The Integrity of Moral Purity, Part 2

Today on Insight for Living... Joseph is great theology. He understands that his God is the all-seeing God. The same God who has entrusted him with success is now trusting him to uphold his commands. And he sees God as very real, more real than ever.

than the woman lying in bed begging him to join her. It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the celebrated German pastor, who said, He added with irresistible power, desire seizes mastery over the flesh. Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will present a helpful message about the danger of awakening this giant called desire. None of us is immune to it, nor the damaging impact of compromise.

So what can we learn from Joseph, who successfully resisted the seductive invitation from Potiphar's wife? Chuck titled today's message, The Integrity of Moral Purity. The words I have to share in a few moments will be very personal words for all of us. I hope you will not soon forget any of them. I've thought about them for weeks, planned them carefully, knowing that there will be some hearing these words who have failed and fallen to moral temptation.

I understand that. Our God is a great God of grace. He longs to forgive you and give you a beginning point to start over. Who knows what the future holds for any of us or what we will face on the moral? You can be sure of this in this day and age. Temptations will come. May God use today's message to equip us for what's coming.

Let's pray. We are weak, our father. We are only human. You know that you made us that way. You could have made us angelic like.

You could have kept that old nature away. But you have permitted that. And it weakens us. It lives within us. And how easy to forget how great you are. How great is our God and greatly to be praised. Give us the perspective of a Joseph. To see you as more powerful and more important than any seductress or any predator.

Or anyone tempting us. May we realize, our father, that though others may not see, you see us. And remind us, father, that sex without marriage is a wicked thing. You planned it to be a beautiful thing. You created it. How marvelous are your works.

And you are great. So give us a perspective today we've not had before. And rather than seeing ourselves as a helpless victim, may we realize that with your spirit, greater is he who is in us than he who is in this world. And though Satan may prowl, you are our protector, our shield, and our defender. Just as we have sung today. Guide us. Use these words. May we realize that the print on this page of scripture is preserved for us.

For our application. May we take it to heart. May we ponder it. May we live by its principles. O great God, in the name of Christ, I pray. Everyone said, Amen.

You're listening to Insight for Living. To search the scriptures with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures Studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. Chuck titled his message, The Integrity of Moral Purity. Of all the different categories of temptation, the most aggressive, then the most scandalous is sexual temptation.

It is not an exaggeration to say that it is in a category by itself. You question that, you need to read 1 Corinthians 6, 18 to 20. For it states, all other sin is outside the body, but sexual sins are against the body.

You can work through the passage on your own, but it puts it in a category that reveals how it impacts a person. You are not quite the same after yielding to sexual sins. And all of that brings us to one of these finest examples of personal integrity in the realm of moral purity in the entire Bible. His name is Joseph.

His admirable story of victory over temptation is found in the 39th of Genesis. Joseph is by now a young adult, single, 20-something. He has been through the fire of adversity. Growing up, he was hated by his brothers, all of them. Abandoned by them, in fact sold into slavery to a group of strangers in a caravan on their way to Egypt.

The brothers knew none of those men they sold him to for 20 pieces of silver. Joseph's story is another rags to riches story of success. But his success had nothing to do with luck.

Will you please, if you've not already, take luck out of your vocabulary? There is no such thing. God is the secret of Joseph's success. And punctuated through the chapter and later, you read again and again, God was with him. God's hand was on him. God was there.

He saw him. He protected him. At the same time, Joseph worked diligently. And the success he experienced, he earned the hard way.

He worked for it. And don't miss the concluding comment before we get to the temptation. We read, Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man. What seems subtle and surprising in detail is in fact an eloquent turning point in the narrative.

For it is that which attracts the eye of Potiphar's lustful wife, whose name is never given. And she began to make her moves toward him in no uncertain terms. She sees him attractive, handsome, quite a catch. And she says to him, come lie with me. But Joseph refused. He said no. And he meant it. If you question that, read on verses 8 and 9. What a powerful, powerful message.

Joseph refused. Verse 8, look, he said, my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you because you're his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing?

It would be a great sin against God. No. Here's why. My master, your husband, trusts me. Whether he's around or miles away, he trusts me. I hold the keys to every room around here, the gate outside. I'm the one that oversees the crops and the cattle.

I have a responsible position. Furthermore, I serve a God who is all-seeing, and he sees everything I do. Please notice what he calls the act, not an affair, not our little secret, but this wicked thing. Joseph is great theology. He understands that his God is the all-seeing God. The all-caring God. The God who was holy yesterday is still holy today. The same God who has entrusted him with success is now trusting him to uphold his commands. And he sees God as very real, more real than the woman lying in bed begging him to join her. Joseph stared her down with admirable discipline. And in no uncertain terms, he communicated his healthy and awesome fear of God. In a word, no.

No. But that wasn't enough for this woman. I didn't turn her away. We can see that in her relentless pursuit and his strong determination again and again. Verse 10, she kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her. She is on the prowl, and he is the object of her lust. She is determined, but not more than he. I was reminded when I read this and pictured in my mind the scene of Peter's words in 1 Peter 5, 8, which begin, watch out, watch out, your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

It occurred to me that if the lion misses its prey, the first plunge, and the prey escapes, the lion doesn't stop the pursuit. He remains a predator. He stays at it. Day and night, he stays at it. She stays at it. And Joseph continues to refuse. Finally, the setting is such that she sees it's the perfect moment.

It begins with a rather innocuous, one day, verse 11, one day, however, no one else was around. Always remember, lust has its greatest moments in privacy. No one watches when you close the door and pull the blinds and pull up on your internet scenes of sex that not even your family knows about. No one knows when you yield, usually at night, and the other person is there, soft to the touch, available, and you become lost in your own lust for that person. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts anyone, but everyone is tempted, hear this, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Interesting word, enticed.

It's used for dropping a bait when catching fish. And when the bait is dropped, you're usually alone. No one else around.

One day, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. He has work on his mind, she doesn't. And she's there, she came and grabbed him.

Now there's a little change in the scene. She's now desperate for him. She's determined. And she demands, come on, sleep with me. Many a man would have been flattered. She's older, no doubt gorgeous.

She's available for sure. She saw it as their little secret. He saw it as this wicked act. But now he argues with her no more.

We read that Joseph tore himself away from her and left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. Now you're talking exactly what God says to do. If you're in a car and the person you're with is making moves, get out of the car and run.

If you're in an office and you cannot seem to get away, open the door and get out of the room. That's exactly what Joseph does. He leaves no room to play around with this. His nature is too strong. We all have an old sin nature that is ready to be enticed. Everyone sins when he is enticed.

The late Doug Hummersholl has written an affiant work titled Markings. You cannot play with the animal without becoming holy animal. Or play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth. Oh, that our people in government would hear that. Or play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth. Or play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn't reserve a plot for weeds.

No weeds in Joseph's garden. What a man. The balance of the story is shocking. When she saw that she was holding his cloak in her hand and he had fled, he called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running and she said, my husband has brought this Hebrew slave here.

There's anti-Semitism in those words. This Hebrew slave. He's brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us. He came into my room and tried to rape me. I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran. And he got away. But he left his cloak behind with me. She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home. And then she told him her story. And says it again, that Hebrew slave you brought into our house, tried to fool around with me, she said. And here I had the cloak and he was furious.

If I may offer just a little imaginative insert here. I'm not convinced he was fully convinced. Or he would have killed the man. But he threw him in prison. Got him out of the way and there Joseph remained. Before you cluck your tongue and stir up a little cynicism in your own mind about the living God, pause for a moment.

Don't react too quickly. God isn't like a man. He isn't like us with a long beard and white hair and blowing wind from the north. That isn't God. He is our almighty, holy, magnificent, heavenly Father.

Who always has the long view in mind in our lives. He has great plans for Joseph, some of which will only be learned through unfair treatment. Oh, he has other hurdles to clear in the days ahead.

He'll learn them only in this prison. Forgotten by fellow prison mates who get out, even though they promise to remember him, they leave him. God does not forget him. His ways are not our ways, neither are his plans like our plans. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways and his thoughts greater than our thoughts. For the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how unfathomable his ways. Oh, I would have rewarded Joseph instantly. I would have built him his own house.

Not God. This is application I'll get to in a moment. I find four must-nots when I apply this story to our lives today. All four tie in with our world in this 21st century. First, we must not be weakened by our situation. You might write these down. You may need them.

We must not be weakened by our situation. As you remember, Joseph had it made. You may also. You might be making more money than you've ever made in your life, which means you probably have more prophecy than you've ever had before, which means you have more privileges than you've ever known before in that upper-level position. You've been promoted.

You've been trusted. You may be handsome. You may be a very attractive lady. You may be available. You may be single. You may have lots of privacy. Don't be weakened by your situation.

Handle yourself as though you have not been promoted, as though you are being watched, for you are. The one who made you never takes his eyes off you. In fact, he doesn't even have eyes. He, being God, sees everything. A wise warning from our Bible teacher, Chuck Swendall. You're listening to Insight for Living, and Chuck titled today's message, The Integrity of Moral Purity. And to learn more about this ministry, just visit insightworld.org. Well, today's message is the third in a brand-new teaching series titled Walking with Integrity in Times Square. And if you're looking for your next inspirational read this year, then we highly recommend Chuck Swendall's book called Joseph, a Man of Integrity and Forgiveness. It ties in naturally with this new study and includes issues like the one we address today.

But it's even broader in its range, walking alongside Joseph from his earliest days to his ascent into national leadership. Ask for the book, Joseph, a Man of Integrity and Forgiveness. It's available at insight.org slash offer. Or call us if you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Now, if it's a good laugh you're looking for, then take a few minutes to listen to one of Chuck's laughter CDs while you're on the way home from a hard day's sleep. It'll keep you smiling.

You can purchase the laughter CDs by going to insight.org slash humor me. To those who gave generously at the end of the year, we're deeply grateful. Insight for Living relies on the support of friends like you. In fact, giving during this time of year sets the course for all of 2022.

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And when we respond today, our simple act of generosity will be transformed into that irresistible sweet aroma of grace from one we may never meet, this sod of eternity. Become a regular monthly supporter by calling us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Or go online to insight.org slash monthly companion. Join us when Chuck Swindoll describes what he calls the integrity of moral purity, on Thursday on Insight for Living. .