Sex by Force
Tom Shrader addresses the epidemic of sexual abuse in society and uses Lot's life to illustrate seven destructive patterns that destroy families. He emphasizes that children need parents more than material things, critiques the 'two income necessity' myth, and warns against compromising spiritual values for business success or social acceptance.
“When you have kids, your life is on hold to raise those kids.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Sexuality by Design (1999)
Recorded: November 04, 1999
Duration: 40 min
Themes: abuse, family, protection, boundaries, parenting, marriage, relationships, obedience, parent, husband, new believer, protecting children, struggling with boundaries, family crisis, recovering from abuse, seeking biblical guidance
Scripture: Genesis 19, 1 Corinthians 7, 2 Peter, Leviticus 24-25, Deuteronomy 6
Theological Themes: biblical authority, gods design, sexual purity, scriptural guidance, divine principles, spiritual warfare, holiness, sanctification
Full Transcript
This is week six in our eight-week series dealing with the issue of sex. Let me direct your attention to the subtitle of this series: Discovering the Ground Rules for Healthy Relationships. The premise, and it needs to come back to this over and over again, is God has rules and principles that He's put in place for our lives. They are there for our own good. They're there for our own benefit. To the extent that I violate those rules, I am running contrary to what God has for my life, and my life simply will not flourish.
Forget for a second all the theology of this. We'll come back to it, and we don't say that to you very often. Just the sheer pleasure of life itself is enhanced when I follow God's rules. God gave me principles. He gave you principles to operate your life by. He wrote the Owner's Manual, the Scripture, the infallible Word of God, for your good pleasure to read, to understand, so you might know Him, know His Son, know what it means to have eternal life. But eternal life has to it the aspect that begins today.
God's Blueprint for Relationships
Your life, all of a sudden - Ground Rules for Healthy Relationships. You want to see a married couple flourish? We got all these people running around, paying $150 an hour to try to figure out relationships. Read the Scripture and do it. I mean, it isn't that difficult. How do I get along with my children? How does this operate? I begin to look at what does the Scripture say? What does God say? What does God put in my life? What does God put in my heart as a believer? What's the instruction that He gives to me?
I follow it, and all of a sudden, I've got these principles. We're meeting with a guy right now who's been a Christian for about just over 30 days. Maybe he's into about his 40th day. One of the comments that he's talking about is all of a sudden how his relationship with his wife is changing, his relationship with his kids is changing. There's two things. One, he now has a converted heart that he never had before. Number two, he's just beginning to love and to nurture her as Christ loves the church. He's just beginning to see what God had for him in terms of how we're to live.
That's what we're trying to get at here in this area of sex. God has put in our heart and in our life this desire for sex. He said this desire is good in the confines that He's laid out for it, in the confines of marriage. So if you're involved in adultery, if you're involved in fornication, if you're involved in homosexuality, you are operating in a perversion of God's plan. Therein lies the tension in all of this.
Today's Topic: Sex by Force
Today's topic looks like one of those that ought to be a no-brainer: the issue of sex by force. We're going to sense that God's against this, and I'll tip my hand - He is. That's a pretty easy deal. But why we're dealing with it is really twofold. Number one, not to spend much time on trying to convince you that God is against rape and incest and those things, but to try to help you see the proliferation of this issue that we deal with in society.
Then we're going to, as we head into the last two weeks of this series, where we talk about sex and marriage, and then sex and marriage, try to help you see, in maybe a little bit of a creative way, how if you want to destroy your family, we're going to give you seven guaranteed ways to do it. We've tried to give you some positive instruction. Let's approach it now negatively. That's what we're going to try to get at. We have discovered that man is dumb as a brick in so many areas, but almost defiantly creative when it comes to sin.
The Scope of the Problem
Here are the statistics. Sexual harassment - and these statistics, we can argue about them. I use them just to give you a benchmark. I'll tell you this: I don't think I'm a prude. I've been to Las Vegas, and I've been around, and I don't know. Some of these statistics kind of blow me away.
About 20 to 30 percent of the women, and an ever-growing percentage of men, say they have been harassed in the marketplace sexually. About 90 percent of rapes go unreported, and I think I just heard the number the other day that rapes this year, violent rapes, were at about 125,000. So if you take that times 10, that would be about a million two a year, something like that.
Marital rape - 25 million wives, I don't know where they get this, were involved or felt that they had been raped by their husbands last year. I don't want to make light of that. It's obviously a serious issue. Date rape, which we had when I was in school, but I don't know what we called it - about one out of four guys say they're involved in that. Incest, sexual abuse - probably about 250,000 kids a year.
Here are the latest numbers from Canada. Fourteen percent - this is a result that we've got from a study that was done in the country of Canada - 14 percent of adults said they're currently involved in some sort of sexual abuse. Three out of ten guys said they had been abused. At least half of the women said they had been on at least one occasion a victim of some sort of abuse. We obviously have no definition there and all that goes with it. The idea is simply to give you some sense of the scope of the problem.
Latest statistics say that one out of three girls being born right now, if trends continue, in this country will be a victim of sexual abuse, incest or sexual abuse. If you go over here to Scottsdale Memorial Hospital - I drove by the hospital on the way up today - and you pick up these three brand new born babies, one of these three, statistically, will be a victim of sexual abuse and incest. What an awful situation in the country. Again, more and more of that flowing out of the fact that you have blended families, step-fathers, step-mothers and all that goes with it.
What's God got to say about this?
God has a plan for marriage, and God has a plan for sex. He encourages sex in the confines of marriage. First Corinthians 7, and we'll talk at length about it the next two times that we look at this, is that God says to a husband and wife, husbands don't deny your wife your body and vice versa. In our marriage counseling, and especially even in the marriage ceremony itself, we talk about this.
I've taken... I've softened my position. It just kills me to have to admit it, but I'm softening my position on this a little bit. Rather than say the primary reason, one of the most important reasons, maybe even the primary reason to get married, I soften it a ton. I think about the companionship and all these other things, and male-female rounded out all this other stuff.
I got Paul saying, it's better to be single than married, right? But he said, here's one of the driving forces to be married, and it's sexual. It really is. Everything that Susan and I have in our relationship, other than sex, we could have in the dating process. Really. Pretty much. Companionship? Get a dog. I'm not saying those things aren't important. I'm not saying those things aren't significant. I'm saying, this is the thing that separates the relationship that Susan and I have now, other than it's lifelong and all that other stuff. God's saying, listen, no problem in this area of sex. It's time. I'm with you in the confines of marriage.
God's View on Sexual Violence
What does God say about rape? What does God say about date rape, the idea of incest? In all of these issues, what God is saying, and we go to the Levitical law, we understand we're not under that anymore, but we go to that, and we see that God deals with these situations in a harsh way. Even in the instance of rape, He says, this is really worthy of a death penalty situation in some specific cases. God is harsh with this, and He understands and says for us, and it relates to us, the severity of this issue.
In fact, as He talks about incest, He talks about the Canaanites, and He describes the moving them out of the land, and He uses a phrase in Leviticus 24, 25, He said, the land vomited its inhabitants. It just literally threw them up. Even the ground is defiled in this process.
God's Value on Children
What does God say about children? Well, God puts great value on children. We talked an awful lot about this in the last week, so I'm not going to spend a ton of time here, but I want you to see how important this is to God, and how important it's become to the society. Every major magazine, by that, to me, I'm talking about Time, U.S. News, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, every one of these magazines has done a cover story in the last year somehow on children. I left here last week, went down in the new, I think it was Time, had on, what are your high schoolers thinking? Newsweek did a cover story, and their subtitle was on kids were a hindrance to career. It's looking at this whole idea of children.
Let me give you my view now. When you have kids, your life is on hold to raise those kids. That's the deal. They're not my problem. They are, ultimately, but they aren't my problem. They're my responsibility. It doesn't take a village. It takes a mom and a dad. That's what it takes to raise a kid. That was the plan, and we have moved away from that.
The Two-Income Myth
Watch all these arguments, and I swear we're getting a sticky wicket, and so some of you we're going to miss seeing you again, but we get into this discussion all the time, and it takes two incomes. No, it doesn't. It doesn't take two incomes. You've decided to make it take two incomes.
I had a situation where I had a gal working, and she was in one of the studies, and she was making a good living, but her husband was making well into six figures, and she got pregnant. It was a planned pregnancy, and she was wrestling with whether to continue to work, and I had stayed on the sidelines, because I knew the discussion was going on, and had not quite been invited in. I didn't think enough to offer my view, and then she came and said, here's what I've decided to do. I've decided I'm going to go back to work. What do you think?
I said, well, let me tell you what. Let me give you my view here, and I'm going to give you a test. It's a one-question test, and it's multiple choice, and you're going to think I'm being flip, and I'm not. I'm not at all being flip. I'm just saying to you, what does a new baby need? I said, please don't even answer it now. I want you to go and think about it. What does a newborn baby need? A, a jeep, B, a swimming pool, C, a mother, and of course, she was immediate to go, well, probably all of the above, and I said, well, let's just, for sake of discussion, say, let's be defiantly creative when we want to be, for sake of discussion, let's say one, and she said, well, obviously, a mother.
Her point was, I want to give this kid all the best, all the best. Here's the best thing you can give your kid, not a $150 pair of Nikes, it's a mom, it's a dad. You want to read a tragic book, pick up Senator Goldwater's autobiography. You can get it now at a used bookstore for a couple of bucks, and read your way through there, focusing on his relationship with his family, his family that, at best, was dysfunctional, that had problems all over. As you read through this, here's what you see. There's no relationship going on. He holds a council, asks the kids in that family, should I run for president? No, he announces.
of these guys are very in love with their family to do that. But then, here's where it gets really interesting in the middle. He talks about taking these whitewater rafting trips every year, and a trip to the coast every year. And five pages later, he's talking about how he can't really understand why the family's not functioning.
Here's what he did. It's the classic illustration. He gave them a couple of things, and they were big things, and said, that ought to take care of them for a while. So I'm sure the discussion around the island went like this: "How can you not be part, don't you remember, do you know what it costs me to take you rafting?"
Here's where it gets hard, because the kids won't reinforce this. They'll go for the shoes or the trip, but what they're really saying is, "I want you." I sit around with 50-year-old men who cry openly about the fact that they never really spend any time with their dad, 50-year-old guys. And my question always to them is, "How have you changed or allowed that to change your relationship with your kid?" And almost always, it hasn't.
What Kids Really Need
When the girls were small, and I get to go back and revisit some of these illustrations from my own life with my own kids, and when they were small, those were magnificent moments. But Haley was three, Sarah was five, and I was asked to speak on parenting, which is so stupid. Why would you have somebody with little kids to speak on parenting? Dumb. How do I know what I know? I don't know anything.
And so I told them that, but no, that was a topic. So I went in, and I said to Sarah at age five, "What do you need from your mom and me more than anything else?" And I mean, she didn't hesitate. She said, "I need you to love me." Haley, a little less sophisticated at three, I said, "Hey, what do you need from your mom and me?" And she said, "Hugs and kisses."
I believe most parents don't love their kids. We're not quite here as a society where we can openly acknowledge it, but we're there. Here's what I base it on. I bring my husband and wife in, and they're not getting along, and I'll say, "Well, you know," I always start with a gal, because the guy has no idea what the problem is.
So I start with a gal. I say, "Well, tell me what you think." "Well, he doesn't love me." And I'll say, "Do you love me?" "Yeah, I do." And I said, "Well, he says he loves you." "Well, he doesn't." "Do you love him?" "Yes." "Do you tell her you love her?" "Yes." "He said he loves me. He said he loves me."
And I said, "Listen, he said he loves you. What's the problem here?" And she said, "Yes, but he doesn't show it." It's not enough to say, "I love you." We got people running around saying, "I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my kids." Show me a decision you're making, other than this economic, going to give them everything. Show me a decision you're making that would demonstrate that.
The Real Priority Crisis
We've got a crisis providing safe daycare for kids. Well, here's the problem. That's the mom and dad's job, not the society's job. Are there some instances where that mom needs to work? Sure, there's a couple, not many. Most of the time, you know it, most of the time, they're working for the perks, the newer car, the bigger house. Or even worse yet, to make enough money to pay the tax consequence that they have. Those are issues.
But fundamentally, we need to understand, God puts extraordinary value on children. Jesus says, "Let the little ones come to me, the kingdom of heaven. Have faith like these children." Great value on children. We as a society, as much as we want to talk about this, are moving away from that value.
In fact, that leads us right into this: seven steps we're going to give you, seven steps to screw up your family, and we'll guarantee it. You're going to get seven, but you've got to follow them. I don't know if it's just going to happen.
Lot's Fatal Decision
We go to the Old Testament, and we look at Lot. We look at a couple of decisions here in Lot's life, and obviously, they aren't the primary thrust of this story. Anytime we look at this, we make a bit of a mistake if we start to read these stories and focus on the individuals, and miss that the major character of the Old Testament is God and who He is, and His grace, and His mercy, and the picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here's Lot. Lot and Abraham have been very successful in business. Now it's so successful, the land can't support them, and we say Lot has a decision. Here's where he can live. Here or here. He looked at the plain of Jordan. Here's what he saw. You see it on the screen? It was well-watered.
He knew two things. It was well-watered, meaning it was good for business, and the guys that lived there were pretty sinful, pretty wicked. So here's what Lot said. Lot said, "I'm going to make the decision. Here's what I'll take. I'll take that land over there. I'll take that business opportunity in spite of the fact that it's probably got with it this whole dark side, this whole wicked side, all this sin that goes with it."
Doesn't say it in the text, but I'm sure on the way there, Lot said to himself, "You know, we're going to go there, and we're going to have an influence. We're going to be salt and light there. That's what it is." Well, he's half right about half his family is what he was. They're going to be salt there, but I'm going to be salt and light.
And see all of a sudden, here's what he said, "I'll take my family." Here you go: Family, business, family, business, family, business, family, business, business, business, business. "I'll make that family. I don't care about the wickedness. I don't care about the sin." Start to make those decisions in your life. Look at that well-watered plain and say, "That's where I want to go."
Now that's not enough in and of itself to screw you up, but you're on a good track. Now as you're starting to wrestle with these things, don't begin to confront them on your own. This is from 2 Peter. This is a little goofy. When we're told
The Struggle of Righteous Lot
Peter tells us that Lot is a righteous man, because it's a struggle to see it here. Lot's rescued. He's a righteous man. He lived among these filthy men. He kind of deplored their filthiness, but we see in here that there's no issue where he's starting to deal with it in a stand. He's not taking a stand.
It would go something like this: Well, we live in a pluralistic society, and I have my views, but the last thing I want to do is force my view on anyone else. We see it in our culture in a dominant way in the abortion issue. It's one thing, I think, to say, I'm pro-life. I admire that position. My second favorite position is to say, no, I'm not. I'm pro-abortion. I'm just pro-abortion. It's a good thing. It's a great thing, and I like it. At least I respect that for its honesty.
The Incoherence of Personal Opposition
What I hate is the position in the middle that says, I'm personally against it, but I'm not going to force my view on anybody else. Why are you against it? When the president says, and I quote, I want to make it safe, legal, and rare, why does he want to make it rare? If it's safe and if it's legal, why would you want it to be rare? It's like saying, if it's safe and legal, why would you want everybody to have it? Because instinctively, I think he knows, and everyone else knows, that you're dealing here with a human life. It's not just a matter of choice.
All right, it's a woman's body. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want with it. No, you can't. We have that in all other areas of society. You can't go down here in the street corner and sell that body that's yours. You can't shoot it up with heroin.
Faith Is Personal but Not Private
It's this position that says, if we live in a pluralistic society, that's fine, but you've got a view, and you can't keep it a secret. Your faith is a very personal matter, but it is not a private matter. It must affect the way you think, and how you see the world, and your worldview.
We've talked about it before, but there was a critical moment. I think all these guys go, 1968, but that's not the moment to me. I've talked about it before - in 1960, when John Kennedy stood before that group of Protestant pastors and said, because the issue was, if a Catholic's in the White House, the Pope will run the country. Well, he didn't. When John Kennedy said to those Protestants, my faith will not affect the way I govern, what he said was, I can't imagine a dumber statement in my life. The most personal thing I have in my life won't affect the way I operate my job?
We don't say that to our kids. Do you say that to your kids? I know this is what you believe, but don't let it affect the way you handle your relationships with your date. It doesn't make any sense. Lot all of a sudden says, hey, I want to keep this stuff a secret.
Lot's Gradual Compromise
Here's the third thing Lot does: Think you can be in the middle of this and not get any of this stuff on you. Two angels come to Lot, and look what happens. He's now sitting at the gateway of the city. Most scholars would agree that the person who's sitting at the gateway of the city was a city official. Lot started with a tent that was pitched on the edge of town. He's moved into town. He's now part of this system.
When these angels come, we again looked at this story a couple of weeks ago, and they bow down to Him, and he said, my lord, please turn aside to your servant's house, wash your feet. They said, no, we're going to spend the night in the town square. And he says, no, come with me. And before they'd gone to bed, remember the men from all the parts of the city surrounded the house and said, where are these guys that are in town? Bring them out. We want to have sex with them.
If you think you can insulate and isolate yourself from the sin around you, you're nuts. Look at the progression: Tent in the city, house in the city, city official.
The Influence of What We Watch
I have never seen South Park, the little show. I've never seen The Simpsons, and it's not because I'm too good for it. It's just not my deal. I turned on, one time, The Simpsons. I turned on the TV, and The Simpsons were on, because the station had been left there. And I thought, well, I hear a lot about this. I'm going to watch this. I watched it for about three minutes, and this little Bart guy, who reminds me more of me than I'd like to admit, this little Bart guy, and I'm saying, this is dumb. And I'm thinking, this is why. And I hear parents talk about it. They watch it with their kids, and they laugh, and this guy's real funny. That explains the behavior you see in the society.
A few years ago, I came home, and I said to the girls, I said, what's this Beavis and Butthead thing? They said, well, it's a show that's on MTV. And I said, have you ever seen it? And they said, no, I've never seen it at all. I heard the kids talk about it at school, and I said, you know what? I'm hearing all these people talk about it. We're going to watch Beavis and Butthead tonight. We're going to watch this and figure out what this is.
About a half hour later, Haley came into my office, and she said, I need to talk to you. And I said, OK. What about it? She said, don't make me watch Beavis and Butthead. And I said, oh, man, really? She said, I don't think, Dad, I should see it, Beavis and Butthead. I said, OK. She said, Dad, I don't think you should see it, either. I said, well, Haley, it was just a test. But you know what she understood? She said, I know that this stuff's awful. I don't need to see it. I see these kids, and I see what they talk about, and I see the way they act, and it ultimately affects how they behave.
The Impossibility of Cultural Isolation
When we're seeing it all around us, you cannot isolate yourself from the society. Don't think for a second that you aren't in some struggle and that you begin to compromise. And all of a sudden, you're compromising and maybe don't even realize the compromise that's taken place.
You begin to put on some of these old movies, and you see this controversy of, you know, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. And we're thinking, these people are all bent out of shape,
That's mainstream now. That's old-time gospel hour stuff, almost, compared to where we are now. How did we get there? Well, here's how we got there. Just a little bit at a time, frog in the kettle, heat turned up, position, thesis, antithesis, new thesis, and before we know it, we've moved way over here from this spot over here.
Family Sacrifice for Reputation
Here's the fourth thing you can do. Accept family sacrifice to maintain this whole idea of reputation and peers. It's an incredible moment to me. Lots of people in Lot's city come around, they say, send out those two guys, we want to have sex with them. And Lot says, no, I couldn't do that wicked thing. That would be awful. I couldn't imagine doing that. But I do have two daughters that are virgins. Take my daughters, please.
What would be his motive? Well, don't do anything to these men. They've come under my roof for protection. My reputation is on the line. These guys have trusted me.
Have you gotten to that point in your life where all of a sudden peer pressure and reputation has become the dominant thing? Even more important than just good common sense? That you really start to worry about what people really think and really care?
The Business World's Demands
It really transitions itself in the business, especially. When the company says, we're going to send you to Dayton, and you say, Dayton it is, yes, sir. But don't unpack those bags because it's not long until Fort Lauderdale, yes, sir, Fort Lauderdale. And then pretty soon, it's over here to Tulsa. And then it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and New York, New York, I can make it there. I can make it anywhere.
And after about 12 moves in 12 years, you're sitting one night in Biloxi, Mississippi as an associate VP, the very people that are laying off now, by the way, saying, how did we get here? Our kids are out of control. Your wife's in tears because she has no friends. The only friends she has are people she went to high school with. She hasn't been anywhere long enough where she's had the house unpacked and pictures on the wall. You don't know anybody. You're isolated.
And you sit down at the end of that life, and what you realize is you've moved and you've moved and you've moved, and what you've done is placed job and what people... You love the fact you can pull out a business card and say, give me a call here, and it's a Fortune 500 company, and you're a VP. People respond to that.
The Absence of Spiritual Conversation
Three more things, quickly. We don't talk about spiritual things. And you need to take your time. There's no way I'm doing this justice. You know that. You need to take your time and read your way through the text.
Now the call has come. You've got to get out of the city. You've got to get out of the city. You've got to get out of the city. And we have no record here of Lot ever talking to any of these people about spiritual things. Finally, he says to the kids, we've got to get out of the city, God's going to destroy the city. Look at the last sentence. His son-in-laws think he's joking. Hey, that's a good one. That's a good one there. Wow! I never thought about that.
Letting Children Figure Out Spirituality Alone
Here's the dumbest thing I see people doing, I think, in raising their kids. They say, you know what we're going to do? We're going to let our kids make their own decisions about spiritual things. We're going to let them figure it out on their own.
You know, we don't do that with racism. You know what we say? Racism is awful. It's bad. All men are, all women, all people are created equal in the eyes of God. We don't say to people, you know what? This law of gravity, we think it's in place, but why don't you figure it out on your own? If you're so inclined, go jump off that Bank of America building and you figure it out on your own.
We don't say it with nutrition. I watch parents, every time I go out, I watch parents say, you can't eat that, you can't eat that, don't eat that. Of course, they always end up eating those things. But don't eat that, don't eat that, eat this. But now we come to spiritual things, well, this is a very private thing. We're going to let our children figure this out on their own. It's a pattern for destruction.
Constant Spiritual Teaching
What do you do with spiritual things, Deuteronomy 6. You talk to these kids when they sit down, when you walk, when you lie down. At every moment, you're talking, you know who does, I've watched Susan. I've watched Susan with our girls, and she doesn't have a set time when she does devotions with these kids. They're doing devotions 24 hours a day, and I don't mean that in some way.
Every moment that comes along, I'll hear Susan say, see how God did that, look at that, isn't that interesting? Every year, Sarah would go plant these sunflowers, and these things would grow huge. And every year, I'd hear the same speech, isn't it amazing, Sarah, that we can take this little seed, we put it in the ground, and it dies, and we give it water and nourishment, and God brings sun to it, and God causes it to grow? It's not about what a great farmer and gardener you are. It's about what a great God we have, who would have a creation as beautiful as this. And if that's a beautiful creation, and that's a miracle, think of what a miracle you are as a human.
I would watch her do this all the time. Everything in our life is to point back to God and who He is.
The Heart of a New Christian
I mentioned this guy, I'm encouraged because I just, I mean, there's something, and we were talking a little bit about it before, there is something about being with a new Christian, and I mean, this guy sees God everywhere. Everything's got God in it. There's nothing but a spirit of thanksgiving and praise in his heart. There's a sense of worship, he's just beginning, now we're working our way, our study today is on Jesus, who He is, and what He did on the cross. But last week, it was on God, and His holiness, and His righteousness, and His mercy, and how God intervened in his life, and God caused him to be born again, and it's all an act of God, and He didn't do
anything, and God did everything. You know what He doesn't do? He doesn't argue about that. You know what His question is? This is how you know, by the way, if somebody's got it or not. He said, "Why me? Why'd He save me? How come me? I wasn't a very good person." That's so good.
I said, "Hey, I got no answer to that," because it's not because He saw anything good in you. It's not He looked down and said, "Well, deep down inside, He's a good person." Deep down inside, He's depraved, and sinful, and awful, and yucky, and He's worthy of nothing but hell. And God says, "Ah, you, that's the one right there."
And His God gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and He gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller. And here He is, just like a little child now, 40 days old. I don't say to Him, "Well figure that out on your own."
Don't Talk About Judgment
Two more points. Here's the sixth thing you do: Don't talk about judgment. Don't talk about the idea that there's this inevitable consequence, and this deals with the destruction, ultimately, of Sodom, and all that goes with it. Don't begin to think in those grand terms. Put off thinking about the stuff that's inevitable.
I remember June 13th, it was about nine years ago. It was my father's 66th birthday. It was a Wednesday morning. And my dad is just a pretty incredible fellow. One of the strengths, I think, that he has is he is predictable, or you could say reliable, or dependable.
He graduated from college on a Saturday, married my mom on a Sunday, took a week off to go on a honeymoon, came back, went to work for the bank, and worked there for 42 years, and then retired. That's pretty reliable. More than me, anyway. And his routine is reliable. He gets up every day, does his little thing, gets in, shaves, and he pretty much has that knocked out by six o'clock.
So it was a Wednesday morning, and I was teaching down in Tucson, and so I got up, and I was all done. So it was four o'clock here, so it's six o'clock there. So I know he's at least done shaving and getting ready for some stuff. So I called, and he's also a morning guy, much more perky in the morning. And I've always believed that's because no one else in the house is. I just think he enjoys that, at least for the boys, anyway.
So I called, and he said, "Hello." I said, "Hey, how are you doing?" "Oh, great." I said, "Happy birthday." And he said, "Well, thank you." I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Just got done shaving." I said, "Really? Who would have thunk that? I would have never. Oh, that's a surprise."
And we talked, and we talked, and he was a couple weeks away from retiring and all that went with it. And I hung up, because I knew it was going to be a busy day, and I just didn't think I'd get to call him.
Life Passes Quickly
And I'm driving to Tucson, and I have my Toltec Road—for many of you, is just a nothing thing. For me, it's my harmonic conversion, my ying and my yang, always lined up at the Toltec Road. And I'm at the Toltec Road, and all of a sudden, this is exactly what came into my mind: There's a day, not too long from now, when Sarah and Hayley are going to call me and say, "Hey, Dad, happy 66th birthday."
I have, for a long time, had this view that life—do you understand, it is November. And we're three weeks from today, it's Thanksgiving. Let me say for you, where did this go? Where did it go?
I'm at my desk the other day, and I'm picking them up, and I notice everybody's leaving. I'm thinking, "Wow, everybody's leaving." And I'm getting in my car, and I look in my car, it's 6:30. I would have bet a billion dollars it was about 2:15. Where did it go?
It is so valuable to realize that and understand that there is a day at which all of this is going to end for us individually. There is a day of judgment, and when we think of judgment, we tend to think of all those guys out there. No, the non-believer isn't judged. The non-believer is condemned. The scripture says you and I are judged. "What did you do with those gifts I gave you?"
Priority Living
I have, as all of you painfully are aware of by this point, turned 50 here in a couple of weeks, and it's really interesting for me because I find myself not so much asking where those 50 years go, although the 70s were a little bit of a blur. I find myself not so much asking that. I find myself saying, "What am I going to do with the next 15 or 20?"
All of a sudden, I've come to the realization that in my life, priority living and the church are my opus. This is it. There isn't going to be anything else I'm going to do. I'm not about to move. I'm not going to do something else. This is it, and it takes on everything.
You know what it does? It does a couple of things. So at the church, when I deal with people now, and I understand I'm going to be here for another 15 years or whatever, all of a sudden I deal with them very differently than if they're just somebody that I've got to deal with and I don't know where I'm going to be a year from now.
What are you doing with your life? Boy, you're going to have a great time. You just pretend that there's no day of reckoning. This is going to go on forever. Just put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off. "I'll screw everything else. Live for today." You got them screwed up if you can do that.
The Results of This Lifestyle
Here's the last thing. Does this really work? Well, look at Lot's family. They're at the end now. Now they're gone. Lot's daughters are there, and there's no guys around, and boy, have they passed the value system on? Yep.
Here's what they say: "There's no guy here. Let's get dad drunk and sleep with him." Boy, this stuff works. This is great. Want to screw up a family? That's how you can do it.
Now obviously our tongue is deeply implanted in our cheek. This is not what we advocate. Here's what we say to you, and the issues are so clear: Do you know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior? Have you come to Him in repentance and faith? And who He is. And acknowledge that and believe in
that and accept that as true. At that point, my life now, my eternal life, is secure when I understand that. That response to the gospel transforms my life. My life begins to change.
God's against sex by force. I figured that out at the very beginning. God has a plan here for how we're to run our whole family. Those are some of those things you can pick up tapes and stuff dealing with the rest of them.
God's Design for Sex
What about sex? That's still our topic. What does God say about sex? Well, God says there is a place for sex, and it's within marriage. That's how we round out these series, the next two weeks of our discussion. Sex and marriage, and sex in marriage. That's what we'll focus on in the next couple of weeks.
Father, help us see the truth of this. Help us understand that You do have healthy ground rules for relationships in our lives, in every area and every aspect and all that we're dealing with. Father, we pray that You would make those profound changes in our life. Help us see it.
Maybe it's not a salvation issue for us. It's just that we've gotten so swept away with what's going on around us. Even though we've never stopped and consciously made the decision, we've just unconsciously bought into this whole system of values. We've placed, in our honesty, we've placed our business and our personal reputation above our family.
Some of us are reaping what we've sown, and it's painful and it's ugly to watch. God, let us be forgiven for those sins. Thank You for that forgiveness, and help us deal in a loving way with the consequence of these decisions. We pray to You in Jesus' name, amen.