September 22
“Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.”(1 Corinthians 6:18)
“Do not give your strength to women, or your ways to that which destroys kings.”(Proverbs 31:3)
- Loss of vision, creativity, wisdom, insights, and mental abilities.
In addition to guilt and remorse, I believe we lose a good amount of our vision, creativity, insight, problem solving skills, and other mental abilities when we chose pornography and gratification of immoral lusts over obedience to God. Obviously we threw out wisdom and good judgment when we chose these sins! Do we think we can indulge in immoral behavior and saturate our minds with immoral, evil images and not harm our minds? Do we think we can violate all sound wisdom and judgment one minute, and then bring it all back the next, like flipping a switch? I don’t think it works that way. When you give your mind over to evil indulgences and fantasies, I think you lose some of the best part of you. You lose your drive and insight and desire. You dull and diminish your creativity and ability to think clearly.
I have heard that when you drink alcohol you kill off your brain cells. I wonder if viewing pornography and illicit images or participating in immoral behavior might not produce permanent loss of brain activity and capacity that we otherwise might have enjoyed. I can’t say for certain that that is the case, as this is just my speculation at this point, but I believe it is quite possibly so. Certainly on a temporary basis I believe this happens. Just like drugs can permanently mess up our brains, I think pornography and immorality can as well. Why do it? Why subject your mind to that which could permanently dampen its abilities? Why take “stupid pills” on purpose? For what price are you willing to sell your vision, your godly passions, your goals, your creativity, your wisdom and insight, and your mental faculties? Count well the cost of immoral behavior.
- Loss of testimony, credibility, viewed by others as less, permanent stigmatism.
Of course when we commit immoral acts we can’t help but lose credibility and a good testimony with God’s people and unbelievers as well. Immorality leaves a long lasting stigma in the minds of others. The immoral, unfaithful man may be forgiven by others, but others will never forget his failings, at least not completely. Let me say it in a different way: the faithful, truly righteous man or woman that overcomes all temptations of immorality and keeps him or herself from all lewd and impure behavior is viewed much higher in the eyes of others than those who fall into immorality, even if they repent and keep themselves pure the rest of their lives. Do you disagree with me on this?
Please note: I am not at all talking about how God views us in Christ. Our sins of immorality are completely washed away in Christ and completely forgiven when we confess them to Him and turn away from them. I praise God for Paul’s reminding us of the blessed cleansing we all, including the immoral, enjoy in Christ in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. I am only making the point that I think there is a particular stigma that others attach to those who commit sins of immorality that is very difficult to shake, especially if one is a Christian when they stumble, someone who should know better than an unbeliever who doesn’t know any better and who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit indwelling them.
So with this stigma as a consequence, we should be all the more concerned about even the smallest sins of immorality and work hard to avoid and escape from these temptations.