A young husband confesses being addicted to porn and being unfaithful to his wife.
It’s not a pretty picture. In his shadow, we see his broken-hearted parents. We watch his wife’s face for signs of her anguish. We barely notice that the only way we would have know who his teen-aged victims were was that the media exposed the VICTIMS of his sins.
Yet, we gather around the TV and watch TV dramas where adultery is passe’. We chuckle at sitcoms where unfaithfulness is nothing more than a naughty little secret to smile over.
Dear Abby might advise the young husband to keep the information to himself to keep from injuring his wife.
I attended a Church -related meeting 25 years ago where the keynote speaker said to someone he knew in the crowd “Who’s that pretty lady you have your arm around? Does your wife know?” Ha ha ha.
Like a pack of ravening wolves, the media has turned on the Duggars. “Hypocrites!” they scream.
Megyn Kelly had interviewed some of the older “victims,” of their brothers inappropriate touching. I put the word “victim” in quotations marks because they were each asleep when it occurred. They didn’t feel like ‘victims.’ She asked them if the “Duggars have any more family secrets.”
When their brother confessed that he did have more secrets, deeper and darker than the first, Megyn Kelly/Fox news played the clip of the question over and over to her viewers, promising “deeper and darker secrets to be revealed, like a side show circus barker. I felt that she betrayed them. She deliberated called their integrity into question, as though a little sister is likely to know her married brother’s hidden sins. Fox News made them the victims for a third time.
The only reason it’s news is because the Duggars have stood for something. They follow through with complete commitment to family values. The work, pray and play together. They are careful to exclude influences they believe will harm their children. They are faithful members of a church family.
I believe that they have sincerely tried to everything God wants them to do in raising their family.
They’ve learned lessons as their children have become adults. You can control outside influences, but the natural man still has tendencies to separate us from God. We’re still partaking of the forbidden fruit, no matter how beautiful the garden is.
Parents can (and MUST) teach their children to love God, love their neighbor, to do good and to work hard. They can and must teach their children to be true disciples of Jesus, not just in some old traditional-lip-service way, but all the way to the bottom of their lives. Faith must be demonstrated and taught through the scriptures and prayer, and constant service. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the needy.
AND then they must hope and pray and plead that the children choose to continue on that path once they are choosing for themselves in their own homes.
What greater sorrow can parents who have given it all they had, receive than to have a child pursue the secret, insidious evil of internet porn or stepping through the cyber portal into real-life infidelity. Jesus said to look at woman to lust after her is committing adultery with her in the heart. How much worse to actually engage with another person, so that a multitude of people are wounded and scarred.
So why do we chuckle over it when we see it on TV? Why do we enjoy an appetite for sensational sins on the evening news? Why do we expect it on movies and TV dramas and give awards for its portrayal?
If all this is true, how can we howl when a young man succumbs to temptation and acts on those messages?
Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone at her.” (the adulteress)
We do it because we know Josh Duggar knew better. We know that the Duggar family truly taught high values and moral principles. Yes, he knew better.
But so do we. We are no less hypocritical than Josh Duggar if we know that sexual impurity is wrong, evil, destructive, and forbidden by God, yet we laugh at it in our entertainment, we hope for it in our literature, expect it in drama and give out awards for its convincing portrayal.
We can rationalize but statistics for the harm it does in families will not support rationalization or justification.
We know that the divorce rate in the US is disgraceful. 40% of American children are born to unwed mothers. Half of the children born into two-parent homes will see the divorce of their parents.
Cheating on spouses is encouraged and labeled “normal and expected” by researchers.
Yet the media are the first to scream and stomp and rage when someone who promotes Biblical values, and sustains the principles of righteousness publicly fails to do so privately.
Not only has media stoned Josh Duggar, they’ve stoned all of his relations, making sure that his sins are double edged.
We’re living a in dangerous world, brothers and sisters. We all need to keep our eyes on the Lord and come unto Him with full purpose of heart, or we’ll all go astray. We need to love and honor our spouses and families. We need to teach and train and love and prepare our children to be barraged with a cacophony of evil messages that will only bring them woe and heartache if they follow it.
We must give our children religious principles of righteousness, honesty, love, kindness, virtue, self-control,work and fidelity because they won’t be getting those lessons much elsewhere.
Jesus promised to forgive only those who are willing to forgive others. We cannot expect his mercy if we show none toward others. Even in social media! Even in the double standards we accept daily.
Keep trying, Duggars. Keep speaking for truth and righteousness. You’ll be castigated and condemned for falling short of the glory of God. . .like all the rest of us. But keep raising your voices in defense of the family and doing the best you can. I join my prayers to yours that our children will be able to thrust aside Satan and his followers, those who will attempt to destroy them.
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