Culture Says Look but Don’t Touch

Culture tells us that there is nothing wrong with looking at someone with lust as long as we don’t touch. Most people would say that it is wrong to commit adultery. But regarding looking with lust they would say that simply looking isn’t adultery. In the Old Testament the Bible says:

You shall not commit adultery. 

Exodus 20:14

But what is adultery anyway? It is engaging in sexual activity with someone other than your wife or husband. Here is one of the greatest examples of adultery in the bible. David, who was king, saw a woman bathing. That wasn’t his sin. He could have looked away, knowing the danger of continuing to gaze upon her beauty. What was sin were the thoughts and also the actions that followed. Both thought and actions were his sin. Not to mention the fact that he later committed murder by having her husband killed in battle to cover up what he had done. It cost him a lot in terms of blessings even though he later repented.

It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.” 

2 Samual 11:2-5

The physical act of sexual intercourse was what adultery meant to people for well over a thousand years before Christ. But Jesus made it clear what adultery really is to Him and what it really is about.

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:27-28

Sin is not an issue of action only, but primarily an issue of the heart.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Matthew 15:19-10

It seems as if our entire culture is enticing us to engage in activity that is morally wrong. Yet, when we do, it is then publicized as scandalous behavior. Today, everything goes until it doesn’t. You just can’t be sure until it is too late…until you are compromised. This is the design of Satan. His plan is to set a trap, to lure us in, then expose and destroy us. He wants to render you and your testimony ineffective. To cause your influence, your reputation to be in utter ruins.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

Many people, both men and women with exceptional influence and reputation in the Church have been brought down and all their great work nullified because they were compromised through scandalous acts, whether in speech or physical action. But what about our thoughts? We like to think that our thoughts are in secret, but scripture tells us that all secrets will be revealed.

For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.

Luke 8:17

Not only does God know our thoughts, but Satan knows our weaknesses and will seek to exploit them to our destruction. His aim is to make the world slaves to sin. That takes almost no work on his part because most lack knowledge or don’t believe. But it is the Christian that Satan works the hardest to take down.

…sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

Genesis 4:7

Christ wants to equip and protect you from that so that you will be saved and that you will help to save others as well.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

Proverbs has a grim reminder of what it is to be caught in the snare of lust. If you cheat on your spouse or watch pornography or meditate on the beautiful person you just saw with lust, then what follows you should consider.

All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life. Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.

Proverbs 7:1

I hope that this has been a call to wake you up. I hope that this post is an uncomfortable one. It should be. I leave you with one last passage. We are called to be holy, to be set apart for the Lord. Therefore we must not be like our culture. Rather, we are to be different and conduct ourselves both inwardly and externally in a way that is right and just. It is a process, but one we should be striving with great exertion to live in a way worthy of our calling as children of the Most High.

But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 

1 Corinthians 6:17-20, ESV

God bless!