Fighting sexual temptation has never been easy. There have been times in which societies such as ours helped by having and enforcing laws discouraging sexual deviancy. There were also general cultural mores that disparaged sexual immorality so great social shame was the lot of the sexually deviant. Temptations didn’t disappear, but cultural pressure at least encouraged restraint.
Studying history, you will see that these societies were few and far between. Our present Western culture is probably more in line with the way many cultures have treated sexual relations; that is, there are few cultural guards that help us with temptation. The lack of cultural sexual restraint that has ingrained itself over the past century or two combined with present-day technology has only increased temptations. I don’t think that we can say, “It is more difficult for us than it ever has been,” but the force of the battle is growing. None of this, of course, is an excuse for sexual sin. In fact, it is a call to arm ourselves all the more with the appropriate discipline to fight an enemy that is growing in strength. We must match our enemies’ strength with greater strength.
How do you do it? How do you resist sexual temptation, the gnawing appetite that promises to be immediately gratified by Harlot Folly? Solomon addresses this issue throughout Proverbs, but especially in chapters 2, 5, 6, & 7.
At the heart of resisting sexual temptation is faith. This is not faith as some speak about it; that is, some type of mystical power that, if you have enough of it, you become a spiritual superman. This is faith that is fully committed to the words of your “father and mother,” who might be your faithful parents or fathers and mothers in the faith. Ultimately, they are the words of God your Father communicated through your mother, the church. These words must be treasured in your heart so that they control the way you think, what you desire, and the direction of your life (Pr 2.1ff; 5.1-2; 6.20-23; 7.1-4). You must believe that when your Father tells you that the end of a sexual relationship with Harlot Folly means loss of honor (5.9-10; losing gain and retain the wealth that comes through dominion), regret (5.11-14), negative judgment from God (5.21; 22.14), vengeance from a jealous husband and ultimately from God himself (6.27-35), and death (2.16-19; 5.4-6; 7.22-27; 9.18), you believe it. You don’t want these outcomes, so you believe your Father’s words and commit your ways to them.
Faith acts. One of those actions is to avoid Harlot Folly. The young man in Proverbs 7 who winds up in the grave that is Harlot Folly made his first mistake by going “near her corner, taking the road to her house” (7.6). You can’t flirt with Harlot Folly. “Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house” (5.8). There are many ways to stay away from her house, but first and foremost is that you need to be walking in a different direction. You need to have positive pursuits that fill your heart and time so that you have less time to dwell on her. Fill your days with purposeful activities that help keep you focused on building yourself, your character, and your future.
Positive pursuits sometimes employ avoidance measures, but they don’t rely on avoidance measures as saviors. For example, you may want to put Covenant Eyes on your computer, VidAngel on your TV, or have an accountability partner to avoid a sudden onslaught. That’s good. But a heart that desires Harlot Folly will get around filters and will treat confessing to an accountability partner as repentance instead of doing the hard work of staying away from Harlot Folly. You must discipline yourself, gaining mastery over your mind so that your heart, will, emotions, and body do what they are supposed to do even in the face of severe challenges. Ain’t nobody or no technology gonna keep you away from what you really want in the end.
The last area of exhortation in which Solomon encourages his son to avoid sexual sin is to focus on his marriage. We don’t know if Solomon’s son was married at this time or not. If he wasn’t, he needed to know that marriage is the only proper outlet for sexual desires because sexual relations serve marriage (a topic I covered here). Sex is only accomplishing the mission when it is within marriage. When it is kept in its proper context, it should be quite fulfilling, satisfying sexual appetites. Look forward to that and keep yourself from having sinful baggage that could inhibit or even destroy the pleasure of marital love.
If you are married, you need to put blinders on that keep you focused on cultivating intimacy with your wife. Solomon says, “Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love” (5.15-19). There is an emphasis throughout this exhortation concerning quantity and quality of the marital sexual relationship. Sexual relations within marriage ought to be frequent enough and of such quality that both the man and his wife are sated all the time. It is difficult to tempt someone with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when he is full and knows that he has ribeye waiting on him at home.
The fight is not easy, but it is winnable. You know what to do. Do it.
