Escape Routes

Leslie Basham: The Bible tells us to "flee from lust." What exactly does that mean? Here's Linda Dillow:

Linda Dillow: A very important thing for us, as women, is that we don't just flee physically; we have to flee emotionally and we have to flee in our minds.

Leslie Basham: It's Tuesday, September 7th; and you're listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. If you have young children at home, you will want to protect them from our mature subject matter today, but keep listening yourself. You'll get some practical tips on fleeing lust and temptation. Here's Nancy to get us started:

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: We're having a heart-to-heart talk with women this week about viewing the sexual relationship from God's point of view. Joining me as guests are my friend, Holly Elliff, who's been married for over 30 years and is a dear friend and confidante--God has used her in a significant way in my spiritual pilgrimage--and another friend, Linda Dillow, who's been with us on the broadcast before. She and Lorraine Pintus co-authored book Intimate Issues and it deals with specific questions that Christian women ask about sex.

We're talking about some of those questions this week. And today, we're touching on one that I think is so very important, not only for married women but for single women as well.

Linda, in your book, the chapter that addresses this topic is called "I'm Attracted to Another Man--Help!" Now, let's just start by saying, "Is this really an issue that concerns a lot of Christian women?"

Linda Dillow: We surveyed 300 Christian leaders, who were women and married and asked them, "Have you, during your marriage, ever been attracted to another man?"

Ninety percent of them said "Yes."

Now, I secretly wondered if the other 10 percent were newly married or lied because Jesus says that we're going to be tempted. He exhorts us in Matthew 26:41 to "keep watching and keep praying" that we will not enter into temptation. He says, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Isn't that what you see, Holly, that the flesh is just weak?

Holly Elliff: Oh, I agree. And I think we are going to be tempted. Now, what we do with that temptation is the critical issue. That temptation does not have to become sin. That's what we want to talk about today is how, as Christian women, do we maintain right thinking in this area. [How] do we deal with temptation God's way?

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: And we want to say that it's not a sin to be tempted but that God has made provision for temptation. And He's promised that, with every temptation we experience, He has grace available. He has provided for us a means of escape so it's a mistake to say, "I can't help this. I can't help the way that I feel. I can't help what I'm thinking."

As we go to the Word of God, we find we are responsible for how we think. And we can, by God's grace, change the way that we're thinking. And we can deal with that temptation in a biblical way that doesn't lead to sin.

Now, Linda, in your book Intimate Issues, you talk about six escape routes that God has provided for us. I want us to just talk through those because I know that there are women listening to us right now who, in their workplace or in their church, are emotionally being tempted in a relationship with a man who is not their husband.

We want to issue a strong word of warning but also a strong word of hope. But you've got to be willing to take advantage of God's escape routes.

The first caution you give, the first word of encouragement, is one word: what is that word?

Linda Dillow: It's the word "flee." That means "to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction."

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: God's Word says "flee immorality," 1 Corinthians 6:18. It tells us that all sins are serious but sins of immorality are particularly serious. We sin not only against other people with those sins but against ourselves and against the Lord Jesus.

Linda Dillow: When you flee, leave no forwarding address. You just get out of there as fast as you can.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now be practical. For some women that may mean, "I need to get out of this job."

Linda Dillow: Or it may mean, "I need to change churches." Last year, I went to my pastor and said, "I just told a family to leave the church."

He looked at me with his eyes wide open and I said, "You just have to trust me."

And he says, "Oh, Linda, I trust you."

But this woman couldn't stay in the same church because all she thought about during church was this man that was two rows in front of her.

I think a very important thing for us, as women, is that we don't just flee physically; we have flee emotionally. And we have to flee in our minds. I find that women just play around with their minds. They think, This is just harmless. I just will let my mind think about this other man a little bit. But they are playing with fire.

One woman said it like this, "I can't stop the devil from singing his bewitching songs in my ear, but I don't have to join him and sing a duet."

Holly Elliff: So, as women, are we opening the door to temptation in some ways? How does that woman get in a position where she is entertaining thoughts of another man?

Linda Dillow: It's what we watch. It's what we listen to. It's absolutely what we read. Nancy, I'm just going to say, and I'm probably going to offend somebody out there, but it is a woman's form of pornography.

Holly Elliff: And really raises expectations in that marriage that make a woman discontent many times.

Linda Dillow: Perfect men! I don't know any perfect men except one, and that's the Lord Jesus.

We have to guard our minds; we have to guard our eyes. You know, Job said that he made a covenant with his eyes not to look on things that he shouldn't [Job31:1].

Nancy, Holly, don't you think that it would be a good thing for us, as women, to make a covenant with our eyes, a covenant with our ears, a covenant with where we go, what we read?

Holly Elliff: I think, too, we need to develop discernment in this area so that, as we pick up a book and begin to read it, God's Spirit can prompt our hearts that this is not a book we need to read and we can put it down. Or, as we go to a movie, we walk into that movie and if it is not appropriate, we have the courage to walk away, to flee--as you say here--in those areas as well.

Linda Dillow: In the beginning, it is easier to flee, but as you allow your mind to dwell and as you become emotionally involved, it is harder and harder to flee.

I just want to say to any woman who's listening today, "If you are entertaining thoughts of another man, other than your husband, or if you're single, and you are entertaining thoughts of a man in a way that you shouldn't, I beg you, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to flee today.

"Jump out the window of opportunity into the arms of the Lord Jesus and just say, 'I will not go that way.'"

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: What may be a necessary part of that process, that you point out, Linda, is bringing someone else into the process--a godly, mature woman. And tell that person, as I have had to do in the past, say "I'm in a situation where I think that I could sin with my mind or with my emotions. So I'm telling you that I'm vulnerable."

And say this to a godly, Christian woman--I've had to a couple of times in my life--say, "Would you pray for me? Would you help hold me accountable?"

Now, don't go tell the man but say to another godly woman, "Would you pray for me? Would you help hold me accountable?" because secrecy becomes a breeding ground for progressing into sins in further ways.

Holly Elliff: If that sin is covered, it's much easier for us to keep that under wraps, to think it won't harm anyone. Once we take the lid off that sin, then God begins to bring light to that situation. I love that you say, "Tell a friend" because taking the lid off allows God into that circumstance.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Then, it's so important and we've touched on this, that we establish boundaries. We've talked about this on Revive Our Hearts. But I think it can't be said too often, that we need to set hedges, that we need to know what our protective boundaries are.

For me, some very practical ones have included really guarding my use of e-mail so I'm not exchanging personal e-mails with married men, whom I may be doing business with. We keep it to business.

Practical areas. And I know some people would perhaps think these are extreme or unnecessary but you won't find me riding in a car alone with a married man. If I'm in a meeting with a married man, the door is going to be at least cracked. I just don't want to set my own heart up for temptation that I may not be able to handle if I put myself into that situation.

Linda Dillow: As married women, we should have just as strict of boundaries. I will not let a married or a single man into my house unless my husband is there.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Then, the Scripture takes it even further: Jesus talked about if you've got a problem with your eye offending you or your hand offending you, gouge it out, cut it off. What do you think Jesus means by giving that kind of extreme direction as it regards temptation?

Linda Dillow: It means, Nancy, that any woman today who is listening, who is involved in an emotional relationship with a man other than a husband, or in a physical relationship, needs to sever it today. Not to wait till tomorrow, she needs to do it today.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: God will give grace and courage. She may be thinking, There's no way I can do that. I can just live with this. I can manage it. I can handle it. And we're saying to those women, "Don't even try."

Holly Elliff: Another point you make is just redirecting our passion, asking God to restore our love for our husbands as we turn away from that other man.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Then, the practicing of spiritual disciplines is to make sure that we are giving ourselves to fasting, to prayer, to Scripture memorization and meditation. You know, as we worship the Lord Jesus, as we make Him the Supreme Lover and Lord of our lives, we'll find--as the old song says--*All the things of this earth grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

An attraction to Christ, first. And then for a married woman a pure attraction to her husband, that she is cultivating day in and day out. By the way, I would say if married women were as intentional about cultivating their relationship with their husband as they may be at cultivating their relationship to their boss or that other man to whom they're attracted, they might find themselves more attracted to their husbands.

As we cultivate that primary attraction first to Christ, then we find that every other attraction that is not pure, is not holy, is going to diminish in its allure and its appeal to us. This is a message that many, many of our listeners need to hear.

In fact, not too long ago, I received an e-mail that just really jumped out to me. This woman said, "Please pray for me. I am so close to unfaithfulness. I have a wonderful husband. But I've been very inappropriate with another man. I don't understand what I'm wanting from him," she said, "only that I want to be with him." Then, she closed by saying, "I feel out of control."

Linda and Holly have given us today some really practical steps to guard our hearts against temptation. Whether you're in the throws of major moral temptation right now, as that one particular listener was who wrote, or you have a good marriage but you just want to protect it, I want to encourage you to order a copy of our guest's book.

It's called Intimate Issues by Linda Dillow. She wrote it along with Lorraine Pintus, and you can order a copy by calling us here at 1-800-569-5959. Or you can go on-line to ReviveOurHearts.com and order it there.

When you order the book from us, you won't pay any sales tax or shipping. But I do have a request: would you consider making an additional donation to Revive Our Hearts? We're a listener-supported ministry and the only way we can keep programs like these going out to listeners day after day is through those who carry a burden for this ministry and this message on their hearts and help to underwrite it financially.

If you'd like to make a donation by mail, you can send it to Revive Our Hearts.

If romance and touch are lacking in your marriage, you'll want to be sure to listen tomorrow. Linda Dillow will be back with creative ideas to spice things up. I hope you'll join us here on Revive Our Hearts.

Leslie Basham:

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

*Helen H. Lemmel, "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus."

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.