A dear friend told me a troubling story yesterday about a longtime church member in another town who reportedly has done the Romans 1:25 thing by exchanging the truth of God for a lie.
The account given me by my ministry friend is this: A longtime leader in a north Florida church has abandoned and divorced his wife of many years so that he could chase after the excitement of an affair that has progressed into a new marriage.
How did this moral collapse reportedly start?
The man did not protect his soul from the lure of lustful thoughts when he was by himself at the computer.
His dabbling in Internet porn led to diving into Internet porn which was then followed by growing dissatisfaction with his spouse in unwholesome ways and you can finish the rest of the story.
The rejected wife, of course, is crushed.
Her church leader, longtime Christian husband was the last person in the world from whom she expected this behavior.
What is most troubling to me from this account is that it is just one in an ongoing series of victories for Satan’s lies.
This is not simply a case of “Men are jerks.”
Remember, he didn’t have an affair with another man.
There is plenty of “jerk” sauce being consumed by both genders.
Instead, this is a case of a believer turning off the flow of Living Water pouring into his heart and replacing it with stagnant, filth-filled water from the gutter.
It’s no wonder that the result of drinking gutter water is a sin-sick person who seems oblivious to full consequences of his or her choices.
I thought of the above situation this morning while reading this morning from the One-Year Bible. In 2 Chronicles 17, we read of King Jehoshaphat’s wonderful commitment to obeying the scriptures and of how he sent teams of teachers throughout the Southern Kingdom of Judah in order to train the people in knowing and obeying God’s Word.
It was a beautiful season in Judah’s history and God poured out untold blessings in King Jehoshaphat’s life. Why? Because God was thrilled with how His selected leader was guiding the Hebrews in Judah.
But then, Jehoshaphat messed up.
He ignored God’s Word.
He apparently married a daughter of the evil King Ahab of the rebellious Northern Kingdom — for political reasons, I’m sure — and in doing so, started down the path of trading pure, Living Water for the tainted, idol-worshipping water of false teachers surrounding King Ahab.
Chronicles 18 describes a tragedy that followed Jehoshaphat’s alignment with Ahab. I hope you’ll read it in order to be reminded of why close, influencing associations with people who embrace false teaching should be avoided at all costs.
The Bible says in I Corinthians 15:33 that bad company corrupts good character.
We all know that this is absolutely true.
We’ve seen it far to many times in the lives of people we know.
And we’ve even seen it in our own lives.
Please, dear friend, avoid bad company that would rather drink in gutter water than they would the Living Water of God’s Word.
Even if that “bad company” is a computer image of a fantasy girl or guy, view it like the plague.
Because that’s exactly what Satan hopes to launch into your life.
As always, I love you
Martin
