – until, of course, they grew up and had children of their own start dating. Let’s not kid ourselves. Sexual impulses in their prime must be guarded as carefully as nitro glycerin. People who date face strong temptation. One touch leads to another before they even realize they’ve gone too far. The innocent becomes questionable, and then the questionable turns into outright sin that brings frustration, shame, and guilt. There is an old saying about dating that once a couple reach a certain level of intimate touching, they very rarely go back to a lesser level. There is a good deal of truth in this. These urges progress instead of digressing. Common sense should tell us that the less time a dating couple spend alone, the safer they are. And it should certainly tell us that they need to be in the light, not in the dark. I do not know why on earth a young woman who lives alone in an apartment would have her boyfriend over to watch a movie until late at night. I do not understand parents who allow their daughter to wallow or wrestle with her boyfriend on the couch or to sit in his lap in their own house in their presence. If these young people are that free and intimate in front of their parents, what are they doing when they are alone? Our society is much more permissive about these things then it used to be. A young man was expected to show respect for the woman he was interested in, and very little touching was allowed by the young lady or by her family. The young man had to wait until marriage to be intimate with her. Now the young man has his way with a young woman, loses interest and respect for her, and moves on to the next woman. All the while his vile friends at work cheer him and a permissive media tells him everybody does the same thing. Yes, the dating game is a dangerous game today. The way most practice it, sexual sin is almost inevitable. This is why a number of books and videos in recent years have called for more of a committed courtship instead of the careless dating most do.
But single people are not the only ones subject to temptation. Married people today are constantly lured to commit adultery. They are encouraged as well on every hand to liberate their desires. The lifestyle of Americans makes this temptation greater. Couples are so overloaded with work that they spend little time together, and the time they do have together is often not enjoyable because they are tired and irritable. They begin to snap at each other more, and their intimate times grow less often. Their freshest hours are spent at work, often with members of the opposite sex. So a woman notices that a man at work listens and pays attention to her, unlike her husband at home who is too busy and too tired. A man is elated that a woman at work smiles at him, unlike his wife who has been nagging a lot. This is where the heartache of broken marriages and homes often begins. Couples today must make each other a top priority and not work and money. They must fight to keep anything – job, friends, sports, or things they want to buy – from taking their time with each other from them. Paul said that the husbands and wives are to please each other in the intimate side of their life (I Cor. 7:1-5). If they are selfish and distracted, their temptations will be greater. Few things are as needed today in marriage as simple time together.
Above all, faith in God must be strong. Nobody else was in the house when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph. But Joseph knew God was watching, and this kept him from sin (Gen. 39:9). This is faith in the one whose eyes are in every place (Prov. 15:3) and who said, "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremonger and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. 13:4).