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One Flesh: What does it Mean?
<page 9>I recently visited a restaurant where I was served by a man whose mannerisms matched those of a stereotypical homosexual. I had an internal reaction to him that I suspect is similar to what many others feel when they are around homosexuality: I wanted to avoid him. I immediately decided to ignore that reaction, but I saw it as an expression of a good part of me. We all have an internal warning system that cautions us when we are around thoughts and images that could hurt our sexuality, and mine was alerting me that something unhealthy might be nearby.
I call this warning system our first line of defense. It is a built in emotional response that makes us want to flee from activities that could damage our erotic nature. I was glad that God had given it to me, but I decided that there was no real danger to me in this situation, so I quickly quieted the warning and enjoyed my conversation with the man.
Our current culture is trying to weaken the first line of defense by exposing us to increasing amounts of sexual immorality of all flavors. They see the first line of defense as a prejudice that should be overcome, and they feel they are doing us a favor by encouraging us to ignore its voice. But God has designed us to recognize sexual sin and avoid it, so the first line of defense is a gift.
If we have walked in sexual purity, we will tend to react against anything that might pull us in the wrong direction. This is a reflection of the fact that we are created in God's image and know that sex should be saved for a loving relationship in marriage. We will instinctively flee before something can enter our being and lead us away from that.
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
Once we have repeatedly fallen in some area of sexual sin, however, we tend to lose this instinct. In fact, our instinct often shifts in the opposite direction and we are drawn toward the sexual sin. Many sex addicts have seen this effect time and again as they start out disgusted by some form of pornography, only to find themselves craving it once they have fallen enough times.
I believe that this observation graphically illustrates what 1 Corinthians 6:18 is teaching. The pornography is showing them an expression of immorality that is, at first, still outside the body, and the first line of defense (disgust in this case) kicks in to keep it outside. Each time they sin sexually, however, sin moves further from outside the body to inside it. In the process, they gradually lose the first line of defense, and they end up feeling strongly drawn toward the activity.
I believe that this is exactly the danger that Paul spoke of when he warned us to flee. He didn't want us to go through a change in our physical nature that would make it more difficult for us to live in a way that honors God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20). He wanted us to avoid <page 10>developing a hormone-charged powerful tendency toward sinful expressions of sex rather than healthy ones.
Getting back to the story of me meeting the man who may have been a homosexual, I had ignored the warning of my first line of defense. I engaged the man in conversation, enjoying him as a person. As we talked, I then experienced something that I am not sure had ever happened before: I had a temptation toward homosexuality.
If my instincts had told me to avoid this man before, they now told me to back away as quickly as possible. I felt a bit defiled – as if perhaps I had sinned. I knew I hadn't, but it still felt as if I must have done something wrong. I hadn't played it safe, and now something evil seemed to be encroaching on me.
As with my initial reaction, I considered this instinct to be healthy. It was a stronger expression of the first line of defense. Once again, however, I decided that the man before me was more important than the small amount of danger I was facing. I had lived much of my life facing far worse temptations, and if I had panicked over every urge to sin sexually, I would never have been able to find victory.
So I made a quick study of the situation. Was there any good reason to run and play it safe? No, this wasn't a huge temptation for me, and it wasn't as if I was being exposed to something graphic; I was just being served by a guy in a restaurant (who may not even have been gay). God's grace had taught me how to handle far worse than that. Was there any good reason to stay? Yes, I would be treating him with love and wisdom. So instead of panicking, I laughed to myself and continued to enjoy what I was doing. The temptation faded quickly. Though I hadn't relied on the first line of defense, I had many more lines of defense behind it, and these had handled the situation fairly easily.
Where had the temptation come from? It had come because I had made a conscious decision years earlier to not fully rely on the first line of defense with homosexuality. In fact, I had spent many hours reading books, studying articles, and listening to talks by former and current homosexuals. I had also talked with people who struggled with this sort of desire. I wanted to do what I could to understand them and bring Jesus to them. There is so much sexual confusion in our society. Why shouldn't I do my best to bring some love and sanity? So rather than relying only on the first line of defense, I had chosen to take a more difficult but hopefully more helpful path.
As a result, a temptation had snuck in and touched me. I found that "creepy," but I didn't consider "creepy" to be a big problem. It was just another one of those feelings I needed to discern and learn how to handle by God's grace. Compared to the feelings that had shown up in areas of my life where sexual sin had sunk its hooks deep inside my body, "creepy" almost seemed fun – a challenge that I could handle with a little dependence on God and wisdom rather than years of emotional healing. Homosexuality had never entered me, so it didn't have any real hold on me. Godly love, self-control, and wisdom were enough to keep me safe.
With those sexual sins that have taken up residence in me through past actions, my story has been radically different. With them, I already had all sorts of compelling images and desires working in me before the temptation even appeared. Those images and desires could quickly join with a temptation, grabbing at my heart with great force. Paul said to flee before this sort of <page 11>internal change takes place, but I didn't do that when I was young, and there came a point where it was too late to avoid the damage. At that point, I still needed to flee, but I had to do it in a way that took into account the consequences of my past failures.
I believe these consequences explain why so many who fall to sexual sins continue to do so even though they know better. Much of the advice they are given is based on the first line of defense. It says, "Stay away from temptation and you will be alright." That sometimes isn't effective once the temptation has moved inside. We can move our body away from the enticement (and we often should), but our body takes its own temptations with it no matter where we go. We need a second line of defense, a third, a fourth …to deal with the reality that the first line of defense is largely gone. We still flee, but we do so in a way that takes into account the internal reality of our battle.
It is helpful to distinguish between a rebellion problem and a wisdom problem. With a rebellion problem, we know what to do and how to do it, yet we make a conscious choice to go against God's will. With a wisdom problem, we know what to do but can't seem to figure out how to do it. We try to obey God, but we fail until we grow in wisdom to the point where we can be consistently successful.
Many sexual sinners mistake a wisdom problem for a rebellion problem. They try to take a "first line of defense based" approach (they stay away from temptation), but something rises within them and sabotages their efforts. So they try harder …yet they still fail. Eventually, they wonder if something is tragically wrong with them, or if perhaps they aren't even real Christians.
Once sexual sin has moved inside of us, we need wisdom to overcome it. We are not facing a simple issue with a simple solution, especially if we are struggling with sexual addiction. It is an extreme case of the sort of damage Paul warned against when he told us to flee sexual immorality. We shouldn't be surprised if it takes time for God to fix it.
I fell to sexual difficulties for the first eight years of my Christian life, and in the way we normally define fleeing, I was an example of purity. I never watched an X-rated movie or looked at any other sort of official pornography. I stayed away from potentially compromising situations and successfully avoided sex with another person before marriage. I didn't go to parties or hang out with the "wrong crowd." I was also on fire for Jesus. I spent time with Christians, read the Bible, memorized scriptures, worshipped, prayed, fasted…. I sought God with a sincere heart for much of those first eight years. Unfortunately, my life spiraled down into sexual addiction.
Paul's command to flee still applied to me, but carrying it out took far more than simply avoiding dangerous situations. I needed to develop a set of defenses that would hold strong even when temptations rose within me in spite of my best efforts to avoid them.
One helpful metaphor is to picture a train on the top of a mountain. When the train is not moving, it is easy to hold in place. Once it starts moving, however, it builds momentum and becomes much more difficult to hold back.
The train represents our sexual emotions. Before we have repeatedly fallen in some area, our emotions tend to be like the train sitting on the top of the mountain. A temptation might come along and move it a little, but it doesn't build up much force. We can stop it easily by fleeing the <page 12>situation or resisting. Even if we face the temptation many times, as long as we don't give in, the train tends to stay in a position where it is manageable.
Each time we give in, however, we set ourselves up for the train to more easily move down the mountain in the future. One sin may not lead us into deep trouble, or even ten or twenty, but at some point, we find that the train seems to move all by itself. Though we might not see or hear anything, our heart is always searching for some thought or image that will excite us. Our emotions have developed a taste for sexual sin, and we subconsciously pursue it even when we are not trying.
Then when external temptation shows up, the train seems to jump one hundred feet down the mountain before we even understand what is happening. By the time we consciously identify what we are seeing and remember what God says about it, it may be three hundred feet down the mountain. At that point, the momentum can feel impossible to stop.
This is what it feels like to have sexual immorality move inside our body, and especially sexual addiction. It has fused with the neurons in our brain to stimulate glands that send hormones flowing through our system. The train moves whether we want it to or not.
For most of my life, keeping the train on top of the mountain wasn't really an option. I began my spiral down into sexual addiction as soon as puberty showed up, so the train was pretty much always moving after that. Victory for me came as I learned to stop the train all along the mountain. I learned to stop it when it was one thousand feet down the mountain, five hundred, one hundred – anywhere it went. I discovered the various dips and bends it took. I found God's grace when it showed up in unexpected ways that defied reason. It took years of work and much more wisdom than I thought would be necessary, but that was how God set me free.
The analogy of the train on the mountain helps explain why it can be difficult to help a person with sexual issues. The healthy offer the answers that have worked for them, which are generally based on the idea of keeping the train on the top of the mountain. The sick try to follow their good example, but the train refuses to remain in a safe position. They need to know that there can be a solution which doesn't rely on it staying at the top of the mountain. They can learn to stop it even after it has started moving.
As I developed the "train on the mountain" approach, I was concerned that I had never heard anyone else teach it. Was I coming up with crazy ideas that were doomed to fail, or was the Holy Spirit leading me? I believed He was, but I wanted encouragement from at least one other person who had found freedom in a similar way.
I got some help once I discovered information about sexual addiction on the internet, but even that left me wondering whether I had anything to say. Though it emphasized transparency and support from others, it didn't fully match the message that I believed God was birthing in my heart. People would make statements like, "You can't overcome this sin with just you and Jesus. You need some combination of a support group, a counselor, and roadblocks to keep you away from temptations."
While I thought support groups, counselors, and roadblocks were great, and I encouraged people to take advantage of them if they could, I also thought it was a mistake to say we needed them. I had found answers largely with just Jesus, me, and the public ministry of the church, and it was this sort of relationship with Him that I wanted to offer to others. If I had believed I <page 13>needed support groups, counselors, or roadblocks in the 1970s and 1980s, I would have felt hopeless. Those sorts of helps were not available at the time (that I knew of).
Don't get me wrong; I love support groups, counselors, and roadblocks. I try anything that I think might help. But I don't believe our recovery can be based on anything other than what Jesus has done on the cross and what He continues to do through the Holy Spirit. It is unwise to treat as necessary any technique that may or may not be available. Our faith needs to be that God will make a way even if our human support system appears weak. That is what I had experienced, and it was what I wanted to share with others.
The Bible teaches that when we were baptized into Christ, we changed:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. …Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. …For sin shall not have dominion over you…
(Romans 6:1-4, 12, 14)
It is important for any of us to believe that being dead to sin and raised to newness of life can and will transform our lives, even if we don't seem to experience that for a time. It is true when we succeed and when we fail. It is true when we have the human support we feel we need and when we do not. If we go for years as a Christian, fighting with all we know of to overcome, and yet we still seem to lose ground, it is always a hope we can trust. This sort of faith and patience is key to receiving God's promises.
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (emphasis added)
Overcoming deeply entrenched sexual sin can be extremely difficult. If our vision for life tells us that it is impossible without some set form of human help, we may feel justified in giving up when that form of help isn't available. By contrast, if we believe that Jesus will save us in spite of any lack of support we experience, we will be more likely to persevere until His answers become clear. That is the sort of life I had experienced, and it was what I wanted to share with others. But I had learned it largely between Jesus and me, and I was becoming concerned that I was having trouble finding others who spoke as if that was even possible. I searched for someone who would confirm it was.
In time, I discovered a site on the internet where I could hear interviews with people who ministered to those trapped in sexual sin. I listened to the recordings with anticipation for many hours. I found, however, that at the end of almost all of them I had new cause for discouragement about my message. Consistently, they told me that because of my lack of a <page 14>human support system focused on sexual issues, the life I had lived was basically impossible. I wondered if I was some sort of "spiritual freak" who didn't really have anything to share with others.
Finally, a man named David Kyle Foster was interviewed. He had been a homosexual prostitute back in the 1970's and had been saved by God and called into ministry. I listened hesitantly, waiting to once again hear that people couldn't really find answers in the way I had, but that message never came. Instead, David Kyle Foster talked about the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit and His ability to directly minister to us with or without human help. He emphasized getting to know the living God, which was exactly what I wanted to share with others. When I finished listening, I said, "I have to find out more about this guy!"
I went to his website, www.masteringlife.org, and began reading. It wasn't long before I said to myself, "I think I have been looking for this guy for decades without knowing it. I believe God has sent him to the church with the mission of imparting to people the ability to be emotionally healed from sexual sin." I read and listened to just about everything on his website and read his book, Sexual Healing.[4] I was thrilled by what I found.
Along with his emphasis on a relationship with Christ, David Kyle Foster was the first author I had read whose writings consciously took people past the first line of defense. He described sexual sin as a complex and powerful deception in our hearts that must be explored, understood, and dealt with by the power of God. He took me so far past my own first line of defense that at one point while reading his words on an airplane, I looked around to make sure no one was looking over my shoulder. I was afraid that people would judge me for studying sexual abuse and pedophilia. He made me feel what I know I have made others feel – a little ill.
My first line of defense was kicking in, and it was both right and wrong. It was right to warn me that our sexuality is complex, with all sorts of mechanisms we might not understand. If we meditate on the underlying causes of various forms of sexual deviancy, and if we try to empathize with those who are caught in them, it could lead to temptations in similar directions …and giving in to those temptations would lead to disaster! (This is why I don't blindly recommend that every Christian try to minister to those caught in sexual sin. We need wisdom!)
At the same time, my first line of defense was wrong, because if anyone is called to help those caught in sexual sin, I am. I have sensed the Holy Spirit tell me this, and my experience supports it. I also believe God has prepared me for the task. Like everyone, I need to proceed cautiously and humbly, but I have some confidence about what He has built into me.
I shared earlier in this chapter how my choice to learn about and empathize with those caught in homosexuality led to a brief temptation toward homosexuality. That sort of experience is a small price I pay for doing what I believe God has called me to do. We are in the middle of a war, and I am a soldier. If God has called me to take some risks, how can I play it safe?
The task of overcoming the level of sexual sin that has moved in among God's people and the world will require some (many?) of His people to gain the wisdom and power for this sort of ministry. The next four chapters are devoted to giving a scripture-based description of the nature of the problem. If we understand what we are facing, it will help us to better understand our need for Jesus and His solutions.
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