Dr. Donald Barnhouse shares this story about a man falling into the temptation of lust with his secretary.
One day I was visited by a young man in his thirties, who had a personal problem. He told his story something like this: “I work for such-and-such company, and I have a private office. Several months ago my secretary was absent and I had to use another girl. One day she brought papers for my perusal; she got too close, and when she leaned over my desk, she let her hair trail across my face. I fought it down, but after all, I am a man, and toward the end of the day I put my hand on her and she came right back to be kissed. Even while kissing her, I was visualizing my two children running to meet me and my wife standing in the door. I hated what I was doing, but I kept on. I had the greatest desire to push her from me, but I kept pulling her to me; my body was doing one thing and my mind was doing another.
“When I went home that night, I hugged my children so hard that one of them cried, and when we got him to laughing, I told them that it was because I loved them so much. I had tears in my eyes and my wife’s eyes were shining. We all clung together in one of those moments that are indescribable. My wife was extremely happy, because I walked around the house that evening, touching familiar things that we had scrimped to buy, expressing my love for the home and for her, and before God I was never more true. Next day, the office intrigue began all over again. I was never more miserable in my life.
“Before a month had gone by I realized that my lust and my love were in a terrible battle. When I came home, there was everything I wanted in life. When I went to the office, the machine of my body seemed geared to something terrible that was purely mechanical, and which I wanted to get out of more than any fly ever wanted to get off flypaper. I heard my wife tell someone that I was becoming more and more of a homebody, and that all I wanted to do was stay at home. And it is true. I follow her around the house, talk with her in the kitchen where she is working, and watch her as she puts the children to bed.
“This morning, when I left the house, she told me that she thought she was the happiest woman in the world, because I showed so much that I loved her alone. I could hardly talk. In fact tears came to my eyes, and when I lifted a lock of her hair to dry them, I said to her, ‘I love you more than life itself.’ She cried and I crushed her to me until she screamed and smiled at the same time. Then I ran off to my train. But now what shall I do?”
With the husband’s consent, I called the wife to my office and told her the story. Fear leaped to her eyes. But I reassured her. We took a taxi and went to his office. He was expecting us, and I stood by as they embraced and she said, “I know, I know, I understand, it’s all right.” Then I called the other girl into the office. The scene that followed typified the mortal struggle between the flesh and the spirit, both striving for the mastery of the body. But the wife was not striving; she knew that the mind, soul, and heart of her husband had never been away from her. She understood the glandular warfare of his body, and that his lust had sprung to life in response to the lure of strange flesh. She looked at him with complete understanding and love.
The secretary stood there speechless. I said to her, “She knows all about it. She loves him and he loves her completely; he has never had any thought toward you except one of animal lust. You were never wanted except physically, and you are not wanted at all from now on. Do you understand?” I asked her to wait in the hall while I prayed with the couple. As I left, I saw the secretary dabbing at her eyes; I stopped and talked to her about her need of Jesus Christ.
John 8
1Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
12Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
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