TRANSCRIPT: Ashley Madison and the absurdity of sin
By / Sep 11

Hello, this is Russell Moore, and this is Questions and Ethics, the program where we take your moral dilemmas and look at them in the light of scripture and the gospel. And today, the question that I have is actually not from one of you. The question is from me. And that is because with all of the news and controversy right now about the Ashley Madison hack—For those of you who are not aware of this, it’s a website that is designed to help people to have affairs—so, people pay in order to find people to commit adultery with. And hackers, of course, have gotten into the list of customers. They’ve made that list available. So, I have just been—I don’t know about y’all, but I have been seeing all week long just one devastating situation after another where people have been caught in this, and marriages breaking up, and all sorts of awful ramifications.

So, the question I have is when this started to happen—because I have to tell you I assumed when I first saw Ashley Madison talked about on some television news program, I assumed that this was really just kind of a publicity stunt because I thought nobody’s really going to be paying money to do this. Well, I was wrong. Millions and millions and millions of people signing up and doing this. So, I found myself the other day on the phone saying to someone, “How could people be this stupid?” I mean, how could you think that you are going to go in and use your credit card and get involved with some website and that you weren’t going to get caught? I had several conversations with friends in ministry about that. It just seems crazy and irrational and self-destructive.

But as I said that, and I heard myself even asking the question, are these people really that stupid, the more I’ve started thinking about that, and to realize that the people who are Ashley Madison customers are not more stupid than anybody else. And I really should have known that even from the very beginning. Everybody who has an adulterous affair is acting in ways that are irrational and ultimately self-destructive. I mean, every situation like that is the case. I mean, even the guy who founded Ashley Madison told a New Zealand newspaper in 2010 that he’s happily married, and he’d be devastated if his wife ever cheated on him or if she ever used a website or something like Ashley Madison herself. So, it is inherently something that doesn’t lead to good results.

I mean, even if you just bracketed biblical morality and the gospel for a moment and just used that Proverbs sort of wisdom that says look and see how this ends up. You know, the Proverbs say that one doesn’t take a dog by the ears. Well, why is that? because we can observe and say people who come up and just take a random dog in the street and grab him by the ears, it doesn’t end well. And people who cheat on their spouses, it doesn’t end well. So, why do people do it?

And I think the problem that I was having as I was looking at Ashley Madison is that I was thinking in inherently rational ways which is not the way that any of us think. And that is precisely the danger of temptation, whatever the temptation is. We can assume that these people just lack intelligence or skill or foresight, and if they had just been a little bit smarter they wouldn’t have gotten caught in this. That is not the case at all. I mean, if you think of the pattern of temptation that we see in scripture, it always attempts to conceal potential consequences and to give the person a feeling as though the person is above consequences, as though the person is special. When the serpent comes to Eve, he says if you eat of this you will be like God knowing good and evil, and you “will not surely die.” Well then when we look in Proverbs 7 at the father saying to his son don’t go in the way of the adulteress—well, how does it happen? He gives the example of a young man who it just seems like everything is happening just right: He goes out onto the street, and he happens upon this woman, and she happens to be interested in him, and her husband happens to be out of town, and so she happens to invite him over. And he doesn’t realize that he is being gradually lured toward his destruction, “as an ox is taken to slaughter,” the Proverbs is saying to us.

And so what we need to realize is that temptation isn’t merely cognitive. People aren’t just marking out here are the benefits of this action and the consequences of this action. That’s not the way people think. It’s not merely biological either. There is a biological instinct toward sexual expression that is designed by God to lead us into marital intimacy with one another, toward the one-flesh union. And so it is very powerful. And that is exploited by the flesh, is exploited by what the scripture refers to as both the world—the environment around us and the system of the universe around us—and the by the devil—by those invisible personages in the universe that really seek our destruction. And the tempting powers come after us in much the same way, whatever your particular point of vulnerability is. They want to distort the way that we see the future.

So, if I am wanting to—if I know that eating deep fat fried doughnuts every morning is going to raise my cholesterol levels, you know, it doesn’t matter if I know that, cognitively, unless I can imagine myself having a heart attack. If I start to imagine heart attacks as the things that happen to other people and not to me, then it is easy to pull myself towards something that is going to be destructive in that way. If I choose to give my children building blocks, and I don’t choose to give them matches to play with, it’s because I can imagine what it would be like to see my house burning down.

And in almost every adultery situation I’ve ever seen—and I say almost—I think every adultery situation I’ve ever seen, there has never been a rational decision-making process going on. The person never really believes that he or she is going to get caught. And in many cases, in many of the adultery situations I’ve seen, the person who is cheating doesn’t want the marriage to end. In many cases, the person wants to keep everything the same—spouse, kids, and the lover too. Now, that is irrational. That is not the way the world works. I mean you just look around and you see this taking place, and you are able to say to this guy or to this woman, that is not going to happen, that is not the way that you can build a healthy marriage. But you can convince yourself, or you can be convinced that this will work for you.

And the way that you become convinced of that is to think that you are special. You start to see yourself as having power over—just as our first parents did—what the serpent said to them is you can be the one to discern between good and evil. You can have that power in and of yourself. And if you have the power to discern between good and evil then you have the power over life and death—“You will not surely die.” Once we become convinced of that, through whatever reason—if we’re in a place of deep vulnerability, we’re in a place of distance from God, we’re in a place of—whatever’s going on in our life, once we fall for that we can do crazy, crazy things. It’s not simply just a matter of intelligence.

Satan is intelligent. Satan is hyper intelligent. And yet, Satan is able to see and know that God made a promise that he would crush his skull. He is able to see that Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead. He is able to see the presence of the Holy Spirit in the church through the life of the world. He is able to see all those things, and yet he rages all the more, Revelation 12 tells us, against Christ and his people because he knows his time is short. Now, that’s crazy. That’s crazy. Just in terms of military strategy, that is crazy because why would you continue to fight, when you know that you are on the losing side?

But the issue is not intelligence here. What we need is wisdom, and what wisdom does is not just give us consequences and benefits. Wisdom shows us the way that we are to walk. It shows us a picture of where our sinful choices are going to lead us—that sort of destruction—and it shows us the way to walk in which is sometimes a way that doesn’t seem right to us. “There is a way that seems right to a man,” the scripture says, “and the way thereof leads to death.” Okay. The scripture tells us that way is a person, Jesus of Nazareth, and we follow him even when it doesn’t make sense to us or it doesn’t feel right to us in the moment.

And so, you may be in a situation where you just aren’t in a place of vulnerability like these people who have been caught in the Ashley Madison situation are. And that may well be. We all have different points of vulnerability. But all of us, this side of resurrection, are on the verge of wrecking our life, at any point and at any time. We are always walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And the answer isn’t going to be found in our talent, it’s not going to be found in our strategy, it’s not going to be found in our brilliance—it is found only in wisdom, and wisdom is rooted, the scripture says, in fear, the fear of the Lord, and the vision of his future. And so we are constantly in need of the power of the Spirit. We are constantly in need of mercy.

And so, if you are tempted to do what I was tempted to do and to look at these guys caught and to say, “How stupid! How could you do that?” Well, take heed lest you fall because intelligence can’t save us from this. Planning can’t save us from this. Only the Spirit and the gospel can.

This is Russell Moore. This is Questions and Ethics. What’s your situation that you are dealing with? Do you have a moral dilemma? Maybe a conversation that you are having with a coworker and you are kind of stumped, or maybe you are reading your Bible and you come across something you don’t know how to make sense of it, or maybe something going on in the culture around you or in your neighborhood, and you are thinking I just don’t know what to do about this. Well, give me an email at [email protected] and I will be glad to take it up here on the Questions and Ethics program. Talk to you next time.

Life is Short. Don’t Have an Affair.
By / Aug 21

“Life is Short. Have An Affair.” – Ashley Madison

Their message was clear. You don’t have time to waste in a difficult or unsatisfying marriage. You don’t have time to waste in the boredom of faithful, sacrificial service to your spouse. You deserve better. You are better, so secretly step out and be satisfied. Find someone who fits you—and nobody has to know.

Ashley Madison’s offer to arrange a secret fling was popular. The adultery promoting website boasted of some 38 million anonymous members before they were outed by a group of hackers this week.

The shockwaves from this exposure will be far reaching and the fallout will be devastating. The names on the lists are real people. They have real spouses, real children, and real parents who must now deal with the real and lasting effects. Tens of millions of lives are now different because of this unveiling of sinful escapades.

Times like this provide us a unique opportunity to consider the deadly deception of sin. Let’s reflect on Ashley Madison’s message in light of what we’ve learned.

1. Life is short. Don’t believe the lie.

The Madison tag line does what all good temptations do—tell you a partial truth.

Life is short. This is true. We only have a brief amount of time to get the most out of our days before they are over. This makes the pains of a difficult marriage feel all the more imposing on our happiness.

Life is short. I deserve better.

Life is short. This isn’t who I thought I was marrying.

Life is short. I am tired of being the only one trying to make this work.

Pitting the difficulty of marriage against the brevity of life is a masterful way to allow discontentment to take a seat in the den of your heart.

It’s the same trick Satan pulled on Adam and Eve in the Garden when he told them that if they ate of the forbidden fruit they would “be like God knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1-6).

Satan told the truth to them. When they ate, they would go from only knowing good, to now experiencing evil as well. All that was true. The lie was that knowing evil would be better for them than the goodness God had already supplied.

I bet that first bite of the forbidden fruit was amazing. But the aftertaste has been more bitter than they could have imagined.

The temptation of adultery plays the same trick. At first, there is pleasure. The thrill of secrecy. The power of curiosity. The excitement of newness. The satisfaction of passion.

But that’s where the truth ends and the bitterness of the lie begins. If Madison was honest, her tag line would have said:

Life is Short. Let us help you destroy it!

Life is short. Be ever anxious about covering your tracks and deleting emails and erasing texts.

Life is short. Be always imagining ways to explain your travels and bank withdrawals.

Life is short. Be racked with fear and indescribable guilt when you walk in your house and see the eyes of your spouse and children.

Life is short. Be ready to get caught, because you will get caught.

We all get caught.

2. Life is short. You will be exposed.

On Tuesday, a list of adulterers was laid bare for all to see. We know no one expected this to happen. That’s why they used a site that promised anonymity for their adultery. They assumed, like we all do, that lies can be hidden.

We all do this don’t we? We think no one will know about that little lie we told. No one will see that Internet history we deleted. No one will see the way we judged that person in our heart.

We think that we can hide our sin, but the fact is that eventually “your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). And as shocking and devastating as the Ashley Madison unveiling was for those affected, it is merely a foreshadowing of what will happen for all people on one quickly approaching Day.

Jesus promised that “nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17). That means that every thing that has ever been done, thought, or imagined by every person who has ever lived, will one day be brought out in broad daylight.

The book of Revelation paints a picture of a day when all things will be exposed, not merely before other sinful people, but before the holy and just God of the universe.

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. From His presence earth and sky fled away…and I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened…and the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done” (Revelation 20:11-12).

On that day the list of all lists will be unveiled. Dates. Places. Actions. Motives. Lies. Cover-ups. Justifications.

Everything that has ever been done. By you. By me.

This is why the Ashley Madison exposure is such a blessing in disguise, both for those on the list, and for those on the outside looking in. It is a warning that one day all of our lists will be exposed, and God will not overlook any evil. But because He is good, He will bring just and eternal judgment on all people who have sinned (John 5:26-29).

3. Life is short. Come to Jesus.

This brings us back to the truth that Ashley Madison reminded us: life is short. But the brevity of life should not lead us to pursue fleeting and deceptive escapes.

Rather, it should bring a sober realization that what we need is not deliverance from the pressures of this life, but we need a Savior. We need someone to deliver us from the judgment that awaits us all.

And here we find the scandal of the Gospel. That Jesus is the Savior of all sorts of sinners. He did not come for those who have no sin. Rather, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Jesus came and died on the cross as a substitute for adulterers and liars and religious hypocrites alike. He then rose from the dead to extend forgiveness to all who will come to Him. For those who turn from their sin and believe in Him, He “forgives all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us” Colossians 2:13-14.

If you were on the Ashley Madison list, come to Jesus. He will forgive you. No matter if you were an atheist or a Christian. Today is the day to turn from your sin and turn to the Savior.

If you were among the ones wounded by someone on the list, come to Jesus. He promises that “we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

If you are someone on the outside looking in, come to Jesus. Events like this remind us that we too can fall into grave sin (1 Corinthians 10:12) and that we must prepare to give an account for our own lives.

Life is short. Don’t believe sin’s lies. All things will be exposed. Come to Jesus.

Four reasons why God forbids adultery
By / Aug 20

1. Because it goes against God’s original design

The prohibition against adultery doesn’t make sense until we understand God’s original design for sexual expression within the confines of marriage. From the beginning, God established a blueprint for the family. He saw that it was not good for man to be alone, and he created woman. Adam and Eve together reflected the image of God in their relationship of trust and love.

In Genesis 2:24-25, we read: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” God’s design was for one man to be united with one woman as one flesh. Man would leave his father and mother in order to form a new family. In the innocence and purity of the garden of Eden, they would live together naked and not feel any shame.

2. Because it destroys marriages and families

The glorious picture of marital bliss in the garden was shattered by human sin. When the first couple sinned against God, they became separated from God. The marriage covenant is still powerful, but because of sin, it is a fractured version of what God originally intended. Trust is broken. Marriages are imperfect. Many fall apart.

Throughout Old Testament history, we see how marriage was damaged as a result of sin in the world. Men mistreated women by betraying them or taking multiple wives. Adultery became commonplace.

A well-known story of adultery in the Old Testament is King David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11. Here we see a strong king who followed after God’s heart but fell to the sin of adultery. David, the giant-killer and mighty warrior, saw from the rooftop of his palace a beautiful woman bathing. What the king wanted, the king got. Disregarding the fact she was married to Uriah—a soldier on the front lines of his army fighting for Israel—David slept with her.

After Bathsheba informed him she was pregnant, David sent for Uriah, thinking he could cover up his sin by having Uriah spend the night with his wife. But Uriah was a faithful servant who extolled the virtues of his king and his soldiers. Even David’s plot to use alcohol to dull Uriah’s senses didn’t work. Uriah didn’t sleep with his wife, and the secret pregnancy would soon be known. The lust that led David to adultery next led him to lie and then led him to kill. In a remarkable display of depravity, David sent Uriah to the front lines and ordered the military commander to pull back during the fighting so Uriah would die.

David did not get away with this act of cruelty. God’s law was clear, and God’s law was intended to guide his people to a life filled with joy. David’s sin reaped severe consequences for his family and his country.

3. Because it damages a picture of the gospel

You may wonder what God’s law about adultery has to do with the gospel. In Galatians 3:24, Paul wrote that “the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” If we apply this verse about the law in general to the specific law against adultery, we see that this Commandment (like a guardian) was meant to protect marriage. It protects the design of what God established from the beginning.

The law also protected marriage as a picture of the gospel. The apostle Paul wrote that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Eph. 5:25). Marriage is connected to Christ in that it paints a picture of our relationship with God.

In Matthew 19:5-6, Jesus reaffirmed the Old Testament’s vision of a man leaving his family to become one flesh with his wife. This passage demonstrates the fact that Christ came to fulfill the law, not abolish it. It also demonstrates the importance of fidelity in marriage. Jesus went so far as to say, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

God is the One who joins man and woman together. Marriage is more than a document that deals with assets, rights and obligations. It is the physical, lasting union of a man and woman for life. Adultery is the tearing apart of the “one flesh” God has established. That’s why it damages people emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.

4. Because it is an expression of spiritual adultery

Physical adultery may be against a spouse, but there is always a spiritual component that is against God. That’s why David, who sinned against Bathsheba and her husband, when confessing his sin, cried out to God for forgiveness: “Against you, you only, have I sinned” (Ps. 51:4). Physical adultery is an expression of spiritual adultery.

In Scripture, God often describes his relationship with his people in terms of a marriage covenant. The expectation is love and fidelity. God is faithful and constantly pursuing his people, but his people “cheat” on him by running after idols.

Through the prophets Hosea and Ezekiel, God described his relationship with the nation of Israel in graphic terms. God said that he covered the nakedness of Israel and entered into a covenant with “her,” giving the nation a female description in order to compare his relationship with Israel to that of a groom and bride. He bestowed wealth and gifts on his beloved, but the nation chose to worship idols. Ezekiel 16:15 says: “But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his.”

The seriousness with which God takes our sin is a sign that God desires to receive glory and love from us. He desires to have a relationship with his people, and this relationship must be exclusive.

As believers, our relationship with Christ is now described in terms of a bride and groom. In James 4:4, we read that friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Those who give themselves over to worldly patterns of thought and behavior are “adulteresses”—serious language from a God serious about loving his people!

This story was originally published here. Learn about The Gospel Project here.

TRANSCRIPT: Does he need to confess adultery to his wife?
By / Jun 27

Hello, I’m Russell Moore, and this is Questions and Ethics, the program where we take your questions about what you are dealing with in your daily lives and seek to answer those things from a gospel perspective. And today I have an email that came in from someone who is writing— he is a Christian man, a member of a church, who writes and tells me that he had an affair several years ago, that this affair only lasted about a week, the he put an end to it, but he writes and wants to know whether or not now—even though he has confessed it to God, he has repented toward God, he has talked to a couple of key accountability partners in his life—whether or not he ought to tell his wife. Now, this man says that their marriage is already precarious. It has been precarious for some time. He is not sure whether or not his wife knows the Lord—or if she does, how mature she is in Christ—and he doesn’t want to jeopardize their marriage. He doesn’t want to split up their marriage and really wreck the lives of their children. And so he says do I have to tell my wife?

Now, what I want to say is first of all I just stopped and prayed for this family because I know that this has to be absolutely agonizing. It is agonizing for him. It will be soon agonizing for her and for the children—those who are completely innocent in this saga. I do think that you need to tell her and for several reasons: One of those reasons being, you have sinned against her. Your having this adulterous affair is a sin against your wife, and until you have confessed to her and until you have repented to her I don’t think you are finished with the process of repenting. Biblically she has ownership—that is radical language, I Corinthians, chapter 7—she has ownership over your sexuality, and so your sin affects her, even if she doesn’t know about it. And it affects her in several ways: one of them being you have joined yourself with some other woman outside of your marriage, which has a spiritual, mysterious effect, Paul says in I Corinthians, chapter 6.

Secondly though, you have brought to the marriage a breakdown in intimacy. You are keeping a secret from her about something that is at the core of your marriage. She deserves to know this, and I don’t think you have finished repenting until you confess it to her and until you ask for her forgiveness. I also don’t think that you are going to be free from the weight of conviction that you feel from that sense of guilt that you either feel—or if you don’t feel, it’s because you have covered that over and you have a heart that is numb to that. I think that you need to confess this and get that out in the open.

Having said that, I want to say to you be prepared for the consequences of your sin. And I think that you need to make it very clear when you confess this to your wife that she is more important to you than the risk that may come along with your confessing this to her. And so you need to own your sin. You need to communicate this to her as a sin, and do not give any indication that you blame her at all. She is already probably going to be looking for that in whatever it is that you are saying. Do not give even the appearance that you are blaming her. So whatever problems you may have had in your marriage, whatever sorts of issues that you may have with her, this is not the time to talk about those things. You have no ground to give any list of grievances to her—regardless of whether or not those things may be legitimate. She is not to blame for your immorality and your sin, and so don’t imply that she is.

And I would also say don’t take her first reaction to be necessarily her last reaction. She is going to feel betrayed. She is going to feel outraged. She is going to feel as though she doesn’t even understand what her world means right now. That is all completely natural because you have broken the covenant. You have sinned against her, and you have done so with a breach of trust. Don’t defend yourself. Don’t give excuses, reasons. And let her express the grief and the anger that comes out of this. You have been carrying this sin with you now for several years. It could feel to you almost as a relief to get it out in the open in front of her. But this is the first time she is hearing about this, and so, you can’t expect her to forgive you immediately, reconcile with you immediately, move on. She has to grieve this, and she has to express the sort of anger that she has. Let her do that, and then wait patiently for her to forgive you. Don’t expect that she owes you some sort of immediate reconciliation. You are going to have to spend in many ways the rest of your life in your marriage rebuilding the trust that is there, even when she does forgive you.

So I am really sorry about this, and I am praying for your entire family, but yeah, you need to tell her. That is the second step for you, after confessing to God, in your repentance.

What is your question? Maybe it is something that you came across when you were reading the Bible. Maybe it is something that you were talking about with a neighbor or someone that you are witnessing to or something that came up in a Sunday School class or a Bible study or something that you are facing in your workplace or your family. Send it to me, [email protected], and we will address it right here on Questions and Ethics. Until next time, this is Russell Moore.