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A special meeting I was called to attend in the mid-1970s is one I never want to attend again. A pastor and Bible College president friend who taught me much about youth work, pastoring, teaching, soul-winning, and administering a college, in addition to teaching me the accuracy, clarity, and urgency of the gospel, had a significant moral fall. My heart sank. I wept, I prayed, and now I stand ready to help others in any way I can.
These kinds of meetings occur all too often. Just as important, they can be true about you or me. And if you are like me, you want to know the answer to the million-dollar question: “How do I avoid being the subject of one of those meetings?”
As leaders, we must avoid moral impurity…at all costs. Because if we do not, it will cost us all!
May I share with you four broad principles I have found helpful and hope you will, too?
- Guard your heart.
Undoubtedly, you have heard of the “frog in boiling water” syndrome. Our potential to sin morally does not typically happen overnight. Instead, it comes from a slow numbing in our hearts and a slow searing of our conscience. The frog is immersed in what is actually undoing him, but he is numb to it.
What are we immersing ourselves in? Is there anything we’re allowing to numb us spiritually? Consider King David. His fall with Bathsheba came after a season of neglecting his duties. One could rightly assume David was in a season of slipping, not just in his role as king but spiritually as well. Some around him might even have been able to say, “You know, looking back, the red flags were there. The king did not seem himself for a while.”
Jesus warned us about the true nature of our hearts: “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” (Mark 7:20-23 NKJV). The warning is loud and clear. Guard your heart! Wisdom also warns us: “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23).
What we fill our time with matters. All of it, not just “office hours.” Let us be wise and not immerse ourselves in a slow boil. - Remember the consequential loss.
As a result of David’s sin, he spiraled down into more deception and murder. The high cost of David’s sin also affected so many others as the Lord brought judgment on him in the form of life-long family dysfunction, including incest. Others took his wives in open moral impurity, the enemies of the Lord would have occasion to curse God, King David and the nation would have constant unrest, and the innocent baby would die before its time (2 Samuel 11 – 21). All this is the high cost of a saved man’s sin!
Solomon warned his son, and by extension today, us of the causes and consequences of moral impurity in Proverbs 5 – 7.
We will always reap what we sow, more than we sow, and later than we sow. Our sin will be found out, either while we are alive or after death, publicly here and for believers at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Timothy 5:24; 2 Corinthians 5:10, 11).
- Open your world.
Because our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and need guarding, we absolutely need accountability. Be willing to live an open-book kind of life and ministry. What that looks like will ultimately be up to you; however, I recommend it include people around you who know what you are doing, who you are with, where you are, and even what is on your electronic devices. Let me encourage you to be willing to let people into your world.
A moral fall requires two things: your heart and an opportunity. You must guard your heart, and you must guard against opportunity. Again, refer to King David. His heart was left unguarded, and an opportunity arose. Listen again to wisdom: “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.” (Proverbs 25:28). Allow others to help guard your city! - Pursue holiness.
Peter instructs us, “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct…” (1 Peter 1:15). Holiness comes from a love for Christ, obedience to God’s Word, and yieldedness to His Spirit. When our lives are immersed in Christ, we will be immersed in living water, not a pot of slowly boiling water.
And when our lives are marked by biblical obedience, we will flee sin and pursue righteousness (2 Timothy 2:22). Notice that this principle includes the word pursue. We must actively pursue Christ and His Word to move toward holiness. Stagnation leads us toward pots of water and devastating opportunities. Be intentional. Run hard after holiness.
