Pay Attention To God’s Stop Signs

Can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her will not go unpunished.
–Proverbs 6:28-29

I read about a group of Florida teenagers who were found guilty of the murder of three innocent citizens. These teenagers were not even present when their victims were killed, but they were guilty of the crime. As a prank, these teenagers had removed the stop signs at a four-way intersection. So motorists proceeded when they should have stopped, resulting in a fatal crash.

We are living in a culture in which people are trying to remove the stop signs that God put into place for our benefit. Our culture is telling us that it is okay to proceed when God says to stop. Whenever we ignore God’s stop signs, the results are catastrophic. If we want to master the art of living well, we have to pay attention to God’s stop signs.

One of God’s stop signs is regarding our sexual behavior. God’s boundary is clear: no sex outside of marriage. When we ignore that boundary, we put our emotional, spiritual, and even financial well-being at risk. I have seen it over and over again. A father is locked in a bitter custody battle because his wife left him for someone else. A wife feels betrayed because of her husband’s addiction to pornography. A Christian leader has to give up his ministry due to an improper relationship. The effects of sexual immorality are everywhere.

Solomon understood perhaps better than anyone the cost of sexual immorality. His father, King David, was involved in an illicit affair. Even though God forgave him, David suffered the consequences of that affair, including a divided kingdom, a disloyal son, and a dead child. Unfortunately, Solomon inherited his father’s proclivity for sexual immorality. Instead of heeding God’s stop sign, Solomon learned the hard way that the way to experience emotional and sexual fulfillment is to follow God’s guidelines.

You and I can learn from Solomon’s mistakes. Late in life, he wrote in the book of Proverbs about the cost of sexual immorality. What happens to a person who falls into sexual immorality?

• “The lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword” (5:3-4).
• “On account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread” (6:26).
• “The one who commits adultery . . . is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it. Wounds and disgrace he will find, and his reproach will not be blotted out” (6:32-33).

Why are people willing to jeopardize their career, abandon their families, and even reject their faith to pursue a relationship that is destined to fail? Proverbs 23:7 says, “As [a person] thinks within himself, so he is.” Wrong thinking is what leads a person into sexual immorality.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Graze In Your Own Pasture” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2013.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.