Isaiah 47:10-11
“You felt secure in your wickedness. ‘No one sees me,’ you said. But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray, and you said, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.’ So disaster will overtake you, and you won’t be able to charm it away. Calamity will fall upon you, and you won’t be able to buy your way out. A catastrophe will strike you suddenly, one for which you are not prepared.”
The thought of someone engaging in an act behind closed doors, with someone who is not their significant other, isn’t something I thought I would ever have to witness in my own life with people I know personally. It’s hard enough to witness it in someone else’s life. It’s hard enough to watch another person who you have ZERO connection to make decisions and engage in acts that you know will destroy their lives forever.
But it is an entirely different feeling when that person is someone close to you. Someone you least expect.
It is entirely different when that person is someone who you have watched give Godly and biblical counsel to others to stay away from the very thing they are engaging in.
It is entirely different when that person is a leader in your church, be it a pastor, Sunday school teacher, elder, staff pastor, deacon…..whoever.
So today…my heart aches.
Today my heart aches because I have witnessed too many men of God falling publicly into sexual sin over the last several months and weeks. Most specifically these men were caught in the act of having an affair. And some of these very men have been close to me. Even members of my own family.
My heart aches today because I just read an article by Ed Stetzer stating that after speaking with numerous leaders across numerous Christian denominations in the US and Canada, he is estimating that at the very least 400 Christian leaders (pastors, elders, deacons, staff pastors, etc.) will be resigning this Sunday from their ministry in their church.
Yes you read that right. AT LEAST 400 Christian leaders will be resigning this Sunday.
And why? Because their name was on the list of users on the Ashley Madison website. Because…..plain and simple….they got caught. A catastrophe came suddenly upon them that they did not expect (or at the very least that they suspected would never come because they were too “crafty” to get caught).
[see HERE for information on why Ashley Madison is in the news…and no, it’s not a person, it’s a website]
These 400 Christian leaders probably assumed, like every other user on the Ashley Madison website, that there was absolutely no way to get caught. I mean after all, they can create this account to set up secret rendezvous’ with people and their spouses and family members will never have to know.
At least that’s what they had hoped for until hackers stole the list of users for this website and released it to the public.
Among the fallen have been folks like Joshua Duggar, and apparently hundreds of other Christian leaders.
Church, this is a devastating blow to an already teetering and anemic American Church. We have lost so much ground through this embarrassing episode. What culture in their right mind is going to listen to a Church scream and rail against same sex marriage when you have 400 of the Church’s leaders being caught in the act of adultery?
Answer?
NO ONE!
But don’t think it’s just Christian leaders in churches getting busted on a website designed specifically to have secret meetings with another person looking to cheat on their spouse.
It pains me to say that today the former president of North Greenville University was outed via a YouTube video for having an affair with another woman who works at NGU. You see North Greenville University is a Southern Baptist Christian University right here in the state of South Carolina….right here in the heart of the Bible Belt. And sadly, this video, while released today, was shot back in October of last year merely 2-3 months prior to the former president “retiring” mid-year. Coincidence? Not likely.
Church – what has happened to our sense of respect for marriage as the institution ordained by God at the very beginning and foundation of creation?
Do we no longer hold marriage in a place of honor? Does it really mean so little to us that we can just toss it away for a brief moment of instant gratification on a website, or with a secretary, or with a co-worker?
Are we such hypocrites that we will secretly defile our own wedding bed while publicly crying foul against homosexuals for their own sexual immorality?
Do not misunderstand me. I am in no way, shape, or form in favor of same sex marriage…it is a sin…but you have to call a spade a spade. Sexual sin is sexual sin whether it is perpetuated by a homosexual or a heterosexual. And if we ever hope to regain our credibility as a Church we have to stop living these double lives.
Hebrews 13:4 says
Let marriage be held in HONOR among ALL, and let the marriage bed be UNDEFILED, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
So unless my eyes deceive me, adulterous people are on the same footing as homosexuals when it comes to defiled sexuality.
If only this blog were wired for sound you could hear me scream WAKE UP!
I’m embarrassed.
Is it any wonder we are laughed at, scoffed at, and taken lightly when the leaders of the Church are speaking out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to sexual immorality?
I’m sick to my stomach.
I know people personally who were Christian leaders….people VERY close to me, who would rather forsake their entire family, ministry, calling, and spouse for a temporary fling with another person who apparently has just as much contempt for God’s idea of marriage as they do.
Today is a day of mourning. Mourning for the Church.
But today needs to also be a wake up call. Today needs to be the moment where the Church of America looks in the mirror and says, “Enough is enough!” It is the day the Church of America needs to seek out forgiveness from God on high for the evil we have allowed to take place in our own four walls, and start to realign ourselves with God’s word.
Or do we simply just not know what God has to say about sexual immorality?
1 Corinthians 6:18
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
Healing can happen in our land. This doesn’t have to be the final nail in the coffin of the American Church. It doesn’t have to end like this. So tonight, I simply leave you with this to chew on:
2 Chronicles 7:14
If MY people who are called by MY name humble themselves, and pray and seek MY face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.