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Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents
<page 56>When our hormones lead us toward sex outside of marriage, God’s answer is that wisdom should kick in and point us toward love.
The book of Proverbs is extremely relevant for those who want to overcome sexual sins.
Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, …To deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words, who forsakes the companion of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God. (emphasis added)
Wisdom delivers us from the immoral woman. (Or the immoral man if you are attracted to men. Throughout this chapter and the next two, most of what I say about sexual sins can be applied to both men and women as they deal with any type of sexual attraction. When God’s truth permeates our inner being, it keeps us from being seduced by people, pictures, or imaginations.) Proverbs 6 contains a similar hope.
For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path. They'll protect you from wanton women, from the seductive talk of some temptress. Don't lustfully fantasize on her beauty, nor be taken in by her bedroom eyes. (emphasis added)
(Proverbs 6:23-25, The Message)
The last sentence in these verses especially interests me, “Don't lustfully fantasize on her beauty, nor be taken in by her bedroom eyes.” Every command in the Bible contains a hidden promise: the pledge that God will give us the grace to obey it. This verse promises that if we do what Proverbs teaches, God will give us so much wisdom that we will not lustfully fantasize on the beauty of wanton women. This will be true even if they present themselves to us with the sensual appeal of a temptress.
When this promise is fulfilled, a recovering sex addict is no longer recovering – he or she has recovered! What else is recovery but the act of dealing with a strong lingering lust after beauty? When we no longer are greatly influenced by its seductiveness, we are free indeed. I will spend the rest of this chapter and the next two describing this freedom.
When a man notices an attractive woman, hormones are released in his body, raising his pulse rate and temperature. He is drawn to the woman and feels an instinctive pull toward a physical relationship with her. I have not studied this in detail, but based on what I have heard, this impulse is part of a man’s autonomic nervous system, and his will has no control over it. It is not <page 57>a sin; it is a temptation. The wisdom or foolishness with which he handles it determines whether he sins or not.
I believe that God created this response in men (and the corresponding response in women) to motivate us to get married. Family life requires us to lay down our lives with more love than we ever imagined possible, so God has given us a strong hormonal drive to make the commitment. Part of the reason sex is so powerful is to inspire us to let go of our self-centeredness.
The strength of this drive creates temptation for us, however. It isn’t easy to steer our desires in the right direction. Because of this, the Bible tells us to dress and act with modesty and purity.
…in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, …
But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints …
When we broadcast our sexuality, we can put others in a position where they have to deal with the impulse I described above. This temptation isn’t the end of the world for them, and they will have to face it to a certain extent no matter what anyone does, but God wants His children to be considerate of the sexuality of others.
However, no amount of modesty by others can remove all temptation. Sometimes an attractive face can be as erotic as a bikini. At other times, the innocence of a pleasant personality can arouse desire. God has no intention of totally removing the power of our sex drive. He has given it to us as a beautiful gift to bind us together into families. We need to recognize it for what it is and handle it with understanding.
When our hormones lead us toward sex outside of marriage, God’s answer is that wisdom should kick in and point us toward love. We love God, so we resist the urge to follow our drives into activities that would grieve Him. We love people, so we refuse to allow our sexuality to harm them. If we are married or someday will be, we love our families, so we hold ourselves back for their sake. We recognize that sin hurts everyone, so for the good of all we choose to control our drives and actions.
We don’t reach this level of conviction overnight, and I have been sharing my long hard journey toward it in this series of books. It is important, however, for us to catch a vision for what Jesus can do. He can put His understanding into us in a way that will keep us from lustfully fantasizing on a woman’s beauty.
How deep can Jesus go? He can not only give us self-control, He can also change what attracts us. Wisdom redefines beauty. For a mature Christian man, the purity and grace of God in a woman’s spirit becomes a part of her loveliness. He finds it hard to picture himself choosing someone who fights against what he treasures most, and this puts any girl who seeks to sin sexually with him off limits.
A harlot or adulteress loses part of her allure precisely because she is a harlot or an adulteress. She’s not the kind of woman he would want to live with, so a man who walks in sexual wisdom <page 58>doesn’t lustfully fantasize on her beauty. He learns to see her seductiveness as Solomon described it:
As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a lovely woman who lacks discretion.
In time, he can grow to appreciate true beauty in a woman. It transforms his perception of everything about her. In the following verses, God tells wives to cooperate with this process by enhancing their inner beauty to the point where a husband who is willing to see the truth will give glory to God.
Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward — arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel — rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.
I don’t believe freedom is found by running from the opposite sex. It is instead found in the maturity to see them through God’s eyes. We recognize that they are made in His image, and so deserve His care. At the same time, we also see that they may be influenced by sin, and we may need to take steps to avoid their weakness by avoiding tempting circumstances. By God’s grace we can get past our hormones and be aware of their state before Him. Then we can serve each of them as our Heavenly Father desires.
Jesus described what freedom is like.
… for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.
When the devil came to tempt Jesus there was no part of His personality that would fall into sin. He was safe, because He knew how to handle enticements. We see this when we look at how He related to women. He could respond with purity even when a beautiful woman, the town harlot, washed His feet with her tears and hair.
Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. Then he spoke to her: "I forgive your sins."
(Luke 7:37-39, The Message)
The ability to respond properly to even this sort of temptation is an ability that God intends to give to all of His children. He wants to give us the same character Jesus has.
<page 59>… He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.
(Romans 8:29, The Message)
In “Exchanged Glory II: The OK Stronghold,” I broke our personality into three parts: Parent, Adult, and Child.[33] Our Parent is a set of emotions that we use while caring for people. Our Adult is our reasoning ability and will power. Our Child is a part of us that experiences life like a child.
When we are mature, Parent, Adult, and Child all work together to reject temptation. Our Parent wants to do what is best for everyone, so we resist evil for the good of all. Our Adult understands the situation and wants to act according to truth, so it refuses to follow our hormones. Our Child recognizes that true happiness and fun come from following Jesus, so we choose to do what brings His joy into the world.
When our body chemistry starts to pull us toward trouble, good train tracks in our heart won’t let us go there. We feel a desire to lust, but we know better than to carry through on it. From many different places, we refuse to lustfully fantasize on a woman’s beauty.
It took me many years to reach anything like this kind of maturity, and I still have much room to grow. Hopefully your journey won’t be as long as mine, but it will probably be longer than you like.
One reason for our difficulty is that sex can spring from so many different parts of our personality. This gives the devil many areas in which to have something in us. Our erotic desires can be rooted in feelings that are as noble as sincere love or as self-serving as a fear of reality. We can be aroused by a desire to be joined to another, to experience pleasure, to relieve boredom, or to hide from our insecurity. When the devil can’t get us in one area, he will often move to another.
We can see the complexity of our sexuality when we consider a man who wants one kind of woman for a wife and another for a mistress. Part of his heart desires the warm home maker while another craves the wild prostitute. It is impossible for one woman to fill both roles for a lifetime, so many men turn to pornography or multiple sex partners to satisfy their multiple yearnings.
It is frightening that an adulterer can sincerely tell his wife, “Those other girls mean nothing to me; you are the one I love.” Unfortunately, a man can be foolish enough to believe those words. Without the wisdom of God, he may not know how to bring his conflicting drives into harmony.
It was my experience that wisdom penetrated my heart one area at a time. When I was single, I came to intellectually understand that God wanted me to save sex for the girl I would marry. This didn’t make much sense to me at an emotional level, so it was hard to obey, but it was enough to keep me from physical involvement. Referring back to the analogy of train tracks, God had laid an intellectual track that kept me from certain sins.
<page 60>As I wrote in Exchanged Glory: A Vision of Freedom, I eventually learned about holiness and the fear of the Lord.[34] This gave me more good train tracks, and they freed me from privately acting out and other sins.
The process has continued throughout my life. As I have learned about God’s commandments, family life, and a host of other truths, my heart has slowly been claimed for Jesus. At each point, wisdom has moved into new areas, taking away pieces of the desire to lustfully fantasize on a woman’s beauty.
I don’t believe that God wants sex addicts to face a lifelong near constant battle against sinful sexual expressions. Christ has come to free us from sinful thought patterns. He gives us the pleasantness of knowledge to replace the destructive pleasure of addiction. He makes us like a city with walls.
Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.
Jesus rebuilds what has been broken down. When the ruler of this world comes, the walls hold him out, because he has nothing in us. Consider the implications of this. For the pornography addict, it means he can reach a point where he reacts against pornography. He won’t want to see it, and when it is forced on him, his heart will close against it and turn away.
For the homosexual, it means he can be around men without always fighting sinful thoughts. It may take a good deal of work to reach that point, but the wisdom of God can go extremely deep.
For me, it meant being able to see sights that previously plunged me into sexual lust without being instantly drawn into a fantasy world. Whatever deep foolishness had entered my heart to cause me to unconsciously lust, God could reach that far to free me. This has happened to a large extent. I still have room to grow, but to give in to lust would require me to dismantle the person He has made me to be.
I don’t mean that the conditioning of the past won’t still bring temptation. We all have to face negative nostalgia. It’s like hearing an old song that brings back memories and feelings of a past time. It is a difficulty, but with God’s grace and wisdom it can be handled. It doesn’t express the real person we are becoming; it is just our heart remembering who we once were. By God’s grace we can see the situation for what it is, make good decisions, and reestablish the character He is building.
Though I have written in glowing terms about freedom, I don’t want to imply that we can become so liberated that we are in no danger of falling to sin. It is important to mention this, because many of us have a tendency to equate freedom with independence. We anticipate a state where we no longer have to rely on anyone, including God.
<page 61>Jesus will always be our only protection. We will never lose our need to humbly rely on Him. This isn’t a bad thing, however. Knowing Him is the best treasure we can have (Phil 3:8),[35] so we have no good reason to want to be independent.
It is also important for us to realize that many of us tend to overestimate our freedom. We so long for respectability that we convince ourselves we are more mature than we are. Sometimes, we feel liberated simply because we haven’t faced a temptation that exposes a remaining area in which the ruler of this world has something in us. If we are unwilling to admit this, we may fail to find God’s grace for our day of adversity (Proverbs 1:20-33). We will deny our weakness for the sake of our reputation and either fall backward or miss an opportunity to grow.
But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
I need to give one more warning before ending this chapter. Based on what I have written, you might think that a truly free person could look at any sexual image without lusting, even pornography. I want to make sure I don’t leave room for that conclusion. It is important to remember the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written, 'He will give His angels charge concerning You to guard You,' and, 'On their hands they will bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.'"
And Jesus answered and said to him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’"
(Luke 4:9-12, NAS)
God has designed us so that we are sexually aroused by scenes like nudity, foreplay, and sex acts. It is putting the Lord God to the test for us to expect Him to protect us while we intentionally expose ourselves to them. When we look at women in situations that should be reserved for our wives, we sin against God, our wives, and the women. We also do violence to ourselves by intentionally exposing ourselves to images we weren’t designed to handle.
I did mention that those who are turned on by unnatural activities can obtain the wisdom from God to have normal desires. Over time they can reach a point where their orientation changes and they can be exposed to sights that once were overwhelming temptations for them (although they may still want to avoid them to make their live easier). This is far different than expecting our natural God given sexual desires to be suspended. When it comes to pornography, we should stay away from it in order to avoid lustfully fantasizing on a woman’s beauty.
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