(All scripture references are New King James Version)
I write this as a 72 year old woman who has always believed the Bible. It seems in our culture today that those who profess to believe it as well can contrive multiple reasons for not obeying the seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” (See Exodus 20:14).

I made the decision to write this piece because of the numerous ways I’ve found people will justify their immoral acts. I was once a counselor in a church and had a very active, very nice lady tell me in a session that she actually would go to the grocery store, bank, etc. and pick up men to take home for sex almost every day. I’d been trained to never let your face show shock and it’s a very good thing because I was shocked. Another lady at a church function recently told me that she so much prefers having a lover to when she was married. A popular bible teacher recently made the statement that he doesn’t think God is all that concerned with morality. I could go on and on unfortunately.

The bible tells us that God’s ways are higher than our ways. He knows best. We are to submit our choices and our hearts to God.

Many people who don’t spend time in the bible only know to say one thing: “Judge Not.” They’ve never read that God has already judged and you are simply agreeing with what he is saying. But they can’t bring themselves to say HE is wrong…just you.

Actually we are told in I Corinthians 5:12-13 that we are to judge Christians in order to keep the church pure. This chiefly applies to immoral activity, specifically sex outside of marriage.

Verse 12: “For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13But those who are outside God judges. Therefore ‘put away from yourselves the evil person.’”
Those on the “outside” are non-Christians. Christians or churches have no authority over non-Christians.
“Do you not judge those who are inside?”
Those on the “inside” are Christians in the local church. The local church receives members and the local church expels members if it is following scripture which specifically says to do this. Most people say, “That’s not loving…God is love.” They are calling what God has clearly said as not loving. God is love so it follows that our definition of what love is does not line up with what a pure and almighty God says. We must choose to see love as God sees it – not as what is comfortable for us.
Paul quotes Deuteronomy 17:7; 24:7 in this sentence. He says that it is the responsibility of the local church to make judgments about moral behavior of believers. We really don’t as a church today think that is a great idea. It makes us feel uncomfortable…we’d rather do it our way. ‘What’s wrong with God anyhow? We know better,’ is our thinking.
Clearly, however it states, they are to expel that believer from fellowship in the local church. “Put away” is a command, so there is no option to this action.
Yes, if I were in charge of God, I’d tell him, “Hey, let’s be accepting.” But I’m not – HE is. And if I truly want to believe and live out ALL of what scripture says, I am to judge.

I can hear people saying right away, “Well why are you so mean?” etc. I didn’t say to take him out and stone him. Scripture shows us to lovingly address the sin and patiently give him opportunity to stop. If not, he must go. Off with his head! (kidding) We can’t be all for one part of scripture and just throw out the hard parts. Either God is God or we are. I trust he knows what he’s doing.

We all love talking about one aspect of God—the love side. We want to just look away from the other side- his holiness that requires purity and judgement. We think we have a better way, a nicer way. Pretty arrogant when you think of it. We are putting our opinions on the throne of our thoughts and being embarrassed about the only one who is qualified to decide.

Yes, embarrassed by the Lord. How many of us would feel happy if Jesus came to our church and wove some whips and started turning over some tables. We’d join another denomination. We’d consider ourselves above that type of behavior.

But think of the drunk laying in the gutter. He has believed a little booze is no big sin. And justifies it. Think of the pedophile believing he is only loving a child – what could be sweeter?

Those who do seemingly live good, church lives often take views that are twisted in order to be ‘like everyone else.’ Some I have heard are these:

“Well, it means that you shouldn’t have sex that would make you pregnant. God is simply trying to protect the family so that children can grow up with a mother and a father. If I use birth control, that takes care of it. It’s not a sin because I’m looking at God’s heart and God’s intention, not the letter of the law, being legalistic.” Well, aren’t you nice?

Don’t for a minute think that the God who created the universe had any trouble writing down precisely what he meant through Moses. If he was going to make the Bible as long as he made it, he could have said, ‘don’t have sex outside of marriage…except in the following ways or with the following circumstances’. He didn’t. His book is complete and gives us very simple directions so we don’t get confused.

Years ago, I heard of a Christian researcher who visited various Christian high schools around the nation to survey what views the students had on pre-marital sex. The findings were anonymous and startling. A very large percentage of teens felt they were obeying God by not having genital sex, but that they were living in God’s correct limitations by only having oral and/or anal sex!

We all know, if we’re honest that sex is sex. Period. Porn is sex. Masturbation is sex. People do these things for sexual purposes. Being a pedophile is sex. Sex with animals is sex. Rape is sex. Homosexuality is sex. All of these things are fulfilling a God-given legitimate desire by using wrong ways of fulfilling the desire.

The Bible has spelled out very precisely how God intends these desires and needs to be met – with a man and a woman who are married to each other. Read it for yourself. That’s the problem. No one is reading what God says. They’d really rather not know. They follow our culture and assume it’s fine since it’s accepted. Told you that God made it simple. Satan just comes with so many options to draw us into his realm. Staying out of God’s word and just flowing along is a river that will flush us into a lake of fire.

So if ‘being like everyone else’ is okay, then why did God tell us to be set apart? Do we really want to be like Jesus? He was tempted in all the ways we are tempted, but to please his father, resisted sexual activity. He is our example.

Our society condones pre-marital sex. Even glorifies it. Our bible does not. Choose this day whom you will serve. Do you really want to blend in and lose any hope of being salt and light? Do you want to do these things secretly so that no one knows but you. Will that make you feel like you haven’t lost your testimony? But the other person knows – and more importantly YOU know. How long do you have to lay your head on the pillow before you have talked yourself into believing it’s really okay with God – if not, why would so many people go there.

Some people say, no one gets hurt. I believe the HOLY Spirit gets hurt. True communication and relationship there surely get damaged just as it does with all sin. For men especially sex is a powerful draw. Purposing in your heart to not go there and having accountability partners cover you with prayer is essential. Also, you get hurt in the long run, as does your partner.

Many say that, “Well, everyone sins and so sex is no different than a little gossip, a little self-pity.” Then avoid all 3 of those! And I know that having a little self-pity on occasions is not something I plan. It can go on for several minutes or more…but when I really hear my thoughts, I stop and repent and purpose to do better. Same with every sin. But for sex to happen, look at these steps – any of which can be stopped at any time. But most likely won’t be once the sequence starts:
You have to meet someone.
Flirt,
Go someplace – probably drive. Maybe you both have to drive
Get directions. Turn on your GPS
Go inside – small talk – making-out
Take off shoe, take off other shoe. Take off sock, take off other sock.
Many, many more steps. At any point, you could stop. But by now you don’t want to.

You get the picture. A Christian may find herself telling an exciting story and later in the day realize she exaggerated a point. It was not planned and she’s ashamed and plans to make it right. It just came out. Compare that to the many, many steps to commit sexual sin.

It’s like murder compared to pre-meditated murder according to the legal definition. For murder, you fly into an unplanned, spontaneous rage. For pre-meditated, you get supplies, plan time, and meticulously commit murder having actions taken to conceal your involvement.

God forgives sin. When we confess with our whole heart let him know we purpose to never again do that. I believe it takes us feeling the broken-heartedness the Holy Spirit is feeling when we communicate our sorrow about letting him down.

Not like the commercials, “Sorry. Not Sorry.” Not like the preschooler who ate the extra cookie and yells at Mom, “Sorry” as she gleefully runs out to play. Broken-heartedness. And purposing to never, ever allow ourselves to go there again. Our sadness for having done the sin MUST outweigh our desire to commit the sin again.

I have come up with my own protective guidelines for never hurting the heart of the Lord in this way. I never, ever let myself be alone behind closed doors with anyone of the opposite sex. Even repairmen who come over to fix things. Not because I’m afraid something will happen, but because I know people talk and I have neighbors. I believe if you are engaged or seeing someone the rule of thumb to keep yourself pure is to do any and everything you want – as long as you would do that exact behavior on the first pew of the church during the pastor’s sermon on Sunday morning.

You might hold hands, arm around shoulder. But I don’t believe too many people will be smooching during the Sunday morning service. We all know that little things, because of attraction and feelings lead to medium things, which lead to big things. Nip it in the bud. Be like Joseph and RUN!

Yes, it’s a big thing to give up. But not as big as what Jesus gave up when he left Heaven for a cross. Just for us. We will never be able to repay that debt. But he gives it so freely.

I am convinced the verse, “Take every thought captive” was meant for this. I know after my divorce, my friends and I would go to romantic comedy movies and I would just melt when seeing a great guy kiss the star of the show. I’d think, “Yes, that’s what I want.” But I realized a simple kiss would leave me unfulfilled and desiring more. So with much thought I now know -Don’t Go There. Not ‘don’t go to the movies’, but ‘don’t go there in my mind’. I mostly sit and analyze how completely senseless both of the people in the romantic couple are. Usually ruin the movie on the way out for my friends pointing it all out.

Another helpful verse is Romans 8:5: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit.” This takes practice but good things don’t come easily.

I tell my women friends this: Be sure to check all the boxes in the Logic side when you first meet someone. Every box may not be A+, or even B…but do not go into HEART-mode till all the logic work is completed. Because once the HEART-mode moves in, it has a way of justifying every single box even the ones that are a D- or F. Some people, in hindsight, call it Red Flags. And every one of these conversations I’ve had with women told me it ended with disaster.

Once a great guy is found, never, ever go behind closed doors alone. You may not plan for anything to happen but we know how strong passions can get. Plenty of time for going out with another couple or even taking one of your children along. Texts, emails, letters, faxes, phone calls and smoke signals, anything but alone. Get to know the person any other way. Because you can get to know them better so far as how’s he going to be on a day-to-day basis without all the goose bumps stirring things up which causes us to deceive ourselves. So far as planning goes, most couples didn’t plan all their children. Planning means nothing. It’s the act.

We all laugh at the Bachelor TV show. A man trying to find a wife. Every date is in a romantic place, like Paris. She’s had her hair and make-up professionally done. Designer evening gown. There are music greats playing softly as they dance, roses perfuming the air. The table is set with the best china, silverware and crystal. It sets a false impression for what day to day living will be with this person.

When the show is over and people go home to stomach bugs or lose their jobs or the washing machine breaks, they suddenly find out how incompatible things are. Sad. Lots of crying.

We love our casual lives and often forget how HOLY God really is. When I think about HOLY it grieves me to read places in the bible where his holy altar, etc. were desecrated. History continues to show us horrors of this continuing after the bible was complete. We all hate knowing how God’s enemies performed heinous acts there to insult the God of the Jews.

But we desecrate the temple God chose to dwell in today. No longer is there one specific place that he says is his holy temple. Instead he gives us the incredible gift of placing his Holy Spirit within each believer. That took a lot of trust in us to allow his Spirit in our bodies! We all sin, but the bible does specifically tell us the ‘sins done in the body’ take an entirely different importance from envy, self-pity, etc. I Corinthians 6:18 states: “Flee sexual impurity. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” He sins against God’s holy temple! And that is desecration.
We know God hates ALL sin. He is so holy that he cannot be in the presence of sin. We tend to categorize sin: Beheading nuns and child molesters go in a Big Sin pile, while envy or idleness and way, way down in the Little Sin list. Not so. Holy tolerates no sin. Jesus is our go-between. He understands and accepts our repentance, if genuine. Over and over and over again. But there will come a time when he will allow our hearts to be hardened. Maybe he sees that we are in the cycle of repeating the sin, repenting out of habit, not suffering with remorse, having no real belief that we’ll stop, no grief process over it. But just taking advantage of his mercy. Like an umpire in a ballgame being ignored over and over till he suddenly decides to just walk off the field. No one was listening anyway. Like us not having respect for the Lord.

Romans 6:1-2a asks the question, “What should we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace should abound? Certainly not!” In other words, don’t keep on sinning. RUN from it. FAST!

Examples of God hardening hearts are found in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Isaiah. The new testimony talks about it in John 12:40 and Ephesians 4:18. Basically it translates as: DO NOT DISRESPECT GOD OR WHAT HE SAYS. Scary stuff! In many places in the old and new testament God allows hearts to be hardened. We don’t need to minimize his mercy or ignore his grace by continuing on in our own sin habits that we are so very comfortable in.

Sin is sin and God never changes. He tells us in the old testament that some sins cause difficulty (curses) to the 3rd and 4th generations:
“I the Lord…visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5; Numbers 14:18) Jesus tells us “If you love me, keep my commandments.” How generous that we can bless our children for thousands of generations by simply obeying God’s commands! Any time we are tempted, we need a little fear of what we are doing to our children and grandchildren.

Our sin can be forgiven. Over and over and over again. But how much more blessed we are when we are held in the everlasting arms of a loving and all powerful God who will never leave us and never forsake us, than the temporary pleasures of the moment. Really it’s no comparison.

There are times when I feel like the prophet Elijah when he told the Lord he felt like he was the only one standing against so many. I want people to like me and ‘approve this message’. But, you know, I really love that God genuinely likes me and I also like/love him and his word. I know I’m the one who needs to change and bend to his ways daily. He is refining us all. Let’s just agree with him and disagree with the world! Doesn’t sound relaxing…but look who is on our side. Who can be against us?